Sami's Kisses

Three

Looking at the collage of drawings I'd been working on for the last two weeks, I felt upset about how it was turning out.

"Everything okay over here?" Ms. Georgia asked me.

But if there's one thing art has taught me, it is to be patient. Remaining open minded and not freaking out allows more ideas to flow.

I let out a breath and averted my eyes back to my struggling piece. "Hopefully it will be soon."

Ms. Georgia laughed lightly, exactly what you would expect from someone of her lean size. "It looks lovely, Sami. Just let your color pencils flow more freely."

I nodded as she walked off to help some other suffering student.

It's hard to me to be given a task to draw something specific. I work best when I'm inspired by a moment, not when I have an assignment to be done.

Luckily, Ms. Georgia is understanding of that, and all of our semester work isn't due until the end of the semester.

Still, that little fact wasn't very enlightening, and I ended up making no more progress on my piece by the end of the day.

*****

Friday rolled around quickly this week, for a couple reasons.

1. I was working every evening at the Cafe, and I also worked a shift or two at Jay's Market.

2. I didn't attend school on Thursday-- this is the main reason.

Why didn't I go to school? Long story short I got caught up in something that felt more important at the time, and I just couldn't make it.

Mr. Portman's face had been reprimanding when I finally made my way in to his fourth period English class. And to make things worse, I was late. Turns out my chemistry teacher also wanted to talk to me about my worsening attendance, therefore making me late to fourth period.

"Miss Spark, thank you for finally gracing us with your presence," he made the point of embarrassing me, to which the class chuckled. "Take a seat." There was no hint of anger in his voice, just his usual tone.

I slid into my seat and smiled at the girl sitting next to me, who was quite obviously staring. She looked weirded out that I would smile at her, which was strange, but I shook it off as Mr. Portman continued on.

"Alright class, as you know we will be having a debate today on Civil Rights articles we've been reading this week," As he said this, the class fumbled through their backpacks to retrieve binder paper, while I stared wide eyed at Mr. Portman.

What articles?

"Circle up, you all know what to do," He told us all as the class immediately turned the desks so were sitting in a large circle.

We were organized into teams based on what color marble we drew, and as I met with my team, I peered at the boy next to me and saw that his papers were strategically highlighted.

As my group discussed their arguments, I asked the boy if I couple pretty please glance over his papers, and he handed them over.

Thankfully, I was able to retain enough information that I would be able to debate the rhetoric strategies in class.

My team ended up winning, but on my way out of class, Mr. Portman said to me "You won't be able to do that every time you know."

I turned to face him with a confused face and he added, "Skim the articles last minute. You were able to pull some pretty good points out of your sleeve, but one day you'll be wearing some sort of tank top and it's not going to work." Not knowing whether to laugh or be serious about his analogy, I stayed quiet and nodded.