who looks at him.
Mr. GarcÃa sighs, looking weary. Somehow, Iâve never seen him give Matt a late slip, although heâs been on time all of twice this year. âAll right,â GarcÃa says, picking up a piece of chalk. âSo, saying good-bye to
The Good Earth
unit. Next up: weâre supposed to cover some European books as part of international literature. But for the most part, this list is so standard, Iâm sure youâve already read some of them. So Iâve decided to change this unit.â
GarcÃa passes out a stack of sheets, which we hand back, seat to seat. âIâve split the eighteen of you into pairs,â he says, âand each pair gets a book. Up until Christmas, weâll have presentationson these nine works. Until the first presentation, weâll be reading excerpts in class, so youâll have a homework break for a bit.â
Appreciative murmurs rise around the room. GarcÃa leans against his desk, waiting for the rustling to stop. As he folds his arms, it occurs to me that if it werenât for the jacket and tie, he could pass for a senior. There are actual seniors who look older than he does. I canât help wondering . . .
No
, I scold myself. The idea of GarcÃa creeping on a student is ridiculous. He doesnât seem to care about anything besides English. Most teachers at least mention something about their lives outside class, but not GarcÃa. With him, itâs
the text, the text, the text
.
Still. Glancing around the room, I see seventeen blank faces, and I bet all of them have wondered the same thing over the last few days.
The guy in front of me lets the paper stack flop onto my desk, and I take a sheet, scanning it. GarcÃa has paired me with Matt Jackson. I stifle a sigh, remembering Juniperâs diagnosis of their so-called âjointâ biology project. Our book?
Inferno
by Dante Alighieri. At least we didnât get stuck with
Les Misérables
âI could spend three hours a day reading that thing and still not be done by July. Despite my love for reading, it takes me ages to digest each sentence. Mom read to me until I was old enough to want to keep it a secret, for my dignityâs sake.
Matt and I have the first presentation date, due to go next Thursday. There goes the next week of my life, sacrificed to the flames of hell.
âAll right,â GarcÃa says. âWeâre going to take ten minutes tomeet in pairs and figure out which type of presentation you want to do. The options are at the bottomâyou can pick a skit, a game, or a PowerPoint. Though if youâre going to do a PowerPoint, you canât just read the Wiki article off some slides and call it a day.â
People laugh as we stand and shift around, rearranging ourselves into our pairs. I head to the back and slide into the desk in front of Matt. Heâs slouched so far down in his seat, his chest brushes the edge of his desk.
âHey,â I say.
Up close, Matt has a weird face. Almost feral, with narrow eyes and a sharp, asymmetrical mouth tilted in a perpetual smirk. He glances at me before going back to the sheet.
I turn my desk to face him. âSo, what do you think you want to do?â
He shrugs.
â. . . right,â I say, clicking my pen. âIâd rather die than do a skit about
Inferno
, so thereâs that.â
âYou know it?â he asks.
âWhat?â
âLike, have you read it?â Matt has a quiet, husky voice. He rushes through words as if heâs not allowed to be talking.
âJust excerpts, but I know the plot,â I say. âBasically, Virgil gives Dante this guided tour of the nine circles of hell, and Dante wanders around judging people and fainting a ton. Which is kind of like, it seems sorta dangerous to drop unconscious in hell of all places, but I guess my experience there is limited, so.â
The corner of Mattâs mouth twitches. For a
John Maddox Roberts, Eric Kotani