The Haircut

9. The Deal

So guys, you can now read "Frenemies" because I finally posted it, and there should be like, two chapters (I think) on it right now, so you should go check it out because it's cool, and I want it to be a pretty exciting book, when I'm done with it, but yeah, that's that. If you can't find it, you can press my profile picture (that terribly boring bridge that wattpad gave me), and you can look under my works. Soooooooo......I hope you enjoy this chapter (and a huge thank you to all of you that have read this book, and are still reading this book!).

She looks at me and asks, "Where's your lunch?", and then my response was something along the lines of, "I don't know."

She looks at me incredulously and says, "Wait, do you mean someone stole your lunch, or...?" I just laugh and say, "No Amy, I just meant that I don't feel like eating cafeteria food right now, and we can't go off-campus to eat our lunches today, so I'm kind of stuck with no lunch today." She plasters on a determined expression on her face and says, "We'll share." I try to protest, but she has an expression on her face that does not invite an argument. I scowl at her, but I am pretty grateful, I was kind of hungry. She sends a soft smile at me, and we make our way to Mr. Bird's classroom.

When we finally open the creaky door of his classroom, he's in the same position that we left him in, hunched over a stack of papers and a book, most likely Pride and Prejudice. He looks up at us once he hears the door creak open and he sighs and looks patiently over at us, tapping his foot against the hard tiles that covered the floor.

We pull up two chairs to his desk and Amy sets down her lunch of pasta with pesto sauce and sun-dried tomatoes. I love that shit. Amy gets out a paper plate from who-knows-where, and starts to diligently shovel half of her lunch into the paper plate. I quietly tell her to stop when she puts about ¼ of her lunch into the plate, and she gives me an are-you-sure look, but I give her an assertive nod and she puts a plastic fork on it and hands it over to me.

Mr. Bird had been watching our entire exchange with slight interest, but he didn't mention anything. Instead he handed both of us napkins from one of the many drawers of his desk and started to talk. "So would the two of you care to explain why you were late today, since I did let the two of you go without even a tardy in either of your names?"

Amy and I looked at each other, and we started to give some vague details about my birthday party, and by the time we were done, we knew that he knew that we had left some facts out, but he seemed satisfied with our response. He sank back into his chair and started to stroke his completely white stubble.

After about a full minute of this, I cleared my throat and said, "Mr. Bird, is there anything you need us for?" He looked at me and said, "Yes, actually. The both of you are one of the smartest students in my class," I started choking at this point, and it was NOT because of the pasta, "and English is a very hard subject for many people." I interrupted and said, "Sir, how do you know that me and Amy are one of the smartest children in the class if it's only the second day of school?"

He smirked and looked at us and said, "As teachers, we have access to all of your old school records, which includes your grades and attendance. When I looked at your old attendance charts, it looked like you two had never been this late before, and that was why I decided to let you off the hook today." He then added with a stern voice, "However, old attendance records will not prevent me from marking the both of you tardy if this occurs again."

Amy and I said, "Yes sir," at the same time. I looked at Mr. Bird and he nodded. "Getting back to your punishment, so to speak, I will need the both of you to team up with Ethan Brooks, who also happens to do very well in this class, and I will need the three of you to create some sort of tutoring club, or just tutoring services, but the tutoring needs to be set up as if it was another classroom. What I mean by that is that I need the three of you to create some classroom material and teach it to the rest of the students."