I DON'T HAVE A BOYFRIEND, I HAVE ANEMIA

The cool girls and Jasmine were as usual at my desk before homeroom period copying my homework and making chit chat.

From what I was hearing, I hadn't missed much yesterday. In fact Krystal had declared that school had been a waste of time yesterday. They had a fire drill, and two bumbling idiots from the other class had gotten themselves lost. Everyone had to wait for them out in the cold. The school fire drill record time was not only unbroken... The school failed the fire safety check and a new fire drill would have to be rescheduled.

"If I had known we would be spending all morning waiting outside in the cold, I would have stayed home too." Zara told me.

"I don't see why they had to make such a big deal over a fire drill." Krystal grumbled.

"Yeah. It's not like the school would actually have a real fire." Zara said.

"What makes you say that?" I asked.

"This school has been standing here for more than a hundred years, and it had never caught fire before." Zara's explanation was completely riddled with fallacy of course, but she sounded so confident. The other girls all nodded at it too.

I decided not to start a discourse on how the concept of probability worked or lecture on the dangers of complacency. I'm with the wrong crowd.

Wait, did I want to be in the group who wants to make lengthy arguments in the favor of understanding statistical probabilities, risk management, or continuous improvement? I guess I was in just the right crowd after all.

Mrs Henderson came in at homeroom. We must have the most passionate homeroom teacher in the school. Today, she wanted us to reflect on our first three weeks of Highschool. Mrs Henderson had been attending counselor courses on Saturdays, and had been inspired by what she learned to help her students.

In other words, I believe we were now her guinea pigs.

So last night Mrs Henderson was reading her coursework on motivation and she would like to try a motivational exercise with us.

Okay... I'm sure it was harmless to try.

"And since we are finishing our third week of school, I thought it's a good idea to think about what we have done right so far, or what we could do better." Mrs Henderson explained.

She drew a line dividing the board in half, on one side she wrote "KEEP IT UP" on the other side she wrote "LET'S TRY HARDER".

Then she turned to us expectantly, as if she thought we would have the answers.

Oh. Wait. She was expecting us to have the answers.

"Now, remember class, there is no such thing as a stupid question or a wrong answer." Mrs Henderson tried to encourage us with lies.

I looked down on my desk, avoiding any form of eye contact. Like hell I was going to share my shortcomings with the entire class.

"Anyone would like to share something you've achieved this month?"

I briefly considered it. If I said something here, I probably won't have to say anything later. There certainly wasn't enough time for everyone to share right?

"Well, then maybe we'll all take turns. Starting with..." Mrs Henderson looked at one of the random girls in the front row on her left.

The random girl raised her hand and spoke, "Teacher, it's not fair that you always start from the front."

"That's true." Mrs Henderson conceded. She was one of the most reasonable teachers I knew. She looked at her student seating cheat sheet, "Maria." She read out, "Why don't you go first."

Oh man, that made it my turn next didn't it?

Maria stood up expressionlessly, "I made friends with... those different from me."

"That's very good Maria." Mrs Henderson approved, "Now is there anything we can do better?"

"Not be so creepy?" Troy was annoyingly helpful.

"No Troy, this is Maria's turn to share." Mrs Henderson said firmly.

Maria didn't need extra time to think about it, "I haven't become Dionysius' girlfriend yet."

The whole class whooped dramatically at that.

"Who is--" Mrs Henderson frowned, but remembered she was supposed to be supportive, "Yes, well, good luck Maria. But don't forget to keep up your good work in your studies."

Some of the other girls were asking each other who Dino was. Troy declared loudly, "Whoever he is, he won't want that creepy girl." Grrr... Wait, why did I take offense? None of my business. It was probably just Troy's annoying voice.

"Alright Samantha, what about you?" Mrs Henderson asked.

I stood up, I did a lot this month, I shifted, forced Dean to shift, fought rogues, killed vampires, discovered cool powers, collected 3 Betas and 3 Gammas, defeated Gamma Endo... But I was standing here and I didn't have time to flashback in montage because everyone was waiting for my answer, which I couldn't say out loud anyway. And now that Maria had talked about making friends, I didn't want to repeat the same thing either.

"I survived." I said with a straight face.

Mrs Henderson paused, and then thought better than to question me. She wrote the word "survived" under Maria's "made friends".

"What about something you'd like to do better?" Mrs Henderson asked.

I'm racking my brains trying to think of something generically acceptable. To be honest, I think I was doing everything pretty well given the circumstances.

"Maybe Sam wants to get a boyfriend too." Terrence tried to help.

I what?

"She already has a boyfriend, stupid!" Zara immediately argued back.

"Yeah, didn't you see him? He came to school the other day." Krystal added.

I heard Maria's tinkling laughter next to me. This was so NOT an LOL moment!

"What? How? When?" Terrence asked. He looked somewhat shocked.

"You're too late Terrence." Pearl laughed, "Sam has a whole queue of guys waiting for her. You'd have to get to the back of the line."

Mrs Henderson was looking at me in a new light. No! Mrs Hen, don't believe them!

"Maybe she needs to have fewer boyfriends." Henry suggested, grinning evilly. Mrs Henderson actually looked at the board where she was supposed to write my point down.

"I don't have a boyfriend." I crossed my arms sulking, and just to get over with the stupid motivational exercise, I just said what I've been saying for most of my life, "I want to be a stronger fighter."

There was silence.

"Are you in the Karate Club, Samantha?" Mrs Henderson asked. She looked terribly confused.

"No." I answered.

"She means she wants to keep fighting and never give up!" Jasmine quickly came to my rescue.

I nodded quickly, "Yes. That."

Marcus make a choking laughing sound. Henry was chuckling. I don't know if you ever watched really old reruns of The Muppet Show, where two old geezers sat up in the audience making totally unwarranted remarks and cackling at the rest of the Muppets' expense. Henry and Marcus would grow up to be those two old Muppets.

"Oh of course, Samantha." Mrs Henderson said, "Yes, with your health issues, I'm glad you are fighting to be strong. Don't worry, Samantha, I completely understand your condition. In fact we can all learn from Samantha's perseverance against her anemia."

"What's anemia?" Terrence asked.

"There are different types, but I understand Samantha's anemia is inhereditary and long term. I did want to talk to all of you about it sometime, but I might as well say it now. As a class, we should look out for one another. If she misses class or is unwell, please let one of the teachers know. We had all been briefed and will know what to do."

I have what now?

"Wow, that sounds serious." Terrence said.

Yeah. I had no idea I was suffering so much. I sat down. Dad would have some explaining to do when I got home.

"Now, who is next?"

The motivational exercise went around the class and by the end of it we collected a board full of random achievements and shortcomings.

"Now, for homework, I want all of you to write a letter to congratulate yourself on what you did well so far and what you will do to improve yourself next month." Mrs Henderson announced at the bell.

What kind of homeroom lesson had homework? I wrote it down in my notebook. Actually, maybe I could keep my homework to do list on my phone too. Some other time though. I'll have to set up a separate list or something. Or Harvey and Killion might end up doing my homework for me... Actually, that was a thought worth considering. Hahaha

Anyway, in case you were wondering, this was the letter I wrote:

Dear Sam,

A very hearty congratulations on surviving your first three weeks of Highschool and life in general.

Next month, let's try harder at everything I need to do.

That's all.

Yours sincerely, Sam.

P.S. Mrs Hen, I do not have a boyfriend.

Should I have written the P.S line? Maybe I should cross it out? What do you think?