Half Blood Revenge

Finals

Before I head to homeroom, I need to make a stop at my locker. In route I see Ava Campbell, the most popular girl in school and one who loves to remind me of my awkwardness. She pretty much does what she wants around here with no one arguing with her. Her parents are professors at the local Yale University, so while Ava is smart, she can be quite a smart-ass too.

“Hi, Melody,” Ava says. Here it comes, I think…..

“I heard Alex made your note go…. FLAT,” she bursts out laughing. “Flat. Get it? Like a note in music because your name is Melody.” She continues laughing hysterically.

“That’s a good one.” I say. “Never heard that before.” And I continue right on by not making an attempt to stop at my locker, not worth spending any time closer to her.

Ava continues to laugh and follow me to homeroom. Unfortunately, she is in the same homeroom as me, and Alex as well. We are the “C” kids as everyone in here has a last name that starts with C.

Mr. Dorner was my homeroom teacher. He and everyone else turned to look at us as we entered the room. Ava was still laughing at her own joke when Mr. Dorner coughed loudly with a smirk on his face showing he wasn’t pleased with our tardiness. This was normal for Ava, but not for me, I was always punctual.

I walked over to hand Mr. Dorner my excuse from Mrs. Jonah. After reading the note, Mr. Dorner excused me to my chair and told me he was sorry to hear about my injury. He didn’t even make an attempt to hear an excuse from Ava.

As I head to my seat, I can feel Alex staring at me, with what seems like concern in his eyes. I don’t really understand why because before today, I didn’t think Alex knew I existed on this planet.

As soon as I sat in my seat, the homeroom bell rang ending the gathering. Everyone stood up from their seats and headed out to their first period of the day. Alex grabbed my arm as I headed out of the door.

“Melody, everything okay? I see the brace. Did I break something?” asked Alex, looking concerned.

“No, I’m good, maybe a little sprain, but should be good to go.” I remark.

After thinking about it, everything was not okay. I had to play my violin in the ceremony today for all the seniors.

“Are you sure you’re good? You’re face says otherwise.” Alex comments.

I quickly come back to reality, shake my head and respond, “Yea, all good.” I turn to walk away before he can question me any further.

Why was Alex all of a sudden interested in my well being? Strange.

I head down the hall toward my first period class of AP Honors English. I am in the running for Valedictorian, so I must ace these finals to beat out, non-other than Mrs. Know-it-all herself, Ava Campbell.

I arrive well before class starts and take my seat to review the study guide details for the final. I know we have a multiple-choice section to complete along with an essay. The other students come piling in, ignoring my existence, as usual.  The bell rings and Mrs. King, our teacher, gives instructions for the exam. She goes as far as taking everyone’s cellphones so there is no distractions or cheating. She lets us know we will get them back as we exit class.

“This is an extended class today and the exam is expected to take about 2 hours to finish.” Mrs. King informs us.

She then begins passing out the exams and I quickly commence on this undertaking. The multi-choice part was relatively easy. There weren’t many questions that puzzled me, but a few made me stop and think longer than expected. There were 55 questions and I felt confident in 50 of my answers.

When it was time to for the essay, I took a moment to breathe before reviewing the question. Surprisingly, the pain in my wrist wasn’t bothering me, but it might during this next part. After taking a minute to compose myself, I dive into the essay. I got right into reviewing the sources provided and started to anticipate my response. I looked at the clock and realize there is about 40 minutes remaining. As I finish reading the sources, I contemplate my position and go to work. My hand was starting to hurt and all I had was the conclusion left to write.

Mrs. King announced we had 10 minutes remaining. I finish the last paragraph and quickly go back to review my work. I make a few grammatical changes and feel good about what I have completed. I have 1 minutes to relax!

Mrs. King gives the final minute warning. You can see everyone’s hands going crazy. I look around and only myself and Ava have a some-what relaxed expression. Everyone else is heads down.

I loved having this class with Mrs. King. She is one teacher I will truly miss.

The class bells rings and Mrs. King instructs everyone to leave their exams on their desks, she will collect them when we leave and that we can pickup our cellphones as we exit the classroom.

As soon as I pack up my stuff and grab my cellphone I text my mom that I finished the final. Of course she wants all the details, but I tell her we can chat about it when we get home since I have to head off to my next class.

I run into Sophie in the hallway and we exchange pleasantries and she asks how the exam went. I let her know I thought I did well.

“I am sure you aced it Mrs. Smarty Pants,” she replies. We laugh and I tell her I will see her after school.

The next period was just a study hall class, and then I had lunch following that. I usually sit with two girls names Lily and Abby. They are from my band class and have a sense of awkwardness like me. We talk about the finals and the girls are hopeful I am crowned valedictorian at the graduation ceremony this weekend.

We continue to talk about school and what plans we have for the summer. Since Mom’s contracts require her to be hired for only certain periods of times, we usually don’t take vacations until she completes her project. However, this summer Sophie invited me to come with her family on a beach trip, so I may join her.

After lunch is over, we all head to the band room to prepare for the assembly. This is our senior sendoff that the whole school attends. It’s like a pep-rally for seniors.

I love music and my mom said that was something I got from my Dad. I guess he was the best musician she has ever met. She tells me his music is “magical” for whatever that means.

Today, I am playing the violin although I can play about 10 different instruments at this point. Everyone was raving about college, but I wasn’t too excited. I did get into many music programs, but I decided to accept at Yale School of Music so I could stay home and be closer to mom. The idea of living on a big campus terrified me. If we need to move, I will likely switch schools to wherever she goes.

The band finished rehearsal and we head over to the assembly to setup. All the kids start arriving and taking seats around the room.

Our Principal, Mr. Tenley steps up and begins to speak about the history of Millbank High School and its long-standing traditions. He talks about how he is so proud of the graduating class, blah, blah, blah.  Once he finished rambling, he introduces the band for a special performance. Our band teacher, Mr. Goodwin, takes center stage and conducts us in our senior sendoff performance. The arrangement is comprised of all the top hits from this past year, with our own personal spin. You can see the school really enjoying it and they start to sing along with some of the songs. Surprisingly, my wrist didn’t hurt at all.

At the end of the performance Mr. Goodwin asks the seniors to rise in special recognition and we get an ovation from the crowd. While I don’t like being the center of attention, I did enjoy seeing the huge smiles coming from Lily and Abby. They were both woodwinds, so they sat across the stage from me.

Mr. Tenley came back up on stage, thanks everyone and began to dismiss us for the day. I head towards my locker and then out to meet Sophie at the car.

“Yo, Melody that performance was Lit,” says Sophies friend Max. He totally has a crush on her, but Sophie doesn’t feel the same way. I feel bad for the kid, but he still hangs in there.

“Thanks, Max.” I reply.

We load into Sophie’s car, Max is riding home with us today. They ask about my wrist and I brush it off not wanting to really talk about it. They decide to talk about summer plans and how exciting it is to be the end of the school year and that they will be seniors next year. I am jealous because Max and Sophie have known each other since they were in 1st grade. Since moving around so much, I don’t have that.

“What are we doing for your birthday this weekend, Mel?” asks Sophie. I like it when she calls me Mel. It’s comforting to have a friend to give me a nickname.

“I don’t know, I didn’t really plan anything,” I tell her.

“Well, then Max and I will just surprise you with something,” she chuckles with Max and he quickly agrees. “It’s your 18th birthday, you can’t sit at home alone,” he adds.

“Ya, I guess. Just with moving so much we never really did the whole birthday party thing. It was always just Mom and I,” I tell them.

“Well, this is different! We will pick you up at 8pm on Saturday night to start your graduation and pre-birthday celebration,” says Sophie.

I just go along with it. There is no point arguing since she will likely force me to do something anyways. I shake my head and agree. Her and Max high-five which makes me laugh.

When we got home, I jumped out of the car, say my good-byes and headed inside. Mom won’t be home for another couple hours, so I take this time to enjoy some television, have a snack and check out social media. All my finals are done, so no more studying!

All the kids at school are talking about an end of year party this weekend and inviting the whole school to their graduation parties over summer. I doubt I will have a party.

Mom arrives home around 5pm and I have already started cooking. Thursday nights we usually have Italian, so I already started boiling the water for pasta. Mom brought home some good bread from the local bakery and we made a vodka alfredo sauce and throw in some shrimp. Mom opens a bottle of wine to enjoy with dinner and I just have water.

We talk about tomorrow being the last day of school and how I feel to be done with high school. I tell her I am excited to be putting a close to this chapter in my life. She looks sad and goes down memory lane about how much she enjoyed high school. My mom was kind of a loner like me, but she did have a close group of friends that I call my “aunts” today. Sophie is the closest I have to that.

I tell her about my plans to go out Saturday night with Sophie and Max to celebrate graduation and my birthday. She is overjoyed, maybe a little too much! I guess I don’t get out much at all. She asks about our plans, but I tell her they are planning a surprise. She agrees with it and we talk about her work for a little.

Mom and I LOVE to watch documentaries. Tonight’s documentary is about Greek architecture, so my mom is thrilled and kept talking over the narrator. It made me laugh inside. She also brought up my dad and mentioned how he was Greek. She is hoping that he will make an appearance for my birthday this week. I got a little excited and asked, “Did he reach out to you about coming to see me?”

“No, honey. He did not. But, the one other time he came to see you, on your 1st birthday, it was a surprise drop-in and I think this may be the same.”

Mom was always to cryptic about Dad, but I’ve learned to just go with it. I nod and we continue watching. At the end, mom heads to the kitchen to kill the last bit of wine left in the bottle and I head up to my room.

“Goodnight sweetie,” she says. “Sweet dreams”