Foxworth Academy (3 page)

“Well, we are in for a great time this semester I shall say.  It’s going to take the remainder of the week for me to prepare everything so here is your assignment.  I would like a five-page summary of someone else’s subject of interest from each of you.  That’s right, talk to your friend, or your enemy for that matter and research their subject.”

Class ended shortly thereafter.  Brett quickly searched for Ally as they got up from their desks and shuffled toward the door.  He wanted to ask Ally if he could research her subject.  Brett was a shy person to begin with and his brain was brimming with ideas on how to approach her.  Drop his books?  Bump into her?  That was quickly decided for him as he exited into the hallway and saw Ally talking to another kid leaning against a locker.  He stopped and looked in her direction.  She returned his gaze.  The kid was saying something and she turned her head and said something back to him.  The kid smiled and left her standing there as he walked away.

“Hey,” she said in Brett’s direction.

He looked around startled. 
Was she talking to him?

“Brett, right?” she said

“Umm yeah,” he replied, walking in her direction.

“How was the rest of your weekend down the shore?” she asked.

“Ahh, cool, I guess,” he replied.

“Do you ever wonder what Mr. Martin has going on?  Should be fun from what I hear.”

“Yeah, hey, I was going to ask you,” Brett stammered.  “Do you wanna swap ideas and I can do a paper on your idea and maybe you can do mine?”

“Aww, I wish you would’ve been here a minute ago,” Ally replied.  “Lance just asked me.”

Brett wanted to crawl into a hole.  He glanced in the direction where the kid had just left and he saw him with a group of guys looking in his direction, smiling.  “Oh, okay,” he managed to say.

“Hey, Brett!” he heard from behind him.

Frankie!

Frankie came up behind him and put his hand on his shoulder.  “We gonna swap papers?” he asked.

Brett wanted to say no.  He wanted to trade with Ally but what choice did he have.

“Sure,” he said.

“Well, see you around,” Ally said, closing her locker and walking away.

“Man, she is hot,” Frankie said.

Brett ignored him and started to walk away in the opposite direction.  Frankie caught up and walked beside him.

“So, Apple, huh?  Wish you would’ve chosen something cool like me.”

Brett looked at him and raised his eyebrows.  “Yeah?  What am I stuck with?”

“Stuck?  You should be happy to research...ready...drum roll...the microwave oven!”

Brett lowered his head and said, “Seriously?”

“What?  The microwave oven was voted in the top five most important inventions of the twentieth century.  Where would we be without microwave popcorn!”

Brett continued walking down the hallway, dreading his research paper on the microwave oven. 

CHAPTER FOUR

T
he rest of the week moved rather slowly for Brett as he unenthusiastically wrote his paper on the microwave oven.  Mr. Martin gave them time during each period to stay in the class and write, or to go to the school library and do their research.  All the while, Mr. Martin would disappear into the closet for most of the whole period, leaving the class to wonder what on earth he was doing in there.  He and Frankie would usually go to the library with Frankie complaining how boring the Apple computer was.  On the day before the paper was due, Ally and her partner, Lance, walked in and sat nearby.  Lance Hawk was the kid’s name, and in Brett’s eyes, he was a punk.  He had that rich kid’s aura.  He always wore the designer jeans and fancy shirts that Brett shied away from.  His dirty blond hair was slicked with gel and never out of place.

“Hey, Brett,” Ally said, “How’s it going with the paper?”

“It’s okay,” Brett replied, rolling his eyes.

“You boys having fun?” Lance said with a smirk.

“You believe he picked the Apple computer?” Frankie said.

“Ha,” Lance chuckled.

“I love Apple,” Ally said.  “My parents bought me the iPhone for my eighth grade graduation.”

Brett showed a little grin and asked, “What did you guys pick?”

“I picked Bill Gates,” Lance replied proudly.  “The richest man in the world.”

Now Ally rolled her eyes.

“She gave me Amelia Earhart, of all people.”

“Cool,” Brett replied.

“Yeah, cool,” Lance said sarcastically.

In the short time Brett had known Lance, he already hated the kid.  He couldn’t believe he was working with Ally.  Did Ally get pressured into working with him?  Or did she really want to work with him?  They went back to their papers and worked the rest of the period.  Brett was always trying to steal a glance at Ally, hoping to catch her looking back at him, but it never happened.  Instead, he was caught looking at her by Lance who simply shook his head, mocking him.  When the bell rang to indicate the end of the period, Brett and Frankie gathered up their books and papers and headed towards lunch.

T
here was no bus service at Foxworth because of the low enrollment and because students came from many different communities, so those who were not old enough to drive would either get a ride home from an upperclassman, or from their parents.  The latter was something Brett didn’t look forward to.  Not that he didn’t like hanging with his dad, but having a parent pick you up from school was just not cool.  His dad, Nick, was a personal chef for the wealthy.  He cooked all day and then delivered the meals to five or six houses, depending on their schedules. 

“How was school?” his dad asked, just as he had done the day before, and the day before that.

“Eh, you know, it was okay.  What’s for dinner?” Brett said, closing the car door.

“Steak tips on the grill.  They’ve been marinating since this morning.  I’m also grilling corn on the cob in the husk, and we’ll have some asparagus with fresh basil.”  His dad loved to talk about his cooking. 

“Yum,” Brett indulged him. 

“Do you remember what time your game is this Saturday?” his dad asked, referring to the baseball game.

“Yes, Dad,” Brett whined back.

“It’s nine o’clock so that means no sleeping ‘til eight forty-five and rolling out of bed.  It’s a home game, but that still means you need to get up, eat breakfast, change into your uniform, and get to the field by eight-thirty.”

“Dad, it’s not like this is my first game, ya know?”

“Well, it’s your first game after your first week of high school.  You just had the summer off and slept in every day.”

“I know, Dad.”

“I’m just sayin’...”

A few minutes later, Nick pulled his green Land Rover into the circular driveway and stopped just past the steps to the house.  The grounds surrounding the house were in great shape, even after a dry summer.  The grass was perfectly manicured and cut to just the right height.  The ornamental grasses stood tall on either corner of the house and rattled gently in the breeze.  The house was just over ten years old and was located in a new development, just west of Wilmington, Delaware, not far from the Pennsylvania border.  They had bought the land prior to the house being built, having it custom designed by the breadwinner of the family, Brett’s mom.  Lauren Logan was an architect with the Walker & McCary firm out of Philadelphia.  She took the train to Philadelphia a few days a week, choosing to work from home the rest of the time. 

Brett bounded up the steps of the great stone house, punched in the security code, and threw open the door.  The house opened into a large foyer with tan ceramic tile that led down a hallway into the spacious kitchen.  A six burner Viking gas stove sat to the left.  Brett threw his backpack on the barstool fronting the granite countertop.  He opened the left stainless steel refrigerator door, grabbed a blue Gatorade, twisted the cap, and took a large gulp.  Shutting the door, he walked over to the kitchen pantry and proceeded to pull out a bag of Doritos, tearing into them like he hadn’t eaten in days.

“Whoa, whoa, save some room for the steak,” his dad said, entering the kitchen.

“Will Mom be home for dinner?” Brett asked, with orange, dust-covered lips.

“Tonight she will,” he responded.  “Wanna do your homework now or hit the cages?”

“Cages,” Brett responded.  He crumpled up the bag and put it back in the closet.  Grabbing his backpack, he walked down the hallway and up the stairs to his room to change clothes.  His room was pretty clean for a teenager.  His bed wasn’t made, but there were no clothes, books, or sports equipment on the floor.  He had posters of Phillies players on the wall and one large map of the world with small black “x’s” on the  states and countries that he had visited.  Changing into gym shorts and a T-shirt, he walked back downstairs, into the mud room, and found his baseball bag and put on his cleats.

His dad was already out in the backyard with the bucket of baseballs.  When Brett was twelve, he showed a strong interest in baseball, so his parents had a batting cage installed.  To the left of the cage was an in-ground pool which they kept open for a few more weeks.  The property sat on over a half-acre of land and was also big enough for a stone patio with a large grill and a table and chairs. 

“It’s pretty nice outside, we’ll eat on the patio tonight,” his dad called from the inside the cage.  He stood behind a pitcher’s net, forty-five feet away, ball in hand.

Brett stepped into the cage, put on his helmet, and started to loosen up.  Raising the bat high over his head with both hands, he dipped low to the ground as if touching his toes, up high again, left and right.  Brett took a few practice swings, stepped into the batter’s box, and tapped the plate.  He had a nice wide, athletic stance. 

“Let’s work on hitting to the opposite field,” Dad said.

The first pitched was smacked to the right, opposite field for a right-hander.

“Good, again,” his dad said.

He pitched about ten more balls and Brett hit them exactly where he intended them to go.

“Okay, sacrifice fly time.”

“Let me just hit,” Brett called back.

“There’s gonna be times where you need to hit it

high and drive in a run, Brett.  You don’t need to swing for the fences every time.”

Brett satisfied his dad by driving low with his body and hitting the ball high over his head a few times.

“See?  Easy, right?”

Brett didn’t respond, he just kept swinging away.  After twenty more minutes, he was spent, and his dad told him that was enough for today.

“Baseball, again?” came a voice from the back of the house.

Brett ignored his sister and took off his helmet, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

“How was school?” her father asked.

“Great, they announced they’re going to do Romeo & Juliet for the school play this semester.  I’m going to try for the lead.”

“If there’s anyone who can play the lead, you sure can,” her dad encouraged her.

Reilly was obsessed with acting.  She’d spent a week in the summer at a children’s acting camp at the local YMCA; all she wanted to do when she grew up was be an actress.

“Too bad they won’t give the lead to a seventh-grader,” Brett chimed in, walking into the house.

“Enough, Brett.  Encourage your sister,” his dad said.

His mom, Lauren, came home shortly thereafter and Dad cooked dinner for the family.  They ate outside, enjoying the warm evening.  Everyone went their separate ways afterward.  Dad read a book in the living room, Mom and Reilly watched the latest reality series on TLC, and Brett went to his room to finish his paper on the...ugh...microwave oven.

CHAPTER FIVE

F
ortunately for Brett he was not called on to read his five-page report on the wonderful microwave oven the following day.  They only got through a handful of students before Mr. Martin told the students to pass the papers up and he would grade them over the weekend.  He went to his desk and grabbed two small pads of sticky notes, one pink, and the other blue.

“James, Misty,” he called on the two students nearest him, “please hand each boy a piece of blue and Misty, hand each girl a pink piece.”

The two students took the pads from Mr. Martin and walked around the room, handing each one a sticky note, before returning to their desks.

“Now, please write your name on the paper, scrunch it up into a ball and pass it forward.”

It was just like they had done earlier in the week with their paper subjects, and the students wondered where this was going.  And also like before, Mr. Martin went to the closet and pulled out the old bingo tumbler and sat it on his desk.  He collected the balls from the students, tossed them into the tumbler, and started rotating them around.

“Two students will be selected this semester for a special project of epic proportions,” he began.  “You will take this assignment seriously and without fail.  You may choose to decline of course, but most students do not,” he chuckled.  He spun the wheel around and around, stopping once and switching directions. 

The students gazed in eager anticipation, their eyes focused on the papers, trying to find their own distinguished crumple.

Mr. Martin stopped turning the wheel and he flipped the metallic door open.  He smiled at the students as his hand dipped inside.  He fished out the first ball of paper, a blue one.  He opened it and read the name aloud.

“Brett Logan.”

The students gasped, some even clapped as they turned their gaze to Brett whose mouth hung open, his face as red as a tomato.

“And joining Mr. Logan,” Mr. Martin said, pulling out a pink ball and unraveling it, “will be Ms. Ally Davidson.”

More hoots and hollers from the class.  Everyone looked at Ally, who did a mock bow with her head.  Emotions ran through Brett; shock, embarrassment, fear, and trepidation.  Soon the bell rang to signal the end of class.  Mr. Martin had to raise his voice to get the attention of Ally and Brett.  “Please stay a minute you two.”

All of the students exited the classroom until only Brett, Ally, and Mr. Martin remained. 

“How do you feel?” the teacher asked.

Brett shrugged his shoulders and Ally said, “Okay.”