Robin, Boy Virgin: Original Series

Exams.

1.) Breathe and don’t think about how much its worth for your grade.

2.) Go through the multiple choice section first. If you don’t know an answer, mark that you’ve skipped it or took a shoot in the dark, and then go back at the very end of the test. See, if you go through the whole test, you could gain some knowledge or you mind will get more into the test subject and then you might be able to answer the hard question.

3.) Written answers: bull-shit like there’s no tomorrow. Also, for essays, write your three paragraphs on the political, environmental, and social impacts. And your thesis? It’s in the essay question. Like, ok, “How did World War II affect Britain in political, environmental, and social ways?” So you write: “World War II affected Britain in various and extreme political, environmental, and social ways.”

Of course, I was writing a Geography exam and you don’t really get essays in high school Geography. But you can still bull-shit like there’s no tomorrow about the environmental stuff. Teachers love it when you act like you really care about the environment. Their generation is trying to condition our generation to really give a crap, so when it seems like you give a crap, then they feel like they’ve succeeded and give you good marks. Trust. That’s legit.

Anyway, as it turned out, the Geography exam was a breeze. One, I’d actually used class time wisely and studied (for the most part, when I wasn’t thinking about Cora), and two, Mr. Jeffrey had made the test quite fair- there were no obscure, trick questions or any of that shit. I hate it when teachers do that, right?? When you get a tricky, weird-ass questions, it’s like “what the hell?? We never went over this, you bastard!”

When I was done my exam, I handed it in to Mr. Jeffrey and he excused me to go loiter around the school and drink pop until quarter past nine. A few other smarty pants kids had finished too, I wasn’t the first one. I wandered out into the hallway and got myself a Coke. I went to Cora’s classroom, she has Math this block, and I peered into the hallway facing window casually as I walked by. I spotted her immediately. How can a person look cool, sitting in a Math class and bored out of their mind?? I dunno. But Cora was pulling it off. I watched her for as long as could, as she kinda played with her hair and crossed and uncrossed her long legs.

Eventually, though, I had to move on before someone caught me, like, stalking Cora. So I went back to the lounge near the Geography class room and sat down at a table. I listened to my iPod and drank two cans of Coke. At nine fifteen I headed back to the classroom. Half the students were still in there and half weren’t back from wandering. Everyone was finished the exam and no one looked scarred.

“Ok, well, if you’re here then I’ll put you in your pairs. If your partner isn’t here, just catch them next class,” Mr. Jeffery said. He looked down at his class list. He started rattling off the partners. I sat at my desk, feeling that slight nervous feeling when you’re waiting for your name to be called. It’s like, please don’t have left me out, cuz I don’t want to go up to you and ask, “um, you didn’t call my name?”

“Robin and Amanda,” Mr. Jeffrey said. Awww come on, I whined loudly in my head and scratched my forearm, slightly irritated. I looked over at Amanda reluctantly. She, of course, was already looking at me. I stood up stiffly. Alright, alright I know the rules:

1.) Generally, the boy goes over to sit with the girl, the girl does not have to get up and go to the boy. It’s ancient chivalric code and is still adhered to.

2.) Unpopular people go over to the popular people, almost never vice versa. If you get a nice popular guy, he’ll probably go over to an unpopular girl. But mostly the douchebags just sit around and wait for the girl partner to come to them. Assholes.

3.) When you walk over to your partner, you have to look like you’re bored and only walking over because the teacher commissioned you to do so. You absolutely shouldn’t look overly enthusiastic, because this is high school: you must seem like you’re constantly stoned and devoid of all emotion. However, if you’re lucky enough to get partnered with a friend, then everyone understands if you scuttle over to your friend/partner happily.

Amanda is a popular girl who is not my friend. So I trudged on over to her and sat down.

“Hey,” She said to me.

“Hi,” I replied shortly. There was a long, awkward pause. God I hate forced partnerships. They are already awkward without adding in an awkward person like myself.

“… look, um, Robin. Let’s just start over,” Amanda suggested. I looked at her out of the corner of my eyes apprehensively. We hadn’t started anything, what was she talking about it?

“Acquaintances?” Amanda offered me her hand privately. Oh. I paused and then shook her hand.

“Sure,” I said darkly, but decided to be receptive. I mean, we had to get the damn project done. It wouldn’t really work if every time she said something to me I assumed it was a popular bitch put down and I just glared at my sneakers.

“So… what do we have to do?” She asked. The popular people never pay attention to spoken assignment instructions. They are too popular for that kind of thing.

“We have to pick one of the land forms and make a poster, describing how it’s made,” I filled her in quickly, trying not to sound like a nerd.

“Oh. Ok. What land form should we do?” Amanda asked. Was this how it was going to be the whole project? She was going to be stupid and leave everything up to me?

“Um… I dunno. What do you think?” I said, putting the decision back in her court.

“Hm. How about, like, a volcano?” She suggested. Being unoriginal and uncreative is also a popular trait. Easiest thing possible is their ticket.

“Sure,” I agreed, since I didn’t want to argue about it.

“Or… what if we did, like, those sea arches things. What are they called again?” She asked, flipping through her messy notebook.

“… they’re called sea arches,” I said obviously, but chuckled because it was kind of funny. Amanda grinned.

“Oh. Well, can we do that? Those are cool,” She said. God, the way she said that sea arches were cool would make you think she was the ultimate decider on what was cool and what wasn’t. Freaking popular kids.

“Sure,” I agreed a little more enthusiastically. Since, ok, in the world of naturally occurring land formations, sea arches are kind of cool.

“Cool,” Amanda settled. She reached into her purse for her cell phone and started texting at a ferociously fast speed.

“I think we’re ahead of the game now,” I commented without thinking, looking around the room as the other partners either didn’t say anything to each other or chatted away about non-Geography related stuff.

“Cool,” Amanda said again, her fingers flying as she texted. I just kind of nodded and kept looking around the room. I felt my cell phone vibrate in my pocket, wonderfully giving me something to do. Even more wonderful, it was a message from Cora.

“Did Boy Wonder nail the exam?” She asked me. “Nailed the hell out of it,” I texted her back.

“So what are you doing on Thursday?” Amanda asked me suddenly. I looked at her, surprised.

“Um,” I said, unable to say 'nothing', even though I wasn’t doing anything on Thursday.

“Do you want to go to the dollar store and get a poster board? Then we can just go to my house and get this shit done,” She suggested amicably.

“Uh. Yeah, ok,” I agreed. The sooner this project is done, the better. Amanda smiled at me and then went back to texting. I heaved a deep breath and looked at my cell again.

“Congrats! Xo,” Cora replied, making my heart pound with happiness when I read the ‘xo’ part. Xoxo a million times for that girl.