mr. mara

•4•

[2 weeks later]

"I'm failing so bad," I complain.

"Get a tutor," Izzy says.

"Then everyone will find out and I'll be the stupid girl," I say. "I hate when people find that shit out."

"Nobody will make fun of you," Maggie says as she stuffs her face with fries. "Getting help is a good thing."

"I don't know," I take a bite of my apple.

The announcements come on, "Kai, please go to Mr. Mara's room."

"Oh, shit," Ansley says.

I roll my eyes, "I wonder what he wants. He's probably going to yell at me because I'm failing so bad."

"It can't be that bad," Izzy says.

"I have a 63 percent in the class," I say. "And we just started school a couple weeks ago. It's bad."

"Damn," Maggie says. "How?"

I stand up from the table, "I told you guys that I suck at math. I'll be back."

I walk out of the cafeteria and I go down to Mr. Mara's room. I'm sure he's going to yell at me. He yelled at this kid a couple days ago because he wasn't doing good in class and instead of doing work he was on his phone.

Once I'm at his room I knock lightly, "Come in!"

I walk into his room and I shut the door behind me. Hopefully nobody hears him yelling at me. I already know it's going to suck, "You wanted to see me?"

"Yes," he says. "Take a seat."

I sit down at one of the desks that are close to his desk. "Your grades aren't looking too good."

"Yes, I know," I sigh, "I wanted to get a tutor, but I didn't want anyone finding out about it. Therefore, it's kinda hard to get a tutor since everyone will know."

"I get it," he says, "If you want I can tutor you and try to help. I wouldn't tell anyone, so I don't think anyone would find out."

"You would do that?"

"Of course," he says.

"Oh, thank you so much," I say. "I really thought you were going to yell at me because of how bad my grade is."

"Why would I yell at you?"

"I don't know," I say. "Because you yelled at Flynn the other day, so I figured I was next."

"Well I only yelled at Flynn because I don't really like the kid. Plus he's always on his phone." I smile because he just said he didn't like Flynn. Which means he is saying he likes me. "When are you free to start?"

"Tonight?" I ask.

"That sounds good," he says. "We can come here to my room around seven. Nobody will be here that late."

"Okay," I say. "Thank you again."

"No worries."

***

Being here at night is really weird. I'm always here during the day, so night is definitely new to me. There aren't many lights on and nobody is around. It's so quite I could hear a pin drop. Usually it's louder than a herd of elephants in this place.

I walk into Mr. Mara's room to see him sorting through some papers that are on his desk. He quickly looks up at me, "Hello, Kai. You can take a seat. We will start in a second."