After that, there were only a few more questions before Ms. Esposito sat back at her desk and started going through the list of partners. Jon listened with rapt attention as the names whizzed by, each student getting paired off one by one.
"Ms. Callahan, you'll be swapping with Mr. Drullers." Elizabeth Callahan was the head of the girl's swim team and a very attractive, fairly popular girl. A tall leggy brunette, with the stereotypical swimmer's build, she was originally from Britain, having only moved to Lakeview two years ago. The doe eyed girl looked a little less than enthusiastic about inhabiting the overweight, suspender wearing form of Leonard Drullers, but the kind girl offered him a weak smile nonetheless.
"Mr. Duncan, you'll be swapping with Mr. Matthews." Neither boy looked particularly excited by that. Mike 'the Moose' Matthews was a slab of beef in a football jersey, a linebacker and Biff Meadow's main muscle/hanger on. Suffice to say he didn't get on that well with Jay Duncan, a scrawny dork who was a prime target of Biff's bullying. Not that Jay looked excited to basically be becoming Biff's main henchman either. Well at least he'll be on the other end of the swirly for once, Jon thought.
"Ms. Ferguson, you'll be swapping with Ms. Wong." If Mike and Jay had looked unhappy, Nadine Ferguson and Alyssa Wong looked straight up hostile. Which wasn't really surprising; Nadine Ferguson was the daughter of a very conservative christian family, as evidenced by the large crucifix she wore and the very plain, non revealing white cotton dress she wore, while Alyssa Wong was an out and proud lesbian. Alyssa was a very pretty Chinese American girl, with an undercut, ripped jeans, and a tight blue v neck shirt, not to mention her doubly pierced ears and nose studs. She wasn't a Goth, but she had something of a punk aesthetic and that coupled with her orientation were in major contradiction with Nadine.
The names went by one by one, with Jon continuing to wait to hear his own name called, but it never came. The class had been put into 16 pairs, and he was the odd man out.
"Ah yes, Mr. Gibson," Ms Esposito said, turning her attention to him. For one glorious moment, Jon thought he might be getting out of this, but that proved to be nothing more than false hope. "Due to Ms. Olssson's family unexpectedly returning to Sweden, we have an uneven number. In order to rectify this, you will instead be swapping with me." The teacher's mouth thinned into a line, showing a momentary moment of discomfort for the first time, before she quickly schooled her features back to a genial smile.
"Wait, what does that mean?" Jon asked, a little flummoxed, (and secretly a little excited at possibly inhabiting the attractive olive skinned woman's body),
"Well, instead of living another student's life, you'll be living mine," Ms. Esposito explained a little less enthusiastically than she had when talking about them swapping amongst each other. "That means you'll be teaching my classes, living in my home, and so on, while I'll be doing the reverse for you. It will be a bit of a different experience compared to your classmates, but hopefully no less exciting. I will be needing you to stay after school today to go over a few things, since you'll have a few additional responsibilities compared to the rest of the class."
With that she began calling up the pairs to undergo the swap, and hand out notebooks. Jon was left momentarily to wonder at the very different semester he was facing, compared to what he thought it was going to be this morning.
