She eyed him warily, "Fair point; I suppose you'll have to show me where your class room is," she sighed as she looked around finding that Lex had already disappeared.
He looked at her doubtfully. "Didn't you get the general layout of the school when you went to see the guidance counselor?"
"What is this, the question game?"
"Are you playing it?"
"I watch too much Whose Line Is It Anyway…" she sighed, and he grinned.
"What?" she asked frustrated.
"I won," he stated simply. "Come one, detainee, you're going to class."
He started walking and she followed, allowing herself a small smirk. He wasn't all that bad.
She followed him into the classroom where all the other kids were seated, including Lexis.
"Class: new student; new student: class. Acquaint yourselves," he instructed, sitting in the chair behind his desk leaving her in the front of the room helplessly.
Scratch that. She hated him.
"You gonna talk, new girl?" one kid called out.
"Why would I do that?" she asked simply, crossing her arms in front of her in a defensive manner.
"'Cause that's what new kids do, stupid," came the reply from another mediocre looking idiot in the second row.
"I believe Cahill said to 'acquaint yourselves'. He made no direct comment to me. For all I know he was speaking to you all about an assignment."
The class was silent for a moment, but Lexi laughed, breaking the awkward silence.
"Guys, this is my cousin," she said smiling.
The whole class erupted in laughter.
Cassie rolled her eyes. "Can I sit now?" she asked Cahill, who was sitting and watching curiously.
"Sure, yeah. Sit there," he pointed to the front seat, right in the middle.
She scowled. That was always the trouble-maker-or-teacher's-pet seat.
After a half hour of Jeff talking to the dead silent class about the book they were all supposed to have read, he sighed. "Alright. Honestly now, how many of you actually read it?"
No one raised their hand, and Cassandra scoffed.
"Okay," he said, getting frustrated. "I do everything I can to make this class work for you guys. I bring you all to Romeo and Juliet, I act it out for you, and I put it in layman's terms. What else do you guys want me to do? I can't do the work for you all; you have to meet me half way. There's one student out of all of my classes that meets my expectations."
"Maybe you should raise your expectations," she spoke without meaning to. She mentally slapped her forehead. That's how she got the first detention, and here was this guy, who was nice enough but just tired of his unenthusiastic class, and she was giving him a hard time.
He looked intrigued though, and gestured her to continue speaking.
"How many of you people actually have interest in this stuff?" she asked looking around the class. She put up her hand, along with one girl, and one guy.
"How many of you are jocks, or have some sort of after school activity?" the majority of the class raised their hands.
"How many of you think your teachers actually believe you can do this work, and do it well?" Less than five raised their hands.
"You're doing two things wrong," she said simply. She stopped there and lowered her eyes, and said nothing.
"I'm curious, exactly. What flaws have you picked up in the thirty five minutes you've been in this class?" he didn't sound angry. That's what worried her.
"Your expectations for us are low, because you've taught these kids before. You know that this is an average to below-average school, and that we know it. You know that we don't care, and because we don't care we don't work. The problem is, you're losing us to apathy, and you don't know how to stop that. If you want us to reach and exceed expectations, you have to raise them. It's human nature to stop running when you reach the end of the race, and since your expectations for us are so low because of your experiences teaching here already, the majority of my classmates have stopped trying, stopped caring, and stopped trying to care. That's your problem. There's no interest, and there's no sense of self belief."
The whole class was quiet, unsure if she'd get sent to the office or if he'd agree.
"By all means, if you have a way to make the class interested in literature, give it a shot," he said, gesturing towards his class, and she looked around her and shrugged.
"Okay. How many of you like reading? You actually read for fun?" Three hands were raised besides her own and their teacher's.
"Alright. Here's a way to get you all into reading," she said standing up, and picking up a book off Cahill's desk. It was a collection of Shakespeare's work. "You people aren't interested in books. You like other things. And teachers need to connect the things you people are interested in to the things you need to learn. Here's a simile for you, and ten points to anyone who can tell me what a simile is without looking it up. A book… is sex."
Cahill had a 'coughing fit' which so discreetly covered his laughter, but the whole class was laughing, now. She smirked. "See? I've got your attention already," she said, looking at everyone knowingly.
Some girls were blushing, and the guys were grinning. A few kids winked at each other or shared suggestive glances.
She turned to their teacher, "Mind if I write on the board?" she asked, and he barely his smirk.
"As long as the illustrations aren't graphic," he said, "by all means."
She rolled her eyes and picked up a piece of chalk and drew Freytag's Pyramid on the board.
"Okay, how many of you actually know what this is?" Only a few people raised their hands.
She looked astonished, and turned to her teacher incredulously. "What have you taught these kids?" she asked, shocked. He frowned, and gestured for her to continue.
"Alright. I'm assuming you people have health classes and internet access here, despite the lack of progress in your English lessons, so you all know how sex works."
There was some more laughter, and a few uncomfortable throat-clearings, and she waited impatiently for the class to settle again.
"This is called Freytag's Pyramid. It's a graph, or visual tool, used to help you divide a story into its dramatic structure. I'm assuming you all know that there's a beginning, middle, and end to every story, right?"
A few people nodded, and others just sat, staring blankly at her, as if telling her to get to the point.
"Thank you, Aristotle," she muttered, and only Cahill heard her and quirked an eyebrow. This girl certainly knew he stuff.
"Alright, well there was this dude named Gustav Freytag, who said that each piece of writing could be divided into five parts, not just beginning, middle, and end. He divided it like this, in the shape of a pyramid, which is why it's named after him. Here's where it gets good."
She filled in the line next to the bottom left corner of the pyramid.
"This part here? This is the beginning. It's called the exposition. That's when you meet someone at a bar or a party and get to know them. Name, age, general interests, all the stuff you won't remember or care about the next morning." This got a few laughs from her classmates. "In literature, this includes the setting, the characters, an intro into the lives, plot, sub plots, the basic conflict and all the other stuff that kicks off the story in a cool, interesting way."
She continued to fill in the line on the left side of the chalk triangle. "This is the rising action. I'm guessing you guys in here know what that's all about," she smirked and there was an eruption of laughter. She caught out of the corner of her eye a wry smile from Cahill. "This is the part when it starts getting hot, and you leave the club, bar, or party, to go to a more secluded place. A car perhaps? Oh how romantic," she added sarcastically. The entire class was smirking now, and she was enjoying the attention. "This is where the making out and foreplay takes places, all that fun stuff. Loss of clothes eventually follow, and for some, loss of something else--"
"Erm, okay, Carter, move it to the literature aspect," Jeff interrupted, seeing a lot of the male students turning their attention from what she was saying to what she was wearing and what she was saying.
"Yeah, yeah. Okay, so in the rising action in writing, this is where the basic conflict from the beginning, or exposition, is complicated further by various situations or people along the way. Basically, this is an obstacle course, getting through all the nitty-gritty stuff, trying to simplify. Your protagonist is struggling with multiple forces that seem to gang up against him or her. Say the seat belt won't unbuckle, or your belt is stuck, or the zipper and buttons are jamming and you can't get it up-"
"Carterhe warned.
"Or say the condom is ripped-"
"Cassandra," Jeff warned again, and she sent him a smirk, and though he wasn't grinning, he didn't look angry. She threw an apologetic glance to him, and rolled her eyes to the class.
"Anyway, it's leading up to what a sex and writing always does. The Climax."
She allowed them some time to giggle, when she wrote on the top of the pyramid, climax.
"The Climax, or turning point of the story, is usually but not always towards the end, and is generally the best part of the story. It's the moment of greatest conflict, danger, and realization of the protagonist. Sometimes it can be fun, but generally it's a the scariest part. Like, take a roller coaster. You get on, that's the exposition, you start it up, that's the rising action, the highest part there, where they stick you up on the top and see how tall you are to get the whole scary-heights thing going on- that's the climax. I think you all know what part of sex the climax is," she grinned. "Scariest and best part, can be dangerous, and sometimes fun…"
There was some hooting from the back of the class and she grinned.
"Now there is something called the anti-climax, but I'll let you guys learn that on your own, or have this guy teach you something." She grinned a bit at him, and he was watching as his class seemed interested in what she was saying.
"Now's the falling action," she said as she labeled the appropriate section of the diagram. "This is when the conflict unravels, and sometimes has a last moment of suspense where the reader is doubtful of the ending. This is basically recovery from the orgas--"
"Thank you, Cassandra, we know, continue," Jeff hurried her along.
"M'kay, then we have the ending, or resolution, where everything's resolved. This is when everything's good and over; you're redressing and forgetting about the one night stand, or getting their number for later. See? It's just like sex."
The bell rang. Cahill sighed, "Alright, you all know the homework. READ IT, for once, please!" he nearly begged as the kids got their stuff together. He stood at the door, high fiving some of them, and saying, "See you tomorrow," to each of his students as they left.
Cassandra hung back, as if she was expecting him to say something.
"Yes, Cassandra?"
"Cassie, or Cass, please, sir," she corrected him.
"Alright. Is there something you'd like to ask?"
"How much trouble am I in?"
"What're you talking about?"
She looked around the room as if it were obvious. "How many detentions?"
He looked at her for a moment, seeing she was seriously thinking she was in trouble.
"None. You get a gold star for the day, except I don't give those out. You got through to them in a way I didn't think of, and believe it or not, you taught them something they should've learned in junior high, but still haven't got down. Good job," he smiled a bit at her confused expression.
"Good luck with the rest of the day, Cass. Keep up the smarts."
She nodded and walked out of the classroom, waving goodbye.