Sami's Kisses

Eleven

Eleven

Monday meant two things for me: summer dresses and Hershey kisses. When I awoke that morning, I threw on the same dress I wear every Monday, grabbed a bag of kisses from the fridge, and left for school.

I have realized that if I leave to walk to school at just the right time, I can watch the sun rise. If there’s anything that can brighten a morning, it is the sun making its way to the sky in a colorful display of marvel. And this way, I wasn’t so early to school that the doors were still locked.

My Monday consisted as it usually does, the occasional pop quiz and the class discussions. Then fourth period English rolled around.

“Alright everyone, pass forward your Great Gatsby answers and then front row pass them left,” Mr. Portman bellowed a moment after the bell rang.

My eyes widened as I looked around, to see that everyone was passing forward sheets of paper that I had no clue about. Mr. Portman had walked up to me while the class was in commotion of the paper passing. “Sami, did you not do the assignment?” He asked in a low voice so my classmates wouldn’t hear.

“I had no idea we had an assignment,” I told him honestly. Why wasn’t this written on the board? How was I unaware?

“It must have been assigned a day you were gone. When you miss school, Sami, you need to make sure you get the work you missed.” I hung my head and nodded, trying my best not to feel defeated. After that, he walked away.

“Hey,” I whispered to the boy next to me, “Do you have a copy of the questions I could please use?”

He nodded and gave me his copy, to which I returned with a large, grateful smile. “Thank you.”

“Hey,” He whispered back hesitantly. “Do you, uh, have any…” I had a feeling I knew where he was going with this, so I extended the bag of Hershey’s kisses to him.

“Help yourself,” I smiled. He returned the smile and then took a few.

I hurried out of class in the crowd so Mr. Portman wouldn’t call me back to talk with him. It made me too nervous, I don’t know how much disappointment I can handle from him.

I had a plan, so I made my way to the library for lunch. With the Gatsby questions in my hand, I plopped down at a table in the corner and got to answering in a notebook.

A few summers ago, with my handy dandy public library card, I had read about twenty or so books. One of them was the Great Gatsby. I hadn’t read it with the class primarily because I had other things going on, but I was still hoping that I remember some of it for these questions.

And, it turns out I did. The questions were mainly discussion questions, about the book’s theme and message and so on. I wrote several sentences for each question, bordering on paragraph form, until I was satisfied with my efforts.

My stomach was clenched with nerves, as I walked back through the halls toward Mr. Portman’s room. He looked up from his desk when the door closed.