The Maths Teacher, Mr Roberts took a moment to spare a glance at the entire class, “If you've completed your assignment, submit it to my office once today’s class is over.”
"Yes Sir!" The Students chorused in response.
Meanwhile, within his heart, Shawn was screaming in joy. He was lucky. "Good, now for today, we will start a new topic called matrices," said Roberts, who took a marker from the teacher's desk and pointed it at the wall. "First you must understand the way a matrix works as well as its arrangement. Let's start with something called a row matrix.”
He proceeded to explain the various matrices used in mathematics before starting with the calculations. Soon, the bell rang hinting the class had to end, "Thank you for coming out to teach us, Mr. Roberts, Sir!" One of the students shouted before leaping off his chair, thanking him as a way of sending him off.
"Remember to submit your assignments to my office immediately," Mr Roberts reminded them and turned to head in the direction of the door. He was quite busy today so he decided to skip the ‘Class review of assignment’ session and ordered the students to just submit.
Shawn, feeling giddy with joy, knew that he had to wait for Richard to leave the classroom before taking out his note or telling someone else to help him out in submitting.
As he surveyed the classroom, he spotted the fellow, it seemed as though Richard had been bored as he took a step up and left the classroom.
Then he turned to Stephanie. "Let me guess, you don't want Richard to see you with your note and harass you, so you want me to be the one who submits it for you?” Stephanie raised an eyebrow after spotting his gaze and he affirmed with a nod.
"Look, Shawn, I think it's about time you got rid of this 'human' who is just causing you trouble by asking for your assignment. For now, it's just math, but soon, it's going to be other subjects and will eventually continue until the examinations start. You know how strict the school is on those things; if you get caught, your paper gets canceled, and you might eventually be suspended or, even worse, expelled.
Maths is the only trouble with Richard, but his dependence, which might fall on yo,u, is also going to seriously affect you."
"So what you are saying is...."
"Tell him no. If he keeps coming back then you are going to experience a lot of problems along with a lot of forcing and coercion,"
Shawn remained silent, his eyes draped to the floor. He knew that she was right and proceeded to sigh, "I get it. I'm going to get rid of this guy once and for all; thanks for the advice, Steph."
He then grabbed his note from the desk and proceeded to head towards the staff room.
He opened the door of the classroom and was about to head straight to the staff room to submit. The Staff room was a bit distant from his class so he had to speed up with running.
Until…
"Didn't you say that you haven't done the assignment?" A familiar voice said from behind.
“Here it comes,” Shawn thought to himself, turning back to face Richard. "Sorry, I lied. I'm not your slave and it's not my duty to give you my assignments to copy. If you don't understand, ask someone to teach you. Don't try to write what you don't know; it won't help you in the long run. Once again I'm sorry, but this maths dependence on copying from me isn't going to work, so please excuse me," He said flatly.
Richard, who heard those words, was shocked by the blatant refusal thrown at his face and froze without a hint.
"Rather than wasting your time playing, maybe you should spend it better by asking for guidance," Shawn added with a glare before moving towards the staff room.
Some of Richard's minions, who had been there with him, looked at Shawn angrily and were about to approach in the act of defense. However, before they could do anything, the boy raised his hand, halting their advance.
"Let him go," he said.
Shawn breathed a sigh of relief as he walked to the door and knocked. Initially, he was expecting retaliations, his books thrown and materials destroyed, and the issue of bullying now brought into his peaceful life, but no matter what, he wasn't going to do what he knew wasn't going to help. If they didn't understand it and he kept dodging, eventually, he would be found out and threatened. And the moment he yielded then it won't stop.
“Stephanie was right,” He acknowledged her words in his head.
His focus shifted to the figure sitting on a desk in front, his head focused on his laptop and furiously typing. Apart from that, others had their hands busy with their devices or some paperwork.
"If it isn't one of the students who gives me less headache on assignments," said Mr Tom, another of Shawn's teachers.
"Thank you for your compliment Sir," Shawn replied.
Roberts looked up at him and made a low grin. "Drop your note over there." he pointed towards a certain spot on his desk, which Shawn walked up to and dropped off before walking away.
"Shawn you have great potential, don't waste it"
"Alright, sir. I'll keep your words in mind," Shawn nodded as he left the staff room.
He came to find no one outside the door and heaved a sigh of relief again while heading to the classroom, but then he switched towards the left where the cafeteria was, a place where snacks and foodstuffs were sold. He bought a few snacks, such as neurons, as well as some chocolate bars. He just loved chocolate-flavored snacks, and they were his best, and he loved to eat. His mum, who knew about his excessive love for it, placed him on a chocolate-regulating diet.
Surely her son couldn't be having broken teeth and holes around his 20's. With ladies who looked at how he was supposed to attract a good daughter-in-law.
She even had a meeting with the school principal on curbing Shawn's excessive love for chocolate.
The cafeteria woman would inform the principal about what had been bought and the principal would inform his mom.
The class started when the instructor, Ms Thompson, walked in with a playful smile, and after the class greeted her, she replied, "Greetings, children. How have you all been doing?”
"Ummm, Ma'am, we are young people," One Female student corrected.
"Of course, you are Sonia, but all of you are yet to reach 18, so I can still call you children even though you are in the stage of becoming adults, but if you want to be addressed as teenagers, then I have no qualms with that."
The Chairs were all rotated to the back, as well as the desks, but by simple movement as they did have some buttons to imitate the movement action. When they pressed the buttons simultaneously, the entire class went on a 180-degree turn. As time was of the essence, they did not delay the class by manually moving about.
The class was going well until the period was declared over, and she had to leave.
The students all pressed the buttons and did another roundabout turn to the normal writing whiteboard of the class. The Science teacher, known as Mrs Olivia, then entered. It wasn't time for the experimenting section as that was done on Thursdays, and the normal classes were on Mondays and Wednesdays.
She taught about the element of Carbon and its properties and other stuff like that.
The time to write had gone as well with the bell ringing for the students to go for a second break.
For lunch, Shawn had chicken wings and chips.
Sports would start during the next period and involved everyone being ready for a bit of testing and training.
They all ran to the sports hall where the instructor was waiting. The practices started in the end as they had just eaten. A fit of light movements and nothing that warranted running and other activities such as stretching and so on.
Like that, the school day continued until the students were receiving the bell ringing for them to go home.
Unfortunately, the weather had other plans. A few minutes after the day had begun, heavy drops of rain began to fall and splatter, like it was summoned by a grand magician to descend suddenly upon the world.
Students who had already stepped outside were forced to rush back in and watch as the rain flowed and hailed for more than 40 minutes.
Since he wasn't going anyway, he decided to stay with his friends in school and talk about different things in an almost empty classroom while others were in the hallway, waiting for the rains to pass so they could dash forward to their homes.