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Entry 11 -- Suffering with Slackers and Running the Gauntlet
I did not get to be in the first group to go to the board. Neither did little Atalay from Honors English. Joshua and Lenny both got to go and acquitted themselves honorably. Koli from Myrtle Hollow also did an excellent job. She's not just La Reine de la classe Franciase.

The problem was Tai didn't go to the board. He is a shy kid. He spends too much time dying his hair weird colors, and I can say that because I grew my hair out starting in sixth grade. Aunt Aliza was fine with it as long as I keep it clean and neat. She even showed me how to make a towel turban to dry it and bought me barettes and scrunchies to keep it out of my face.

Yeah, Tai could at least try. I used to be scaird of going to the board. I still am but my name would be shit if I didn't go. I'm not going to let Lenny beat me even though he often can or Joshua Goldfarb. Everyone thinks Josh is the smartest kid because his parents are rich and his dad is a surgeon at the local hospital. Joshua is smart. Please don't get me wrong, but he's not the smartest every day in every way in every subject. Each trip to the board and each class is a new thing. Each time I've got a chance.

Then finally it was time for the second group of kids to hit the board and answer problems. We're not on proofs yet, and that is when I see we've got holes. Four or five kids are refusing to go. They are mostly girls. They are shy quiet girls, not power houses like the little runt from Honors English or Queen Koli from Myrtle Hollow. I do the math, if you'll pardon the pun. One quarter of the class is doing nothing.

This is bad. If you've forgotten why it's bad, let me refresh your memory. Slackers are angry and resentful if you put them to work. They may whine. They may try to derail the class and that sucks for those of us who want to learn.

If the teacher does nothing about the slackers though it just serves injustice. We see the slackers there probably earning half way decent grades while we risk failure and work hard and go up to the board in the case of geometry.

You can see why slackers suck and worse yet, it looked as if our geometry teacher was going to tolerate them. That's when the secretary from the principal's office arrived and handed me the message from my mother. Apparently, someone had objected to the fact that I take Stasch to school on my bike's handlebars. Stasch's bike has a wobbly seat and is probably a lot less safe than my handlebars, but grownups don't always think straight.

Mom was coming to get Stasch, and I had to fix Stasch' bike. Well, that was great. I had real homework to do. I wanted to spend time looking at a real economics book and besides I was supposed to go find Ms. Garcia and talk to her after school.

I explained my situation to Josh as we walked to the cafeteria. I was going to double back and hit the library and hope and pray I did not encounter any teacher's aide who'd send me back because I didn't have a pass. Like you know what, the economics teacher would right me a pass after my performance with Atalaya this morning.

"I'll talk to Ms. Garcia," he answered. "Hey," he added. "What would you think if we founded a French Honor Society. My mom said she was in one in high school. I would look real good on our transcripts for college."

"If you mean a French club," I said; for I could not see who would be giving us honors (We were lucky to have French 2 in the computer room.) "I'm all for it."

"Great," answered Joshua who clearly had ideas of his own. Meanwhile, I needed to find an economics textbook wtih real algebra in it.

categories: Bikes, Kites, and All Good Stuff