149Chapter 1
I ran down the hall, skidding to a halt in front of the door to my 1st period biology class. Tentatively, I opened the door and peeked in, where I saw the teacher busy lecturing.
"Well, Miss Chen, nice of you to join us. I'm surprised by you-you're never late."
"Sorry, Mr. Marlow. I was running late this morning."
"That's no excuse. Don't let it happen again."
"Yes, sir," I surrendered, bowing my head in consternation as I trudged over to my seat.
"As I was saying, we will soon be starting a two-week-long project on our next unit, vertebrates. You and a partner will be studying an animal of your choosing in its natural habitat. The partners are: Mary and Brian, Rachel and Tommy, Daniel and Amanda. . . (blah, blah, blah)and. . .hmm. . ."he says, looking around, "Jennifer, you will be with Shawn, if he gets here."
Yes! At least I don't have a freak for a partner.
Shawn was a friend of mine, and he was in almost all of my classes.
At that second, the door creaked open, and in walked Shawn.
"Hey."
"Hey."
"Good morning, Mr. Zakman. Please join us. We are beginning a project. Your partner is Miss Chen, and I'm sure she would be glad to explain it to you."
"Okay, so we're supposed to study a vertebrate in its natural habitat. What should we do?"
"Um. . . how about snakes?"
"No! I hate snakes, and they creep me out."
"Okay. . . what do YOU want to do?"
"Well. . . let's see. . . um. . . how about. . . Oh, fine! We'll do snakes!" I snapped, in an irritated tone.
"Okay, so do you want to meet at my house after school to work on it?"
"'Kay, talk to you later."
"Yeah."
I stared after him, knowing we would always be just friends. I didn't have a chance. I mean, what could HE possibly see in ME? Just a stupid unpopular smarty pants. I just wish I had a chance and that I could tell him how I feel. But it's not like we were good friends anyway. More like the kind that always fight, but it was a friendly type of fighting. And the kind that diss each other constantly, even though we were only teasing.