#6 – Rain
Jake
I tapped the pencil against my notebook, no longer even trying to concentrate on the quiz in front of me. I'd answered the easy, common sense questions already. All the blank ones were reserved for answers I didn't know, answers I would have had to actually learn to know.
Tap tap tap tap. I matched the beat of the pencil to the rain pattering against the double-paned classroom window. Tap tap tap. I felt like a lit stick of dynamite – ready to blow up at any time. I hate rainy days. They always make my mood turn dark and stormy, just like the sky. It feels like the opposite, though; it feels like my dark moods always bring on the rain. In my town, which gets three hundred sunny days a year, it was just my luck to get two crappy days in a row.
This quiz was for 10% of my final grade. I'd known that, and I'd had every intention in the world of studying my butt off for it. I couldn't afford any more barely-passing grades. Just as I'd sat down to study the night before, Tobias had come by with something we had to deal with. It involved a crashed Bug fighter and a scenario Ax calls a Sario Rip – but that's a story for another day. The point is, I never got the chance to study, and I was about to fail this quiz because of it.
Tap tap tap. I was replaying the events of the previous night over and over in my mind – events that, thanks to a tear in the time-space continuum, had never actually happened. I was so lost in thought that I actually jumped when a balled-up piece of paper lightly hit the back of my head.
I spun around fast enough to make the desk squeak; this kid named Ryan was glaring at me. "You mind?" he hissed, and gestured to where I'd been tapping with my pencil. "Some of us are trying to pass this class, dumbass."
I lost it. I'm well aware that I overreacted, but I couldn't help it. I didn't bother whispering as I said, "Talk to me like that again and you won't be able to talk at all."
Thirty heads turned to stare at my seemingly-unprovoked outburst. My teacher, Mr. Henry, said, "Jake?" in a confused voice. I've never been the type to disrupt class.
Several things happened at once. Ryan took the threat as a challenge and stood out of his desk, squaring off with me. He was ready to throw down. I stood, too, out of reflex. It was about two seconds away from coming to blows when Marco saved the day by confusing the situation even further.
"What? No! Brittney, we're in class!" he yelled indignantly at the poor girl who was sitting next to him and wearing a shocked expression. "I can't take my pants off here!"
The whole class, previously enraptured by the prospect of a fistfight, burst out laughing. Even Ryan stared at Marco for a minute before chuckling. Mr. Henry had had enough.
"I don't know what's going on and I don't care! There is a test on your desks!" His face was red. "Jake, Ryan, Marco! Chapman's office, now!"
We all claimed to Chapman that the ruckus had been caused by the pure stress of the test. Even Ryan played along, sensing his chance to minimize the damage. All three of us were given detention, but that was a small price to pay – we were also getting the chance to take the quiz I would have surely failed in that detention. It gave me an extra four hours to study, and because of that, I kept my grade in the passing realm.
Marco never even mentioned the incident, just took his detention with good grace. I was the one who eventually brought it up, after detention let out and we were walking home.
"Thanks for saving my butt, man. I don't know what got into me."
"I might have an idea," he said dryly.
I rubbed the back of my neck, embarrassed at losing my cool like that. "Anyway, you're a heck of a guy. Taking detention just to help me out."
He just gave me a grin and dropped a typical Marco-ism. "A good friend will bail you out of jail. A best friend will be in the cell with you saying, "Damn, that was crazy!""
I could only laugh.