Junior Year Box Set

“I understand that you’ll be leaving school at the end of November and will miss the last three weeks of the semester. Is that correct?” she asked.

I’d thought all the arrangements had been made, so I was curious as to why she was asking me.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“We’ll need to help you compress your classes and arrange for you to take finals early,” she said as she pulled out a calendar. “The best possible day appears to be the Friday of Thanksgiving week. I’ll make arrangements to have your teachers come in to give you your tests.”

I wasn’t going to be very popular if my teachers had to come in during their vacation.

“Could maybe a proctor give me the exams? Maybe one of my coaches would do it,” I suggested.

Ms. Jaroslav gave me a tight smile.

“Let me worry about it. I just need to get your schedule for now.”

I guess I would let her do her job.

“Something else I wanted to talk to you about is the SAT and ACT tests. We plan to offer them at the end of January. I understand that you would like to attend the prep classes. You have three options: you can either take it during your lunch hour, after school, or on Saturdays,” she said.

“I have football practice after school, and my weekends are busy. I’d have to do it at lunchtime.”

Ms. Jaroslav shuffled through some papers and pulled out a form.

“Please have your parents fill this out and bring it back to me with a check to cover the expense for the class,” she said.

I took the form, and she looked at my folder again.

“Have you started to think about where you want to go to college?” Ms. Jaroslav asked.

“Yes, ma’am. I’ve had some scholarship offers,” I said.

She looked confused and flipped through my folder again.

“Did you apply for them without going through the school?” she asked.

“They’re athletic scholarships,” I explained.

Ms. Jaroslav gave me a funny look, and then it dawned on her who I was.

“I might have heard something about that. Sorry,” she said, and then seemed to recover. “If you want help with college applications, or for us to help find you grants, please let me know.”

I thanked her and returned to class.

◊◊◊

By lunchtime, several people had talked to Ms. Jaroslav and had gotten their paperwork for the prep class for the SAT and ACT exams.

“My sister said that the prep class was a big help on how to take the exam. She said they give you practice exams to help you determine where you need to focus your studies. Suzanne thought it helped her a lot,” Jim said.

“When are you going to take the class?” Cassidy asked me.

“I’ll have to do it at lunch,” I said, and then got worried. “When’ll we get the script for the movie?”

“Mom said this week,” Halle said. “We’re going to be swamped between now and the end of November. Did they tell you when you’ll take finals?”

“Ms. Jaroslav said the Friday after Thanksgiving. That’ll be the day before we win State,” I said.

“Me too. That’ll make for a long day,” Halle said.

“When d’you guys fly out to LA for your movie?” Alan asked.

“That Sunday,” Halle replied. “Speaking of movies, what’s happening with our movie, Star Academy? Mom said it’s almost impossible to move a release date, but apparently it won’t be shown until after the first of the year now.”

“Star Wars,” I said, and shrugged. “The projections are that they’ll dominate ticket sales so much that we’d get lost if we came out when we planned, is what they tell me.”

“It looks pretty cool. There was an ad for it on the Syfy Channel,” Jim said. “Do you get to take a date to the premiere?”

I looked at Halle, and she just smiled at me. I wasn’t certain whether I got to, nor was I sure whether she would be my date. When I’d seen other red carpet events, it seemed the actors were interviewed alone. Then I had an inspiration.

“Hannah Minacci is my date,” I said.

All the conversation at the table stopped. There was everything from looks of disbelief to shrugs of acceptance. I was surprised that I kept a straight face. My friends knew I was full of it and just took my proclamation in stride. Then my phone buzzed. Alan had just posted who my date would be online. I needed to talk to Lily about her giving him access to my accounts. I figured Hannah would at some point fold under my relentless pursuit, and I would get an actual date. She simply needed to dump that baseball player.

◊◊◊

At football practice, the coaching staff introduced us to our next opponent, Mt. Vernon. They had a solid football team and a new coach. The game film showed that they were playing much better than they had the last two years. Mt. Vernon had managed to win all their games to this point, but just barely. They relied on their defense to keep them in games and then did just enough to win. If it was close at the end, we might have a problem, because Mt. Vernon didn’t appear to have any quit in them.