I’m late!
I run through the carved wooden doors that lead to the lecture hall. Normally I’m here way ahead of time, sitting in the front seats right in front of Professor Mesmer. But I was up all night gaming on my Xbox. I never even heard my alarm!
I throw my bag down in one of the seats in the back of the hall and grab my laptop, the text book, and some paper. The lecture has already started and the professor’s voice barely carries into these high seats. It’s like I’ve gotten bad tickets at a concert.
“Hey Trevor,” Lindsey says. “What are you doing back here with us delinquents?” She laughs and twirls a bit of her long hair around her finger. She doesn’t even have a single piece of paper on her desk. Typical Lindsey.
Lindsey is surrounded by guys. Jocks to be precise. Guys totally not like me. I can tell that they are wondering why she’s even talking to me right now.
“Hey,” I whisper. “Slept through my alarm.”
Lindsey laughs again and the guys around her laugh too. I just turn my attention back to the lecture. I didn’t even get to study last night, so I’m not sure what she’s talking about.
“Hypnosis was first defined in 1853 by James Braid, but you are all probably more familiar with my great ancestor Franz Mesmer...” she says.
This is exactly why I’ve waited until senior year to take this class. What’s the point in learning old, outdated things like hypnosis? I’d much rather be taking another computer programming course. That’s way more useful than some pocket watch swinging mumbo-jumbo.
“It was once believed that hypnosis could force a person to do anything the hypnotist suggested. However, recently it has been found that subjects only act on suggestions they actually subconsciously want to do,” Professor Mesmer said.”In other words, you can’t force someone to do anything they don’t want tod o with hypnotism.”
So what’s the point in that, I think.
I open up my laptop and look up hypnotism myself, ignoring the professor for a while. It’s not until she starts to end the class that my ears perk up again.
“We’ll have a group project for this unit of the class,” she says.
The class cheers, already beginning to plan who they will work with. I groan inside, because I know I’ll just end up doing most of the work.
“It will be a week long, and you’ll be attempting to hypnotize one another. Then you will record your results in a journal due next week.” She pauses to hand out papers with our project instructions and small pocket watches. Then she starts again.
“You’ll be working in pairs that I assign...” she says, and the class groans. “So listen while I call out your names.”
It seems like it’s forever before she gets to me.
“Trevor Zigman, you’re with Lindsey Hill,” the professor says.
I look over at Lindsey and she is already looking at me, smiling. The guys around her don’t look too pleased, though.
When class if over, we meet outside of the building to talk about the project. Lindsey sits on a little concrete ledge, only holding the project paper and a tiny purse. She looks up at me and grins.
“I’m glad that we got put together,” she says.
“Really?”
“Well, it would be too embarrassing with anyone else. You’ve known me forever.”
