o O o

Sam sat attentively as Ms. Briggs returned term papers. No fidgeting, no finger tapping, no tossing spit balls at Freddie… He raised an eyebrow at her but she just smiled enigmatically.

"Mr. Benson, good work, although a discussion of the theme of good versus evil in Galaxy Wars is rather tired. Now, if you had taken a more original approach, say, an exploration of the relationship between the anti-hero and the queen, I might have been able to give you a few more points. 95."

Freddie smirked. 95 – not bad.

"Mr. Gibson, I must say that this is one of the most UNUSUAL papers I've ever read. I had no idea there were so many references to liquid soap and chocolate pudding in literature. At any rate, your footnotes are excellent so I gave you the benefit of the doubt. 82."

Gibby leaped from his seat. "YES! 82!" He whipped out his phone – "It's cool Dad; I PASSED! So you can tell Grandma not to cancel her flight for graduation…"

Ms. Briggs frowned at him in disapproval. "Mr. Gibson, please take your seat."

"Sorry Dad – gotta go," he whispered into the phone, grinning from ear to ear.

"Miss Shay," Ms. Briggs started approvingly,"This is an excellent example of scholarly research. Class, I recommend that each and every one of you take the time to read Carly's paper on the evolution of Scottish dancing. It is a most informative and RIVETING presentation. 98."

Carly smiled sweetly. "Thank you Ms. Briggs; I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent researching this important topic."

Sam rolled her eyes for the benefit of the rest of the class. Scottish dancing? Chizz – that was good. She sat up straighter when Ms. Briggs reached her desk, tapping Sam's paper in the palm of her hand. Uh oh.

"Miss Puckett…"

"Yes Ms. Briggs," Sam replied in an uncharacteristically meek voice.

"Miss Puckett, this paper is… "

Sam closed her eyes. Here it comes. What would it be? Inappropriate? Unsuitable? Indecorous? Unseemly? In poor taste? How about just over the line? "Ms. Briggs, the thing is, I –"

"EXTRAORDINARY!" Ms. Briggs beamed, fanning herself with the paper in question. "Quite extraordinary. A girl after my own heart – you're going to go far. I knew all those years in my class would pay off for you Samantha. I consider you my crowning achievement in teaching. I could find no fault with it. Just extraordinary," she repeated. "105."

"105!" Freddie squeaked.

"100 for the paper. Five bonus points for turning it in two weeks early," Ms. Briggs replied serenely. She continued down the aisle but Sam didn't hear another word she said. She'd done it – she, Samantha Puckett, had out-brained the brainiacs.

Freddie caught her on the way out the door after class. "Sam, congratulations on the paper. It's unheard of for Briggs to give a grade like that you know. BONUS points – wow."

"Thanks Freddie. I did gamble a little bit but it looks like my numbers came up."

"So what topic did you choose that Briggs found so extraordinary?"

Wordlessly, Sam handed him the paper. His eyebrows shot up – "Sexual Mores in Science Fiction?"

"With particular emphasis on the work of -"

"Robert Heinlein," he finished, suddenly recalling the sketch of Sam engrossed in a novel. "Spencer was right. What you see is definitely not what you get."

She looked sharply at him. "What do you mean by that?"

"There's more to you than meets the eye."

"Coming from someone who's at least figuratively seen more of me than meets the eye, I'm not sure how to take that."

Freddie shook his head. "That didn't come out right did it. Looking at this, I feel like you've been shortchanging yourself all this time. Sam, if you'd been doing this all along, you could quite possibly be standing at the head of the class at graduation. You could be coming with us to college – you could be doing anything you want to do. So my question is – why didn't you?"

"Freddie, of all people I would expect you to understand that there is more than one way to measure success. Could I have been a 'brainiac' like you? Maybe, but I don't think so. It's not in my nature. I AM doing what I want to do; in fact, I've never felt more sure that I'm headed the right way than I am right now. Some people need to take a different path, but that doesn't mean that they don't get where they're going. I would not be happy in college. I don't really like school. I like to learn, but if you haven't noticed that I'm a hard knocks sort of girl, you need to get your eyes adjusted. (I think we've already established that you can see just fine.) I was motivated to write this particular paper at this particular time to prove a point – mostly to myself. I proved that I CAN do it, and that's all that was required of this exercise."

"Sam…I really owe you an apology. You shouldn't have had to prove to yourself that you could do this. We should have been telling you all along. I didn't see it; I swear, Spencer must have x-ray vision because –"

Sam held up a hand to interrupt him. "Oh, he most definitely does, but you don't owe me an apology. Truthfully, I probably owe you one."

"Is it that time of the decade already? I didn't think I was due for an apology for another couple of years at least!" he joked with a smile.

"Ha ha –don't press your luck. I was just going to tell you that I was wrong. About the whole bacon thing. That's something that I couldn't see until just recently. You're not bacon Freddie, and I hope that Carly sees that too."

This gave him pause – "Really? I got the impression that you were in Gibby's camp on that one."

Sam laughed. "Not really – Gibby loves all females indiscriminately. I honestly don't think that he's more attached to Carly than any other girl; it's just that she's more tolerant of his Gibbyness than most. Since I've been with Spencer, a lot of things look different to me. Spencer knows me; he knows what I need. When I see you two, I think 'this can work,' but you're going to have to get inside her head before you can get inside her heart. You have to figure out what Carly needs; if you can figure that out and you can give it to her, I think you've got a damn good shot."

"Sam, are you actually ENDORSING the idea of Carly and me?"

"I guess I am Frednub; misery might love company, but love loves it more… Now I've spent about as much time on soul-searching rumination as I plan to this afternoon. You're making me miss lunch and they're serving meatballs today." With a quick wave and a flip of shiny curls, she sashayed down the hall and was gone.