Political science

'Noa… I like you too,' Shahar's voice said, the pink light of the sunset shining in her eyes. She looked beautiful and powerful. Her hand caressed Noa's cheek and went up into her hair, playing with the brown strains. Everything was perfect.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Noa woke up from a peaceful dream to the blaring sound of her alarm. She hit snooze three times before finally forcing herself out of bed.

She could already tell that today was going to be just as bad as the day before. Since she only got out of bed at seven, she had to shower with cold water and skip breakfast. She forgot to do her laundry so she didn't have any of her nice clothes to wear, and she had to scrap through her closet looking for something to wear.

She was thanking her lucky stars that she made it to the bus on time, and she was even more thankful when she was able to barrel through the door of her political studies class right as the bell rang.

Her luck had run out, however, as the only sit available was the one next to Becky.

"Hey, you don't mind if I-" Noa's awkward request to sit next to the blonde girl was cut off by Becky turning around to the boy sitting behind her.

"Mind if we switch places?" She asked in an ice-cold tone, one that made it clear she would not take no for an answer.

The boy sitting behind her nodded and grabbed his bag to sit in the front seat.

Noa's shoulders fell. "Why does she hate me?" She mumbled to herself.

"Becky? Oh don't take that personally, she hates everyone." The boy who switched places with Becky said, pulling out a notebook and a pen while the teacher did a role call of the students.

"That's… comforting?" Noa responded jokingly, still not feeling great about the whole thing.

The boy seemed to notice that she was upset because cleared his throat and said; "I'm Percy, by the way."

"Percy," Noa repeated, a smile coming to her face. "Are you friendlier than Becky by chance?"

"Oh definitely!" Percy said, giving her finger guns.

"Then we'll get along great," Noa was going to add something when the teacher coughed at them.

"Something you two would like to share with the class?" the teacher asked cooly.

"No Mr White," The two mumbled, heads hung low.

"Good. It's your first day in political science, so we're going to go over the curriculum and you'll see what is expected of you," Mr White said, searching for a marker in his bag.

"You're grades will be divided into two parts. Seventy percent, which is based on tests and participation, and the thirty percent, which will be based on the project you'll be doing for the last quarter of the year.

"Now here's the basics of what we'll learn this year. You'll study human rights, civilian rights, the different types of leadership, and our current political climate. There will also be plenty of debates about any and every political subject that you can think of."

Becky raised her hand. "How will the debates work Mr White?"

"Good question Becky!" Mr White said, a smile appearing on his face. "At the end of every class, for five minutes, I'll choose two students and a subject they'll have to debate. In the end, the rest of the class gets to vote for the winner. Obviously, if a student doesn't want to participate they don't have to, but I encourage all of you to try at least once."

"How are the subjects for the debates chosen?" Percy asked.

"Excellent question Percy, but next time raised your hand before asking it," Mr White responded. "As for how we'll choose the topics, I think the winner of each round gets to choose for the next team."

"Seems fair," Percy said, and the rest of the class nodded in agreement.

The rest of the class went by quickly, as Mr White wrote on the whiteboard 'what makes a dictatorship' and had the class give their opinions. Noa stayed quiet, slowly realising that this was going to be a very long year. It wasn't that the subject wasn't interesting, it just didn't interest her very much. She wondered how Shahar was doing in theatre. She was probably having the time of her life, getting to be up on a stage and perform.

They used to perform in the community theatre when they were kids, but one day Noa's mothers stopped going. It took a few years for Noa to realise why. It was because she had two moms, and when the people in charge of the theatre found out that they were more than friends, they told Noa's moms that they aren't welcome anymore. Shahar's parents chose to stop coming out of solidarity with their friends, which made Noa's mom teary-eyed, and her mama almost try and force Shahar's parents to go, knowing how much they liked the theatre.

Theatre and political science were very different to Noa. Theatre was fun and filled with joy and play, whereas political science was serious and boring and considered 'important' by her mama.

Theatre had Shahar, the girl of her dreams. Political science had Becky, a bully from her nightmares.

"-and now… debate time! Who is willing to volunteer to partake in the first debate of the debate class?" Mr White asked with enthusiasm.

Many kids raised their hands. In fact, they all did except for Noa.

Two kids Noa didn't know were chosen, and their topic was whether the police should be defunded or not. Noa didn't really care, but she knew Shahar was in favour of defunding the police, and so was Percy, so she voted for that. It was close, but the kid she didn't vote for won.

The bell rang and Noa grabbed her things and rushed through the door as quickly as possible to get to her next class, only to check her schedule and realise she had PE. Her least favourite class, mostly because her old Gym teacher would bully her for her extra padding.

"Hey Noa, wait up!" A voice came from behind her.

"Shahar! How was theatre?" Noa asked excitedly

"So awesome! The teacher allegedly played one of the background characters in lion king! And she said that there's a chance we could do a musical at the end of the year!" Shahar continued to gush about her theatre class, Noa strolling alongside her to PE, happy to be the person Shahar shares her excitement with.

That was until Shahar started talking about a new friend she made in theatre.

"There's this girl, Rachel, who is so talented! She sings and dances and she even takes sewing classes to make her own costumes!" Shahar said, and Noa hated that she noticed a small bit of blush on her best friend's cheek.

"Really? That's awesome! Maybe you should get her to join us when we finally start writing our musical," Noa tried to sound casual but felt as if she'd explode.

"Really? Wouldn't it be weird to ask her? I mean I barely know her."

"Well-" the bell rang before Noa could say anything, so she hugged Shahar and ran as fast as she could to PE.

'Just PE, math, English, and that project with Becky.' Noa thought to herself as she changed into her uncomfortable gym clothes in the changing room.