You

You think you would have remembered something about a quiz, but you’re the only one who had that lost look when Ms. Casey did the clear-everything-off-your-desk drill. You were supposed to have read Act Five over the weekend, but you were busy and you assumed that, like every other time you had read what you were supposed to read for homework, Ms. Casey would just go over it all in class anyway. They trained you well and now you’ll pay for it.

2) In Shakespeare’s As You Like It, a character notes that “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players.” To what extent could this be said to be true in Romeo and Juliet?

Great. A question based on another play you didn’t read. On the other side of the room, Zack’s pen is racing across the paper. You didn’t see him before class and given your schedules you probably won’t see him for the rest of the day. That’s okay with you. You’ve been thinking a lot since the party-that hangover clearing out your brain-and what you’re thinking is that it’s time to get your act together, and hanging around with Zack doesn’t seem like the way to do it. The others at the party, they had better clothes and went on expensive vacations and were all heading to big-name universities out of state, but they were just as screwed up as you. A few even more screwed up. Hanging around with Zack didn’t make their lives any better and you don’t see it doing anything for you. So, yeah, you’ll get your act together, get a job, probably at the mall, hopefully someplace near the Piercing Point, use the money you earn to buy some new shirts or something, tell Ashley you need a hand picking out what matches. And really, you can’t think of one good reason why you’d want to hang around with Zack.

3) Are Romeo and Juliet simply “star-crossed lovers” or are they responsible for their tragic mistakes?

Even if you didn’t know the quiz was coming, you knew this question would be on it. No matter what you’re reading, Ms. Casey turns it into a lecture on personal responsibility.

A poem? Discuss how the author inspires readers to take control of their lives.

A Greek myth? Show how Odysseus created his own fate.

A short story? Explain how the narrator’s refusal to assert her free will led to her downfall.

It’s Ms. Casey’s favorite topic and you know exactly how to answer it, even if you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Bonus Question (+5 points): Name five of the actors besides Leonardo DiCaprio who were in the movie version we watched last week.

Extra points for knowing some piece of People magazine trivia.

That’s your fate.

No wonder you hate this class.

“Hey.”

It’s Max and he’s standing near your locker. You nod. “Hey.”

“What up?”

You spin the combination lock and jerk open the door.

“Where were you this weekend?”

“I was busy.”

“Yeah?”

There’s something sharp in his voice that makes you look over. He’s got his arms crossed and he’s leaning back against the row of lockers. Max the Tough Guy.

“Ryan says you went to a party at the queer kid’s house.”

A week ago you’d have been quick with a denial, now it’s not worth the effort. You turn back to your locker. “What did you do?”

“Derrick found a box of wine in the back of a pickup truck at the 7-Eleven. You should have been there.”

“Gee, sounds like fun.” Kyle the King of Sarcasm.

Max starts in with the F-bombs, but then he stops midword and the first thing you think is that there’s a teacher walking up behind you, so you keep fumbling around in your locker. You’re not getting blamed for that one.

“You’re Kyle, right?”

There’s a hint of spice in the air, expensive and subtle. You turn around slowly.

She’s as tall as you, so you’re looking right into her eyes. Sky blue eyes, the makeup perfect, the face golden bronze, also perfect, the straight blond hair bouncing below her smooth shoulders, down to her chest. Perfect, perfect, large and perfect. A senior, but not a senior like Jake the Jock. The rare kind of senior, the kind who seems to float through the building, above it all, above the cliques and the gossip, the Senior Class crap and the little school romances all so quaint and foreign to them. The kind who already have jobs in offices or boyfriends in their twenties, new cars and exotic tastes, the kind who never work hard in school but whose names are called over and over at honors ceremonies, the kind who are never there to pick up their Xeroxed awards. Always girls-no, always women-and always stunning. Not teenage adorable, not high-school pretty. Stunning. Girls like this don’t talk to guys like you, don’t know that you live on the same planet as they do.

“Victoria said she met you the other night at Zack’s,” she says while you stand there with your jaw on the floor.

“She said you were a cutie.” She smiles the kind of smile that tells you to forget it, you’re way out of your league. But still, she’s talking to you.

“So, you have a good time?”

You nod. “Um, yeah. Yeah it was fun.” Kyle the Idiot.

She gives a perfect little laugh. “They always are. Did he make you one of his margaritas? You gotta watch those, they sneak up on you.”

You give a stupid little laugh, nodding like a bobblehead.

“And I hear he got Brooke crying.” She rolls her eyes. “Not that that’s hard.”

“Yeah, that was kinda, I don’t know, mean.”

“That’s our Zack. He finds your weak spot, then keeps pushing till you crack. Still”-she shrugs-“he makes a good margarita.”

She laughs and you laugh because you don’t know what else to do. You should ask her what else she knows about Zack, things like what he did to get kicked out of that school and how he gets away with throwing parties at his house and what he’s done to other people when he finds their weak spots. But you won’t. Girls like this don’t talk to guys like you, and when one actually does, you don’t start asking questions about some other guy.

“Right, I gotta go,” she says, checking the time on the cell phone she’s not supposed to have in school. “Let me know the next time Zack’s having a party. I’ll give you a lift.”

She walks off and naturally you watch her go. That’s perfect too.

You turn back to your open locker and Max is staring at you, his eyes wide at first, then they narrow and you can guess what he’s thinking.

One word from you and it’d be okay, everything back to normal, back to the way it was.

But you just look at him and smile.

No, not smile.

You smirk.

It makes no sense kicking a kid out of class for not doing his homework.

Maybe he was busy actually doing in-class work when the assignment was supposedly given, or maybe the teacher wasn’t as clear as she claims she was. There’s the chance that he heard the assignment and chose not to do it and take the zero, but a better chance that if he heard it he just forgot about it, that he doesn’t want the zero and certainly doesn’t need it. But he’ll get one anyway. So now the kid’s behind, but if he pays attention in class he might be able to piece it together and catch up. After all, it’s only one fill-in-the-blank worksheet. It would make sense to keep him in there. The teacher could give him detention, or better yet, give him a break for once, let it slide, but that never happens and the kid gets kicked out of class, sent to see the vice