The Program

Chapter 9

"Mr. Morgan?" He made a sort of grunting sound. "I was wondering if maybe Jack could be my lab partner instead of Ethan. I met Jack yesterday and I would just feel more comfortable with him instead of Ethan."

Mr. Morgan sighed. "You found out about Ethan yesterday, didn't you?" I nodded. "Ok, fine. But I'm not switching you again. This is the only time I'm going to do this with anyone. Clear?"

"Yes. Thank you so much." I walked back to my seat. "Come on, partner. Get to your assigned seat." I laughed.

Jack looked absolutely bewildered, but he sat in Ethan's old seat. "How did you do that? Mr. Morgan is the hardest teacher in the whole school."

"It's a trade secret. It comes with being American." I winked and we both laughed. "No, seriously. I just told him I would feel more comfortable with you as my partner than Ethan. He somehow connected that to me finding out about Ethan. So, he switched the partners."

"Nice!"

Class soon started. But not before I had to explain to Ethan that Mr. Morgan had mysteriously switched him and Jack with the lab partners. Jack and I silently laughed when he seemed to believe me. Biology was almost the same as Maths: we went over the homework, then did some review.

After the bell rang, I went to my locker and switched out my Biology book for my American History book. I was dreading class, but I knew that I would somehow survive.

*Austin's POV*

Mariella came into class almost at the same time as the bell rang, so I didn't have any time to talk to her. Ms. Rosenberg started class with notifying us that we were first going to learn about the Bill of Rights, the amendments, the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence. In that order.

"So, who knows what the first amendment gives Americans the right to?"

I saw Sarah's hand shoot straight up in the air. Here we go. Ms. Rosenberg nodded to her then she said, "The right to...to...bear arms?"

Mariella did a face palm. Except it was more like she put her hand to her face and was trying to scrape it off. It was actually really funny.

"Sorry Sarah, but that's incorrect. Mariella? Could you tell us what it is?"

Mariella took a deep breath and said, "Well. When I learned the amendments, I learned PASPR. It stands for Petition, Assembly, Speech, Press, and Religion. So the first amendment gives the right to freedom of petition, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion."

"Very good! Could you explain what each of those mean?"

"Well, freedom of petition means that you have the right to start a petition. Freedom of assembly means that you can have a peaceful...assembly? Kind of like how MLK Jr. had the thing where they walked all the way to D.C. Freedom of speech is where you have the right to say whatever you want, whenever you want, wherever you want. Freedom of press is where the press can publish whatever they want. And freedom of religion means that you can practice whatever religion you want to. So, you could be Christian, Catholic, atheist, you could even be a Buddhist if you really wanted to."

"Thank you, Mariella. That was very good. I'm going to pass out a worksheet that has the numbers of all the amendments on the left side and I want you to match them up with the amendments that are on the right side. You can pick a partner for this activity, but not until after I pass them out."

After Ms. Rosenberg passed the worksheets out, everyone practically trampled each other to try to get to Mariella. She literally went into the fetal position in her chair while everyone crowded around her to try to be her partner.