When she reached the elevator and punched the call button, she swept her gaze across the hallway, grinned, and stuck up her middle finger. Just in case.
Cheyenne stopped in front of the small classroom where Maleshi’s Advanced Programming class was held and pulled out her phone. Wow. I don’t think I’ve been ten minutes early for anything.
The classroom was unlocked, so she stepped inside and figured she’d use the extra time wisely. When her undergrad students filtered into their seats ten minutes later, they found their Goth instructor slouched in her chair with her arms folded, one foot stacked on top of the other on the narrow desk, eyes closed.
When she figured it was time for class, Cheyenne jerked her feet down off the desk and leaped from the chair, clapping her hands. “Ready to get started?”
The undergrad students jerked to attention and shifted in their seats. Some of them gasped in surprise, and one kid folded his arms on his desk and buried his face in them.
“Oh, come on. Don’t look so surprised. You guys came here to pay attention.” She gazed at less than a dozen faces of students not much younger than her and stopped when she got to the girl with one side of her head shaved. The student slouched in her chair just like Cheyenne, her arms folded and an amused smirk barely creasing her lips. Cheyenne pointed at her. “Yeah, like that.”
Man. I’m even starting to sound like Maleshi.
“All right, listen up.” The halfling clapped her hands, and two students flinched. “That was better. We’ll keep trying. Since you guys seemed to grasp the general concept of Monday’s class, we’re moving on.”
A kid with ridiculously thick glasses and a fresh acne breakout raised his hand and didn’t bother waiting to be called on. “But we’ll go back to that when we’re studying for finals, right?”
Cheyenne squinted at him. No pocket protector today. He doesn’t look nearly as terrified of me, either.
“Look, you can go back to it if you want. I don’t know what Professor Bergman told you about how this semester was gonna play out, but you can pretty much forget all of it. You’ll do assignments, if I give you any, hopefully you’ll ask me questions if you seriously don’t get something, and you’ll play around with what we’ve covered on your own time. Tests and quizzes and finals are a waste of time, so if something in this class doesn’t interest you, drop it and find something that does. You’ll be writing your own code and building an application or program or whatever for your final. Whatever you want, as long as it’s not something a first-grader could do with their eyes closed. Make it something you actually like, huh? That’s where the cool stuff happens, and there’s nothing worse than being forced to work on something that bores you into another dimension. Well, almost nothing.”
When she finished her diatribe, she spread her hands and gazed around the room. Most of the students just shot her blank, vapid stares.
Guess I didn’t have a problem coming up with a half-assed syllabus on the fly. Good to know.
She closed her hands into fists and nodded. “Any more questions before I start and you shut up and listen?”
The thick-glasses kid raised his hand and leaned forward. “So, we don’t need to remember everything from the semester for the final?”
Jeeze, he’s really got a thing for finals.
A cold, itching tingle raced across the back of her shoulders. Cheyenne straightened and scanned the room again. Pay attention to the warning buzz. I’m learning too.
“Ms. Summerlin?”
“Uh-uh.” She shook her head but didn’t look at him. “It’s Cheyenne. I already told you that.”
“But you didn’t answer my question.”
The tingling buzz flared up at the top of her spine again and made her want to shiver. Then a low, droning hum caught her attention. That almost sounds like a fly.
“Um, hello?” The kid with his heart set on finals raised his hand with a weak wave.
“I didn’t answer your question. I heard you. Pretty sure I answered it in that rare speech you just got, but I guess you need a recap.” Cheyenne frowned and narrowed her eyes, glancing at the closed door at the back of the room, the corners of the back wall, and the empty aisle covered in old, slightly stained university carpet. Where is it?
The kid cleared his throat, and she shot him a fierce warning look. “No. You don’t need to remember anything for a final unless you think it’ll help you build something you can be proud of. No tests. No multiple-choice or fill in the blanks. Anything else not explicitly included in writing code for something you think is cool isn’t gonna happen. Is that clear enough?”
“Well, what about a sample scoring card, then? You know, like, a list of what you’ll be looking for at the end of the semester, so we can pass.”
“Dude, it’s not even the last week of October.” Cheyenne shook her head. The slouching girl in the front row snorted. “I’ll get you what you need to have when you need it, okay? It’s okay to chill out and enjoy the next seven weeks of not having tests.”
Finals Boy sank in his chair, his gaze racing back and forth across the surface of his desk as his cheeks reddened. “I just want to be prepared.”
“I get it. Totally admirable. And there’s a balance between—”
A dark shape the size of a housefly darted in front of the scowling kid’s face. It caught the light just right and briefly glinted with copper and shiny black. The low
