Inciting Investigations

Chapter 2

Birdy Anders

Birdy desperately tried not to physically buzz with excitement as she heard her history teacher, Ms. Saez, go over what they would be doing. They would all get to pick one mythical creature and make a whole report on why it was made, how it affected religion, how it changed over the years, and everything associated with that specific mythical creature.

She couldn’t wait! Her mind only went even more into overdrive when she heard the teacher say that it would be done with other people. Cora, Dora, and her were all discreetly looking at each other out of the corners of their eyes. Promising each other that they would all pick the other. It was something that came guaranteed with having those types of friends.

But then, Ms. Saez said it would be a partner project, not a trio thing. Great, just great. Birdy knew that she was close with Cora and Dora, but Cora and Dora were closer. They both looked slightly apologetic as they shifted their gazes to only each other rather than her as well.

Birdy only felt slightly better when she heard that they wouldn’t get to pick their own partners. Usually, she would hate when she had to go with whoever the teacher chose, but now? She just felt happy that she wouldn’t look like a complete loser without any friends.

The teacher began going down a list of who would be working with who. She hoped that whoever she went with would also want to do mermaids, or at least sirens. She would do others, but those two were just so interesting. They were the only ones she wanted to do.

“Cora Berg-Cruz with Liam Wholferr.” Well, he wasn’t the worst. She would have a good time with him.

“Dora Berg-Cruz with Jake Lund.” Okay, that made her feel bad for Dora. He was the type of kid who skipped class to vape in the bathroom. No way was he doing any work for the project.

The teacher kept going on with names, and she wasn’t sure when she would hear hers. Hopefully, she would get paired with someone nice. Maybe she could even sway them to become a friend of hers. She could never have enough of those, in her opinion, at least.

Yeah, that would be good. Optimism: She may not get to be with her buddies, but she could make a new one-

“Badger Pasternack with Birdy Anders.” Nope, never mind. That idea was going down the drain.

She looked over to the boy sitting a couple of rows over as he slowly raised his hand to give her a little wave. She supposed that he wasn’t the worst possible option that she could’ve gotten stuck with, especially in this class, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.

He had on a dark red hoodie, and he smiled faintly, though he appeared a bit awkward to her. This was not going to be nearly as enjoyable as she had initially thought it would be.

She knew the teacher had stopped talking and that she should go over there to talk with him because all the other kids were getting up and moving closer to their partners. She sighed inwardly and gathered her things from around her desk, purposefully moving as slow as possible to prolong the time before she had to go over there and talk to him. Notebooks, textbooks, pencils, pens, erasers, highlighters, computer, yeah. That was everything.

She mentally prepared herself as she was one of the last kids to get up and briskly walked over to his desk. She wordlessly set her things down on the desk next to his and sat down comfortably. She rearranged some things until she was satisfied with the setup and heard his voice.

“Hey. I guess we’re pretty lucky to get paired up together since we already know each other.” She looked over at him with a cold look that said that she definitely didn’t feel lucky.