Confessions of a Teenage Caffeine Addict

22 // D-Up

And it's hard to hate someone

once you understand them

—Lucy Christopher

____________________________________

JAKE

FEBRUARY // WEEK 11

"Another stupid paper? Are you kidding me?" Derek threw his hands up. "It's always a paper! Why can't we just take a test?"

"At least that way, we'd get a fair chance," I said, wanting to cross my arms, but didn't want to risk looking like a five-year-old. Temper tantrums were never really my thing.

Derek and I were both heated after leaving Mr. Douglas's class with another major history report to do. We would have changed partners, but Mr. Douglas refused. It was as if he enjoyed watching our grades fall lower than Calum's pants. If we had known Mr. Douglas hated hockey players more than argyle socks, we never would have partnered up in the first place. And it wasn't even the fact that he hated hockey players; it was the fact that he hated our Coach, and was therefore, going to take it out on his players. Stupid schools merging. Stupid Northie teachers.

"What's this paper even on, anyways?" Derek and I walked down to the locker room to get dressed for the semifinal game against Mansfield. They were literally the definition of scrubs.

"Dude, I don't know. Native Americans or something." Derek rolled his eyes as we walked into Coach's office. Ever since we had gotten our last report back—the one with the tire mark on it—Coach had ordered that Derek and I show him all new assignments from Mr. Douglas' class.

"Got a new assignment from your favorite person, Coach." I tossed the handout onto his desk. It was a rubric and what Douglas expected to see in our reports.

"Just bench us now." Derek sighed.

"Funny you should mention that," Coach trailed off as he picked up his reading glasses and read through the assignment. He handed the rubric back to us and took his glasses off. "Roswell, Leighton, have a seat."

Derek and I dropped into the chairs, and my hands instinctively curled around the arm rests. Coach looked nervous.

"You boys know that we are playing Mansfield tonight in the semifinals." He stated the obvious.

"Yeah. We beat them. We go to state. We know," Derek said, trying to get this conversation over with so we could get dressed.

Coach dismissed Derek's comment with a nod. "The Head of the History department and I have had a chance to review your grades," Coach began. I did not like where this conversation was going one bit.

"Wait, we have a Head of the History department?" Derek blurted out.

"There's a Head for every department, Leighton," Coach said sympathetically, as if one of us had lost our grandmothers.

"Don't worry, Coach. Calum and I are cool, we worked it out," I said, jumping in.

"That's not what I'm worried about." That threw me for a loop. If Coach wasn't worried about Calum and I killing each other, then what was he worried about?

"The Head of the History department thinks it wold be in your best academic interest if you sat out the game tonight and focused on your schoolwork." Coach sighed.

"Like hell he does!" I couldn't stop myself from shouting. "What am I supposed to do? My Calculus homework in between shifts tonight?" I gripped the armrests tighter.

"Boys, I have to bench you."

"What? Why?" I asked, heated.

"Those are the rules and we adhere to the rules at this school," Coach said.