“It’s not bad. Both Mrs. Glenn and Mr. Hanson are nice. They decided to rotate us like this five years ago when bussing us to a high school in another town was vetoed. I guess they figured they'd switch us around to give us a rough idea of what regular high schools are like.”
“I guess,” I said reluctantly, understanding their logic.
“Don’t worry, they’re cool,” Max said, joining me on my other side.
“Sure, sure, that’s what they always say before they feed you to a bunch of sharks,” I quipped.
Max laughed at my words. “Nah, not sharks, maybe barracudas,” he said, grinning widely. “Kidding," he teased, nudging me. "Trust me, it’d be more like feeding you to lambs. Mrs. Glenn is super nice, especially since she and Mr. Hanson hooked up and tied the knot last year.”
“Seriously?” I asked, wondering if it was some big school scandal or something.
“Yeah, they started dating right after Mr. Hanson transferred here like two years ago and got married this past summer. It was a beautiful wedding with the loveliest lavender tulips everywhere,” Alicia said, sighing like only a girl would when discussing a wedding.
“So you went?” I asked, completely floored that the teachers and students seemed to intermingle.
“Heck yeah we went. They wouldn’t have even started dating if it wasn’t for us,” Clint said in the same somewhat cocky tone I was beginning to associate with him.
“That’s crazy, I couldn’t imagine a teacher from my old school ever inviting a student anywhere, let alone a wedding,” I said as we strolled into our history class as a group.
They laughed at my words as they found their desks, leaving me once again as the odd person out with no place to sit. Mrs. Glenn proved to be as sweet as promised and quickly found me a chair and encouraged me to sit wherever I felt comfortable. I settled back with Rebecca who seemed to have no problem sharing with me.
History class moved along rapidly and soon we were on our way to math. Everyone being so nice helped my nervous anxiety which seemed to be subsiding more and more as the day progressed. I was happy to see that catching up this time around wouldn’t be nearly as hard as the last few times had been. We’ve moved so often that every time I start at a new school, I’m always behind. The teachers are hit and miss. Most of the time they’re patient and do what they can to help me catch up, but there are always those that couldn’t seem to care less, like it’s my fault I don’t know what I’m supposed to know. I put in the work though, and usually even manage to get my grades up to B’s and C’s, which is about the time when Lucinda decides it’s time to move on again, and then it’s good-bye school for another couple of months.
My new confidence level however, nose-dived not two minutes into the math lesson when the teacher proceeded to write algebraic equations on the board for us to solve.
Moving around so much affected my so-called math skills more than anything, and if I had an arch nemesis, that was it. The past couple of years I’d barely scraped by, taking the most basic math the school would offer. I was fine the simple stuff, but once fractions and algebra were brought into the picture, I broke out in hives.
I sank down in my seat as everyone in the class quickly got to work on the problems written on the board. I pulled out my own notebook and doodled in the margin, giving the illusion that I was busily working through the problems. I tried to will the hands on the clock to move as rapidly as they had in the previous classes. Obviously, it wasn’t my day for wishes though, because the minute hand continued its painstakingly slow journey around the oversized dial. Finally giving up on my doodling, I studied the problems on
the board, writing them out carefully in my notebook so the page would at least have something on it. I could feel Mr. Hanson’s eyes on me, but I kept my nose buried, trying to make sense of the problems that may as well have been written in Chinese. Moving them from the board to my paper didn’t help the situation. I stared at the letters A, B and X mingling with numbers, without having a clue how to solve them.
Rebecca, Max and another girl whose name I had forgotten, all finished the problems and I watched as they tore the pages from their notebooks and put them in the basket on the teacher’s desk. They went right to work on the homework assignment that was listed on the far corner of the dry erase board. Fifteen minutes later, only six of us were still working on the problems from the board. Not wanting to draw anymore unnecessary attention to myself, I tore my own page with its unanswered questions from my notebook. I slowly made my way to the front of the class with a knot the size of Canada in my stomach, placing my paper upside down in the basket. Mr. Hanson looked at me questioningly before giving me a small smile and I turned, hurrying back to my seat without looking back.
Class ended a few minutes later. I gratefully closed my book and surged to my feet, anxious to flee. My new friends surrounded me as we made our way toward the classroom door.
“Katelyn, can you stay behind for a moment?” Mr. Hanson asked, standing by the door.
“Sure,” I answered carelessly for my friends’ benefit. Inside I was mortified, knowing I hadn’t fooled him. What if he wanted to tell me I didn’t belong in the twelfth grade and thought I should be moved down? Then I’d be stuck here with Bethany and her brother Matt, all in a contest to see who could stay in high school the longest.
“I couldn’t help noticing you seemed to be struggling with the problems on the board,” Mr. Hanson said, sitting casually on the edge of his desk.
“Yeah, sorry, math’s not exactly my forte."
“Were the problems just too hard, or do you not get them at all?” he probed.
I hesitated to answer, but he sat silently, waiting for a response.
“I didn’t have a clue,” I finally answered as students I didn’t recognize began to stagger into the room.
“I see,” he said.
I kept my eyes glued to him, not daring to see if anyone was following our conversation. He was going to send me to the office and demand I get demoted. I imagined the embarrassment of facing Max and my new friends when I returned to class to gather my things.
“Well, it’s actually no surprise,” he said, startling me as he hopped off the desk.
“It’s not?” I asked confused.
“Not at all. The office passed out copies of the information your mother provided this morning and I see that in the past two years you’ve attended six schools. How is that possible?”