Cherishing Esteem

Tuesday morning was basked in the sun, students had now become fully awake, but it did not promise that all were paying attention to their teachers.
Fortunately, the kids of Mrs. Alexander’s U.S. History class was focused on the day’s lesson, like they usually were, spare a few times when students would roam off into their own world or think about their plans.
Tuesday’s lesson was based on the Gilded Age for the United States. Mrs. Alexander tapped her ‘enter’ button of her laptop to command the projected presentation to go on to its next slide.
“And so came the great migration of the Chinese…” The teacher lectured and pulled up her sleeves of her white blouse.
The classroom was arranged in a way that half of the class was facing the other half of the class. From the view of the slightly wavy, long, black hair female student of which people could tell that she had some Asian blood in her: her back was facing the windows that were to the right of the whiteboard; the whiteboard was to the right of her, where her teacher stood at that moment; her teacher’s desk was to the left of her; in front of her were the faces of half of the students in the class, and to the left and right of the opposing students were the doors leading to the hallway of the first floor building. Two pairs of desk were placed one next to another with five desks behind the first, aligning one behind the other. The female student whose back was faced to the right of the whiteboard, Sammie, was sitting in the third seat on the first pair of desk in her black and teal hoodie over her black Misfits tank top. To the left of her sat a fellow student she never knew existed in her high school, to the right of her was a fellow student from her previous History class. To the front right of her sat one of the school’s many attractive students, Frank, left of Frank, in front of Sammie, was his friend Mikey and right of Frank was his other friend, Ray. The triplet was behind the first row of students before being face-to-face with the other half of the students.
Sammie sighed quietly to herself as she crossed her legs in her grey skinny jeans underneath the chair and rested her head on her arms that were laying on the desk. Her eyes were still glued onto the presentation—quiet—just like the rest of the class.
“But the Chinese were the only race ever overlooked from their hard work on building practically everything.” Alexander told the students and shifted her weight to the other leg in her beige knee-long skirt.
“Ouch.” Sammie mumbled under her breath, though loud enough for the students around her to hear. They laughed at a hushed tone, except for one student who could not keep in his laugh, Frank.
Interrupted and irritated, Mrs. Alexander still spoke in her calm tone, “Mister Iero, please move to the front desk on the other side.”
Although Frank had slowly stopped laughing after the teacher’s demand to have him move, the classroom bellowed with giggles. He groaned and stood up unhappily. Frank gradually made it to his new seat for the day then slumped back, his chin resting under the bent arm on the desk.
As Mrs. Alexander continued on with her lecture, Frank couldn’t help but have his eyes wandering over to see where the voice that made him laugh belong to. She was sitting behind Mikey, where Frank froze.
There she was, now leaning forward on her laid down arms and her red Converse shoes crossed underneath the desk. “Smokin’ hot” was all that ran through Frank’s mind while he was looking at her. Of course, Sammie didn’t notice, she was, along with the rest of her classmates, focused on the lecture.
To Frank, the world around him has rippled away and all it was left to just Sammie and him. Frank continued on eyeing her, watching every movement she made, taking note of all her beautiful features, and quit playing with his lip ring. Everything she did just made his heart beat faster.
She bit her pen.
Oh man.
She straightened her back against her seat.
God dammit.
She crossed her legs.
He felt himself starting to get excited.
She slouched back a bit and began playing with her hair.
That was it; Frank did what growing males did best.
“The Pendleton Act in 1883 was the first major civil service reform sought to end the spoils sys-” Mrs. Alexander was cut off by the telephone’s ringing. “Excuse me for a minute.”
Sammie had sat up in her chair to write down the notes from the new slide, unaware of the eyes staring at her.
“Okay, thank you.” The teacher ended her phone conversation. “Frank. Please go to the main office, looks like you have to pick something up.” Then she returned to her presentation.
Oh shit.
Frank could not and would not budge from his seat. He still had his . . . hard on.
Ray scoffed a laugh after the first second that Frank didn’t move.
“Uh-hum. Mister Iero.” Mrs. Alexander said in a more commanding way.
Sammie looked up from her notes over to Frank of whom she absentmindedly took in his pierced ears and the art on his left arm shown. She glanced over at Ray laughing, along with the rest of the class’ giggling and whispers, and put the obvious together.
“Uh…Mrs. Alexander,” Sammie said moving her look over to the History teacher, she chose to save Frank’s embarrassing walk and tell Mrs. Alexander, one of her close teachers, to change the subject. “Don’t you think Frank should stay in class since there is a test tomorrow that could affect our grade? Just have him pick it up during Lunch.”
She contemplated at the reasoning one of her favorite students had done, then nodded. “Okay then, thank you Sammie. Let’s continue with the Pendleton Act.”
Sammie smiled at her accomplishment and returned to her notes. She was now oblivious of the pair of eyes on her from the one she had saved. Sammie decided to peek over at Frank who had an expression reading “saved”. With relief in his eyes , Frank mouthed to Sammie a thank you. She replied back with her smile that Frank suddenly found his mind drooling over.

It was now Wednesday and Frank was back in his original seat between Mikey and Ray.
Frank had taken note that Sammie was close to him and wanted her to notice him. So, he slouched in his seat with his legs open and occasionally sending a glance over at her.
From Sammie’s spot, she still acted her normal self, but now she was leering over at Frank and taking in all his features.
Wednesday’s class discussion was based off the use of the dollar bill instead of gold.
“But money grows off of trees!” A student exclaimed.
“No, it’s made from cotton.” Another student responded.
“Yes, why do you think it could endure the washer?” Mrs. Alexander considered.
“Oh! No wonder it shrinks!” Ray realized to his own bewilderment.
The class laughed at Ray’s confused state.
“No, Ray, it does not shrink.” Mrs. Alexander stated clearly amused.
“But it did for me!”
Throughout the whole confusion, Frank was playing his act cool. While he was laughing at his friend’s perplexity, he peered over at Sammie slyly.
Sammie was no different than Frank. While she was giggling, she managed to keep her eyes on her admirer, hiding her smiles in the sleeve of her black ribcage jacket.
“Okay, class! Time to get serious, you have some work to do before the end of the period.” Groans were the only reply to the teacher’s announcement. “You’re welcome on making you all smarter. But, anyways, you will all receive 3 worksheets concerning about the graphs that I will put up on the projector in just a few minutes. This is meant to be done as group-work, so please buddy up with two or three per group.”
With the end of her direction, students shuffled and scooted their desks closer to their group.
As usual, Mikey, Frank and Ray grouped up. And Sammie moved her desk beside her classmate to the right of her.
After Mrs. Alexander passed out the papers, she walked back to her laptop and with her mouse, pulled out a presentation with one slide consisting of the three graphs she was referring to.

The classroom was quickly filled with chatter; some were about the classwork, while others were of things that were not in the history textbook.
During the time span between the passing out of papers to almost the end of the class, Sammie and Frank had stopped flirting with their eyes.
Well, of course, Frank couldn’t since he was stuck in the middle. If he were to try to have his eyes pleasured with the view of Sammie, it would be too obvious, even Ray would figure Frank’s adoration toward her. Although Frank did not turn his head toward her direction, he was still tensed up on his figure to impress her, and that had made Mikey aware of Frank’s reason for acting so strangely.
Mikey, nevertheless usually the quiet one, came to a decision to make a move and help Frank. As he turned his back toward Frank and his head facing Sammie, her partner had gotten up from her seat over to the bathroom pass hanging across the room. While Mikey mentally let out a sigh of relief at one less person to deal with the small conversation, Frank looked at Mikey panicking at what may happen.
“Is she new?” Mikey asked Sammie nodding to the girl who had now left the class.
Sammie looked up from her worksheet and shook her head. “Nope.”
Frank tilted his head over to Ray who had now turned his body away from his group and tried his best to face Sammie. “I don’t remember seeing you in this class.” He spoke up. Frank leaned closer to the desk and slapped his head against his hand.
Sammie nodded, placing her pen alongside her chin, “It’s because she and I and about 10 other students here are from the AP class.”
“Then why are you here?” Ray questioned. Frank slunk his shoulders and closed his eyes due to the stupidity Ray had expressed.
“Ray, idiot, Alex already told us that the AP teacher went off somewhere and the kids spread out.” Mikey stated obviously, of which Frank silently thanked Mikey for speaking out for him.
“Oh, where did he go?”
“I think it was the United States Annual Historical Convention over in Virginia.”
“Wow, that’s really hardcore.” Ray was fascinated.
Frank sat up and sighed, figuring that it was now safe to turn around and finally be face-to-face with the one he fell for and began to move. “A doll and a genius.” Mikey concluded out loud. Frank turned back around to his desk and shrunk in his seat to stare up at the white ceiling wondering how he ended up being friends with the two beside him and began to play with his lip ring.
Sammie slightly blushed at Mikey’s comment; she made an attempt to hide her reddening cheeks by shifting her face from the boys to her work. But, of course, Mikey had his thick lenses worn for handy times like these. With his aided keen eyesight, he spotted the color grow into her cheeks. “Aww, the pretty girl is blushing.” Mikey sung.
Frank had officially given up on being nice to his mates. He sat up once again in his seat, grabbed Mikey’s notebook and smacked it on the back of Mikey’s and Ray’s head, both recoiled at the hit by jerking their bodies back and tending their heads with their hand. Frank took this opportunity and fully swung his body around, leaning his arms on the back of the seat and smiled at Sammie giving clear view of his tattoos and his knuckles.
Frank noticed the confused expression on her face, “Don’t worry, they still haven’t gotten used to being smacked for their idiocy.” He eyed both of them at ‘idiocy’.
Mikey whimpered and looked up at Frank, “We were only trying to help…”
“To prove why you two still don’t have at least one girl after you?”
Ray pouted in response. Sammie giggled quietly, and then leaned over her desk patting the injured boys. “Aww, are you guys alright?”
“Don’t give pity to these dumbasses.” Frank laughed.
“You’re stupid too!” Both retorted back to Frank who placed on a shy smile.
“So you guys are saying that you aren’t bright?” Sammie reassured herself from the statement that was spilled.
All three slowly nodded in agreement. “How dark?”
“Borderline C?” Mikey said.
“D?” Ray and Frank spoke.
“You three weren’t so sure…Are they constantly falling?” Sammie observed.
Mikey, Ray and Frank nods mirrored Dopey’s shameful nod.
“Well, I’ll be glad to help you guys.”
“Really?” Sammie laughed at how the three of them could show an identical expression.
“Yea, of course. Just let me know whenever you guys want to get tutored.”
“Okay!” They all chanted just as the bell ended the class period.

Thursday morning’s sun did not shine as brightly and warmly as it did earlier that week. Maybe it was signifying that Mrs. Alexander had taken a day for jury duty and Mr. Warriner was the replacement. Oh, cruel Mr. Warriner.
Sammie had sure taken note of his name, ‘war’. An excellent surveillance to prepare what was for her.
The classroom was boisterous with chatter and students, including Sammie, slouching in their seats while they worked on the unit review question.
“Ahem, girl, sit up properly, sharp students don’t slouch.” Mr. Warriner barked ‘girl’ as a reference to Sammie then turned away to answer the phone.
Sammie looked wide eyed at the substitute and glared at him; other students, especially the trio Mikey, Frank and Ray, peered over at her, surprised that she was snapped at. They knew that he was well aware of the other kids in the class that were slouching, so why her?
Sammie did not want to cause any trouble with him so she did as she was told, for the sake of peace. She sat up in her white Black Flag shirt and leaned against her arms onto the table continuing her work, along with the rest of the class.
“Hey, what did you get for number 19?” Sammie asked her friend sitting beside her.
“Um, I wasn’t sure if it was because of the McKinley or the Monroe Doctrine.”
“Maybe both? McKinley was for the eas-”
“Miss! Please work quietly on the individual work.” Warriner snarled at Sammie again; before she could protest, he returned to the phone.
Sammie was truly baffled at what he had said and was really confused as to why she was the only one targeted when everyone else was talking as well. She sent venomous daggers behind his head, watching him laugh to what she guessed would be his wife.
“Jerk”, “Ass”, “Prick” were murmured .
“Tell me how he has a wife.” Sammie growled to her classmate. Her friend shook her head wearily as Mikey, Frank and Ray turned to face her to try to calm her down.
“He’s going to get sweet ol’ vengeance.” Sammie smirked.
Frank smiled and played with his lip ring, feisty one now are we?
She glanced up to the boys and shooed them away to turn back around so she and her friend could brew up a quick and nasty scheme.
Rapid whispers were the only things heard behind Mikey, Frank and Ray.

Mr. Warriner finally returned to the teacher’s desk and slid down into the comfy twirling chair. Satisfied with his private phone call after being sure that his wife had made it safely down into Hawaii and that the hotel was perfect, he had to know since he was the one paying for it from the money he stole as he tricked the superintendent to have his paycheck be excessively more. He leaned back with a sigh of accomplishment as he rested the back of his head onto his palms then closed his eyes.
The classroom was still bustling with noise, but he dismissed it. Thinking that he could relax, he felt a hard large piece of speck slam onto the bridge of his nose. He slowly opened his eyes to feel slime oozing down from what looked like gum as the class fell dead silent. He brought out his right arm sluggishly and winced when he picked up the wet balled up gum away from his face. With an enraging aura about him, he stood up and chucked the gum into the trashcan beside the desk. He then gazed up growling with his fiery eyes darting around the room. His search ended on innocent looking Sammie.
“YOU!” He roared, pointing his right index finger at her.
Everyone jumped from their seat and stared at Sammie. She croaked a small, feeble reply. “Y-y-yes?”
He quickly walked out from behind the teacher’s desk, still pointing at his victim, and with speed, stood in front of her desk in between Mikey and Frank. “TO THE DEAN’S OFFICE. NOW!” He bent his arm back and pointed to the space behind him with his thumb of the now clenched right fist.
Sammie had her eyes rise up to Mr. Warriner’s stare. She gulped, “B-but why?”
“DON’T ACT STUPID! I KNOW YOU THREW THAT PIECE OF SHIT TO MY FACE, YOU WHORE!” Mr. Warriner spat in her face. Frank was infuriated at what he had called Sammie; he took action by standing up and rapidly grabbing both of Mr. Warriner’s arms together on his back. When Frank got his grip on Warriner and now had it under one hand, he used his free inked arm to seize the back of the substitute’s collar and growled. “Don’t ever call her a whore.”
A security officer ran into the classroom. He looked around at the awe-stricken students, “What’s going on? I heard yelling.” Then his peripheral vision caught the sight of Frank and Mr. Warriner, he shot over to the two and pulled them out from the rows of desk, ripping apart Frank from Mr. Warriner. The security officer, referred by the students as Staley, still had his hold on Frank’s arm while Mr. Warriner brushed himself off.
“Take him away,” Mr. Warriner demanded to the man. He turned around and pointed at Sammie, “and that slut too.”
“Wait, wait!” Frank exclaimed, putting his hands up in disbelief. He shifted his look to the security man, “You can’t just do what he said! He called Sammie a whore and a slut for no reason!”
Staley flicked his eyes from Frank to Mr. Warriner then back to Frank and landing onto Sammie.
“I did not! He’s lying!” Mr. Warriner spoke up in his defense.
“No way!” Sammie stood up with her left hand balled into a fist. It was now her turn to point at her victim, “He just called me a slut and you witnessed it too, Staley!”
Staley’s brow scrunched up with confusion.
“You seriously aren’t just going to actually believe these kids?!” Mr. Warriner shrieked; his arms flailed up in defeat.
Staley loosened up his brow, sighed, and then released Frank from his grip. Warriner gasped as Staley walked to him. “I’m sorry, sir. But the kids are right.” Staley made up his final decision by dragging Mr. Warriner towards the door.
Sammie and Frank let out a sigh of relief, their eyes following their overwhelmed foe. As Staley passed through the doorframe, he grabbed his radio and spoke, “We need supervision over in Alexander’s room” then closed the door behind him with his foot.
The students aroused in applause and shouts of triumph for Frank and Sammie. The two standing locked in eye contact with one another, both smiling in victory.

Word got out quick about the Warriner problem. Yes, the school, including the faculty, referred the incident of Sammie versus the substitute, the “Warriner problem”. As a joke among the class, the associated student body was working on the student’s constitution that no adult could assault on any child.
Sammie exiting the girls’ restroom, swinging the bathroom pass portrayed as a clipboard with ‘pass’ drawn on both sides, was humming an arbitrary tune to herself while she headed for the second to last class of the day.
“Hey Sammie!”
“Hey Dale!” Sammie hugged her friend that she rarely spotted around the campus.
“Are they right? You beat down a sub?”
Sammie giggled. “Well, I didn’t physically beat him down, but yeah.”
“Da-yum. Teachers better be watching out for you.”
“Haha, thanks Dale.”
“Yeah, that’s my Sam. See ya around, okay?” Sammie nodded and skipped on with her black flats toward her friend across from her upon returning on the journey to the building across the cement.
Caught up in her friend’s presence, Sammie did not see Frank walking down the stairs from her designated location.
After stepping off the stairs, he directed his attention forward of him. Digging his hands into his dark navy jean’s pockets, he smiled as he strolled toward the boys’ restroom with a sombrero hat, that was the Spanish teacher’s bathroom pass, cradled, also flattened, underneath his left arm.
“Kick his butt for me, kay?” Sammie’s friend suggested. Frank felt his heel become uncomfortable, so he looked down at his shoes, nonetheless, walking.
“Of course. Bye!” Sammie waved as she walked backwards onward to her class.
A disaster was spelled out; Frank let out an ‘umph’ as his chest collided with Sammie’s back. His face was still down; all he had seen from the abrupt meeting was long, silky, black hair and that the hat had fallen from his hold.
Her hand released the pass, “Oh snap!” Sammie jerked forward from what felt like a wall, built and firm, she had crashed into. She walked nearer to the clipboard and kneeled down to pick it up.
Frank looked at who he had bumped into and blurted out a small laugh reaching out for the sombrero hat.
Sammie frowned at the laughter, but then remembered the unique sound she called music and turned around, now standing, to roll her eyes at Frank.
Frank successfully picked up the hat after several blind attempts at grabbing it and with his free hand, waved.
Sammie laughed and returned the wave. “Small world, huh?”
“Nah,” Frank walked closer to her. “just fate.” His warm, rich, chocolate eyes smelting Sammie’s light, boisterous, brown eyes giving rise to have butterflies flutter about in her stomach.
His voice and choice of words are so perfect…Am I really falling for this guy? Sammie questioned her feelings.
She shook her head then smiled, looking up at the quite attracting student. “That just may be.” She went along.
Frank released a breath that resulted in a one syllable laugh. He released his gaze from her, taking a huge gulp of air, looking around the calm school grounds. “So, um,” His available left hand rested it behind his neck. “Can you teach me about our country’s history this Saturday?”
Sammie smirked and tilted her head; her hand had the board leaning against her thigh, keeping her eyes on his striking profile. “How about just the study guide for the Final?”
He dropped his left hand down to pick at the hat and returned his look to her. “It’s a date.” He smiled and walked off to the restrooms.
Sammie rolled her eyes toward the clear blue sky; “Alright” she replied audible enough for Frank to hear without her having to turn around. She smiled and returned on her walk to her class.
Frank quietly chuckled to himself, and he could not resist the wanting to see Sammie again, so he moved his head back sideways catching a glimpse of her. Frank would not ever have to regret his action, for during his watch on his admirer, he saw her also stealing a glance of him, both smiling.
Their day got happier, even the sun shined brighter.