Story #3: "A Little Peace"

After a few weeks of working late hours at town hall, Mrs. Mosely had finally been able to spend the night with her husband and daughter. Since she started working at town hall, she soon found herself working more and more hours as the years progressed. As such, aside from holidays and occasional weekends and weeknights, Mr. Mosely was really the one who was taking care of their kids, what with having more loose hours and having all the holidays off being a teacher and all. Not to say that Ryan and Moze were on bad terms with their mother, they just didn't get to see her as much as they saw their father. Now that Ryan was in Dallas, it was easier for him to communicate to her over the phone, but Moze never really had time to see her unless she was home. But this night was different, now it was just the three of them.

"So, Jennifer," Ms. Mosely began, "how's school going?"

"School is going fine." Moze said.

"Charles, how's work going?" She asked her husband.

"Work is going fine, too, hon." Mr. Mosely said.

"Do you like all your teachers, Jenny?"

"Yeah, I am, all my teachers are great." Moze gave her dad a glance.

"Yeah, you know, it's kind of a funny thing," Mr. Mosely began, "You know how I was telling you how I thought I was going to have Jennifer in one of my social studies classes this year? Well, it turns out that I didn't just think it, it turns out she actually is in one of the freshmen social studies classes I teach."

"Really?" Mrs. Mosely said giggling slightly under her breath. "Well, I guess that's an easy A for you, Jenny."

"Whatever you say, mom." Moze said sarcastically.

"Nope, while her average in the A- range, she's going to have to work to keep her grade up." Mr. Mosely said.

"An A- average?" Mrs. Mosely said in astonishment. "Jennifer, I'm so proud of you!"

"Thanks, mom…"

"Jennifer, you should be happy with that grade." Mr. Mosely said. "Something wrong?"

"No, dad, everything is great." Moze said, sadistically exaggerating the 'great'.

The next morning in biology class when Mr. Monroe was getting up a slideshow of notes he made in PowerPoint, Moze was talking to Ned.

"So, Ned, what do you think of my dad?"

"As a teacher or just as a person?"

"Um… both, I guess."

"Moze, your dad is great. There's a reason he's been working at the school for 26 years."

"Yeah, but…"

"Moze, listen you're only having him for one year. If my dad was a teacher here and I only had him for a year, I really wouldn't mind."

The next period after biology was something a bit different from the standard class days: peer leadership. For a good portion of the school year every week, freshmen go into groups run by seniors for essentially being peer mentors to their freshmen. Ned and Cookie were in the same peer leadership group, group #6. Ned remembered that Kaitlyn had gotten interviewed to be a peer leader but wasn't sure if she made the cut or not. As Ned and Cookie walked into their assigned classroom for their group, they introduced themselves to the three seniors who'd be there peer leaders. Ned didn't really know any of them. He introduced himself to the first two and then he came to someone familiar… VERY familiar… so familiar that they lived under the same roof… yes, Kaitlyn was one of Ned's peer leaders. Now Ned wasn't one to complain, but Ned now knew how Moze probably felt about having her dad as a teacher now that he was going to have his sister as a peer leader. One of the two other seniors told everyone to put all the chairs in the classroom into a circle, which all the members of Ned's peer leader group did.

"So can everybody please take a seat somewhere in the circle?" the same senior asked everybody. Kaitlyn gestured towards Ned and Cookie, "You guys can sit here." She said to them pointing to the three seats closest to her. Ned hesitantly sat down next to his older sister. "So, welcome to Peer Leadership, we will be your three peer mentors for the school year." The same senior whose been doing everything said. "I'll introduce myself, my name is Jimmy." The other senior introduced herself "I'm Chelsea." Finally Kaitlyn introduced herself and prompted everyone around the circle to introduce themselves to the group. "Ned, why don't you start?" she asked her brother.

"Do I really have to, Kate?"

"Yeah."

"But you just said my name I don't think I need to be introduced a second time."

"Fine! Hi, I'm Ned." He said quickly.

Another short one I'm afraid, I have a severe case of writer's block when it's coming to this story. I know what I want to do with this story, it's just getting it typed is what the problem is. Ah, well, check back for an update soon!