Dancing Around // peter parker

41

Our math teacher looked tired. She had deep dark circles under her eyes as she smiled kindly at us. "Now, I know you don't want to present, but it's out of my hands. To get this over with quickly, your partners will be your seat buddies. You pick the seat so don't get mad at me. You have all day today to get your presentation together, but we won't start presenting until next week. Let's do this quickly and move past it." She placed her fist up. "We can do it!"

I looked over at MJ. "What exactly are we doing?"

"She's trying to catch us all up by each of us presenting a lecture we've learned so far this semester," MJ said.

"Oh, okay."

Behind us, Flash didn't seem to agree. At the back of the class, he laughed loudly, his feet on the desk. Next to him sat an annoyed Peter, looking down at some paper.

"Poor Peter, I would hate to have Flash as a partner," she said.

"Yeah, that would suck." I looked at her. "How much is this on our grade?"

"It's actually has a pretty big impact, probably because she needs grades."

"Ah. Okay, then we should take this seriously. Want to meet after school?" I asked her.

She nodded her head. "Okay." We exchanged phone numbers and agreed to meet up, then we started working. We got the very first lecture, which meant we were going to present first. Lucky, the material didn't seem too hard to comprehend and even easier to explain.

The door of our classroom opened and in came a boy with khakis. He handed a note to our teacher, who read the owner's name out loud. "Marina, the principal wants to see you in his office," she said.

I stood from my desk, ignoring the looks and the sounds. I pulled the strap of my bag over my shoulder. I walked out of the classroom with my head held high only to lower it once I got into the principal's office. I sat on his leather chair and Cindy was there too, sitting on the less comfortable seat beside me. Coach Gawson had his large arms folded in front of him. He paced from one side to the other in the room, over and over again.

The principal placed the cruise pamphlet we left in Coach Gawson's mailbox in front of us. He crossed his hands and placed them right in the center of the desk. His wedding ring shined into my eye. "Can you explain this to me please?" he asked.

I looked over at Cindy. She was minutes away from having a panic attack. She did get overwhelmed easily. I guess it was up to me. I lifted my head, looking at the two adults like I had nothing to hide. "It's a pamphlet," I said.

"He means, why was it in my mailbox?" Coach asked.

The principal lifted his hand, telling him to stop. He looked at me. "Why was it in his mailbox?" The principal asked me. I forgot his name. What was it again?

"Because he won a cruise," I said.

"Is that all you have to say for yourself?" the principal asked.

I looked up at Coach. "...Congratulations?"

Coach slammed his hand against the desk. There goes his anger. "Why did you give me this?"

"I didn't give you that," I said.

"Yes, you did."

"No, I didn't."

The principal lifted the pamphlet to show me the back. It had Cindy's and my name on it. How did we not see that before?

"Is your name not Marina?" The principal asked.

"What? Am I the only Marina in this school?" I asked.