The next morning, Erica got up bright and early. She was really hoping, I mean really, hoping that science class wasn’t canceled. Besides, Miss Beaker would have to come! If a teacher missed school for 2 days, a new teacher would have to substitute. Suddenly, Erica was worried. What if they got a new mean teacher? Erica hurried along the sidewalk. The rest of the morning flew by. In the blink of an eye, it was time for science class and she was walking into the classroom.

Erica walked over to her seat and eyed the door. The rest of the class was also looking around nervously.

Just then, as if on cue, Miss Beaker rushed into the room at top speed, breathing hard. She was also holding a strawberry soda, as always.

“Hello, *breath*, class *breath*” Miss Beaker wheezed.

“Hi, Miss Beaker!” The class called back.

Miss Beaker wiped some sweat off her forehead. Then she shuffled the papers, like she always did. Sal wasn’t paying attention, as usual.

“Class, please remove all distractions and take out your science books.” Miss Beaker told everyone. Sal was looking out the window.

“Sal! Please!” This time Erica didn’t turn around. Sal quickly obeyed.

Then he raised his hand. “Miss Beaker, why weren’t you here yesterday?” He asked.

Miss Beaker looked startled, but simply answered, “That is personal matter.”

Sal raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

Then Miss Beaker told the class their assignment. “Today, you are going to start working on your project. Over the weekend, you should have made up your minds on a topic, and you will start putting together your project. It should be ready on Friday.” Ruth and Sal switched spots.

“Do you have any ideas?” Sal asked.

“What?! Haven’t you read your book?” Erica asked.

“Um, well, I forgot.” He said, looking at his shoes.

“Oh, well, I have an idea. Let’s do our presentation on how germs make the body sick!” Erica said.

“Why can’t we do it on something more boyish?” Sal asked.

Erica sighed. “Boys have germs too, you know.” She opened her science book to the section about germs, bacteria and viruses.

“Hey, that looks like a spider! Cool!” Sal shouted, pointing to a picture of a spider-like virus. They read through the fully illustrated section.

“I think I’m going to be sick looking at all these pictures of germs!” Erica finally burst out, shutting the book.

“We were just getting the good part!” Sal complained.

“The only good part is that we are done with that part of the assignment!” Erica said, putting the book away. She took out some paper and pencils.

“Start writing down some of the things you learned.” She told him. The team set to work.

They both held out their papers. “So, how are we going to present this? Make a video of us speaking?” Sal asked.

“No way! We should make a poster of our findings and show it to the class. Or something like that.” Erica suggested.

Just then, Miss Beaker finished her soda. “Ok, class, science is over, but remember, read page 367 of your science books tonight.” They all started to leave the classroom.

“Let’s bring some poster paper to school tomorrow and we can start drawing!” Sal told her, pumping his fist.

“Yeah, right.” Erica agreed, picking up her binder.

“Good-bye!” Sal said. Ava came around from behind Erica.

“Looks like you’re having a great time with him. What happened?” Ava asked, watching Sal leave.

“Well, it’s kind of hard to explain, but he is a much different person on the inside that on the outside. I think he has something like ADHD.”

“I totally get that! No wonder he has trouble with school and paying attention. I always thought he just did it to be annoying, but I guess I was wrong.” Ava stared at the floor. Then her tone brightened. “Oh, you’ll never guess what Ruth and I are doing for our project!”

“Uh, what?” Erica gave up.

“Come on! Guess! Just once?”Ava pleaded.

“Fine. Um, snails?” Erica guessed.

“No, silly! We’re doing it on butterflies. What are you doing?” Ava asked.

“How germs affect the body.” Erica said, “It’s really interesting!”

“Germs? They aren’t as pretty as butterflies, but I guess they would be kinda interesting to study. Oh, well, gotta go!”Ava called, rushing down the hallway.

Erica was always the last one in the room. She went out quietly. The hall was filled with kids and she had to bump past everybody to even get to the door. As she left, she thought about the project. She couldn’t believe that she thought working with Sal would be a nightmare, when in fact, she was having the most fun in her life. From then on, she decided to get to know someone before judging them just by their appearance.

The End.

-Catlover02

A little information about this post:

It was supposed to be a whole week series, but I had lots of things come up and decided to update the post and make this the finale. Sorry is you were expecting a Part 4. I might start a new series in the summer.