Mystery Loves Company

Chapter 2 - File #1.2: The Good Memory

Avery

My life had been turned upside down once, and honestly, I wasn't looking forward to see what the second time would bring me.

Today at approximately 10.13 in Bensworth University's Student Center Park, you probably saw a girl running after a man running after another man. While a dog-cat-mouse chase in Tom & Jerry looked funny, there was nothing even worth a smile about this one. She chased him because something belonged to her had been stolen, and he ran because he needed something from the other man. It was a quite serious matter that I almost called 911 only to get my essays back.

The girl was me, by the way.

It was all started from the French class I had yesterday. No, nothing interesting about the class. It was just that the new French teacher certainly overlooked one of her students' remembering skill.

"Mademoiselle Kane, can you read the first paragraph in page 34?"

I altered my gaze from the window to the French book in front of me. A page full of foreign words that we only got to learn for the third time this semester. The first meeting was discussing how to pronounce the alphabets, and the second was about learning the words and basic sentences. And now, third week, the new teacher wanted us to read a paragraph. A paragraph, as in four long sentences. It was almost thirty words more than we were learning for two weeks before.

"It seemed like you haven't been paying attention to what I've explained," she smiled wryly, with a little smirk after. "Let's see how serious you are in taking this class."

Ooh, punishment. Very scary. The reading thing wasn't supposed to be on the school curriculum, at least not until the sixth or seventh week, when we actually had understood every basic of the language. She probably was just testing us if we were as good as her old students in a private school in Kansas City—the ones that she proudly talked about every time someone couldn't answer her question.

And now, I was in that position. If I was anyone else in this class, I would just honestly answer 'No, I can't read it—are you kidding, Ma'am?'. I would say that I was just so damn lazy to read the words that weren't even my mother language. What did she expect from us in two weeks of learning a foreign language anyway?

But I wasn't anyone else, so I grabbed my book, stood up, and read it as requested.

For a minute, I could only hear my voice in the class. It was like everyone else was leaving the class as soon as Mrs. Turner asked me to read it. But no, they were here—with their eyes fixed on me, dropped jaws, bated breaths.

"Très bien, Mademoiselle!" Mrs. Turned put down her book to give a leading applause, in which the class reluctantly followed. "Though I only asked you to read one paragraph, not the whole page."

Scoffs and murmurs spread throughout the classroom. I didn't know that they were addressed to me until Danna, a girl who was also in my physics class, raised her hand and told Mrs. Turner to end the class because the learning material they were supposed to have today was already eaten by a greedy smartass. Not only that, she also shot a stare at me after saying that.

A greedy smartass? Was that what they had been calling me? I was totally offended. I wasn't even greedy, I just didn't realize that I read all of the paragraphs because it was fun speaking French. Okay, actually it was fun looking at their goofy reactions when I nailed those weird French pronunciations. And smartass? In what world did you call a straight A's student a smartass?

The students were rushing out as the bell rang, as if they were given a chance to get out of this hell for ten minutes before going back into another. Slipping my books into my bag, I was preparing myself for my all-time favorite math class after a lunch break.