MATH WITH BOO

19 FEBRUARY, FRIDAY, MATH

After seeing her Dino, Maria decided that her constitution had somewhat improved enough for us to return to class.

Fluffy and EJ decided to return too, but they had ducked back to lean against the wall so Mrs Henderson wouldn't see them and think they were with us all this time.

I knocked on the door just as Mrs Henderson said, "Alright everyone, please take out your math textbook - Maria! Why are you back?"

"She said she is feeling better." I informed Mrs Henderson. This girl liked to waste my time.

Mrs Henderson said in complete monotone, "Oh yes, I see. Of course. Please come in."

I immediately turned to the vamp behind me, but Maria only blinked and produced one of her creepy smiles.

I felt sure Maria's eyes had been red just before she blinked, but she had blinked so quickly, it could've been my imagination. Still, I had a sneaking suspicion that Maria had manipulated Mrs Hen. You know there were some people who lied throughout the day just to make everything go a little smoother, right? I guess there were Vampires who mind wrapped throughout the day for the same reason.

I sat down at my desk and took out my textbook. Which page were we at? I looked at Maria's desk. Her book laid open on page 89, so I flipped to the same page. Maria was useful to have around like that. She was always on the right page - she could even open her books to the right pages before the teacher said anything.

There was a knock on the door.

"What took you so long?" Mrs Henderson asked.

Unfortunately, Fluffy and EJ didn't have any mind manipulation powers. They smiled in unison...because they did have their good looks, which I've learned was also a kind of power after having the beautiful human, Arlene, in my class.

"Girly boys!" Ivan rolled his eyes and snorted.

"Eeeee... They were probably all touchy-feely." Troy told Ivan.

The class murmured a little.

Fluffy only smiled wider and slung an arm around EJ, "Like this? Why are you imagining us like this, Troy?"

Troy panicked enough to scrap his chair backwards, "No! I wasn't!"

Now the class snickered.

EJ grinned and said to rest of the class, "Please don't misunderstand us, we love girls most."

I think if the warrior gig didn't work out for these two, they could consider starring on their own social media channel.

Not everyone appreciated this kind of humor though. Terrence blanched loudly, "You two are a menace to all ladies! Don't fall for them, girls. They're wolves in sheep clothing."

Actually they ARE wolves.

"Actually, the menace to all ladies are ugly fat boys like you." One of Abigail's random girls informed him.

Mrs Henderson immediately stepped in, "Now, now, there would be no name calling in my class. This is a inclusive class and we want to create a safe learning environment for everyone no matter their shape or size or species..."

And then she caught sight of the clock at the back of the class, "Oh dear, is that the time? Sit down boys."

She checked her own watch and hurriedly went back to her desk, "Liam, come help me distribute this."

To the rest of us, she said, "I want you to put everything away, we'll have a quick mini-test now to help you prepare for the exams next week."

The class groaned and put their textbooks away.

"I wish she'd make up her mind." Troy complained loudly.

"Well, I had meant to run through a few pointers, but I'm afraid if we did that, you wouldn't have time to finish your mini-test." Mrs Henderson explained, and then she promised, "If you finish the mini-test early, we can revise with the text book."

That's okay, Mrs Henderson, no need to go out of your way to do extra revision with us.

Liam had given out the mini-tests to the front rows and it was being passed back. I waited, but I could see some of the kids in front giving themselves a head start to the mini-test. Mrs Henderson saw it too, "Wait, wait, you can't start till I say so!"

"Why is it so hard?" Terrence complained.

"It's last year's test paper." Ivan noted, "See, it says so at the top."

I finally got the paper and turned it over to the front, sure enough, it was the Term 1 Exam from last year.

"It'll help all of you gauge where you are right now, identify your weaker topics, so you know how to revise for the exam next week." Mrs Henderson explained sensibly.

Cue the murmurs of complaints from the students among themselves about having to do a whole paper. I flipped through the paper... it didn't look terribly hard or tricky, just tedious because there were so many questions. I really didn't like math. I wondered if Boo could do it for me?

"Alright, you may start NOW." Mrs Henderson said.

The class suddenly got quiet, and I could hear the quiet scritching sounds of determined pens. So yes, we were complaining a second ago, but years of being in the school system had conditioned us to get down to work on our papers at the words, "you may start NOW" when it was said in precisely that tone and air of authority of an experienced invigilator.

I didn't even actually know how much time we had, but I just dived into first question. Like all the usual Math papers, the start wasn't very hard. I tried to get through it quickly, not because I particularly wanted Mrs Hen to work through the textbook with us later, but I really wasn't thinking. I just wanted to finish the test paper before the "Pen's down" command was called out. I was a well-trained student like that too.

And this test, I decided to let Boo run with it. Did my wolf know how to add? Only one way to find out. I mean, look at Fluffy - his wolf could solve simultaneous equations.

The multiple choice questions were easy, the moment I read the question and looked through the options, Boo was quite able to confidently pick the right answer. It was like applying her very lucky sense of direction on choosing the right option.

The short answer questions were a little trickier, I had to do a bit of working, but Boo could still sense if the answer was right. She definitely pointed out when the answer was wrong, and upon double-checking my working, I found I had miscalculated. The long questions were harder. Boo was a smart-alecky donkey when it came to problem sums.

"At what time would Sally meet John at station X?"

{They won't. The express train obviously runs on a different track, so they would alight at different platforms.}

"Find the angle x."

{There. In the corner.}

"What is the value of p/y?"

{Why? Just ignore it. This question is pointless.}

So I had to do them myself, while Boo liked to flare at me whenever I made a careless mistake.

"Sam, stop that!" Henry snapped at me when Boo flared, and my hair threw itself upwards for the uptenthed time, "It's damn distracting."

You think? How did you think I felt? Stoopid Boo.

I grabbed my hair roughly together in a bunch, twisted it up, and stuck a spare pen through to pin it down, "Happy?"

Henry smirked, "Thanks."

"I wish my hair could do that." Zara said.

"Class, quiet." Mrs Henderson said.

We ducked our heads and went back to work. Actually, I'm not sure what Mrs Henderson would have done now that I thought about it. This wasn't a real exam. The grade didn't even count, but it kind of did feel like an exam... a very relaxed one.

I finished the paper and checked it. Now this was what Boo was good at. I guess my wolf couldn't really do math, but she was really good at sensing when something wasn't right. It turned out that I was very careless. Okay, fine. I knew this from the time I was grade three and my math teacher had thrown my workbook on my desk and yelled from across the classroom, "Rubbish!"

And then she had stormed over to my desk and opened my workbook, flipping through all the angry red crosses on the pages, "Careless, all careless mistakes. I need to knock some sense into you!"

Luckily she didn't try to. She just picked up my exercise book, rolled it up, and slammed it down on my table. I bit my lips together so I wouldn't whimper. Then she stormed away to deal with the next exercise book.

The next one was worse than mine. She had screamed, "Jasper! Come up!"

Then she waved his workbook in the air, "This one is REALLY rubbish."

And then she tried to rip it in front of Jasper's face, BUT workbooks turned out to be made of tougher stuff than that, and it wouldn't tear, so she threw it into the wastepaper basket.

Nobody dared to point out that it was recycling week, and all paper products should be disposed in the recycling bin.

Jasper had to go over to the wastepaper basket to retrieve it.

Next she proceeded to take out two more workbooks and accuse the owners of copying. They denied it. She threw both books out of the classroom window. One of the girls began to cry, "Don't cry. I don't want to see you cry! Get out! Go down and get your books back."

So now the two girls left, both in tears.

"If you can't stop crying, don't come back! Stand outside the classroom!" She yelled at their departure.

My elementary school was pretty tough. Luckily, I had forgotten most of it. Even in my memory, most of the names and faces were a blur to me now, like a bad dream from long ago.

I did remember going to the washroom with a human classmate one day, and she told me, "I love school. School is like my second home."

I had felt really sorry for her. I couldn't ever imagine having to live anywhere worse than school. Maybe she was like one of the kids at the destitute home BEFORE their family got a place at the destitute home.

For a long time while I was in elementary school, I wanted to be a teacher. I had met so many crappy teachers that I felt like the world really needed good ones. But somewhere along the line, I found out you could only do one job at a time, so I decided to stick to being the Alpha.

The only good thing about elementary school was the exciting stories I could tell at the dinner table. I liked watching my parent's reaction. Sometimes, I would know my teachers went too far when Mum threatened to send Dad down to the school to speak to the principal, but I would beg them not to (because who knew what the teachers would do to me if they found out my parents complained?)

Savy had laughed at my stories from elementary school. She had gone to New Leaf Academy. There was a weird teacher who liked to carry around a wooden meter rule. He used it to hit the tables. She liked him a lot. He gave treats to the pups who answered right and I guess Savy was the kind of pup who knew all the answers. Savy's elementary school horror stories were very mild compared to mine.

In my elementary school, a teacher holding a wooden meter rule was a frightening sight. You could silence an entire assembly of students, just by having the discipline master show up with a meter rule in his hand. He held it like a scepter or power and it would inflict his wrath on any child who stood out beyond the acceptable noise or activity level. The principal held him in high regard, and would consult him in all disciplinary matters. I was always careful never to make eye contact with him.

Looking back, I wonder what my Dad was thinking to send me to this elementary school. He said it was to broaden my horizons. I supposed that did happen. I had ever asked Mum before. She only sighed, "I wanted to send you to the Lorent Girl's Academy, but your dad thought it would a good to expose you to humans."

So those were humans... those weak kids who couldn't run, or climb trees, or jump very high (imao). Humans, they look just like us, but Beta Lucas said they couldn't shift - ever, not even when they grew up. They had no wolves. Did that make them only half a wolf? Mrs Beta assured me that they were in every way not wolves, and they were whole, even without soul mates. Humans, such strange creatures... I tried to make friends with them, but the girl next to me told all the other girls I was too messy. I tried to join them when they stood around in a circle, (and they let me), but they were talking about a TV show that I had never heard of in my life. No, they didn't have cable. They watched the local channel - which didn't broadcast to the Green Packlands (Where was that?). I tried to play skipping and hopscotch with them, they actually told me the rules and showed me how, but after winning several rounds in a row, they got tired of standing around and watching me. I pretended to mis-jump, and left the game so the others could play. I never joined them again, but I did teach the pups in my pack the new skipping chants - we were all told by some of the adults that it was a little rude, so it became quite popular. Savy told me how the kids in New Leaf Academy played hopscotched and we modified the combined rules and came up with something rather fun to play with the other pups after Lycan Study Group. We called it the Purple Ribbon Rules, and at first, only Savy, Lizzy, Ben, Dean, Drew, and Darlyn knew it. But now it was commonly played by the pups in our pack. I've seen pups at the Morning Light destitute home hopscotched to the Purple Ribbon Rules. They don't know what its called though. They think that's the default way to play hopscotch.

But they've never seen kids outside the Green Packlands play hopscotch. I think they'd be quite surprise to know that the rest of the world's hopscotch couldn't be expanded with more boxes, didn't have territorial markings, and rarely ever required you to jump more than 4 boxes.

I tapped my pencil and smiled to myself. Done. My paper was done, and Boo was finally satisfied that everything "felt mostly right." I wondered what brought about the sudden detour down memory lane? I looked around, Maria was looking out of the window, Henry and Marcus were checking their papers. EJ was sleeping, head on his desk. Fluffy was smiling, his hand folding on top of his paper. Jasmine looked hard at work. I could see she was really trying hard.

Terrence banged hard on the table, "That's it! I'm going to fail the exam."

"You still have time." Mrs Henderson tried to encourage him.

"Yeah, Terrence." I called from across the classroom, "Never give up!"

The class laughed, just a little. Terrence turned red. I grinned.

"What the hell, Sam." Henry put his pen down and flipped his paper to face down. He was done, "Why are you being weird, as in, weirder than usual?"

"I'm just happy." I said.

"Why?" Marcus popped his head up, "Was the test that easy for you?"

"Nah." I laughed, "But I think I got better."

Cos I did get better. I made lots of friends in high school. My class was nice...well, most of the kids were nice. And my teachers actually seemed to care. I even made friends with human cool girls. I don't think the Grade-3-me would had ever imagined that the high-school-me would be having fun in school every day.