Chapter 26: Love Letters
The next day, almost everyone in the forest got up for school. Tim drove Jaina, Jacen, Anakin, and Ryan, to the train station, and Cathy and Sarah rode Candy and Brown Sugar up ahead. They took the train and then walked the rest of the way to Viridian City from the station.
Jaina told Sarah and Cathy about the grade corresponding with ages on Pokémon, and they found their classroom easily. The grades stopped at ten, because after you were ten, school was optional. There was an "up" class listed, so that's what they decided they were. They were in room eleven and their teacher was Ms. Torres.
They walked into the classroom. There were only seven other students in the room, and they recognized three of them. There were Gary, Molly (who had decided to go to a much higher grade on her own planet instead of being in Ms. Jade's class, where everyone made fun of her hair and she had no friends), and Misty.
There were four others in the room, who they would get to know later. One was Josh, who had finally moved up to his correct grade because Mr. Davis didn't want to put up with his snide remarks anymore. One was Damien's older sister, Cara. The other two were Misty's best friends, Ash, the boy who "stole" Damien's Charmander, and Brock, the leader of the Pewter City gym.
Cathy and Sarah sat next to each other in the middle of the six-desked last row. Misty and Brock sat next to each other on the right side of the first row. Next to them were Cara and Molly, then Gary. Ash sat behind Misty, and Josh sat a seat away from Sarah.
Ms. Torres walked into the classroom as the bell rang. She had her black hair pulled into a tight ponytail, and she did not look like a kind lady. She passed out some books, the color according to the reading level of the receiver: red for the lowest group (Molly and Josh), blue for the middle group (Brock and Ash), and white for the highest group (Cathy, Sarah, Gary, Cara, and Misty).
"Read the first chapter of your books!" the teacher barked. Sarah opened her book and started reading. The book was really boring. She leaned over to whisper something to Cathy.
"Hey, Cathy!" she said quietly.
"This is not time to talk!" Ms. Torres shouted. Sarah leaned back to her desk and started to write a note instead. Gary was already doing so, to his friend Rick.
Ms. Torres heard the pencils scratching against the papers and looked up. "Mr. Oak," she called, "what are you doing?" She refused to call him Gary. His eyes grew wide and he tried to put the note away in his pocket, but Ms. Torres was too fast. She walked over and snatched the note out of his hands. Gary mumbled something under his breath.
While reading it, she heard the pencil again. She noticed Sarah writing and snatched the note out of her hands. "Read!" she said, walking back to her desk at the front of the room. She chuckled as she read the notes.
"How sweet," Ms. Torres said. "I think these should be read out loud to the class…as a pair," she said mischievously. She got up from her desk and walked to the front. Sarah and Gary stared at her in horror.
"The first one is from Mr. Oak. It says, 'Dear Rick. You're lucky you're not in school. I wish I wasn't. Ms. Torres is a….'" She paused. "Well, I won't say that. Going on, 'The only reason I'm gonna come back tomorrow is that there's this new girl in my class. She's really pretty.'" Ms. Torres laughed. Gary turned a bright shade of red, and put his head down on his desk. Sarah was pretty sure he was talking about her, but she didn't pay attention to anymore of his letter.
"The other letter is from our new student, Sarah. It reads, 'Hey, Cathy! What's up? I don't like this teacher much. She's a…." Again Ms. Torres paused. "'But there is one good thing about this class. Gary's in it. He's so cute!'"
Gary reddened, if that was possible, at being called cute, though with the conceited way he always acted, you'd think it was common for Gary to have a girlfriend. Sarah turned not much less red than Gary, and hid her head.
After finishing Sarah's note, Ms. Torres smiled contently and tore up both notes. She walked over to the trashcan and dumped the notes into it. Then she said, "I hope there will be no more notes." She sat down at her desk. Everyone turned toward Gary.
Josh jumped up on to his desk and shouted in a singsong voice, "Gary's got a girlfriend! Gary's got a girlfriend!" Ash joined in.
"Shut up!" Gary shouted angrily.
Near the end of the day, they were working on a math worksheet. Ms. Torres was checking their progress. She walked up to Sarah's desk and shook her head. "You will stay after school until you finish this," she said. She said the same thing to Gary. They had both been too embarrassed to work.
When the bell rang, Cathy left and waited outside the door for Sarah, motioning for the four sixth graders to wait, too.
Ms. Torres smiled wickedly at the two kids sitting in her classroom. "Since you like each other so much, why don't you sit together?" Ms. Torres said, motioning for them to sit together at the center of the front row. They did.
They found it very hard to get their work done. Gary felt awful at the though of the torment that would come from his next-door neighbor (Ash) that afternoon. Sarah couldn't stop thinking about how she had spoiled her first impression with her classmates. When they finished, it was almost four-thirty. Gary got up, threw his paper into Ms. Torres's hands, and stormed out of the room. Sarah did the same.
By the time Sarah got out of detention, the train back to Golda was already gone. The next one was due at ten. By the time they got home, it would be twelve-thirty, so they decided just to spend the night at the school.
When five-thirty rolled around, Cathy and Sarah woke up, as usual. They woke up the others, and sent them to wait at their classroom door. The girls did the same.
Since school started at seven, Ms. Torres always came in around five-thirty to get things ready. She passed the two girls sitting in the hallway.
"What are you two doing here this early?" she asked suspiciously.
"Our carpool group had a conference this morning with their teacher," Sarah quickly lied.
"We'll see about that. Who's their teacher?" asked Ms. Torres.
"I don't know," Sarah lied again.
"You must know who your carpool group's teacher is!"
"Mr. Davis," Cathy sighed.
"Thank you," said Ms. Torres, walking down to room six. Luckily, Mr. Davis was there. Anakin, Jaina, and Jacen knew what Sarah had told her teacher, and told Mr. Davis to lie when Ms. Torres asked him if he had a parent conference. Mr. Davis didn't mind much because he didn't particularly like Ms. Torres.
Ms. Torres came up to Mr. Davis in the hall. "Is your parent conference over already?" she asked.
"Yep," answered Mr. Davis, "real nice folks." He went back into his room, smiling broadly behind Ms. Torres's back.
Ms. Torres grumbled under her breath as she walked back to her room and left Cathy and Sarah in the hall. "You can wait until the other students arrive. Besides, today we're getting new seats." Ms. Torres winked at Sarah.
"Bad sign," said Cathy, after Ms. Torres was out of earshot. Sarah nodded and opened her reading book.
The day was a nightmare for Sarah and Gary, but a dream for Ash and Josh. First of all, Ms. Torres put everyone in the blue reading group on the left side, the white in the middle, and the red on the right side. This would have been fine, except that Sarah and Gary were in the same reading group, and Ms. Torres "so kindly" put them together.
The white book was uninteresting to a boy, and Gary was bored out of his mind. Hey, if Ms. Torres is going to put us together for the rest of the year, I might as well get to know her, Gary thought. He took out a sheet of paper and began to write a note to Sarah.
Again, Ms. Torres heard the scratch of pen on paper and looked up. She saw Gary, stood up, and walked silently to his desk. He didn't notice her until her body blocked the light from his writing. He looked up cautiously.
"What did we discuss about notes yesterday, Mr. Oak?" asked Ms. Torres.
"Not to," Gary said calmly.
"So why are you?"
"Wanted to."
"Do you want to go to the office?"
"Okay, any place is better than here." No one could believe their ears. Gary Oak, talk back to a teacher? Get sent to the principle's office? No way! Josh started to laugh hysterically.
"Go down to the office, Mr. Oak. Sarah, you're responsible, take him down there. Take your book, Mr. Oak," said Ms. Torres. She was trying very hard to hide the evil smirk that was coming. Tonight, she would call Professor Oak, and tell him why his grandson spent the whole day in the office.
Sarah walked Gary down the hall. Neither of them said anything the whole way. They were still too embarrassed to speak face to face. When Sarah got back to the classroom, Ms. Torres told her to take the still laughing Josh down to the office, too.
Then Ms. Torres moved Molly up to the red book and Ash down to the blue book. She was very happy with herself for ruining so many lives today. Ash would be sitting with Josh when he came back. Molly sat with Brock, who couldn't stop staring at her and asking for her phone number, which she refused to tell him.
The day was almost over, and Ms. Torres was assigning a math worksheet for homework. "Sarah, take these two down to the office for Gary and Josh." It was the first time Ms. Torres had called him Gary. "And don't spend too long down there gawking at your boyfriend," she added.
Sarah stomped down the hall. She hated Ms. Torres. Now she could see why not too many people on Pokémon came back after tenth grade. But she would still go, because she wanted to learn, and because…well, you can guess the other reason. She delivered the two jailbirds their papers and went back to the classroom.
Ms. Torres was busy after school, so she didn't remember to call Professor Oak. She didn't know that she would the next day.