A School Story, Part 3

An hour later, we were released into the crowded hallway to fight our way to the next class, math. Shoving our way to the lockers, I pushed my many unused language arts papers into my locker and pulled out my unnecessary math books. Some of the stronger students kept all their books at once (you could see them trudging down the hallways, bent double under the weight of schoolwork). Most of them gave up after a day or two, but the more determined ones held up for weeks at a time. The record was three months, I think, held by some amateur weightlifter or something. I don't really know why they thought it was worth it. Well, it is amusing to watch the double takes of new students, but usually you're too hunched over from the weight of the books to see someone's face.

Anyway, off to math class, where we would learn to twist strange numbers into even weirder ones. Of course, that's only what we were supposed to be doing. Most of the class played games on their cell phones and the rest of us practiced math vital to our future careers (i, e, drawing pictures on our calculators). The teacher, Mr. Wesler, spent the class droning on about completely irrelevant 'interesting' math facts. At least I assume that's what he was doing, between ducks under his desk for some probably illegal substance kept there. It was a well known fact that something (I suspected a large bottle of Mountain Dew... Strangely enough, this was against the rules in my school...) was kept in there, and a few of the more delinquent teenagers tried to break into it a few times a week, only to be baffled by the huge combination lock on the front of the drawers. It wasn't actually locking the drawer, but how would they know that? All that most of them noticed was that it was big, shiny and serious-looking, and they left it at that.

After math class, we had lunch. I call it 'lunch' for lack of a better word, as it was at 10:15 am. Lunch- It isn't just at noon anymore! I won't even get started on the 'food.' If I start ranting about that, I'll never stop.

Anyway, lunch was mostly uneventful, but now it was time for History. I liked this class more than most of the others, because I could just stare off into space or read one of the books I had stashed in my pack. The teacher wouldn't notice, as he was too busy reading while we wrote down everything he said. I didn't miss the notes, anyway, because I brought a small tape recorder on the off-chance that he actually said anything that could be on a test. Most of the time it was just what his history classes were like when he was a kid, but every once in a while something important slipped through, despite his best efforts to get rid of all relevant facts. Of course, as he had apparently missed retirement, some of it was history. He had taught some of our parents (Some of their parents too, probably...), and I was almost convinced he was a zombie.