The bell rang. Ket started in his seat, shockwaves of panic flowing across his body, made literal by the splaying of his fur. It was not the actual bell like he had first thought; it was the timer-bell that Ms. Hupp used to time their tests and quizzes. While his teacher went to shut the thing off, Ket glanced around trying to get his bearings. Rini, who sat in the seat to his diagonal-left-back, was looking at him with a snicker-smile.
"Pass your papers forward."
Ket looked at his desk. There was a paper, with a dob of wet drool in one of the answer spots. He pressed his thumb, tried to dry it; it smeared, saturating the paper. He rubbed it, breaking a little hole into it.
It was a test. A spelling test. It was Friday, the end of the Fifth Six Weeks period. The test paper he had was three-fourths filled. He felt Arthur tap his shoulder. He turned around dumbly, only to have the corner of a small stack of papers almost stab him in the eye.
"Watch it," Arthur commented, as Ket finally took the papers.
Ms. Hupp took the paper from the tiger's hand. Ket's normal expression seemed distant when she looked at him, almost like he'd forgotten where he was. "Are you feeling okay?" She asked queitly.
"Huh? Yeah, I'm fine," he replied.
He was fine, just very sleepy. He did not know what time he finally fell asleep the night before; he did remember the time two thirty-seven, but nothing after that.
"Now, while we're all quiet, how about we start the book reports. This'll be the last one so I hope you're all prepared."
Ket suddenly felt his insides churn. He had stayed up late, and none of it was spent reading. None of it that he could remember, anyway. He did try; he tried really hard, but after he read the same page seven times without remembering what happened he realized there was no use. He intended to go to bed and read in the morning, but he overslept.
"Lawrance, Cathy; you're up first."
It wasn't like he intended to stay up, either. His brain just didn't shut up. He yawned every six seconds, his body didn't want to move, his eyes felt dry and heavy and even his tail was limp and untwitching. But his brain didn't shut off; it kept going. He just kept thinking to the point of exhaustion.
He just felt so frustrated. Him and Emeral fighting all the time. He looked over at her on the opposite side of the room, closer to Ritzer and farther from him than ever before. They didn't say anything for the fifteen minute wait, and when she left he immediately went upstairs and started carving away at soap, too flustered to start reading.
Everything was just getting on his nerves so much lately, it wasn't Emeral's fault, but he felt she was really angry at him. It was true, he realized. He had been failing. He didn't think that the extra work he was having to do would be so...much. He was having to read chapters from the sixth grade textbooks, and do the reviews at the end of each section. It wasn't necessarily hard it was just tedius. Busy work. It needed time and he didn't have it.
He also spent a great deal thinking about his mom. He hadn't had the time, or maybe the courage, to actually think about what she suggested—about a new dad—but last night he managed to. He even went as far as to think about what kind of dad it would be; but at the same time he was worried. What if it turned out to be the same exact thing? His mom fell in love with his dad for a reason, but then...
"Ket and Panda, let's hear from you next."
The tiger swallowed. He reached for the binder in his desk, pulling out the papers. Even though his partner gave him the papers for them, he had read only half of the fourteenth chapter, and that was the one he was to present on.
The tiger and the bear stood at the center of the room, Panda straightening his shoulders and making sure his belly wasn't peeking through between his shirt and shorts.
"Whenever you're ready," Ms. Hupp said patiently.
Panda glanced at the tiger confidently, his look saying, it's all you; go for it.
Ket cleared his throat. "Uhm...so, The Beginning of the End of The World, starts off with an old man who arrives where Lucy and everyone have just witnessed the three sleeping lords of Narnia..."
Emeral closed her eyes, as she did each time Ket had given a report. She wasn't one for reading, but she loved stories; and Ket always gave good reports. Not just good reports but any time he explained something to her, or told her about something new, he always spoke with a whymiscal type of tempo that allowed her to invision everything he said exactly as it happened.
But this time...was different.
"The old man starts to...sing and the woman, who was sitting at the table, starts to sing with him. Um...these birds come and take the food on the table and then leave, and then Caspian, the King of Narnia, starts talking to the old man about the sleeping lords. The old man says they have to sail west and leave someone behind to break the enchantment..."
By this time the entire class was suddenly left in a jumble.
"Then...I think Reepicheep...he...uh..." Ket looked at his paper. This was the infamous page.
Panda cleaned his throat. "The three lords of Narnia were in an enchanted sleep. The old man instructed the crew of the Dawn Treader that they must sail to the utter east," the bear did not make any indication the tiger had said the wrong direction, "and leave one of their company behind. Reepicheep, the loyal mouse, already has his mind set and volunteers to be the one left behind..."
As Panda took over the summary of the chapters, Ket was forced to merely look on. Everything Panda said he was hearing for the first time, and even then it went right through him as he nervously stared out into his audiance. Thankfully he was able to look just above the heads of his classmates at the poster of George Washington in the back. But even then he shifted uncomfortably every now and again, the weak link for the next seven minutes while Panda finalized his summary.
"And then Aslan informs Lucy and Edmund that they will no longer come to Narnia, and it's implied," he said, using one of their vocabulary words for the test they just took, "That Reepicheep arrives at Aslan's Country, fulfilling his heart's desire."
The class clapped.
"Hang on now children, they're not quite done," Ms. Hupp reminded them. "Now, I have a couple of questions for the both of you. Ket, could you please tell me what you think the morals of the story are?"
Ket scratched the back of his head. "Uhm...well...I think the morals of the story...are...to uh...Chase...your dreams?"
Ms. Hupp's eyes changed just a little. "M'kay, why do you say that?"
"Well...because...they keep chasing the west," he said the wrong direction again, "And they always dream about getting to the end of the world...and then they make it."
Ms. Hupp scribbled some notes down. "Panda, what do you think the morals of the story are?"
Panda took in a breath. "Well, I think the story is trying to teach people to work as a team."
"Why is that?" She inquired.
"Because they're all on a ship out in the middle of the ocean. There's nowhere to go really, and in order for them to chase their dreams, like Ket said, they all had to work together. If they didn't they wouldn't have gotten anywhere and they'd still be stranded on the second island right from the start, if Eustace hadn't started working as a member of the crew."
"That's very good, Panda," she stated. "And who was your favorite character?"
"Well obviously Reepicheep," the bear said, and inferred the next question, "because he's always very noble and brave. He's not afraid of anything and knows exactly what he wants, and in the end he achieves his goal moreso than anyone else."
"Ket—"
"Huh?"
It was the way he said it that made the class chuckle. Like he'd just gotten caught sneaking around the front of the room and thought no one could see him.
"I was just going to ask who your favorite character in the story was."
"Oh," he looked down, thinking, "I...I don't really have one..." He said.
"Not one? None that you could relate to?"
He scratched his head again, "Not that I can really think of..."
Ms. Hupp briefly went to her clipboard and marked a few things. "All right then. You guys are done, congratulations. How about we hear from Ritzer and Beck, next?"
Ket sat back down with a hard thump. Somehow he managed to stay awake for the next couple hours. He watched, but didn't listen to, the other kids giving their book reports. When Emeral and Lyza were to do theirs, he straightened up a little, but he still sort of zoned-out. They had done Racso and the Rats of NIMH, which Ket had read only a little of.
In music class they were doing recorders. Each student was given their own recorder that was actually recycled every year. The music teachers always assured them that the nurse's office sanitized and resanitized every mouthpiece but, for some students, it was always the sickest kind of gross to look at someone elses chew-marks on your recorder.
Of course Lyza was one of the students who didn't have to worry about that problem. Such a flutist was she that she had a few of her own recorders that she could bring to school. However, she was shy and even though the music teachers tried to get her to perform a little, she never did.
Even math did not help Ket stay awake. Then again, they were reviewing order of operations now. If he heard "PEMDAS" one more time he was going to go up to the front of the class and start solving the sixth-grade equations he was having to do, to horrify everyone else.
Thankfully the bell rang for recess. All of the kids stood up from their seats and promptly ignored Ms. Hupp's last few words as they threaded their way into the hall. Ket suddenly felt a little reluctant. He didn't want to go out where it was bright. His eyes were hurting and he just wanted to stay in and take a nap. But he had to go outside, especially when Emeral and Lyza showed up at his desk, raring to get to the swings.
"Come on, Ket, you're gonna make us late," Lyza grumbled.
"Excuse me, gals," Ms. Hupp interrupted, "But...can I have a word with him for a minute?"
Emeral and Lyza gazed up at Ms. Hupp. "Is he in trouble?" They both asked.
Ms. Hupp rolled her eyes, "No, I just need to talk with him. Head on out and I promise he'll be right behind you."
The girls looked at each other and then at Ket, but ultimately went out into the hall.
"Wonder what's up..." Lyza muttered.
"You go on ahead," Emeral whispered, "I'm...gonna listen in."
"I wanna listen too!" Lyza said, a little too loudly, but Emeral pressed a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry, I'll tell you all about it; if we're both here we might get caught. Go pester Panda," she teased.
The rabbit tilted her whiskers about her nose like a ship rolling in the waves. "Fine," she huffed, and hopped off toward the end of the hall.
Emeral shuffled closer to the open door, catching the feathers of the conversation in her twitching ear.
Ms. Hupp sat on Cathy's desk, just to the left of Ket's. She folded her hands upon her lap and cleared her throat. "I noticed you were sleeping today," she stated very calmly. Her student did not look at her. He shifted in his chair, sitting up straighter, as if thinking whether or not he should lie. Or...maybe he wasn't thinking about talking at all. "Is everything okay at home?"
That got his attention.
"Huh? At home?"
"Yeah; how's your mom doing?"
"She's fine. She likes her new job." Ket scratched his chin. The skin under his fur felt itchy and irritated, oily and greasy. He didn't really take a good shower since he was late.
"How about you?"
"I don't have a job," the tiger said.
Ms. Hupp chuckled. "I mean, how are you feeling?"
"Fine," he replied, and then promptly yawned.
Ms. Hupp rolled her eyes. "C'mon. I know you better than I know Ritzer, and I was a counselor once, so I can tell when something's up."
"You were?" Ket asked. "I never knew that."
"Yup. For seven years. So when I see a student who has never gotten less than an A in my class start to regularly turn in assignments that wind up in my 'incomplete' pile, I start to wonder." She stood up and walked over to her desk, speaking in a raised voice; "I noticed it right away, too. It started off as just being the last few problems of the assignments, so I could excuse it every once in a while. But then I noticed those few problems became a few more...and then a few more..." She pulled at the stack of test papers, and went back to his desk, laying it there in front of him. "Until half of the paper winds up blank."
Ket stared at the test paper; it was the spelling test he'd taken not two hours ago. Near the top his answers were clear and, from what he could tell, correct. But halfway down the page, his letters started running into each other, like they had all suddenly become gluttons and gained a tremendous amount of weight from eating each other. Then the letters just became loops and circles, until finally it stopped altogether, except for the second-to-last question where his answer was 'drool-spot'.
He looked back up at his teacher.
"You're not in trouble," she said immediately, "I'm just concerned." She took the test away and set it on Rini's desk. "So, I did a lot of thinking about you, and I just wanted to make something clear." As if to exemplify her statement, she cleared her throat. "I think this has to do with the extra work you're doing for the sixth-grade level RSBTs."
She let her statement hang in the air for a moment before she continued.
"Listen, kiddo; that whole promotion isn't set in stone. There's nowhere that says you have to do it. The only people that know about it are me, Mrs. Oulryk, Mr. Pretty and some other people who don't know what a bright, young, talented boy you are," she reached over and smoothed his hair back as she complimented him.
"So...no one's going to judge you or think less of you if...well.” Her hand broke away and she returned it to her lap. “I wanted to tell you that if you thought the extra work you're doing is too much, maybe a little overwhelming, you could always 'opt-out'. You know what that means, right?"
"You mean like I can quit?"
She shook her head. "No, 'quit' isn't the right word. You're not a quitter. It just means you changed your mind." She took in a deep breath. This was actually very hard for her, for Ket was a student she admired quite a bit, and she didn't want to give him the wrong impression at all. "All we want is for you to succeed, at your own pace. Maybe think about whether or not this whole promotion thing is the pace you want to go at. If you say you don't want to, that's fine. If you say you want to," she lifted her hands up, her palms level, "that's fine. Either way, we're proud of you."
"Who's 'we'?" He asked.
"The school," she replied; "Me, Mrs. Oulryk, your mom, your friends."
Ket sighed. "Thanks Ms. Hupp," he stood up, almost angrily. "But I'm tired of 'thinking' about stuff," he looked at her in the eyes. "I don't wanna quit. I just...the work isn't tough at all, it just takes time and..." he looked to the side, "I just didn't think it would, and it's hard to do the work that counts for a grade when the extra work takes up so much time." He sighed. "And...yeah, I guess I have been slacking..."
The band across Ms. Hupp's face appeared to bubble with thought. "I have noticed that," she said, almost to herself, "Actually, yeah; you're right. You've been doing almost equal amounts of both...yeah! Okay. I see."
Ket blinked. "See what?"
She beamed. "Oh come on. Don't you see it too? The reason your class assignments are winding up half-complete is because the half you didn't complete goes into completing the extra work. I can't believe I didn't notice that."
"No," he shook his head, "that's not what I meant about—"
Her feet stomped the ground. "I have an idea," she said, taking the test paper and heading back to her desk. "From now on, the extra work you do will count toward your grade."
Ket panicked, running over to the desk. "Wait, hang on, that's not fair! Then I don't wanna do—"
"Ket," she said calmly, and immediately her student closed his mouth. "Relax, okay? That's not what I meant." She went over to the white board and pulled the cap off of a marker. "Come here," she instructed, and drew a box. "Let's say you did half of the homework I assigned on Monday in math," she drew a line down the middle of the box, "and let's say you did some of the math work I assigned for the sixth-grade RSBT. Well, that half of the sixth-grade stuff I will count toward the half of the homework you didn't get to do because of this extra work."
Ket blinked, staring at the picture. "So...it's like extra credit?"
"Exactly," she said, snapping the cap on the marker, "that's what we'll call it."
The tiger shook his head. "That doesn't sound fair," he stated. "None of the other students can do that. And what if I don't finish the sixth-grade work? Don't I have to do all of that?"
Ms. Hupp couldn't help but chuckle. Since when did fifth-graders care about fairness? "Listen, Ket," she said, kneeling down to his height. "I just want to help you out. I trust you to be responsible, and I already know you can do the fifth-grade stuff just fine; you've done it all before. I would rather see you walk into seventh grade than finish every piddly busy-problem I assign. Don't worry about what you don't get done, or what you have to get done. Just do what you can do, nothing more than that."
His tail twitched, her words convincing him more and more. "But...what if I end up failing anyway?"
She let her head tilt to the side and her eyes flatten as if to say really? Then, she lost the look and said with a very wise tone: "Shoot for the moon. For, even if you miss, you shall land amongst the stars."
Her student's lips parted. "Huh?"
She laughed, patting him on the arm. "Go outside and play; have fun with your friends. Don't worry about staying late today, I'd rather you went home and got some rest, okay?"
Reluctantly, Ket walked toward the door, looking back only to see his teacher erasing the evidence of their conversation from the board. He slipped out of the room and into the hallway, shutting the door behind him as queitly as he could.
Suddenly, he felt a pair of arms wrap around him. Before he could even react, his lips pressed against an opposing pair, as the second-long pressure of a kiss swirled his wits. When it was over, Emeral smiled, and then proceeded to dash toward the end of the hall, leaving him to wonder what the heck just happened.
