Undercover (Phan)

Chapter 3

Phil's POV

"Nice to meet you, Phil. I'm Dan."

I extend my hand to him and he shakes it. He seems like a really nice guy. I don't know what I was so afraid of. Actually, I do know what I was afraid of, and I feel like I have the right to be afraid of said things considering the circumstances, but I doubt that Dan is anything that I need to be afraid of. He seems really genuine.

"I saw you pull up to the school on that motorcycle; that's a sweet ride you've got," I say, trying to seem cool and hopelessly failing.

He chuckles, "Thanks, I think so too."

"Well, if you need any help finding your way around or with homework or whatever, you can always ask me if you need anything."

Dan's smile grows slightly; he's got dimples.

"I just might take you up on that, thank you."

"No problem. Welcome to our own little corner of Hell."

"Not a fan of this place?"

"Oh, just you wait. You'll learn to hate it just like the rest of us."

"I already despite my Econ class."

"Have you got Mr. Goodman?"

"Unfortunately. His name is quite ironic."

I laugh, "It definitely is. What lunch hour have you got?"

Our school has three lunch periods at different times. There's A lunch, which is first, B lunch, which is second, and C lunch, which is last.

"I've got A lunch. That's next period, right?"

"Yeah, that's what lunch I've got too."

"Is the food here any good?"

"It's not bad, but I'd stay away from the pizza. And the tacos, oh God, don't eat the tacos. You only make that mistake once."

The bell rings and Ms. Nickson steps into the room.

"Everyone in your seats, please."

I smile to Dan one last time, "Be seeing you."

Dan nods again with a smile, then I sit down in my seat as Ms. Nickson makes her way to the room.

I like Ms. Nickson, but she's not my favorite teacher. For one thing, she's either got a mustache or a very unfortunate birthmark, which is what your eye immediately goes to. She's very tiny and today is wearing a dress, which surprises me as usually on non-uniform days, she'll come to school in running clothes and sneakers as that's all she seems to own other than her professional, teacher clothes. Whenever she isn't talking about Chemistry, all she seems to talk about is how she's always training for a marathon with her boyfriend that none of us are quite sure is real.

"Alright, so yesterday we discussed our projects. Today, I'm going to hand out your rubrics and let you get started. You'll have the rest of the week and the weekend to work on these, but they will be due Monday. No individual projects and, since we now have an even number of students, no groups of three. Everyone needs a partner and once I'm finished handing out rubrics, you can partner up and get started."

Ms. Nickson goes around and hands out the rubrics for the project, and once she's finished, I'm faced with the awful decision of who my partner will be. I hate that Ms. Nickson won't let us work alone. That would make all of this so much easier. I can be extroverted when I'm around people that I know and like, but unfortunately, there aren't too many people that hold either of those titles to me in this class.