CHAPTER 18
“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.” Maya Angelou
Elizabeth woke up early on Monday morning, excited for school. After getting ready, she put a frozen waffle in the toaster and ran back up to her room to find her quote book. She flipped through the first twenty pages of scribbled quotes until she found one that was perfect for the day. She scribbled it on a piece of paper, shoved it in the front pocket of her backpack, grabbed her waffle and was out the door.
The halls were virtually empty when she arrived to Charlotte Academy earlier than usual. She took out the quote and slipped it into the side of Jack’s locker. After it disappeared from her sight, she wondered if he would even find it. Jack’s locker wasn’t the neatest of all the lockers in the hallway. Elizabeth pulled out everything she needed for her morning classes and headed to the library computer to research more quotes.
She was scrolling through a page on motivating quotes when her eyes were covered with small, cold hands. “Guess who, Betch?”
“Umm…let me see, anyone besides Kate?” she answered sarcastically.
“Very funny,” she said sitting at the computer next to Elizabeth. “What are you doing?”
“I’m looking up quotes.”
“You are such a nerd. How did we even become friends again?”
Elizabeth laughed. “Remember the first day of kindergarten when the teacher told Kyle the creeper to throw his gum out and he stuck it in your hair?”
“That kid was a jerk,” frowned Kate. “I wonder what ever happened to Kyle? He probably flunked out or something.”
“I was the friend that sat with you in the bathroom while you cried until your mom came to pick you up.”
“Hey, that was traumatic,” Kate reminded Elizabeth. “They had to cut off all my hair and I insisted on wearing dresses because I looked like a boy.”
“You never looked like a boy,” giggled Elizabeth.
“On to more important things. Nick Strauss called me last night.”
Elizabeth smiled. “And?”
“And, did you give him my number because I didn’t.”
“I swear I did not give him your number, Betch,” laughed Elizabeth. “So, what did he say?”
“He asked if I wanted to go get dinner with you and Jack some night this week,” she sighed. “So, I figured if he was bringing you up, then you and your new best friend were probably behind this terrible idea.”
“What’s so terrible about it? And, maybe I knew that he liked you. Jack mentioned something about the four of us going out sometime if Bob didn’t care.”
“Geez, you’re already making decisions based on Bob?”
“No,” defended Elizabeth. “I can do whatever I want.
“Well, why do we have to do a pseudo double date? Why didn’t he just ask me out?”
“My bad,” said Elizabeth. “When Jack told me Nick liked you I might have sort of said that you made some comments about Nick being an A-lister.”
“Oh crap! Why in the world would you repeat that to Jack?”
Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders. “You’re right, that was stupid. I’ll fix it.”
Kate looked at the computer monitor Elizabeth was sitting in front of. “For years we’ve been saying we don’t belong in their world. All of a sudden, you start talking to Jack Bennett and everything changes. You spend time every night studying together. You have the most random conversations around the outside of your houses. You even spent an entire night with him. In a matter of weeks you have completely changed your opinion about him.”
“Come on Kate, it’s not like that. It’s just when did we become the type of people that couldn’t talk to other people based on their reputations?”
“Nick didn’t even know we went to the same school. Now you’re dating Bob Olsen. You’ve done a complete one-eighty on me. Look, I’m not complaining about it. I trust you. If you trust Jack and you really believe Jack is a good guy then I’ll give Nick a chance because he’s Jack’s friend. I promise, all stereotypes aside.”
“Thank you,” said Elizabeth. “Not that I care what your decision is but I think that Nick might have something good to offer. Between you and me, I think Bob’s kind of a dud. He’s made no effort to really get to know me but he has all these crazy presumptions about us.”
“He kind of seems like a tool,” Kate said.
Elizabeth nodded. She parted ways with Kate and headed to the other side of school where her Calculus class was located. Jack ran in the classroom just as the bell rang behind him.
“Mr. Bennett, why don’t you leave your house three minutes earlier so you can be ready when class starts?”
“Traffic,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’ll be better.” Elizabeth smiled at Jack. “I had to stay up to see the whole Sunday Night Football game and then I had to finish my Government paper that I forgot about,” he whispered to her.
“Hooke's law states that the force required to stretch a spring is directly proportional to the amount stretched or . F = Force. s = distance stretched. k = spring stiffness constant or the Force required to stretch spring a unit distance. Graph this function for k=1000 N/m. Calculate the change in force required to stretch the spring from 1m to 4 m.”
Jack threw a folded up piece of paper on Elizabeth’s desk. She opened it up. It was the quote she had put in his locker earlier that morning. “It is what we make of whatever we encounter that determines the outcome. What we choose to see, what we choose to save. And what we choose to remember. - Linda Olsson”
“Hey,” he whispered, “that’s a good quote. I’m keeping it.” Elizabeth folded it back up and tossed it back on his desk.
“What is the change in force, Elizabeth?” Ms. Petrova looked annoyed. “Are you both going to pay attention? Give me the note,” she demanded. Jack handed it to her and looked down at his desk. “This, this is what is distracting you two? It’s a good quote. I thought for a second the whole class was going to learn you were writing love notes.” The class erupted in laughter. “Come up here Jack and write your quote on the board for the entire class to see.”
Jack slowly got out of his seat and walked to the whiteboard. He picked up a marker and turned to Ms. Petrova. “Are you serious?”
“Very,” she said sternly handing him the paper. “Write.” Jack wrote the quote on the whiteboard. “Good. Sit down. Elizabeth, who is Linda Olsson?” Elizabeth turned bright red. “Did you write this quote?”
“Yes,” she answered nervously.
“But, you don’t know anything about the woman you’re quoting?” She shook her head slowly. “Linda Olsson was born in Stockholm, She has lived around the world but made her permanent home with her husband in Auckland, New Zealand. She earned a bachelor of arts in English and German. In addition to her first novel, Olsson has written short stories and travel pieces. She said this about her first book: ‘In a sense perhaps the book is a love letter to the country where I was born. Perhaps it is a letter of farewell. But, more importantly, I think it is a book about friendship’. Tomorrow, you will bring the class a quote and tell us something about the person who wrote it.”
“Could that have been any more embarrassing?” Elizabeth asked as she walked with Jack to their composition class. “I mean she totally ruined that quote. It’s not like I didn’t know who said it. I just didn’t know her entire life story.”
“She definitely ruined that quote,” agreed Jack. “I’ll take care of tomorrow. She’ll end this stupid punishment when I’m done with my quote.”
“What are you going to do?”
“You’ll see, tomorrow,” he promised.
Jack Bennett confidently arrived to Calculus class ten minutes before the bell rang. Elizabe
th looked at him. “Are you on drugs?”
“Not today,” he laughed unrolling a poster.
“You’re making me nervous,” she admitted. “Are you going to get us in trouble?”
“No, she didn’t specify who the quote could be by. She didn’t say an author or a politician. She just said to bring the class a quote. Just write this on the board.”
After the class filed in and the bell rang, Ms. Petrova asked Jack and Elizabeth to come to the front of the room for their presentation. Elizabeth could barely contain her laughter as she wrote the words, “You Gotta Believe by Young Jeezy” on the whiteboard while Jack taped a poster of Young Jeezy next to the quote.
Jack smiled and started his speech, “Jay Wayne Jenkins was born on October 12, 1977. He is better known by his stage name Young Jeezy,” beamed Jack. The students began clapping for the popular classmate. “On March 11, 2005, Jeezy was arrested after an alleged shooting involving some of his friends in Miami Beach, Florida. He was charged with two counts of carrying a concealed firearm without a permit; however, prosecutors dropped his charges two months later over lack of evidence. In the early hours of September 29, 2007, Jeezy totaled his Lamborghini when it was hit by a taxi outside of a restaurant in Atlanta. In Atlanta on June 18, 2008, police arrested him for a DUI.”
“Alright, you two,” said Ms. Petrova. “I appreciate your amazing effort on this project. I can see you took it so seriously. No more passing notes, quotes, anything in my class. We are here to learn Calculus so all my bright students can have stunning futures.”
In the hallway after class, Jack had become an instant hero. People were thanking him, congratulating him and shaking his hand on a job well done. Elizabeth was shocked at how quickly word had gotten out about Jack’s presentation on Young Jeezy. He was like a magnet that people couldn’t get enough of. She wondered if that was a perk of being part of the A-list or if it was a perk of being Jack Bennett.
The Anything Friend Page 20