Time's Up (5 page)

K
atani pushed through the usual morning chaos of the AAJH hallways to get to her locker. Mondays were always the worst, but with all that was going on, Katani felt like today might possibly go down in history as one of her worst Mondays ever. She straightened the photo of the BSG on her locker door that Mrs. Madden had taken at Avery's soccer game last fall. After the game, all the girls had posed lying on the grass with their heads forming a circle, smiling as they squinted into the sun. Katani sighed. She wished she were lying on the grass with the BSG right now.

Oops, Yurt alert!
President Yurt strutted down the hall, high-fiving everyone he passed. He probably considered it part of his job as class president, Katani thought with a hint of frustration. Sometimes Henry Yurt was a bit much to take. Especially when people had a lot to do! She turned back to her locker so she wouldn't have to say hi to him.

“Extra-awesome shirt, dude.” From the corner of her eye Katani watched Dillon high-five the Yurt, who was wearing his oversize Manny Ramirez jersey backward. Anything to
do with the Boston Red Sox was considered super cool at AAJH.

“Thought I'd do a test-run for ‘Backwards Day,'” Yurt replied. “You know, to keep up AA school spirit.”

A paper airplane went whizzing over Katani's head. Dillon jumped up and grabbed it. “Hey, Trentini,” he yelled as he opened the piece of paper. “Isn't this your math homework?”

Down the hall, Betsy Fitzgerald, class know-it-all and one of Abigail Adams's best students, was distributing neon yellow flyers. Katani wondered what super-achiever Betsy was up to. Probably trying to persuade students they needed longer school hours or more homework or something. Katani had shut her locker and already started toward homeroom when Betsy intercepted her to hand her a flyer.

“Of course, you don't need my services, Katani, but you may know someone who does, so I'll give you a business card too.”

In bold letters, the flyer read,
Super Test and Term Paper Prep with Bets: B or Better or Your Money Back.

“You started your own tutoring business?”

Betsy nodded. “I'm submitting a business plan to this contest I saw in
T-Biz!
You know, that teen business magazine.”

Katani hoped she didn't look as sick as she suddenly felt. She was sure her mouth was hanging open and her cheeks were burning. She felt like an idiot. Why had she assumed she would be the only one entering the contest? How many others from Abigail Adams alone would be submitting business plans? She suddenly felt like she was on a Tilt-A-Whirl.

“Here you go,” Betsy said cheerfully. She handed a flyer to an eighth grader walking by. “Super Test and Term Paper
Prep with Bets: B or Better or Your Money Back. Contact: Betsy Fitzgerald, Honor Student.”

Katani held up Betsy's business card. In blue ink on smooth, creamy cardstock, it read, “Betsy Fitzgerald, Master Tutoring” with her contact information. Her presentation was so neat and smart, Katani guessed they had to have been professionally designed. In the center of the card was a logo of a stack of books. Of course anyone with a business should have business cards. Katani felt like crying.

“There's this community service part of the contest,” Betsy blabbed on, “so I thought I'd charge on a sliding scale. So those who can't afford my services can still take advantage
of them. I mean, even people who don't have much money should pay a little. That way it won't feel like I'm just doing them a favor, you know, and they won't feel like they can't ask a question. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah, sure,” she mumbled. Betsy was so nice, you didn't want to hate her, but she could be so incredibly annoying. Katani saw Maeve standing next to Dillon, both of them reading Betsy's flyer. Mumbling a quick “see you” to Betsy, Katani ran to catch up to Avery and Charlotte as they headed toward homeroom.

“Did you guys see Betsy's flyer?” Katani whispered.

Charlotte nodded. “
So
Betsy.”

“Tutoring schmutoring,” Avery said. “Who has time?”

“Did you see how she packaged everything up so perfectly? She's applying for my contest too,” Katani blurted.

Charlotte shrugged. “You know Betsy. It's all to get into Harvard.”

“Knowing her, she probably already sent in her contest application,” Avery snorted.

“Please don't say that.” Katani's heart was racing now. She remembered her horoscope for this week, which she'd checked before she left this morning.

Just keep the Kgirl ball rolling
, Katani told herself.

A Stellar Team

Later that morning, a distracted Katani sat in math class two desks down from Betsy. She thought of all the things on her list she had to do and felt like putting her head down on the desk.

The night before, her mother had come into her room to say good night, something she always did, no matter how busy she was with her legal briefs. “Get some sleep, sweetheart,” she said softly. Mrs. Summers had leaned over Katani's journals and papers spread across the bed to kiss her. “You know what I tell myself on my busiest days? Something Abraham Lincoln said: ‘The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time.'”
One day at a time
.

Katani suddenly zoned back into math class. She realized she hadn't been paying attention to Mr. Sherman, aka “the Crow.” He normally taught the pre-algebra math class, but Katani's math teacher had invited him to speak to the algebra class today, probably because he was the biggest math geek of all the teachers. “Next week, your math projects will be due,” the Crow intoned in his obnoxiously deep voice.

Uh-oh,
Katani thought as her heart started pounding. What math project?! How had she missed this?

Mr. Sherman went on, “As advanced math students, everyone in this class is required to do a special research project, which I supervise every year. The project should be five pages and could include graphics, exercises, games—however you want to present your material.”

Katani glanced at Charlotte, the only other BSG in her math class, who also looked panicked.

“Be creative and have fun. Remember, math is the universal language,” Mr. Sherman continued. “Next week, you'll present and teach your projects to the class. As you can see on the board, you have been assigned a partner to work with.”

Katani saw her name beside Reggie DeWitt's, the math genius of Abigail Adams.
Wow
, she thought. I totally lucked out. But as exciting as working on this project with Reggie seemed, Katani didn't know how she could add it to everything she had to get done. Her head was spinning. Suddenly Mr. Sherman
did
look like a crow, just like Maeve insisted.

Maeve, who had to deal with the Crow every day during pre-algebra class, could do the most hilarious imitation of him, pacing back and forth with a menacing face. She'd flap her arms and say in a deep voice, “And now I'm going to swoop down on Maeve Taylor-Kaplan because she doesn't seem to understand that math is the most beautiful thing in the world. So I'll continue to say her name wrong and give math tests she'll flunk because she just doesn't G-E-T it.” Then Maeve would start flapping her arms and fly around the room until they were all laughing hysterically.

When the Crow had the class break up to meet with their project partners, Katani saw Charlotte had been paired with Betsy! Of course Charlotte hadn't planned it, but Katani couldn't help resent the fact that they were already laughing about something. Charlotte was having too good a time with Katani's competition.

Reggie pulled a chair up to Katani's desk. She hadn't realized how green his eyes were, or that he had light freckles sprinkled over his nose. Reggie was cute up close, not like
the intimidating genius he had always seemed like from far away.

“Hi, Katani. This is going to be totally cool. We're going to make a stellar team.” His slender fingers tapped her desk. “Want to meet at lunch today to talk about the project?”

Maybe this would be okay. She'd just do the best she could. That was all she could do, Katani told herself.

“Sure, that sounds good,” she told Reggie as the bell rang.

The Sound of Silence

Whenever Ms. Rodriguez waited for silence in the classroom like this, she meant serious business. Practically everyone in seventh grade at Abigail Adams loved Ms. R, but although she was young and friendly she also demanded that her students always do their absolute best on schoolwork. Everyone stopped talking, except for Joline, whose voice was suddenly loud as she exclaimed, “I'm totally sure he doesn't like
her
!” There was a smattering of laughter as Joline sat back, covering her mouth with her hand. The laughter was followed by a collective groan as Ms. R wrote “Book Reports” on the chalkboard.

Isabel frowned. She liked reading okay, but book reports were not her thing. She could never think of enough things to write about. When Isabel wrote, she struggled with each word. Her ideas came to her as images and pictures—not sentences. The world was so much simpler in pictures, she thought as she doodled on her notebook.

“The book reports should be on your favorite book and author. They should be five to six pages—”

There was another class groan.

Ms. R went on, “And they'll be due next Friday.”

“Next Friday?” Dillon sounded incredulous. “Ms. R, you can't be serious. Are you trying to kill us?”

“Is it April Fool's Day or something?” Yurt asked.

“I'm not trying to kill you, and yes, I'm serious.”

“Why don't you give us more time?” Anna whined. “Some of us have math projects due too!”

Isabel saw most of the kids in the class were slumped in their seats, including Maeve and Avery. Isabel sent Maeve, who looked like she was going to be sick, a sympathetic smile. Charlotte, queen of book reports, was already jotting notes. She looked like she couldn't wait to get started.

“Is everyone forgetting I told you a month ago that this project was coming up?” Ms. R said. “Having a tight deadline is a good lesson on planning your time carefully. Those of you who work on
The Sentinel
understand the nature of tight deadlines and how important they are.”

“What about those of us who don't work on
The Sentinel
and don't understand the nature of tight deadlines?” Billy Trentini asked.

A few boys in the back guffawed.

“Let me finish. Learning to meet deadlines, short- or long-term, is a life skill we all need to practice,” Ms. R said. “Now, are there questions?”

Riley, frontman for his own band called Mustard Monkey, raised his hand. “Can I do mine on
Mystery Train
, the greatest book on rock-'n'-roll ever written?”

“I'm glad you asked, Riley. Everyone must clear his or her book with me in the next few days. I'll give you time in class to brainstorm and plan your papers. By Thursday I'll expect you to have an outline and a short biography of your author. And see me after class about your idea, Riley.”

Isabel zoned out as Ms. R went on about the specifics of
when everything was due. She really didn't have a favorite book. What could she write about?

Betsy's hand shot up.

“Yes, Betsy.”

“I just wanted to let anyone who hasn't gotten one of my flyers know that I'm available for tutoring on a sliding scale. But I'm booking up fast and of course I need time to write my own paper.”

Isabel could sense most of the class rolling their eyes. Katani, though, was staring with real intensity at Betsy.

“All right,” Ms. R said, looking at Betsy with a bemused smile. “Now does anyone have a question specifically about the papers?”

The room was completely quiet.

A
lone at the BSG lunch table, Charlotte was staring down at the clumps of macaroni and cheese on her tray when Isabel, Maeve, and Avery dropped their lunches on the table and plopped down beside her. “This doesn't taste as yummy as it usually does,” Charlotte complained to her friends.

“I think it's the English paper. My lunch doesn't taste very good either.” Isabel set her fork down on top of her tuna salad.

“Let's not talk about the English paper right now or I'll lose my appetite too,” Maeve said. She held up her peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wheat bread. “My mom's on this I-can-do-everything-as-a-single-mom kick—make breakfast, lunch, and dinner for everyone, do all the shopping and cleaning,
and
work all day. It's, like, Mom, chill out already!”

“Want to trade?” Charlotte asked.

“Sure, if it includes your Jell-O.”

Charlotte wiggled her cherry Jell-O side to side as she spoke to it. “It's so hard to let you go, delicious fake whipped
cream and mouthwatering red goo blob, but I really love peanut butter. So…it's a deal.”

Avery stopped chomping on her tomato-bacon-spinach wrap to say, “I can't believe Ms. R is giving us no time to write our papers. How could she do that to us, especially this week?”

“She did warn us a while ago that this paper was coming up,” Charlotte reminded her.

“Char, no one listens to warnings except nerds. Present company excluded, of course,” Avery said, making a funny face.

“The thing is,” Isabel said, “even if Ms. R did warn us a month ago, she didn't give us any specifics so we could start the actual writing. It takes me
forever
to write anything. I wish I could do an art project instead.”

“Well, actually, she did tell us to look on her Web page,” Charlotte explained.

“Only you and Betsy remember that stuff, Char,” Avery blurted. “Besides, I have no clue what I'm going to write about. I hate trying to figure out all the symbolism and meaning of things. Why can't authors just say what they mean already?”

“Didn't you just read a Martin Luther King biography that you said was great?” Charlotte asked her. “Why don't you write about civil rights issues and bravery and character?”

“Char, you are brilliant!” Avery stretched over the lunch table to give Charlotte a high five. “My stress level just went down about a hundred points.” That was Avery, Charlotte sighed. You couldn't stay annoyed at her for long.

“I wish mine did,” Maeve said glumly.

“Ditto,” Isabel added.

“My mom knows all about Martin Luther King because her mother actually went on a march with him,” Avery informed them as she crunched on a carrot stick.

“That's amazing,” Charlotte said. “You'll have tons to write about. Maybe you can interview your grandmother?”

Avery nodded. She hadn't spoken to her Nana in a long time. This could be fun.

“Five to six pages is practically a novel,” Maeve moaned. She pushed the macaroni and cheese around on her plate. “Besides, my favorite story of all time is
Romeo and Juliet
—the movie version, of course, with my big-time crush. Leonardo, in case you were wondering. Back in the day when he was young. Think the movie version will count?”

“It might,” Charlotte answered. “Ask Ms. R. She wants us to choose something we really love.”

“She probably doesn't want to read a bunch of boring reports,” Avery pointed out in between bites of an apple.

“What are you writing yours on, Char?” Isabel asked.

“
Anne of Green Gables
,” she said in a dreamy voice. “It's one of my favorite books in the whole world. My dad took me to Prince Edward Island to see the house and everything. I was eight and I wanted to stay and live there. I couldn't understand why we couldn't. When the tour was over, I ran into the Haunted Woods and refused to leave!”

Charlotte started laughing at the memory, and her friends did, too. They didn't notice Dillon and Yurt walking over to their table.

“Glad to see someone's still laughing after that English assignment,” Dillon grumbled. “What's up with Ms. R, anyway?”

“Under pressure,” Yurt sang the song by the band Queen. “Under pressure.”

At that moment Betsy strode up to them, energetically passing out more flyers. “In case you didn't get one this morning.”

“We'll all need extra help this week,” Dillon said, taking another flyer.

“I get by with a little help from my friends,” Yurt sang, switching over to the Beatles tune. “Gonna try with a little help from my friends.”

“Dude, you're a walking karaoke machine!” Dillon said to Yurt as the boys headed back to their table.

Maeve read the flyer again. “B or Better.” Hmmm. She really needed to get a good grade on this report, but…She brushed the disloyal thought from her mind.

“I really like your earrings, Isabel,” Betsy said. “Are they new?”

“Actually they are.” Isabel swung the bright blue orbs so they caught the light and were even more striking against her dark hair and eyes.

“They're beautiful,” Betsy said.

“Thanks. My mom went out shopping and bought them for me.”

Isabel's mother's multiple sclerosis often left her dizzy and tired. Mrs. Martinez rarely left her sister's house alone, so going shopping was a big deal for her.

“That's so great, Izzy. I read once that mild exercise is good for people with MS,” Charlotte said. Charlotte, whose mother had died when she only four years old, was always concerned with Mrs. Martinez's health. Her concern made Isabel nervous sometimes, like maybe Charlotte thought something really bad was going to happen to her mom, too.

“I can't believe I didn't notice those before,” Maeve said. “They're totally gorgeous.”

“Probably because I just pulled my hair back, something I always do when I start to stress!” Isabel laughed a little.

“Well, let me know if I can help,” Betsy told her. “See you this afternoon, Char.”

They all turned to Charlotte as Betsy walked to another table to pass out her flyers.

“Isn't Betsy entering the same contest Katani is entering and therefore is her nemesis right now?” Avery spoke with increasing speed.

“Good word,” Charlotte said with a laugh. “And I guess you could put it like that, though it's kind of harsh to define Betsy as Katani's enemy.”

“Where
is
Katani anyway?” Maeve wondered. “It's way late.”

“Maybe the library?” Isabel suggested.

“We have a five-page project due for math, too. She has two projects and the contest this week,” Charlotte explained. Then she lowered her voice, looking guilty. “And Betsy's my math project partner.”

“Uh-oh,” Avery cautioned.

“Specially arranged by the Crow, I'm sure,” Maeve said, rolling her eyes. “You know what I think? We all need to go on a fabulous vacation and forget about all this UN-fabulous work. What do you say, travel agent?”

Before Charlotte could answer, Avery called out, “Celebrity sighting—nerd station—Katani sitting with Math Boy!” She pointed across the crowded cafeteria.

“Katani and Math Boy?” Maeve repeated in surprise. “E News alert!”

 

Maeve's Notes to Self:

• 1. Run by Irving's after school for Swedish Fish!
  
• 2. Watch
  Romeo and Juliet
  for the one-millionth time.
  
• 3. If humanly possible, start thinking about topic for the English paper.
  
• 4. Katani and Reggie???? Wuzzup!
  

A Very Simple Plan

For the last five minutes Katani had been playing with her chicken and vegetable stir-fry left over from supper last night. She couldn't believe how easy it was to talk to Reggie. She felt more relaxed than she had all day. “We have an English paper due too. Five to six pages,” she told him. “But I'm not that worried. I'm going to write on
Let the Circle Be Unbroken
, and I've read that about a hundred times. I love that book.”

“Really? I just had to do one on
To Kill a Mockingbird
.”

“That's a really good book,” Katani enthused. “And the movie was incredible.”

“I liked it too! I loved Boo Radley. If I had a band, I'd name it Boo Radley.” Reggie finished his turkey sandwich and opened a bag of Marshmallow Treats, looking a little embarrassed. “My mom always packs something sweet. She thinks I'm going to forget to eat or something. Want one?”

“I'd never pass up one of these. Thanks.” She popped the gooey treat into her mouth, and for no reason at all, blurted out, “I'm putting a business plan together.”

“Really?” Reggie seemed genuinely interested.

“I've been thinking about business for a long time. I want to own a fashion design and advice company someday. But now I'm entering this young entrepreneur contest from
T-Biz!
magazine. I have to write out an entire business plan, the finances, marketing strategy, and show that I actually sold stuff.”
Why am I telling him all of this?
she thought.
He'll probably want to join the contest too. Betsy, Whitney, Math Boy—the list was getting longer. She popped another Marshmallow Treat into her mouth. Maybe the treat would help her stop talking.

“Whoa. You're doing all that on top of school? That's, like, unbelievable.”

Katani couldn't believe Reggie thought it was
unbelievable
. He was, like, the smartest person in the whole school, and he was impressed with
her.
She glanced over at the BSG table and started to feel panicky again when she saw Betsy chatting to her friends and passing out flyers. This was so unlike her. The Kgirl was always in control. Everyone always said how organized and together she was. But right now there were so many butterflies in her stomach, Katani actually wondered if people could see them fluttering.

“The closest I've ever come to running a business was a lemonade stand, and I drank most of my profits!” Reggie told her.

Katani laughed, trying to shake off her discomfort. She finished her Marshmallow Treat and said, “Maybe we should talk about our project. I really liked the Egyptian Math unit earlier in the year.”

“I can't believe it!” Reggie's eyes gleamed. “That's totally what I was thinking! Just this weekend I found this really awesome website on Egyptian Math. That would be so cool! Let's meet at the library tomorrow right after school. Can you do that?”

“It's a plan.” Katani smiled. It was so nice to have a partner who was already ahead of schedule.