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Chapter 7
The next morning at school the rumor mill was spiraling out of control. I heard whispers and snatches of conversation saying that Jake had tired of Ella and dumped her. "Hey! She broke up with him!" I told a group of juniors, but I could tell none of them believed me.
I ran into Ella right before English and expressed my total outrage over the gossip.
She just shrugged. "People will believe what they want to believe."
"What if Jake started the rumors?" It would be one more thing to hold against him.
"He wouldn't do that. But even if he did, if it makes it easier for him to let people think he dumped me, I'm okay with that."
See? She was too good to be true.
I stood there staring at her. "How are you not mad?" I'd want his head on a pike. Okay, not really because it's Jake, but a little maiming might be in order.
She spun the dial on her locker and pulled the door open. While putting her books away, she said, "I try not to sweat the small stuff. But like I said, Jake just wouldn't do something like this. His friends, maybe, but not Jake." She got what she needed for her next class and shut her locker.
"Everything will be fine. Go to class." Ella said as she pushed me in the direction of my classroom.
She walked away from me and I saw several sets of eyes follow her, and heard the dramatic "whispers" and giggles as she passed. It wouldn't do me any good to go to each of those people and tell them the truth. Jake Kingston was always the dumper, not the dumpee, and he had the trail of broken hearts to prove it.
Including mine.
My English class was only a few doors down from the headmistress's office. Angry all over again, I stalked over to the bulletin board outside Ms. Rathbone's office, grabbed the pencil hanging down, and wrote my name in big block letters right under Jake's.
"So, you're running for president too?" I could hear the amusement in his voice.
I turned to see Jake smiling down at me, as if he found me funny. "Apparently." I dropped the pencil and went to class. He followed slowly behind me. I threw my bag on the floor and took out my notebook, determined to ignore him. I didn't watch as he slid into his seat and made a point to not study the back of his head.
The bell rang, and Ms. Aprils stood up from behind her desk. She was an extremely tiny woman, and reminded me of a small, brown mouse with her bland brown hair and the beige wraparound sweater she always wore. She took an upside-down hat off of her desk and shook it a few times. I heard rustling paper.
"For your first project of the year, you will be assigned a classic work that you will retell in a new medium. You will select your work by pulling it out of this hat." She held it slightly higher so that everyone could see it.
She walked through the aisles, stopping every so often to allow one of the students to pull a paper out. "Last year we had a puppet show. Another group did an online blog of the character's internal thoughts," she said as she shook the hat up again. "Someone else told the story through a series of tweets. I want you to use your world to tell this tale."
Ms. Aprils walked right up to me and gave me the evil eye as she held the hat out in front of me.
Please not Twain, please not Twain
. She'd fail me for sure no matter what I did if I got him. I reached in and took a folded strip of paper. I opened it and read the words
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen. I tried really hard not to smile. I couldn't have picked a better book. I loved Jane Austen, and Pride and Prejudice was my favorite.
She walked past Jake and stopped at the girl in front of him so she could draw out a title. "The project will be due next Friday." As soon as I picked my paper, I had been thinking I could do a manga retelling, turn it into more of an adventure story by making the Bennet sisters warriors. But I didn't know if two weeks would be enough time.
"And we're going to be working in pairs."
A small groan rumbled through the
Chapter 7
The next morning at school the rumor mill was spiraling out of control. I heard whispers and snatches of conversation saying that Jake had tired of Ella and dumped her. "Hey! She broke up with him!" I told a group of juniors, but I could tell none of them believed me.
I ran into Ella right before English and expressed my total outrage over the gossip.
She just shrugged. "People will believe what they want to believe."
"What if Jake started the rumors?" It would be one more thing to hold against him.
"He wouldn't do that. But even if he did, if it makes it easier for him to let people think he dumped me, I'm okay with that."
See? She was too good to be true.
I stood there staring at her. "How are you not mad?" I'd want his head on a pike. Okay, not really because it's Jake, but a little maiming might be in order.
She spun the dial on her locker and pulled the door open. While putting her books away, she said, "I try not to sweat the small stuff. But like I said, Jake just wouldn't do something like this. His friends, maybe, but not Jake." She got what she needed for her next class and shut her locker.
"Everything will be fine. Go to class." Ella said as she pushed me in the direction of my classroom.
She walked away from me and I saw several sets of eyes follow her, and heard the dramatic "whispers" and giggles as she passed. It wouldn't do me any good to go to each of those people and tell them the truth. Jake Kingston was always the dumper, not the dumpee, and he had the trail of broken hearts to prove it.
Including mine.
My English class was only a few doors down from the headmistress's office. Angry all over again, I stalked over to the bulletin board outside Ms. Rathbone's office, grabbed the pencil hanging down, and wrote my name in big block letters right under Jake's.
"So, you're running for president too?" I could hear the amusement in his voice.
I turned to see Jake smiling down at me, as if he found me funny. "Apparently." I dropped the pencil and went to class. He followed slowly behind me. I threw my bag on the floor and took out my notebook, determined to ignore him. I didn't watch as he slid into his seat and made a point to not study the back of his head.
The bell rang, and Ms. Aprils stood up from behind her desk. She was an extremely tiny woman, and reminded me of a small, brown mouse with her bland brown hair and the beige wraparound sweater she always wore. She took an upside-down hat off of her desk and shook it a few times. I heard rustling paper.
"For your first project of the year, you will be assigned a classic work that you will retell in a new medium. You will select your work by pulling it out of this hat." She held it slightly higher so that everyone could see it.
She walked through the aisles, stopping every so often to allow one of the students to pull a paper out. "Last year we had a puppet show. Another group did an online blog of the character's internal thoughts," she said as she shook the hat up again. "Someone else told the story through a series of tweets. I want you to use your world to tell this tale."
Ms. Aprils walked right up to me and gave me the evil eye as she held the hat out in front of me.
Please not Twain, please not Twain
. She'd fail me for sure no matter what I did if I got him. I reached in and took a folded strip of paper. I opened it and read the words
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen. I tried really hard not to smile. I couldn't have picked a better book. I loved Jane Austen, and Pride and Prejudice was my favorite.
She walked past Jake and stopped at the girl in front of him so she could draw out a title. "The project will be due next Friday." As soon as I picked my paper, I had been thinking I could do a manga retelling, turn it into more of an adventure story by making the Bennet sisters warriors. But I didn't know if two weeks would be enough time.
"And we're going to be working in pairs."
A small groan rumbled through the
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