Cafeteria Food [Paul]

[Paul Wilkerson]

Paul shrugged his shoulders as he chewed his bite of sandwich. Rory sounded a lot like his mom as the moment. It was pretty difficult to get Rory to see it his way. “Well, yeah, it’s warm where you’re from.” Wait, that didn’t help Paul make his point. Well, that back fired. The teenager was beating himself up. “Oh, never mind.” Paul was giving up.

He drank some apple juice. Peanut butter and apple juice did not make a good combination. That was pretty gross tasting. Paul ate some veggies for wash the taste. “Class do you have after lunch?”

[Rory Lennox]

Rory didn’t think that it was ridiculous for Paul’s parents to not let him wear shorts when it was cold out. She really thought that it made sense. Wasn’t that the point of winter clothes? So you could wear them when it was cold out. “Yeah, and it’s not warm here.” She laughed. Well, at least not yet it wasn’t. Rory was really hoping that it would get there soon. She’d really be bummed if she had to wait until she went home for summer break to get some real sunshine.

However, it seemed like Paul was giving up on his justification of wearing shorts in the winter, since he’d pretty much just proved himself wrong. Maybe that was something that kids who lived in the Northeast did, but Rory didn’t think she’d ever get to that point. She’d probably freeze to death if she went outside in shorts now.

“I do.” Rory nodded, before popping a piece of pineapple in her mouth. “I have French next, in like ten…fifteen minutes.” Whenever lunch was over.

She’d never taken French before this year. Her mom said she had to take one language class online while she was being homeschooled, since it was a requirement for at least two or three years when you got to high school. French seemed like the most interesting topic at the time, but it was a lot harder than she originally thought. She was lucky that Hammel also offered a French class, since she’d have to start over with a new language if they didn’t.

“Do you have class after?”

[Paul Wilkerson]

Paul studied the remaining half of his sandwich. He was pretty sure he was going to surrender to the peanut butter overload. He had finished his juice and veggies. He didn't feel like to scrape off some of the peanut butter.

Paul scrunched up his nose. French. It was his second most hated class. He had no say in what language to sign up for. His mom said he was going to take French, so Paul was taking French. Based off of location it did make sense to learn French instead of Spanish or another language.

"Yeah, American history." History class was okay. It depended on what the topic it was. Some of it was Paul found uninteresting. Other stuff Paul was engrossed.

[Rory Lennox]

Rory had decided that it was easier to take French online than in a normal classroom setting, and she assumed that opinion would extend to all the other languages too. She could move at her own pace and there weren’t a bunch of other people thinking in English that would distract her. She was tempted to try and find out if she could continue her online class next semester instead, but she doubted they would let her if they offered it on campus.

Maybe Maggie could help her if she started to struggle. She was doing fine it in right now - she thought she had at least a 96% in the class - but it was always nice to have a back up plan just in case things weren’t working like she planned them.

She moved her small, now empty, cup of pineapple to the side of her tray and popped open the peach yogurt parfait. Normally, she just ate regular Greek yogurt, but they didn’t have it in the lunch line. They must have been all out today because she’s definitely gotten it before. The parfait that she got still looked good though, and she watched the lunch ladies put them out so she knew that they were fresh.

She wrinkled her nose at the mention of History. It was probably one of her least favorite subjects. She liked it some of the time, but most of the time it was soooo boring. “History isn’t very fun.” Rory said, before eating a spoonful of her yogurt. She would definitely rather be in French class. “I like English and Science more.” English more so than Science, but she liked them bother a lot better than Math.

[Paul Wilkerson]

What in the world was wrong with Rory? Who in their right mind would like science? Paul strongly disagreed with her. The teenage boy hated science class with a fiery passion. His science grade the worst grade he had. It was pretty sad. "You like science. We can't be friends." Paul said in a joking tone.

Suddenly the idea train ran him over.

"No wait! You could help me." Only if Rory wanted to help the hopeless case. Paul had other student tutors before. They didn't last long. Paul didn't make their job an easy task. "Only if you want." Paul didn't want Rory to think he was trying to pressure her.

[Rory Lennox]

Rory did like Science. It wasn’t her favorite subject, but she thought it was interesting. Especially Biology. Chemistry seemed like it was very complicated, and Physics looked too much like Math, but luckily she didn’t have to take those. Yet. But she would cross that bridge when she got there, and she supposed they wouldn’t be too bad. Hopefully.

“I like Biology. It’s fun.” Okay, she wasn’t too keen on dissecting the animals. It was really interesting, and cool that they got to do stuff like that, but Rory was just a little bit squeamish when it came to looking at cut open animals…or cut open anything. Luckily, that’s what she had a lab partner for. Rory took all the notes and gave the directions, while her partner did all the dirty work.

“You want me to tutor you?” She’d never tutored anyone before, at least not in Science. She used to help some of the younger dancers with their homework at the studio every now and then, but it was only with just a couple of questions, not a whole subject. But she was always complaining that she had too much time on her hands now, so maybe helping Paul with Science could eat some of that up. “Sure, I’ll help you.” She said, after swallowing a mouthful of her yogurt and setting the empty plastic cup aside.

She glanced down at her watch. The bell was going to ring soon so she should probably head out. She liked to be early to class and she hated the crowded hallways so she tried to beat them as best she could. “I have to go to French now, but…” She pulled a pen and her notebook out of her backpack, quickly writing down her phone number on a piece of paper. “Just text when she need help.” She ripped out the sheet and handed it to Paul with a smile, before packing up her things and picking up her empty tray.

“Bye, Paul!” She said, dropping her tray in the nearby trash can and heading out into the hallway.

-out-

[Paul Wilkerson]

Paul's face lit up. "Really?" He didn't know how long Rory would stay his tutor. Paul looked up at the clock when the Rory started to get up. He should be getting to class too. "Bye, Rory."