I looked at my grades in shock. Summer school! Whenever someone puts a season in front of school, it’s bad! But summer. I imagined my summer marred by stacks of homework. I shuddered. Never! I had to quit joking around and get serious. At my school, you get a kind of mock report card, a month before the real deal.
“Jake?” My visions of stacks of A’s piled around me, ended abruptly. The principal was here.
“Hi, Mrs. Kaminski!” I said, putting on my best suck-up impression of Darryl. “ I have this for you!” I handed her the pink slip of paper. Her coffee brown eyes skimmed over it. Tucking her thick dark hair behind her ears, she sighed.
“Mr. Wharton said you disrupted his class with sports comments and talked about murdering him?” I stifled a laugh at her confusion. “This isn’t funny!” But I could see her smiling.
“Jake one more detention and you could repeat! This and your grades! I suggest you buckle down and get serious. See me at the end of the day. And bring something to study with!”
“Yes, Mrs. Kaminski!” I said seriously.
I left her office.
Cell biology research investigates the structure and function of individual proteins and the assembly of cellular membranes and organelles, and the molecular mechanisms of interactions between cells and between organisms and their environment.
I struggled to stay awake as I read the chapter. Even in super speed it took me twenty minutes to read that first chapter.
I had eight to go.
My math wasn’t excellent, but even I could figure out that eight times twenty equaled one-eighty. Or was it one-sixty? Okay, maybe you do need a genius to figure that out. Anyway, I only had ten minutes left of detention. I decided to work on math. I spent the remainder of that ten minutes doing my thirteen timetables. Mrs Kaminski walked into the room.
“JAKE!” She yelled, sounding like a prison warden. “Your time is up! You may leave!”
“Bye Mrs. Kaminski!” She seemed shocked by my politeness. But quickly recovered.
“Goodbye, Mr. Patterson.” She said formally. I left without slamming the door. Her eyes were practically out of her head. I smiled.
As I was leaving the school, I saw a strange short boy with a head of tangled blonde curls leaving the basement with an eerie look on his face. He looked familiar somehow. But I shrugged of the thought. No one could radiate evil like him. No one could have the same green-black eyes that looked like they would envelop you in torture. He gave me a creepy smile that seemed to say: ‘You’ll be next!’ I shrugged it off thinking it was figment of my imagination. I looked up at where the boy had stood. I was completely alone. He seemed to have vanished into thin air. I turned my hearing on, but could hear nothing other than the sound of Mrs. Wharton’s voice and the janitor cleaning up. I unconsciously created a force field around myself. The light blue shield seemed to get rid of all haunting thoughts.
I smiled as I walked home.
I forgot all about the creepy boy and his shadows. But I didn’t forget my parent’s yelling, when I arrived home an hour late.
I texted Harrison as soon as I got to the confines of my room.
Me: Hey Harrison
Harrison: Hey Jake, whaddup
Me: A lot! grades bad. might need 2 go 2 summer school!
Harrison: WHAT!
Me: ik! i’m gonna ask darryl to tutor me!
Harrison: WHAT
Me: STOP IT! Ur not helping!
Harrison: Sorry. what should i do?????
Me: I dunno? tutor me in math?
Harrison: sure. i got an a in that! but mayb ask kaminski 2 switch math teachers
Me: ok
Harrison: c ya l8r
Me: bye
I switched off my phone and got out my biology book again. This time I managed to read all nine chapters.
Mom found me and hour later sleeping with the book on my head.