Chapter 33

I sighed, slumping into the chair at my desk. After having two weeks off for winter break, going back to school wasn't exactly fun. Then again, school was never fun.

Mrs. Jenkins apparently decided she would make our first day back even worse. "Turn in your homework!" she ordered.

"Homework?" I whispered to Iggy. "On what?" He just shrugged.

The last two weeks had been awesome. We'd opened gifts, had plenty of snowball fights, and even got to set off some fireworks on New Year's Eve. Not to mention, there was no school. Unfortunately, I don't think Mrs. Jenkins had a good Christmas. Otherwise she wouldn't have given us homework.

I looked up at Mrs. Jenkins. "You didn't give us any homework."

She frowned. "Maxine, I most certainly did. You were supposed to create a project on a battle of the Civil War."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, whatever. Who cares about some dumb civil war, anyway?"

Mrs. Jenkins' eyes narrowed. "Well, Maxine, perhaps you'd like to give an oral report of the Civil War?"

I gulped. "Uh, no, thanks-"

But it was too late. "Maxine will present her project first," she was telling the class. Everyone looked at me expectantly.

Slowly, I stood up. "Uh, the Civil War-"

"Face your classmates, Maxine," Mrs. Jenkins told me. I resisted the urge to yell, My name is Max!and punch something. Preferably Mrs. Jenkins' face.

I turned to face everyone else, very slowly. Maybe if I took long enough, the bell would ring for recess.

Everyone's eyes were on me. That was when I realized I knew nothing about the Civil War. Did Mrs. Jenkins even talk about that in class?

"Maxine, we're waiting," Mrs. Jenkins said in an annoyed tone.

I took a deep breath, then began. "Um. The Civil War was a war…that was civil. But actually, it wasn't very civil. Because war isn't civil. The end."

Everyone burst out laughing. I cracked a smile.

Mrs. Jenkins, though, was not laughing.

"Maxine, please describe to us in detail, a battle during the Civil War," she told me.

I bit my lip. Battles of the Civil War? I didn't know any of those.

I decided to just make things up as I went along.

"There was a battle called the Battle of Gettysburg," I said. I remembered that name from somewhere, so obviously that was one of the battles. "It took place at Gettysburg. And some people died. Actually, lots of people died. Then Paul Revere came and told everyone, "Run for your life, the British are coming!" so everyone ran away. Everyone forfeited and the war was over. The end."

The laughter from my classmates was even louder this time. The laughing went on for a good minute until Mrs. Jenkins interrupted and said, "Maxine, you may sit down now."

I grinned at Iggy as I sat down in my seat. Fang, on the other side of Iggy, rolled his eyes at me. I stuck my tongue out at him.

"Thank you for that….informative report," Mrs. Jenkins said, and I smirked. "But," she went on, "Paul Revere did not partake in the Civil War. He was in the Revolutionary War."

I shrugged. Oh, well. There wasn't much difference between the Civil War and the Revolutionary War, anyway. Mrs. Jenkins started going on and on about how I was all wrong, so I tuned her out. Finally the bell rang for recess.

Iggy and I were bolting out the door when we were stopped by someone.

"Hi!" Daisy said, smiling. Apparently, the whole "You-ruined-my-birthday" thing was forgotten, because she went on, "Max, I'm having a sleepover this weekend and I was wondering if you wanted to come. It's going to be fun!"

She just looked at me, until I realized she was waiting for an answer.

"Oh," I said, stupidly nodding. "Uh, okay."

Daisy smiled. "Great! You know my address, right? Great! It's this Friday! Don't forget!" Then she ran off to recruit more people for the Sleepover Party of Doom.

I looked over at Iggy. "Sleepover? What was I thinking, agreeing to that?"

"You can do manicures and watch girly movies," Iggy told me, laughing.

I rolled my eyes. "You would know about that. Besides, it's not funny! I'm just not going to go to the party. It doesn't matter."

"Hi, Max!" someone shouted, throwing their arms around me. The loud, annoying voice could only belong to one person.

No, it wasn't Fang.

"Jaz," I muttered. "Get off of me."

"Did you hear about Daisy's sleepover?" she asked as I peeled her arms off of me. "It's going to be so much fun!"

"Yeah…" I mumbled. "Really fun."

"You're going too, right?" she asked. Before I could tell her that I wasn't, Iggy spoke up.

"Of course Max is going!" he told Jaz with a grin.

I gave him my best You-are-so-dead glare, which was lost on him, of course.

Jaz smiled. "Cool!"

I frowned. There was no way I'd survive this dumb sleepover.