YouChannell: 2013-2014

Chapter Thirteen: Review Session (September 27, 2013)

     "So, how's school been for you guys?" Mr. Utano asked at the tan wooden dinner table around 6:30. He, Mr. Yoshida, Akira, Lidiya, Amanda, and River were eating ramen and tuna in the light yellow dining room.

     "Ay, is it okay if I'm real with ya'll?" River asked.

     Mr. Utano shrugged. "I mean, this is technically a family time, so be my guest."

     River inhaled and shouted, "I fucking hate school! The fucking school counselor's making me take all the fucking honors classes when I specifically asked to take regular classes!"

     "Well, maybe the counselor just wants you to apply yourself," Mr. Utano said.

     "I mean, yeah. But the whole point of taking easy classes is that you DON'T do a whole lot of work!" River defended herself.

     "So, you're lazy," Lidiya said to River.

     River gave Lidiya a dirty look as she slurped up her ramen.

     "I was gonna take honors classes," Amanda started, "But then the counselor said I should take easier classes to settle in more."

     "And which counselor told you that?" Lidiya asked.

     Amanda shrugged. "The ninth-grade one."

     Every jaw at the dinner table dropped because-

     "You mean to tell us that you SKIPPED the EIGHTH GRADE, and you didn't tell ANYBODY about this?!" Lidiya exclaimed.

     Amanda sank back into her seat. "Sorry. I forgot to tell you guys."

     "Yeah, you forgot," Lidiya thought bitterly inside her head.

     "I'm being serious," Amanda insisted, "I've had so much homework to do, I honestly forgot!"

     "Yeah, you've had too much homework to remember," River mumbled under her breath.

     Lidiya shook her head and then asked Akira, "So Akira, how's school been for you?"

     Akira shrugged. "I don't know," he answered, his mouth full of mushy chewed-up ramen and tuna.

     "Have you been suspended so far?" River asked.

     Akira almost spat out his food. "No!" he insisted, his face red.

     Mr. Yoshida looked at Akira and said much more quietly, "Yes, the hell you have. Don't lie to us."

     River looked at Akira once more and asked in almost a whisper, "What you get suspended for?"

     Akira looked down at his plate and grumbled, "I'm not telling you."

     The family, plus River and Amanda, continued eating in silence until Lidiya finally asked Mr. Yoshida, "So, David... how's school been for you?"

     Mr. Yoshida swallowed a biteful of food before answering, "It's okay, I guess."

     "Has school been hard for you so far?" Mr. Utano asked.

     Mr. Yoshida shrugged. "We haven't gotten much work so far. It's only been, like, the first week so far."

     "Really? So nothing's interesting happened to you yet?" River asked.

     Amanda, Lidiya, and Akira also looked at Mr. Yoshida with anticipation. Mr. Yoshida squirmed in his seat for a while until he sighed and relented, telling the story about the second day of school in the lobby of the Cascade campus. He had just entered the sterile, pristine Student Center and walked to the nearest vending machine because he was hungry. Taking the dollar out of his hoodie pocket and staring at the snacks, he finally decided on some plain M&Ms. So he stuck his dollars into the slot, and whoops- M&Ms didn't come out all the way.

     "What the fuck?!" Mr. Yoshida thought angrily, shaking the vending machine to get the damn M&Ms out. Still, they wouldn't come out.

     Just then, Riley, a ginger girl who was in one of Mr. Yoshida's GED classes, inserted a dollar into the vending machine and selected Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Sure enough, the Flamin' Hot Cheetos weren't coming out.

     "Faustine!" Riley called out to another girl, a girl with dirty blonde hair that wasn't in Mr. Yoshida's GED classes, "You know how to get our snacks out?! This fucking vending machine ain't working for shit!"

     Faustine walked up to the vending machine, took a deep breath, and-

     Both the M&Ms and the Flamin' Hot Cheetos fell to the bottom.

     "Thank you, Faustine," Riley said. Then, as Faustine started walking away, she mumbled to herself, "God damn Fantasy."

     Mr. Yoshida wanted to walk up to Faustine and thank her himself, but she was briskly walking away, she didn't look that happy to help out, and Mr. Yoshida's mouth was dry with a distinct lack of words.

     Either way, it was one of the nicest things anyone had ever done for him.

     "Nicer than anything I've ever done?" Mr. Utano asked his boyfriend slyly.

     Mr. Yoshida giggled. "Shut up!" he said, lightly elbowing Mr. Utano.

     And dinner resumed as normal.

...

     "Hey, guys?" Amanda said to Anima and Kishi on her cell phone in Lidiya's room, "I forgot to tell you this, but I, um... skipped the eighth grade. Is that all right with you guys?"