Extracurricular Activities

As they pulled up to the restaurant, Ivy could already pick out Lydia's thoughts going a million miles a minute.

'Adrian looks soooo good in his costume, it's not fair! I probably look like an idiot in comparison. I need Ivy to get here fast and run interference for me. She's always so calm; I wouldn't dare double with a guy I like this much with anyone else.'

So that was why she insisted on making her antisocial friend go way, way out of her comfort zone? Wow.

Ivy and Carson got out of the car and she waved her friend down. Sure enough, Adrian Marquez stood next to her in a Catman t-shirt and black jeans with a utility belt and mask. She wasn't sure what Lydia was so worked up about. Their costumes seemed to be on the same level.

"Hey, Clumsy Girl! So you're Lydia's friend. I did wonder…I've never met another Ivy," Adrian said with a smile.

'Clumsy Girl?' Carson thought in confusion.

Lydia's thoughts were more hectic. 'They already know each other? Oh no. This is bad. What if he pays more attention to her than he does to me? What am I supposed to do then?! Ugh, I should have invited someone else to double with us. I don't even know the guy she brought. He looks like a nerd.'

Ivy sighed inwardly. It appeared she was in for an even longer night than she originally anticipated. She pasted on a smile.

"Hi, Adrian. Nice to see you again. Small world, right? Anyway, guys, this is my friend Carson. We're in about half of the same classes."

Carson waved casually despite how frantically he was thinking. 'Oh no. These people seem way cooler than me. How am I going to survive this without seeming like a total loser? Hang on…did Ivy just call me her friend? She really considers me a friend already?'

'They share a bunch of classes…I was right, he totally is a nerd,' Lydia thought. 'I haven't had any classes together with Ivy in six years except for P.E. and the one year we had history together because she wasn't on the smarty-pants track yet.'

Silence from Adrian.

If these two were thinking so much already when they hadn't even gone inside yet…Ivy was screwed. She hoped her Ibuprofen would be enough.

Once they were seated she tried her best to filter out the other people in the restaurant. It was more crowded than usual tonight. Looked like a lot of other kids going to the dance had the same idea they did.

'Ugh, why did we have to come here? I'm lactose intolerant and everything is covered in cheese!'

'Why are there so many kids in costumes here tonight? Ugh, I hate working on Fridays. I'd rather be at home watching Netflix with my roommate.'

'If I eat too many breadsticks in front of Adam he'll think I'm a total pig but I'm starving! I knew I should have eaten something small before coming here!'

'Ivy's spacing out again.'

That last thought brought her back to earth. Carson noticed she was being inattentive again. Crap. What was everyone saying? She tried to focus on what was being spoken in front of her rather than thought elsewhere in the restaurant.

She had nothing. This place really was overcrowded today.

"What are we talking about?" Ivy whispered to the boy next to her.

He smiled. 'So she really was spacing out. I wonder where she goes when she gets like that.' "Those two are talking about their shared algebra class," he whispered back.

"Thanks!"

Okay. Algebra. Something Carson and Ivy had nothing to say about since they had both taken it last year. This year they were both in AP Statistics and had the same teacher but different periods.

She briefly wondered what the rest of his schedule was like. They were together for first, fourth, and sixth periods this year. What other classes was he taking? It wouldn't hurt to ask since the subject was on academics.

"What other classes are you taking this year, Carson?"

He didn't know she was aware of their shared statistics teacher. "AP Spanish, AP Stats, and P.E."

"I'm in AP Stats too," Ivy said conversationally. "I have it second period. You?"

"Seventh."

She mentally calculated what she knew about his schedule from there. So he had second period AP Spanish and third period P.E. If he was taking AP Spanish this year, that meant he had been taking Spanish since middle school like she had.

Ivy switched over to taking German her freshman year of high school. She was already fluent in Spanish and wanted to learn something else. She intended to take the AP German exam next year. She could probably pass the Spanish one too if not for the requirement that you had to take the class first.

There weren't enough periods in the day. If only she could drop P.E. Technically, she had enough math credits to graduate already so next year she would have to take some sort of art class to get her arts credit instead of math.

That left no room for AP Spanish unless she wanted to drop the extra science credit. But she would prefer to get AP Chemistry out of the way now so she could take more language classes in college.

If she wanted she could get an extra elective by choosing zero period or lunchtime P.E. but she would rather die than spend more time at school so that was out. She would have plenty of time for language classes in college anyway.

Although…Ivy really needed more extracurricular activities on her resume. Her mom had been on her case about that since she had never tried any sports or joined any clubs.

She needed to do something this year and next year so she could include them. It might be more beneficial to use choir as her arts credit next year. That would be something. She wasn't horrible at singing.

But that still left other things open. Staying on after school was the last thing she wanted to do. The relative peace and quiet of home was the only thing that got her through the day.

There had to be clubs that primarily met during lunchtime…if she joined a few of them that didn't have conflicting meeting dates that should be fine. As far as she knew, there were clubs for Spanish, French, and German. Those should work.

Ivy truly didn't understand people like Carson who were heavily involved in clubs that required so much time and effort outside of school hours. Wasn't that exhausting?