The bad girl and the dork

Killed us with a spoon

Chemistry sucks.

The teacher gave us some excercises to do in class because apparently he was being too lazy to actually teach us something.

I was helping Tom with his since I'd finished mine early.

After tutoring him, Tom always sat next to me in class. I didn't mind though and that way he could ask me if he didn't get the material. Which was often since our teacher wasn't motivated.

"Okay I'm gonna hand it in." He said, gathering his courage for a reason I didn't quite understand.

"Dude, have some faith. You know I'm a miracle worker." I grinned. Tom rolled his eyes. I guess he had gotten used to me because a month ago he wouldn't even speak my name without almost pissing himself.

He went to the teacher but instead of going back to his seat he stayed and chatted. I was playing Tetris on my phone and having an internal debate whether I should buy a Tamagotchi. I had one when I was a kid and absolutely loved it.

"Jill, Mr. Smith wants to speak to you." Tom said when he came back.

Great. I didn't even remember what I had done. I sighed and walked over there.

Slowly.

"Yes?" I said when I approached his desk.

"You're not in trouble." He said. How gross would it be if he was reading my mind?

"Alright then." I shrugged.

"Tom's grades have gone up remarkably." He said. I had the feeling there was more to this conversation and I wished he'd just get to the point.

"Yeah, he worked hard." He had. The amount of hours he'd put into it was depressing.

"He told me your tutoring helped him a lot. You were patient and tried different approaches to make sure he got it." I wanted to say 'unlike you' but decided against it. I mean, I guess he was praising me indirectly.

"Anyway, as you know this school has a tutoring program." He continued. I actually didn't know that. "The seniors offer to tutor the lower grades if their grades are high enough."

I didn't like where this was going.

"Okay?" I replied.

"Jill, you'd be a perfect addition to the program. You can even tutor seniors, you've already proven you could do it." He wanted me to tutor a bunch of kids? He obviously didn't know how long it took for Tom to stop being scared of me.

The teacher noticed I was hesitant.

"It'll look good when you're applying for colleges." He said as if that would suddenly convince me.

"I'll think about it." It didn't seem appealing. I didn't get money and it's not like I enjoyed tutoring so I was wondering what was in it for me.

"That's all I'm asking. You know where to find me." I nodded and went back to my seat.

"What'd he want?" Tom asked. He was talking because we were allowed to talk when we'd finished our work. Otherwise he wouldn't have had the guts.

"He wants me to join the tutoring program. Apparently this school has one." I shrugged.

"You didn't know? We're allowed to tutor the lower grades and the teachers tutor the seniors. The system works really well."

Then why was I asked to tutor Tom if the tutor program was so great?

"Nope. Smitty said I could tutor seniors too." I pointed my thumb towards the teacher.

"Really? Cool." He seemed genuinly excited about this. Weird kid.