RAINSTORM

Ch. 4

It doesn't seem to be working.

Rachel looks around at the library. No one wants to learn. No one is able to teach. She turns her attention back to her own table.

Hector and Vince are across her. Tate is at her side. None of them look like they want to be here.

Rachel silently takes out three dossiers and slide them to the table.

"What's this?" Vince says, noticing the dossiers.

"Some mock exercises for next week's test," Rachel says.

"Are you kidding me?" Tate says, "Aren't we here because we don't know anything? What's the point of asking us to solve problems right away? Aren't you supposed to be teaching us how to do those?"

Rachel bites her lips and nods. "This is only to check how much you know already," she says.

Vince grabs one of the files, leafs through its pages, puts them back down on the table. "Nothing in there I know," he confidently says.

Rachel silently slides the dossiers back into her backpack. Then she takes out their Physics book. Turns it to the chapter on Electrostatics.

Rachel starts talking about static electric charges, electrical flow resistance, static shock... When she looks up from the text book she sees that everyone is on their phones.

She thinks maybe she should just write down some notes and bring them tomorrow so the boys could take them home and study. For now though she continues to explain static electricity to no one in particular.

Even when Rachel had never been officially a tutor, she is good at explaining concepts. She does that with her friends when they don't understand something in the syllabus.

About half an hour later, the sound of a thunder takes everyone's attention away to the sky. It has darkened. Through the windows they see grey clouds roll in.

Rachel quickly closes the books.

"What are you doing?" Hector says to her.

Rachel points at the window, at the sky. "It's going to rain," she says.

"So?" He asks.

Among a few strict principles Rachel follows in her life is that if it looks like it's going to rain, she needs to head home so she could avoid the rain.

Rachel doesn't like the rain. Cold, wet, obscuring. The lightning and thunder shows don't help either.

"We... should go home," Rachel says, hoping she didn't just say the wrong thing.

"We still have half an hour left," Hector sternly says.

Rachel silently takes out her books again while stealing glances at the students who are already leaving.

"Let her go first. We can leave later," Tate says.

"No. Isn't she getting her training waived off for tutoring us? She stays for the whole hour," Hector says.

Sinking into her seat, Rachel turns the pages to where she left before. Hector goes back to using his phone.

Hector doesn't like people like Rachel. Naive. Gullible. Who have no clue of what real world is like. Who is scared of getting a little wet. Who wants to run to home where a loving mother is waiting for her with warm food. No. He doesn't like people like Rachel at all.

And he doesn't want to go home yet because he hates that place. He has never missed a class or training. If it's training day he stays back in school. When there's no training he's outside riding his motorbike along with his friends.