Kimberly sat down with the assignment and the materials she'd been provided. Mrs. Svenson had provided the class with flash drives with all the programs needed for the assignment (including a program to mix baby pictures with one's "spouse" to see what the "kids" would look like!). She also gave each student a list of household items they would need to buy every week along with blanks to fill in for "discretionary purposes." Finally, they were given a data sheet with the ages and sexes of their children (but not names) and the age, breed, and weight of their dog. They were told to assume that all other debts from earlier in the month were paid, as was every other week's share of the $1100 mortgage payment.
The odd part was the extra credit: If you scored an A on this assignment, you'd "get" to do the same project the next week, and the next, for a full month. This didn't sound so much like extra credit as extra work: Next week was a child development week, with everything from embryonic development through puberty covered.
Still, where Jon would have looked at this and thought Lame, or This is dumb -- what kind of family with two kids and a dog and a house only brings home $500 a week? or any number of other ways of trying to avoid doing the work -- let alone volunteer for three extra weeks of work -- Kimberly just got that look on her face.
Bear knew that look. It meant Kimberly was focused like a laser, she wasn't going to waste time, she saw a challenge, and she intended to beat it calmly and methodically into the ground. Bear was a jock, but his mama didn't raise a fool: He understood that this meant he should never fail to take Kimberly seriously, and that he had a real prize on his hands. His friends teased him about being pussy-whipped, but he knew that a girl who would stare her way through a mountain was worth more than her weight in gold.
So Kimberly sat down, pulled out her calculator, and set to work. She only heard the bell out of the corner of her hearing, so intent was she on this project. She packed up and walked out, her mind still focused on the project, that look still on her face.
