On his way to English, Jon passed dozens of other students, either heading in the same direction as him or the complete opposite. Jon did his best to examine all of them, hoping to find something out of the ordinary that might be wish-induced, but he couldn’t find anything. Jon began to wonder if he was just being paranoid.
Taking his seat at the back of the class, Jon glanced around nervously. Again, Jon didn’t notice anything that he would consider interesting.
Maybe the stone is playing with my mind, he thought, smiling a little.
A few moments later, as the last of his fellow classmates filled in, they were joined by their teacher, Mrs. Watson. Briefly, Jon wondered if the stone might affect any of his teachers but after a quick observation, Jon shook his head.
“Good morning, class,” Mrs. Watson called as she sat down at her desk. Some of the students mumbled a response. Jon sat back and tried to listen as Mrs. Watson began the lesson.
Tried to was the operative word. Unfortunately for Jon, he shared the back of the class with perhaps the two most chattiest girls in the whole school: Melissa Smith and Tiffany Saunders. They were on the cheerleading squad and Tiffany was the school slut. There were rumours that she had slept with the entire football team. Well, except for Biff; he was off limits.
As usual, they were gossiping away, probably about Tiffany’s latest conquest or something like that. At least that’s what Jon gathered since it seemed that Tiffany was doing most of the talking. That was odd; normally, Melissa got her fair share of the gossip in, and it drove Jon mad.
“Melissa!” Tiffany raised her voice as loud as she dared. “Why are you ignoring me?” she demanded.
Melissa let out a frustrated noise and Jon thought he heard the sound of a pencil being slammed down.
“Because, Tiffany, I’m trying to concentrate.”
Jon blinked. Melissa was actually paying attention in class? He had to glance over toward them, and sure enough, it looked as though there were some notes being jotted down in her notebook—more than, Jon noted, there were in his. Jon quickly returned his attention back to Mrs. Watson.
“Is there a problem, girls?” Mrs. Watson called out as she noticed the struggle between Melissa and Tiffany.
Tiffany quickly shook her head but Melissa nodded. “Yes, Mrs. Watson. Tiffany kept bugging me about her date last night as I was trying to concentrate.”
Jon couldn’t help but break into a smile as even Mrs. Watson blinked and took a step back. Melissa Smith, paying attention? “Are you feeling alright, Miss Smith?”
Melissa looked at her blankly. “Um, yes.”
“Forgive me,” Mrs. Watson began. “But I’m having a bit of a hard time coming to terms with the fact that you were actually trying to pay attention. I normally have to tell both of you off for chit-chatting.”
Melissa blinked, confused. “But I always pay attention in class?” she replied, seeming to doubt herself a little. It didn’t help that a few of the other students sniggered. Mrs. Watson smiled and placed her hands on her hips.
“Alright then, Melissa. Let’s see if you actually were paying attention. What can you tell me about the acts of a Shakespearean drama?”
Melissa stared at Mrs. Watson for a moment before she quickly looked down and scanned her notebook. Her eyes widened when she realised that she had actually jotted it down. Feeling confident, she looked up at the teacher.
“Well, after the resolution and rising action in the first two acts, the climax is always in Act 3, Act 4 is the falling action, and the resolution comes in Act 5.”
Mrs. Watson gasped as Melissa gave the answer. As a teacher, she was of course glad that she was finally getting through to one of her more troublesome students, but she had been trying the whole semester to get Melissa to pay attention. Why would she suddenly start paying attention now?
“Since when do you know Shakespeare?” Tiffany hissed at Melissa, clearly confused as to what was happening to her friend.
“Since always,” Melissa shot back, sounding annoyed.
Tiffany shook her head. “No. Like Mrs. Watson said, you and I are always gossiping about boys and what all the other girls in the class are wearing. Snap out of it.”
Melissa blinked. Was that true? It didn’t sound like her. No, she always took notes in class, but, then again, she clearly remembered Tiffany going on and on yesterday about her date with Steve over the weekend.
As she tried to figure things out, Melissa suddenly felt a thumping pain in her head. It was almost like a headache, except that she had never had a headache as bad as this before. She clutched her head and groaned.
“Ow!” she almost yelled. Through the thumping pain, she managed to indicate to Mrs. Watson that she wasn’t feeling too well and so the teacher sent her off to the nurse’s office. She was in so much pain that she didn’t realise that she had left her handbag and books behind.
Jon, who had been sitting quietly during this whole exchange, blinked. Well, that was certainly interesting: Melissa paying attention in class! But was that really odd enough to be wish-induced?
