Six: Emily

"Really Sam, you should have seen her, she was really freaked out about this project. She was acting even stranger than normal."

"Strange how, exactly?"

"Well, for starters, she wanted to talk about pi. 3.14 pi, I mean." I threw the last of my books into my locker and slammed the thing shut. Sam jumped a little; apparently I'd slammed it a little harder than I realized.

"Sorry," I said with a sheepish grin.

He just laughed and continued, "Why would she want to talk about pi? Even if the project was stressing her out, which doesn't really make any sense, seeing as it was only assigned yesterday…"

"Seriously, the rest of us haven't even started working on the thing."

"Well, it is Casey, after all."

I gave him a knowing look as we started toward our final class.

"She said something about a fight with Derek. Has he said anything?"

"Seriously? When is there not a fight with Derek?"

"Speaking of Derek, where is he?" I looked around the classroom as we walked in, noticing a severe lack of our favorite slacker.

"He ditched after sixth hour."

My eyes went wide, "Uh oh."

"What?"

"Casey started rambling on earlier, too fast for even me to keep up, saying something about not feeling well. She headed home after sixth hour."

We exchanged knowing looks as the bell rang and we headed to our seats. There was no way this could end well.

Seven: Derek

He'd been asked to stay behind for an impromptu meeting with Ms. Daniels after she made the assignment yesterday. She wanted to talk to him personally—thought the project would be good for him and hoped he'd actually put some effort into it.

It was the way she'd said actually that got to him. He knew he wasn't winning any gold stars with his school work, but he wasn't sure he liked the condescending yet hopeful tone she had used. It was like she wanted him to be that guy from the movie who slacks off and acts out until some new teacher, fresh out of college with her pearls and cardigans, managed to motivate him and push him to succeed. Only this lady was insulting him in the process.

"Derek, I just see so much potential in you. I know if you were to take this project seriously you would really see the benefit," she'd said.

Bingo. She saw potential in him. They all saw potential in him. She saw potential in him, which was what got him into this mess in the first place. It didn't mean that every single one of them didn't need to make a long-overdue trip to the eye doctor.

Noticing the growling his stomach had been doing for the past twenty minutes had suddenly gotten louder, he pulled his headphones off, tossing them haphazardly to the floor with everything else in his room, and headed down to the kitchen. He'd ditched after sixth hour, so no one was home yet and he had free reign over the kitchen and all of the junk food he could find.

As he made his way through the dining room, he saw her.

"What are you doing here?" She really was the last person he needed to see right now.

"Hm? Oh! Derek, hi." She had on a pair of orange rubber gloves and was elbow deep in hot, sudsy water. She'd managed to get suds in her hair and he noticed she was acting even stranger than normal.

"Right." He rolled his eyes and decided ignoring her was his best option. He passed her on his way to the fridge, nudging her a little in the process; just enough so that she splashed water all over herself.

"Der-ek!"

So much for ignoring her.

"Geez Space-Case, chill."

"Chill? Look what you did! I'm all wet!"

Indeed she was. He couldn't wait for college and the many wet t-shirt contests he was sure would come with it. Contests with real girls, of course.

"What I did? You're the klutz; we all know that, I just wanted some ice cream." With that, he opened the freezer and pulled out a pint of Ben and Jerry's, grabbed a spoon, and headed for the TV without a second glance toward the sink.