I'm baaaaack! Enjoy or else. :)
I slouched into Algebra 2 about three seconds before the bell rang, harshly letting us know that lunch was over and it was time to get back to tortu—what? No. I meant work. Yeah, work. Pssh.
And so, there I was, in a class that I had somehow tested into last year while I was still in good ol' Algebra 1. Apparently if you get a C minus in 9th Grade you still qualify for the next level in 10th. Boy oh boy, was I excited.
I scanned the room quickly as I walked towards the desks, a quarter of which had already been filled. I spotted Cor—Maeve—in the back corner and began to weave through the aisles, dodging backpacks that had been haphazardly thrown on the floor. I plopped myself in the desk to her right, noting the blond boy who had been sitting with her in the lunchroom was flopped in the seat in front of her. Maeve had her eyes shut and her hood up. She was almost swallowed by her humongous sweatshirt. It was a pool of black, dripping down over her seat. As I watched her in a totally non-creepy way, more people had filed in and taken their respective seats. A distraught-looking teacher emerged from a small supply closet at the front of the classroom, gray hair barely pinned down by bobby pins of various shapes and sizes.
"Where on earth—" She muttered, loud enough so we all could hear, shuffling through an impressive stack of papers that were sitting on her desk. After about 3 minutes of shuffling and muttering, she stood up straight to address the class. "Well, sorry, guys. I know you're going to hate this, but…"
"Oh, no." Someone groaned. "Pop quiz?" The guy in front of Maeve turned around in his seat. Next to me, Maeve cracked an eye open, and a flicker of a grin passed across her face. The guy snorted with laughter and turned back around. Huh.
"Close, Dev," The teacher said, smiling out at the boy who had spoken. "Unfortunately, I have managed to lose today's lesson plan. So you all,"—Here she produced a stack of papers from behind her back—"Get to do a worksheet. Doesn't that sound like fun?" The class cheered. Obviously, a worksheet was as easy as it got in this class. "Oh, but wait. Here's the catch," She said, smiling evilly. Yes, really. Evilly. "This is, as Dev so helpfully suggested, going to be a pop quiz." Cue loud groans from all corners of the classroom, except for mine. "So," The teacher continued, "No helping your neighbors! I mean it! I deduct your grade by three letter points if you cheat. You know the rules."
"What if we get an F?" A girl two seats away from me asked, hand raised.
"Amie, we covered negatives last unit."
The girl looked horrified.
"Well, does that answer your question?"
Amie mutely nodded yes.
"Good," The teacher said crisply. "No further questions?"
A few mutters of "no" dotted the classroom.
"Excellent." And with that, she began to pass out the worksheets. As she put mine on my desk, I realized two things. 1, that she hadn't tried to make me introduce myself in front of the whole class and probably didn't particularly care about who I was or where I had come from, and 2, that I was totally screwed.
"Alright, please pass your papers to the person sitting on your left hand side. Those who are sitting on the far left, please get your papers to the person on the far right of your row. We'll be grading in a moment." The teacher said, cutting off the last scratching pencils and stifled groans. I wordlessly passed my paper to Maeve, and accepted a paper from the girl sitting to my right.
I won't bore you with the answers, and I definitely won't go over my score, because when Maeve handed my test back to me all I could see was red. Literally. The page was full of red marks from aaaall the things I had gotten wrong. I thumped my head against my desk. I didn't have much time for a pity party, though, because the next thing I knew I was being called up to the teacher's desk. She was leaning against it, rifling through some papers that looked vaguely familiar.
"Maximum Ride Martinez?" She asked, holding out her hand. I took it. "Kelley Holland."
"Nice to meet you," I said, shaking her hand firmly. Man, she had a strong grip!
"No, it isn't," She said abruptly. "I'm your math teacher; I'm here to torture you. But it was kind of you to say so." I was startled into a laugh.
"You're very welcome,'' I teased. I was warming up to this schoo—No, I still hated it. Haaaated it. Yeah.
"I asked you up here because I have only just realized that you may have been somewhat…completely unprepared for the pop quiz."
"Yeah, somewhat," I agreed.
"So I am here to let you know that this quiz, and only this quiz, Miss Martinez, will not count toward your semester grade. But this is the only break you'll get. Do I make myself quite clear?"
"Crystal," I said, feeling as though I should salute or something. "And thank you," I added, never one to forget my manners.
Ha. Fuh-nee.
"I expected no less," She said. Then she smiled warmly at me. "Now please grab yourself a textbook from the back of the class. Individual classwork, pages 382-407. Explanations are in the back. Happy solving."
I should have known it was too good to be true.
My mind hurt. You know how, if you exercise a muscle too much or too often, it gets super sore and you feel like you never want to have to use it again? Well, that was how it felt to be in that class. Except instead of a muscle in your leg or something, it was my brain. And instead of sometimes, it was all the freakin' time. You know you're struggling when you feel like you need a personal strainer for your brain. Although…I don't think any personal trainer of any kind could have prepared me for the turn this class period was about to take.
"Mave. Maven. Wake up," The blond guy whispered sharply, so that his voice cut through the thick clouds that were obscuring the answers to the problems from my mind. He poked her with his pencil. The eraser, then the point. She didn't stir. He shook her a little, and her head rolled back, the hood of her sweatshirt falling down her back with her dark hair. I noticed it was streaked with a dark, midnight blue. But when I saw her face…
Her eyes were rolled back in her head, with only the whites visible, and her face was as gray as ash. I couldn't help it; I gasped a little.
"Oh, My God." The boy said, panicked. "Maven! Mave!"
"What's going on?" Ms. Holland said from the front of the class.
"Something's wrong with her!" I spoke for the first time. "She needs help." The rest of the class turned in their seats and…pretty much freaked out. Ms. Holland took one look and made a beeline towards the prone girl, barking orders at everyone to stay calm; panic wouldn't help anyone.
The boy looked at me then, determination starting to settle in over his previously panicked expression. "Go get her sister," He commanded.
"What?" I said, not sure I had heard right. Someone was already dialing 911, why did we need Corliss?
"GO GET HER SISTER!" He yelled. That was enough for me. I sprinted out of the room and down the hallway, almost colliding with the very person I had been ordered to retrieve.
"Where?" Corliss demanded. I ran back down the hall, Cory hot on my heels, until we reached the door.
"Go in," I said. "I'm staying here for the ER people." She wordlessly swung the door open, full force, almost smacking me with it, and raced inside. Not long after, some guys with a stretcher came running down the hall. I pointed them in through the door, and as they went in, most of the class poured out, led by Ms. Holland, who nodded at me to follow suit as they headed down the hall and away from the madness, whispering fervently.
Because I do so well with respecting authority, I stayed behind.
I could hear the panic inside the classroom from where I stood in the hall.
"No!" My ears perked, Corliss was yelling at someone. "She doesn't need an ambulance!"
"They said it's outside already,"I recognized the blond boy's voice. "They need to make sure nothing's really wrong! What's the matter with you? What if she's seriously hurt?"
"The thing that's wrong with her," Corliss said, voice dripping with irritation, 'Is the same thing that's wrong with me. Nothing. It was stupid of you to call an ambulance."
"Stupid of me?" Now yelling. "So it was stupid of me to care?"
"You care too much about her, and you know it!" Corliss yelled back.
Pause.
"I don't understand why you're fighting me on this." The boy said harshly.
"You never will."
"Can you both shut up? I have a crash headache, and I can't hear myself think when you yell." The last voice was a tired-sounding, slightly lower version of Corliss's voice.
Silence.
Then a stretcher guy spoke, sounding really excited that his charge wasn't dead yet. "Miss, can you move? Can you please follow my finger with your eyes?"
"Well, what do you want me to do?" Corliss's twin said crankily. "Move or follow your finger?"
"Finger, please."
Long pause.
"Okay, now please wiggle your fingers."
"For God's sake," She snapped. "I can just get up."
"We can't advise that, miss."
"Well, then don't tell your supervisor."
"Well—" Hesitation. "If you feel like you can stand, miss, it's worth a try."
Extreeeemely long pause.
"See? She's fine," Corliss said.
"I'm sorry, miss. You can stand, but you'll still have to come with us for testing."
"What?" Maeve cried. "But I fainted! I didn't have a heart attack!"
"It could be any number of things, miss."
"Are you serious?"
"'M'afraid so, miss."
"Would you stop calling me that?"
"Sorry, mi—sorry."
"You should come too," The other stretcher guy said. "Are you her sister?" I assume he was asking Corliss, but hey, I could be wrong.
"No, we're just good friends," Maeve snapped.
"Okay, okay, sheesh. No need for that."
"Yes, I agree. There's no need for me to go to the hospital because I'm fine."
"Sorry, miss. Would you like to walk outside or be carried?"
"I'd like to hang on to the last shred of dignity I have left."
"So is that a walk or a carry, miss?"
"Jesus. I'll walk."
A few seconds later, the door was pulled open, and a stretcher guy emerged from the room, followed by Cory and Maeve, who was trying to lean against Corliss as subtly as possible. She frowned when she saw me, but shrugged a little and kept walking, her brow still sweaty and her face still as white as winter.
So, there you go! I made it pretty longish, I hope. This chapter is extreme foreshadowing for much of the story, so be exited! YAAAY! :D
Yeah, so… Two weeks of school completed! Have any of you guys started yet? If not, hang onto your summer…
Have any of you guys heard about the drought in California? I don't know how many of you live in the U.S, but it's pretty freaky for us over here. Hopefully El Nino will solve it all…?
So, any thoughts, questions, concerns, stories you might wanna share…hit that review button and lemme know what's on your mind. Remember, I LOVE constructive crisitcism, and even just knowing that you guys are liking the story makes me super happy. So PLEASE REVIEW!
-M