#tested subject (german) because I could never guess what the teachers wanted to hear in text analysis

[birnensaft]

Serious questing, I am not from the US. What is stardardized testing for you? Wikipedia tells me "Any test in which the same test is given in the same manner to all test takers, and graded in the same manner for everyone, is a standardized test." Also there is a List of standardized tests in the United States but there is a lot on that. From context I always assumed it was something like VERA or Zentralabitur where all schools give the same test, but if it can just be a test for one course...

Is it just multiple choice (and similar tests)?

A big flaw with standardized testing is that you don’t have to UNDERSTAND anything as long as you know how to memorize data and strategize

You don’t have to be incredibly smart, you just have to follow patterns like a trained rat

which is why I just aced the final test on the Secure Coding seminar I accidentally signed up for at work despite having zero tech background or experience

[wistfulcynic]

Another Brick In The Wall

Summary: A high school AU. Why? I don't really know. Probably because I've read a few of them lately just out of curiosity and I can't say I care for how Killian is portrayed. So here's my version. It sort of wrote itself this afternoon. Give it a try, let me know what you think. 

I'm gonna say it's vaguely Captain Duckling-ish even though Emma and Killian are both teenagers. How is this possible, you ask? Read and find out.

Rating: T for now, might go M later on.

Tagging, just in case you might be interested: @teamhook, @resident-of-storybrooke, @wellhellotragic, @let-it-raines, @deathbycaptainswan, @rouhn, @kmomof4, @jennjenn615 @tiganasummertree

Read it on AO3

Chapter 1: 

She noticed him right away, the new face in her school. A face that was a bit too skinny, much like his lanky frame, but the high cheekbones of one and the long limbs of the other hinted at good things to come. His dark hair fell messily across his forehead, and his eyes were the bluest she’d ever seen. When they caught hers, he merely raised an eyebrow at her and turned away. 

Her mouth fell open in indignation. No one turned away from Emma Swan. Not in her school. 

“Who’s the new guy?” she asked Ruby, trying to sound nonchalant. Ruby was the gossip master; she knew everything that went on at Storybrooke High. 

Ruby followed her friend's gaze to the tall boy slamming his locker shut and frowning at his class schedule. ‘Um, his name’s Killian Jones. He’s from England or Ireland or somewhere. His brother’s the new harbourmaster, they just moved here last week.” 

“Killian.” Emma tested the name. It was unusual, but she liked it. It fit him. 

Suddenly she was engulfed from behind by a pair of strong arms, chasing all thoughts of the new boy from her head. “Hey, babe,” said Neal, planting a smacking kiss on her cheek. “Whaddya say we ditch this place and go make out under the bleachers?”

Emma shrugged him off, pushing away from his grasp. “Ugh, Neal, I’ve told you before not to do that. And it’s the first day of school, of course I’m not gonna ditch.” 

He laughed. “You’re such a nerd, Ems.” 

She glared at him. “I am not, I just want good grades so I can go to college. Not all of us have football scholarships.” 

“Neal doesn’t have a football scholarship either, not yet,” Ruby pointed out with a small sneer. She was not Neal’s biggest fan.  

“Only a matter of time, Rubes,” said Neal, with a smug grin. “Coach has scouts coming to the first game, so I just gotta be my usual awesome self and it’s in the bag.” 

He slung his arm around Emma’s shoulders and she took a deep, calming breath, barely managing to suppress the urge to cringe. She liked Neal, truly. They had known each other since kindergarten, and she guessed he was technically her boyfriend, but she hated --hated-- the PDA. He knew that, she had told him often enough, but it never seemed to stop him.

She gave him a tense smile. "I'm headed to Psychology," she told him.

"I'll walk you there." His arm tightened around her shoulders as he steered her away from Ruby and towards her first class. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Killian was in her third period English class, though that first morning he was nearly late to it. By the time he appeared in the doorway it was barely a minute until the bell, and the only open seats were in the first row. She could swear she caught an eyeroll, and he seemed to smirk at the class at large as he deliberately sat in the very front and centre. 

Just in front and to the right of where she was sitting. 

He carried a leather satchel instead of a backpack, and when he slung it open to pull out his notebook she noticed an AP Calculus textbook, a slim laptop, and a large pair of headphones. 

AP Calc and AP English, she thought. Who was this guy? 

He seemed to feel her eyes on him and turned to look at her. She resisted the urge to turn away, boldly holding his blue gaze. Emma Swan did not shrink from anyone, not even disconcertingly handsome foreign boys with very blue eyes. He grinned at her, and she sensed respect in it, even as its brilliance made her heart gallop. 

Then the teacher entered the room, and he shot her a wink and looked away. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He was in her AP US History class as well, and she heard that he also had AP Physics, French and German, from her friends who were in those classes. She heard that he was taking a Greek class online, from overhearing Miss French, the librarian who was monitoring his studies. She heard he had joined the fencing club from her own father, who coached it. She managed to hear a lot of things about him, eavesdropping and probing for the information as subtly as possible, dying of curiosity but not prepared for her friends or family to know just how much the new boy fascinated her. He was from Bristol in England and he had no family except for his brother, who was ten years older and as Ruby had reported, the new harbourmaster. They had American citizenship through their mother, and after some sort of scandal or disaster in England (no one seemed to know the details) had decided to make a new start in a new country. Killian was sixteen, more than a year younger than Emma, and he should be a junior but he’d already finished, according to Ruby, the British equivalent of a high school diploma and apparently the AP classes were the nearest thing to what he’d be doing if he’d stayed in the UK. 

“If he passes all his AP exams then he can finish high school a year early and start college next year,” Ruby reported. “I’d call him just your average nerd, but Victor and I were at that new coffee shop in Misthaven last Thursday and they had an open mic night. New boy was there, with his guitar.” 

“He plays the guitar?” Seriously?

“Yep, and sings. He’s pretty good. He did a Dylan cover, which, ugh, but then he sang an Irish song too that was acutally kinda great.” 

“Irish? I thought he was English?”

Ruby shrugged. “Irish, English, it’s all the same.” 

Emma was pretty sure that it wasn’t the same at all, but she remembered just in the nick of time that she wasn’t supposed to be interested in Killian, and changed the subject. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next time he spoke in English class (he never volunteered to answer questions, but when the teacher called on him he always produced a brilliant answer. Even though he never seemed to do any homework, spending his lunch and free periods on his laptop, with his headphones on) she listened carefully. She was no expert in accents, but he sounded English to her. Like, he wouldn’t be out of place on Downton Abbey. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She looked at the website of the Misthaven coffee shop and made a note of their next open mic. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sitting as unobtrusively as possible in a quiet corner booth, she watched as Killian sat down on the improvised stage and took out his guitar. He ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath, announcing that he would be playing what he described as “An old Irish folk song with a bit of an update.” He smiled as he said it, and Emma noticed a group of girls she recognised as Misthaven High cheerleaders whispering and giggling at a table just to his right. Before she had a chance to analyse the stab of something she felt watching them, something sharp and unpleasant, Killian began to sing and she was enraptured. 

He was beautiful. His song was beautiful, his voice was beautiful, his eyes were beautiful. And she was fucked. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She snuck out of the coffee shop without talking to him, and banged her forehead on the steering wheel of her car. Emma Swan did not crush on boys, she was crushed upon. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She smiled at him in class on Monday, a deliberate, flirty smile. He raised an eyebrow in response, but the corners of his mouth turned up as well and she felt like she could fly to the moon. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Still, he didn’t talk to her. She’d smiled at him every day for two weeks in both their shared classes, had timed her departures so that they walked out of the classrooms together, had brushed up against him in the hallway, laughing and putting her hand on his arm as she apologised, had dropped her pencil and asked him to pick it up then leaned forward and flipped her hair as he handed it to her. She’d tried everything, all the little tricks that would have reduced any other boy in school to a quivering jelly, but Killian simply smiled and responded with the same detatched politeness that he used with all the other girls. 

Like she was just any other girl. 

Finally, she couldn’t take it any longer. “So,” she said, as they were gathering their things after English class. “Are you going to Homecoming?” 

He looked slightly surprised for a moment, then smirked. “No,” he said, and turned to go.

She grabbed her backpack and hastened after him. “What? Why not?”

He turned to look at her, this time with an incredulous expression. “Why on earth do you care whether I embrace ridiculous American high school traditions or not?” he inquired. 

“I’m just curious.” 

“Indeed. But why?”

She shrugged, not wanting to admit how interested she was in him. 

His eyebrow rose again. “Well, then, let me suggest that you mind your own business, princess.” 

She gaped. How dare he speak to her like that? “I’m not a princess!” she protested. 

“Oh, I think you are. Emma Swan, daughter of the town sheriff, niece of the mayor, girlfriend of the quarterback, head cheerleader, most popular girl in school. You couldn’t be more of a cliché of the perfect small-town American princess if you tried.” He started walking again, dismissing her. 

She followed, running to catch up with his long-legged strides. “You know an awful lot about me,” she huffed.  

“You’re hard to avoid.” 

“I know a lot about you, too.” She didn’t know where that confession had come from, but she planted herself in his path and stood her ground. 

He gave her a sardonic smirk. “I doubt that very much.” 

“You’re from Bristol, England, you’re super smart but you don’t make a big deal about it, you love music and you play the guitar.” She counted on her fingers before throwing him a triumphant look. 

“Oh, well done,” he sneered. “I’d almost think I had an admirer. But I’m afraid you missed out on the most important thing about me, love.” 

“Oh, yeah? And what’s that?”

Something flickered in his eyes, something lost and sad, just for a moment before he slammed the barriers down again. “I am just marking time in this town,” he replied, “until I can pass my exams and go the fuck back home.” She gasped at his language, and he smirked, leaning into her space and almost making her gasp again at the electric sizzle she felt at his nearness. “So don’t get too attached, princess.”

They were standing in the middle of the hallway, inches apart and eyes locked, when suddenly he was gone, slammed back into the lockers behind them with Neal’s forearm against his neck. 

“What are you doing with my girlfriend, dickhead?” snarled Neal. 

Killian was unfazed, merely raising a disdainful eyebrow. “Not a thing, mate.” 

Neal removed his arm, but remained close as Killian slowly straightened. He was skinnier than Neal but also quite a bit taller, and he somehow managed to look intimidating as he glared down at the older boy. 

Neal scowled and stepped back, putting his arm possessively around Emma. “You’re new here,” he said scornfully, “so maybe you don’t know how this works. I’m the quarterback—” 

“And you date the cheerleader and get elected homecoming king, yeah, I’ve seen that movie,” Killian scoffed back. “Trust me, mate, I have no interest in interfering or getting involved with you or your girlfriend.”

“Well.” Neal looked mollified, and Emma wanted to smack him. Couldn’t he see that Killian was making fun of both of them? “Okay then. But I still don’t like you.” 

“I still don’t give a fuck.” 

Neal snorted. “Let’s go, Ems, I’ll walk you to your locker.” He steered her away, the arm around her shoulder like iron. 

The last thing she saw was Killian giving her a mocking bow before he turned and headed in the opposite direction. 

[sunscreenstudies]

Hey! Congratulations, you did really well in your LC! I was wondering, do you have any tips for people who are going into 6th year? Also, how did you study for Geography? It's so difficult to learn off lists of information 😰

Thank you so much!! :D

And believe me when I say that you already have most of the work done in 5th year! 5th year was wayyy more stressful than 6th year because by April you honestly are just so done with this whole Leaving Cert thing you don’t even care anymore! The *best* study tips that I can give you for going into 6th year, however are:

Take rough notes in school and then rewrite them over the weekend, making them pretty and colourful and breaking all the information down into small bullet points, because lets face it, teachers give wayyy more info that what’s necessary, and by rewriting it, not only can you cut things out, it also helps you remember the topic better, and when your notes are cute and pretty looking, you’ll actually want to study from them!

Download or print out the syllabus for each subject and only write notes for those topics! I found that in a lot of subjects, especially theory heavy ones like biology, the teacher gave way too much information than what was required, and you can still can full marks by cutting out those unnecessary points!

I used a colour-scheme for highlighting which actually helped a lot! For example, I used yellow for headings and subheadings, orange for definitions, blue for people’s names, green for examples, purple for quotes and pink for dates. This way, when you’re revising or doing your homework and you’re looking for a particular definition or an example, you can immediately find the colour highlighter and the information that you’re looking for!

This website : https://www.examinations.ie/exammaterialarchive/  should be your best friend! I know you’re probably sick of hearing this, but doing exam papers and checking the marking scheme afterwards really does help! That way you can learn exactly what you need to get full marks

Subject wise:

When it comes to studying maths, especially for higher level, just reading your notes and doing the same example questions over and over again won’t cut it. I did this throughout my 5th year, and ended up doing great on class tests before almost failing my summer exam. Teachers usually use the examples they gave you in class tests, and I ended up memorising these examples instead of actually learning the methods! So once again, exam papers are your friend.

For English, even though there is an awful lot to learn, you just need to remember key words, and you’ll sail through. In the comparative, for example, you need to compare your texts in every. single. paragraph. You could write a fantastic essay, but if you don’t say “In comparison to this…” “Text 2 however differs from this…” “Similarly…” “The two texts are different in the sense that…” etc. you will get veryyy low marks. In the same way, when answering your poetry question, you need to keep referring to the style of the poet. Every past poetry question can be broken down into two simple questions: What did the poet write about? and how did they say it? If you can answer both these questions on every poem you learn, you’ll do brilliantly! Also, don’t bother learning any more than 5 poems from each poet, and don’t learn more than 5 poets to begin with. By doing this and learning 25 poems in total, you’re covering yourself completely!

Languages are more tricky to study for, but what helped condense the information you need to learn for me, was treating the oral and the written paper as the same exam. For example, if I learned off a paragraph about my family for the oral, then I would learn that paragraph again for the written paper, instead of learning a new paragraph or adding sentences. This way, when you’re studying for the written exam, you won’t have to learn off new paragraphs, because you’ll still remember some of what you learned for the oral! Aural tests are the worsttt and very difficult to study for, so your best bet is to just learn off the most common place names that come up, numbers and dates, and (for German at least) types of weather. Be sure to read the syllabus for the aural exam because in some cases, if you just guess and write down what you *think* the tape might have said, they’ll give you half marks!

Biology is all about the diagrams! That’s what got me through that huge ream of information. If you learn off the diagram, then you already have a rough idea of what’s going on. Learnt the diagrams as if you’re trying to teach it to someone else, and honestly, this makes it so much easier to learn! It especially helps with similar topics such as respiration and photosynthesis, the carbon cycle and the nitrogen cycle, etc. and really helps you to distinguish one from one another. Then, in the exam, you can just draw a quick sketch in pencil at the top of your page, and refer to it every time you get confused or stuck when explaining something.

Geography did have a lot of information to learn off and is marked rather harshly. However if you go through past exam papers you will find certain topics that come up every single year eg. Fluvial processes. For me, I studied those guaranteed topics (or mostly-guaranteed topics) really well, and then had a rough overview of the rest of the book. Also, in every answer make sure that you give an example and for the love of god, learn your damn exam diagrams!!! They are literally the best thing ever because if you need 15 points in an answer, then a diagram can count for up to 3 of those!! And even if you’re certain that you have written enough points, put one down anyway because you never know how mean your examiner might be! With that note, for every 2 marks a question is worth, you need 1 SRP (significant relevant point), a sentence that contains a solid fact or example. Eg. For a 30 mark question, you need to give 15 SRP’s, for a 20 mark you need 10SRP’s, etc. etc. Also, learn the theory and the case studies as one answer! So instead of writing down that an earthquake happened in Japan on March 11, 2011 and it was magnitude 8, write down how earthquakes occur and what magnitude means and that for every 1 jump you make on the Richter scale the earthquake becomes 10 times as powerful. You need to pretend that the examiner is stupid and has no idea what earthquakes or volcanoes or tertiary activities are, and that way, you are maxmising your SRP’s. Answer every question as if you’re explaining the topic to a 3-year-old! Your short questions, individual long questions, elective, and option answers are all worth the same exact 80 marks. So do not disregard the short questions because they’re worth the same 16.66% as every other question you answer. Also, if your option is Geology like mine was, then your fucking sorted man! Every single year has at least one questions on biomes, whether it’s the human activity or the characteristics so just learn that and you’re sorted! No joke, there were 10 people in my Leaving Cert Geography class and not a single one of us knew anything about soil or soil processes or characteristics. We all just learnt our biome, and that was it!

6th year is scary and stressful and at times you will want to just bury yourself in your bed and cry, but you will get through this! Just calm down, breathe, take a moment, and remember that even your worst days can only ever last 24 hours. Millions and millions and millions of people have survived the LC and you will too! And this time, next year, you will be collecting your official certificate from your school and wondering just what the hell the fuss was all about!

I hope that these tips/pieces of advice helped, and if you have any other questions please please please feel free to ask me because I really could have done with an Irish studyblr back when I was in your position!

And always always always always alwaysssss remember, that you are more important than your grades! It doesn’t matter if you’re aiming for 10 points or the full 625, your health and your well being and your happiness is so so so much more important that what you get at the end of the day! Do not let your good grades be at the expense of your mental or physical health because while the Leaving Cert is such a huge deal to you right now, in 5 years time, it won’t matter anymore. So please please pleaseee take care of yourself and always put yourself first! 😘

[epacer]

Story You May Have Missed

Crawford High more balanced racially now

SAT scores on verbal and math tests at Crawford in 1969 was 1015. In 1982 it was 871

After fourteen years I had only one uncomfortable moment, one feeling of small panic. It came halfway through the advanced English class I was monitoring as an observer. Maybe it was because the class was period two, home room — and since graduating from Crawford High School in East San Diego in the spring of 1969 I had forgotten all about the fact that we used to have home rooms. Or maybe it was that the day’s lesson on Greek drama was just the sort of thing that used to put a glaze over my eyes. Whatever it was, the teacher’s voice faded, and I became acutely aware of the clock on the wall, with its minute hand creeping upward one loud “click!” at a time. I heard the boy next to me ask his friend, “Did you find your homework yet?” and heard his friend answer, “I didn’t do it, so how could I find it?” And suddenly I felt lightheaded, as if I hadn't graduated at all, as if the teacher were going to call on me and I didn’t know the answer to the question.

I had come back to Crawford looking for a lot more than a feeling of deja vu. I wanted to find out what the students’ concerns and perceptions are, and how they differ from what ours were back in the days when the Rolling Stones were still young and the newspapers daily reported the latest total of American soldiers who had died in Vietnam. In a way, I suppose, I wanted to stash the school under my shirt, run off with it, pull it out once I got home, and leaf through it page by pungent page. Because you hear a lot of things about high school these days. You hear that students graduate without knowing the difference between words like “their” and “there.” You hear that sex is as common and meaningful as exchanging business cards, and that kids show up for class so saturated with drugs they can barely put pen to paper.

I had heard a few disturbing things specifically about Crawford, too. There were rumors of students threatening teachers for giving them bad grades, and of fights stemming from racial hostilities and gang rivalries. Some of the incidents were said to involve knives or guns. “I guess you’d need a gun to get by at Crawford now,” some of my old high-school chums would say, half jokingly, whenever the subject of Crawford came up. It sounded a bit different from the prim, strict high school I remembered, run like a cross between boot camp and a coed summer camp, where the most defiant act imaginable was to smoke (tobacco) in the bathrooms.

So I decided to go back and find out if all they can’t wear today “is a bathing suit or something,” joked Kelvin Ross, currently a senior at Crawford and a standout linebacker on its football team. Handsome and almost lanky, Ross carries 220 pounds on his huge frame and on the football field is the embodiment of the old saw, “For a man of his size, he has amazing quickness.” He was one of several students I talked to at length during a recent visit to the campus, and I found his mental quickness above average, too. But when I tried to explain to him how administrators used to measure girls’ skirts to see if they were inappropriately short, Ross simply shook his head incredulously and said, “Oh, wow.” (“We resisted liberalizing the dress code, but once you get away from the emotion of the issue, you have to analyze whether something like dress really has any impact on a student’s academic performance,” one district official told me not long ago. Apparently no relation between the two was found.)

Another striking change is the relationship between teachers and students. I saw a lot of students stop to banter with teachers in the halls between classes. At lunchtime the students are free to wander off the campus — and no one quizzes them when they return to see if they’ve been playing pool, guzzling beer, or smoking pot.

Near the lunch quad is a spacious drop-in counseling center and students are in it all hours of the day, talking with counselors or researching some career opportunity on their own. In the classrooms, many of the teachers wear casual shirts and jeans; they are no longer simply distant authority figures, and most of them seem to be having a genuinely good time with their students. “They treat you not as a student, but as a student and a friend,” explained Ross. “Plus, they seem to really care about what happens to you.”

It is a relationship we did not even hope for in 1969. We were a half dozen studious but restless individuals; we shared a grotesque sense of humor and a profound disdain for the educators who ran our school. In our view, they were unimaginative and hypocritical, and they gave us no measure of respect. They insulted us by saying we should attend proms and join the student government; what could have been more “irrelevant” (irrelevant was a key word that soon became a cliche) to the social and political turmoil engulfing the country? We thought the role of school should be to prepare us for life in the real world — and it was a world where people were getting drafted and sent to Vietnam to die for no clear reason at all. It was a world where college students were protesting the government’s policies in increasingly harsh terms; within eighteen months some of those students would be tear-gassed, beaten, and even shot while they were protesting. Blacks had rioted in the ghettos of Detroit and Los Angeles after 200 years of unequal opportunity. Elected officials were plotting coups and undermining foreign governments while publicly maintaining they were doing nothing at all — lying through their teeth, some of them. And in the midst of all this we were told that what was truly important was to keep our hair short and wear red, white, and blue to school each week on Spirit Day.

Our convictions were uncluttered by any real understanding of human nature. And they were definitely not shared by the vast majority of students at Crawford, who were caught up in the usual high-school concerns of dates, cars, and money. Those students accepted the role conceived for them by administrators, but we rebelled. We listened to the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane instead of our teachers. We started a group called the Student Action Corps, modeled on the radical college group Students for a Democratic Society, and circulated a petition with a list of demands that would give us a lot more influence in school matters. Along with such things as an open campus, no dress code, and better food in the cafeteria, we slipped in a few bombshells: true decision-making power for the students, politically significant movies in the auditorium. Two thousand students signed the petition in three days, although surely most of them were more concerned about the food than the movies. Teachers and administrators instantly grew apprehensive. “They want to take over the school!” one friend of mine heard a teacher say.

But abruptly, we gave up the whole fight. We were cynical enough to believe that the school “Establishment” would never give in to us, and a true revolution was doomed (even if we had advocated the use of weapons, we didn’t have any). The demands in the petition crumbled. I had written many of them myself, and I’ve always regretted giving up the fight for them so quickly, because we had the right people on the defensive, and for all the right reasons.

Most of the changes we asked for became realities within a few years after we graduated. We happened to be the beginning of a huge wave of student unrest and rebellion that swept through the area’s high schools in the early 1970s. But changes take time, and tensions at Crawford continued throughout the Vietnam War, according to Marion McAnear. McAnear was a German teacher at Crawford when I was there; I was a student of his for three successive years. He is still at Crawford, still teaches German, and has become the school’s soccer coach, too. A burly man whose hair is now going gray, he was and is an excellent teacher and a thoughtful man. “When I first came here in the Sixties we were a lot more straight-laced than we are today,” McAnear told me when I looked him up on the Crawford campus. “Teachers wore ties and jackets; classrooms were a lot more formal. There was a gap between the students and the teachers, and that was the way it was supposed to be.

“But during the Vietnam War, the whole atmosphere here was one of tension. There were so many kids . . . and they were rebelling. Cherry bombs were being blown up in trash cans almost every day at lunch. The battle lines were drawn,” McAnear said.

“When I was going through high school, it was sort of us versus the teachers,” agreed Chris Miller. At thirty-three. Miller is one year older than I am, and he encountered many of the same rules and frustrations at his high school in Phoenix, Arizona. He currently teaches U.S. history at Crawford and is the head football coach, and his rapid-fire style of talking is full of a coach’s enthusiasm. “We had a strict dress code, and our student government was a body that had no power at all,” Miller continued. “The teachers were sort of detached. They didn't try to get to know students.

“Today, we’re still authoritarian figures, but we listen to the student government. We treat the students with respect.” Or, as another teacher at Crawford, Don Mayfield, puts it, “The students don’t see the administration as the ‘Establishment’ anymore. They see the individuals.” It isn't utopia, but from what I saw, the relationship between students and teachers beats the hell out of the one that existed fourteen years ago, and that’s a fundamental change.

But it is a curious kind of change. It has been accompanied at Crawford by a resurgence of the old bromide, “school spirit.” In the last few years, such things as taking fierce pride in the school’s football team, currently ranked sixth in the county, have become increasingly popular. As I talked with Miller he told me I should wear red, white, and blue to school the following day, Spirit Day — a lot of the students and teachers would be wearing those colors, he said. The Crawford team would be playing arch-rival Lincoln High School that Friday afternoon in a game that could decide the Central League championship, and Miller and a lot of other teachers and administrators at Crawford encouraged me to go. “The football games are a big part of the overall scene here,” explained Bill Fox, Crawford’s current principal.

I wound up driving out to the game at Lincoln the next day with Fox, a boyish-looking man of forty-five. He has been principal at the school since 1981, and he told me that the re-involvement with school activities such as dances and football games comes after a long period when such activities received little student support at all. “I think you’ll find that [in that sense] students today are more like the majority of students were when you were in high school,” Fox commented. The resurgence of interest is due in part to the encouragement of top school district officials, who are hoping that an increase in “school spirit” will lead to a decrease in vandalism, drug use, and other problems that have plagued high schools throughout the county in recent years. Fox himself vigorously supports the idea, partly, he told me, because he thinks it is important for students to be exposed to various high-school social activities. He also believes successful events raise funds that can be used to lower the cost of student activities, enabling less wealthy students to attend.

Increasingly, the students seem to be buying the idea. Margie McDonald, Crawford’s current Associated Student Body president, told me that the number of people who attend A.S.B. activities has increased noticeably in the last three years. Many more students are doing things such as wearing school colors on Spirit Day and showing more enthusiasm at pep rallies, she said. (Mayfield told me that a few years ago it wasn’t uncommon for some of his brighter students to show their disdain for “school spirit” by coming to class on Spirit Day dressed in black.) “It sounds trivial, but attendance at the football games is up, too,” said McDonald, an attractive young woman who has the precocious, oddly disconcerting poise that high school A.S.B. officers traditionally seem to possess. She admitted with a laugh that the renewed support of student activities may be due to the fact that “we have a good football team. But I think [such support) is important, I definitely do, because getting into supporting the school creates positive feelings, positive activities. If you’re hating school, not getting involved in anything, it creates negative activities — like hanging out more, maybe getting into drugs.”

Fox and I parked in Lincoln’s parking lot and walked down to the athletic field, where the two football teams were warming up. The Crawford players looked awfully big in their white helmets, white jerseys, and blue pants, and the faces had changed from exclusively white when I was a senior to a more balanced mixture of black and white. (Crawford now has a black student population of 17.5 percent, nearly double the 9.9 percent average for city junior high and high schools, and far more than the 2.9 percent it had in 1969. White students currently constitute just under half the total student population, and the balance is made up principally of blacks, Asians, and Hispanics.) The Colts were favored to win the game, but Lincoln, a high school located on South Forty-ninth Street in Southeast San Diego, has a long history of upsetting favored Crawford teams. I got the feeling that as far as the Lincoln players were concerned, the Colts were just upstarts from uptown. After the opening kickoff Crawford’s team moved methodically down the Field to score. Then a Lincoln player ran back the ensuing kickoff for a touchdown, and from then on it was a dogfight.

It was a hot day, but the stands on the eastern side of the field were jammed with Crawford supporters: teachers and parents as well as students. The students were wearing “Classy Colts’’ sweatshirts, “Go Colts’’ ribbons, and buttons that said, “Face it, Colts are Great,” exactly as their predecessors did fourteen years ago. The cheerleaders all had great legs, and they still had names like Andi and Buffy and Melinda. But you could occasionally smell marijuana smoke in the stands, and the cheers were a lot more soulful than the plaintive “Hey, hey, whad-dya say” stuff I remembered. They included things like “Boogie ’cross that line” and “Crawford don’t take no jive,” and more than once the crowd exhorted the team to “get down.” There was, in fact, a lot more cheering than game watching. The score at half time was 13-7 Lincoln, but in the second half, as the smog drifted in and the sun turned brown, the Crawford players finally put together another long drive. On a critical third-down play a tall Crawford receiver went up for a pass and managed to catch it despite the Lincoln player who tackled him instantly (he juggled the ball momentarily, but crashed to the ground clutching it firmly to his chest), and a few minutes later a muscular young player made a nice over-the-shoulder catch to give Crawford a 14-13 lead. The crowd screamed even louder, if that was technically possible, and I remembered that when I was in high school, I thought all this “school spirit” business was kind of dumb. I’m not certain I’ve changed my mind. If successful school activities somehow enable economically disadvantaged students to attend proms they might not otherwise be able to afford, I guess that’s great. What I object to is the small view that things like “school spirit” can engender. Shouldn’t we teach high-school students that compassion for your rivals is of far greater consequence than glee at having rubbed their noses in the dirt? And more than that, should we really be encouraging students to think that things like homecoming and pep rallies are important? It seems to me our time and money would be far better spent encouraging students to explore ways of bringing about nuclear disarmament, or easing world hunger, or putting an end to acid rain. Attitudes are important, and they’re certainly forming at the high-school level; why bother with “school spirit” when you can bring about changes that might save the human race from complete annihilation?

I suppose it’s part of our neurotic modem consciousness to be required by circumstances to face such questions, and to be simply unable to do it most of the time. I know I can’t. Hell, when Crawford scored that go-ahead touchdown, I felt a shiver of emotion, and I realized something: I wanted the Colts to win. It looked as if they were going to, too, right down to the point where only two minutes were left in the game. Then the Colts’ quarterback threw a low, flat pass that was intercepted by a Lincoln defender. Two plays later Lincoln’s quarterback scampered around left end, made a couple of neat zigzags, and was tackled at the two-yard line. The Crawford fans grew morose, and with thirteen seconds left, Lincoln scored to put the game away, 19-14. I felt kind of let down as I made my way out of the stands, but I noticed the girl next to me was crying. Down on the field some of the Crawford players were, too.

The changes in the ethnic makeup of Crawford’s students would be immediately obvious to anyone who attended the school in my era. We were a school that consisted of ninety percent white kids, nearly all of us middle class, and racial concerns and tensions were things that happened elsewhere. Today Crawford has achieved what school district planners like to refer to as racial parity; the remarkable thing is that the school has gone through this transition without having to resort to busing. Only about fifty students are bused to Crawford from other parts of the city, and they come to take advantage of special courses the school offers as a regional “magnet” school for business and accounting. “It’s very unusual to be balanced ethnically without a lot of busing,” noted principal Bill Fox. “Most schools are out of balance one way or the other” — that is, top-heavy with either minorities or whites. The reason Crawford is not seems to be coincidental; the school’s district, located smack dab between Southeast San Diego and the burgeoning suburbs north and east of San Diego State University, is a sort of melting pot of various ethnic groups. Housing in the district varies from run-down apartments to sprawling tract homes, and this is probably what has brought about the racial mix.

As Fox pointed out, one advantage of the district’s racial balance is that students of various ethnic groups tend to encounter each other as they are growing up, mingling in activities such as Little League. Their parents tend to see each other year after year at PTA meetings. By the time most of the students reach high school they are accustomed to mixing with people from other ethnic groups who are, after all, simply people from the same community. One teacher at Crawford, who formerly taught at Lincoln High School, told me that if I were to go to Lincoln I’d “probably find a lot of bused-in white kids sitting around in groups and hoping the black kids won’t beat up on them.’’ At Crawford most of the blacks and whites seem to get along fine. I saw them sitting together on the quad at lunch and joking together in classrooms when teachers were temporarily absent. Nevertheless, there is racial uneasiness at Crawford. “No, it’s not a cloud hanging over the campus, but yes, there are racial tensions,’’ as football coach Chris Miller sums it up. Nearly all of those tensions involve a new ethnic group in the area — the Indochinese.

The Indochinese, or Asians, as they are called in the school district’s official lingo, arrived in large numbers almost overnight at Crawford in the fall of 1981. Culturally and socially it was a shock wave the school is still struggling to absorb. The new students were Indochinese refugees, many of them “boat people’’ recently departed from refugee camps in Southeast Asia and resettled in the sea of stucco apartments and aging houses along University and Orange Avenues between La Mesa and North Park. “Within a matter of three months our population of Asian students skyrocketed from less than five percent to fifteen or eighteen percent,’’ said Fox (it is now about twenty percent, some 300 students in all). “It kind of rocked us.’’ With the influx of Indochinese refugees, Crawford became eligible for additional funds from the school district and the state, and administrators were given a week to prepare special classes and hire teachers and aides who can speak the native languages of the incoming students.

Many of the new students did not speak English, of course; some were illiterate even in their own language. It was not uncommon for sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds from Cambodia or Laos to show up for their first day of school at Crawford having never before attended a school of any kind. In the ensuing confusion, some of the new students were simply issued biology and history textbooks and told to start studying.

Things have become quite a bit more organized since then. The Asian students are now interviewed when they first enroll at Crawford to determine their educational level and knowledge of English. Some have performed extremely well academically from the start, and the list of students on the principal's honor roll now includes names like Pheuak Phanthao, Son Do, and Dao Hong Thi Tran. Most of the Asian students, however, are assigned to special classes designed to teach subjects such as biology, math, and U.S. history to students who are not fluent in English. The classes make use of simplified vocabularies, and material is covered more slowly. At the same time, the Asian students take special English courses to learn the language, moving up into increasingly advanced levels until they are fluent enough to transfer into the regular curriculum. But by that time, most of the Asians are already on the verge of graduating. There does not appear to be any immediate alternative to this method of educating the Asian students, but it is clear that most of them are graduating from high school far less proficient in almost every subject than their American classmates. The special classes (which many of the Asian students attend four out of six class periods a day) also tend to isolate the Asians from the rest of the student population — that is, even more than they already are.

Before school, the Asian students tend to hang out in clusters, often near the back of the cafeteria. During lunch hour they seem to disappear; there are small numbers of them on the quad, but almost none anywhere else on campus. There are no Asian students on the varsity football team (there is one, a halfback, on the junior varsity), and they are conspicuously absent from pep rallies and dances. Many Crawford students resent the Asian’s habit of hanging out in groups, but Ken Watson, a senior who works as an aide in one of the many English classes for Asians, explains that “they’ve just come over from Asia, so they want to stick together. There’s power in numbers. They can be intimidating if you let them, if you think of them as a dominant group. But I can see they might think of us that way.”

Watson said it is simply the language barrier that prevents many of the Asian students from mingling with others and taking part in school activities, a view shared by Katy Chang. Chang, a Laotian with coal-dark eyes and an eager, pretty smile, is currently a senior at Crawford. She has been in the United States for more than five years and speaks fluent English. “I try to go to things like, let’s see, homecoming?” Chang told me. “I should know about it. 1 like to have American friends so I can learn what they do and what they have. I’m going to graduate from high school and I don't know much about it.

“But it’s a problem. I think it might be an English problem. You have to study really hard [so you don’t have as much free time in the first place). And Asian custom is so different from American custom. [Americans’] personality is so different. They put on make-up, smoke ... I don't do those things, or go out with a boyfriend.” Nearly everyone agrees the friction between the Asians and other students reached its peak last year, and most of the incidents that took place involved black students and Asian students. Several teachers told me that the outgoing, high-energy personalities of many black students contrast mightily with the reserved, cautious personalities of most Asian students. But the differences go deeper than that; some of the black students also seem to resent the attention and money being spent on the Asians — an understandable if not exactly admirable reaction, considering the years of discrimination blacks have suffered. “From my viewpoint, [the Asians] are getting special classes and special teachers, and they’re taking away a lot of good teachers that could be teaching us,” one female black student pointed out recently. “Why don’t we have something like that? We need help, too. I’m not prejudiced or anything. But there is a lot of money involved ...” Whatever the differences between the two groups, fights between them broke out last year. One black student badly beat up an Asian whose locker was next to his, and not long afterward, five Asian students jumped a tall black student in one of the school’s bathrooms. Several other incidents were narrowly avoided. “More than one time I had to break up something because of what people thought was being said,” Fox noted. “Students would hear the Indochinese talking in their own language, and for some reason they’d assume [the Indochinese] were talking about them.”

Most teachers and students at Crawford say the tensions appear to have eased so far this year. But the school security officer, Don Donati, said he has been called to the scene of four near fights between black and Asian students in the last few weeks. One Asian student also told me that “just one week ago I was talking to a girlfriend, and this black guy came up and touched my head. I don’t like people touching my head. I tell him, and he started yelling. Not joking. I can tell he doesn’t like Asians or something.

“Some dark people are my friends. But many dark people, I don’t like their personality. They tease you, even though you didn’t say anything. They call you Nips. I try to get along with everybody, but sometimes I get depressed, and really mad.”

Some of the black and Asian students claim allegiance to bona fide street gangs, the blacks to the Crips and Playboy International, and the Asians to the Stray Cats. But Crawford is not considered a problem school in terms of gang activity by either the school district or the San Diego Police Department’s street-gang detail, and there has not been an incident involving known gangs reported from the school for more than six years.

Fox and other administrators insist the racial tensions at the school have not been that serious, and that they will fade in the coming years as the Indochinese refugees become more integrated into the cultural life of San Diego. Some teachers predict that the need for special classes will disappear in two or three years, too, partly because the Asian students come from a “success-oriented” culture and work hard to achieve what is expected of them. “It will take time,’’ said McAnear, the German teacher and soccer coach, “but I really believe that the Indochinese are going to put a shot in the arm of America. They’re polite, disciplined, relatively easy to teach . . .’’ He paused, and grinned. “And besides, some of them are damn good soccer players.”

One April night five years ago, an adult-school teacher was showing slides to a Spanish class on the Crawford campus when two sixteen-year-old boys sped up on a motorbike. One of the youths entered the classroom with a gun and got everyone’s attention by firing a shot into the blackboard in the front of the room. After that he robbed the students (mostly middle-age men and women) as well as the teacher, netting a grand total of about seventy dollars. He and his partner then fled on the motorbike, but were arrested two days later when an anonymous informant phoned police. Although McAnear was not present during the robbery, it took place in his classroom, and he told me with a shake of his head that his blackboard still bears a bullet hole from the incident.

The attempted robbery was a dramatic example of the trend toward violent behavior that occurred on many of the city’s junior high and high school campuses in the last decade. In that time, incidents of students threatening and assaulting teachers rose citywide, as did acts of vandalism such as breaking windows and looting lockers. Students sometimes walked out of classrooms en masse, and in at least one instance, a police car was burned at Lincoln High School. “For ten years violence was a big factor here,” McAnear said. At many schools, it still is. Although incidents such as burglaries and threats of injury declined throughout the district from the 1981-82 school year to the 1982-83 school year, incidents of battery and assault with a deadly weapon jumped sixteen and fifty percent, respectively, during that same time period. A spokesman for the board of education’s police services department also noted that throughout the district, violent incidents in October of this year have increased fourfold over the same month last year.

The police services department does not keep crime statistics for individual schools, but McAnear and other teachers and administrators insist that violence is currently decreasing on the Crawford campus. Still, the legacies of the past are everywhere. Crawford, like many high schools in San Diego, now has a security officer whose main function is to help prevent criminal acts from taking place on or near the campus. Most high school football games are played in the afternoons rather than at night, due to the number of fights that were breaking out after night games a few years ago. And a new law enacted by the state legislature last April has made a five-day suspension mandatory for any student caught fighting or possessing weapons or controlled substances on school grounds.

Fox thinks the increased violence stemmed from student frustrations with the slowness that characterized the response of school officials to the cultural changes of the ’70s. McAnear agrees; the violence was often a way of challenging authority, he points out, and challenging authority was a widespread phenomenon in all facets of society at the time. The school district finally adjusted to new concepts of behavior, appearance, and “relevant" curriculum, but McAnear isn't so sure those adjustments were always the right ones. “Discipline went out the window. We loosened up on too many things — homework requirements, for instance. Standards fell, and teachers got frustrated because a lot of kids wouldn’t do their homework. Eventually you were supposed to leave time to do the homework in class, but you can't do that, especially with thirty-five students” and the special attention that many of them require, McAnear complained. Attendance also became a problem as the school district placed less emphasis on being in class regularly. Fox explained that by attending summer school, some students at Crawford would complete twenty-four of the forty class credits needed to graduate by the end of their sophomore year. That meant they would have to attend an average of only four classes a semester (rather than the standard six) for the next four semesters, and many of these students would spend the two free periods a day wandering around the school or the nearby community. Simultaneously, the scores seniors were getting on standard tests such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test declined steadily. The average SAT score on combined verbal and math tests for a senior at Crawford in 1969 was 1015. In 1982 it was 871.

Today, echoing the swing back to more student involvement in school activities, there is increasing emphasis on the value of homework and attendance. Beginning this year, high-school students in San Diego are required to do two hours’ worth of homework each night, and attending six class periods a day is mandatory. At Crawford, teachers no longer greet students who are tardy to class with a shrug of the shoulders; they stand in the hallways between classes, exhorting the students to be on time and occasionally yelling at them when they are not. New districtwide guidelines for achieving minimum proficiency in English and math are being introduced, and next year, if seniors cannot demonstrate that they have attained these levels, they will not be allowed to graduate. Some of the students I talked to at Crawford are already grumbling about the homework and attendance requirements. “I’m a little offended by it,” A.S.B. president McDonald said. “It seems like they’re talking down to us.’’

But nothing ever comes full circle. Students have to attend six classes a day just as we did in 1969, but now they’re studying subjects such as computer programming and race relations. They still go to physical education classes, but now the girls’ and boys’ gyms are known as the male and female gyms. There has not been a single student cited for smoking marijuana on the Crawford campus so far this year, but drug use is still much more widespread than it was fourteen years ago. “It’s not the way it used to be,’’ McDonald told me emphatically. “There’s not a party without drinking. There are very few students who haven’t tried drinking or smoking pot]. There’s even a trend toward cocaine these days.’’

But administrators and teachers at Crawford insist that even though students are exposed to more information and experiences at a younger age, most of them still tend to make responsible decisions. They say students have, in effect, responded favorably to the increased independence they have gained since 1969. “The brighter kids don’t seem to get involved with drugs that much,” said Don Mayfield. “But they are, certainly, exposed to a lot more things [than high-school students used to be). They know a lot more. They know about homosexual bars, and the prostitutes along El Cajon Boulevard. But the kids are more open . . . and seem to be stronger.” Even Mayfield, however, conceded that high-school students “still have a lot of difficulty sorting it all out.”

“We’re taking a lot of steps [these days], but many of them are immature steps, like getting stoned or beating up other students,” senior Ken Watson agreed. “People are doing things like that just because they feel they can do them and no one will stop them. That’s kind of immature.

“Compared to Wally and Beaver, yeah, I guess I’m growing up pretty fast. I think it has gotten a little out of hand. Parents let their kids go out and get drunk. Some parents are even growing marijuana in their back yards. Maybe if they’d set some rules and regulations instead, [the current situation] wouldn’t have happened. But I don’t think we’ll ever return to the days when you come home from school and have cookies and milk. It’d be great if everyone could be like the Cleavers, but remember, this is the Eighties.”

And so it is. In the late 1960s Crawford administrators struggled to keep the controversy of the Vietnam War out of high school; today they struggle with the influx of Vietnamese students. We experimented almost daintily with drugs; today’s students seem either to worship them or consider them passe. We had to go to therapy groups to learn how to be “up front” and “get in touch with our feelings” (we even had to invent the terminology); students today are open and honest almost as a matter of course. They don’t talk about sex much — at least, not to reporters — but they do say it is a big part of the high school scene, another indication that things have loosened up considerably.

I did, however, discover one constant. During my recent visit to Crawford I made it a point to buy lunch at the outdoor window. We called it the cold lunch line back in 1969, and it was a place where you could exchange a few quarters for dry, stale sandwiches, grainy malts, and chocolate “cake squares” loaded with sugar and oil. On this visit I was surprised to discover for sale such “healthy” items as yogurt and pita-bread sandwiches. But my mission was comparison; I wasn’t interested in the contemporary stuff. I bought a piece of chocolate cake and a tuna sandwich. The cake was larger and fresher than the old “cake squares” we used to gobble up, and lighter in texture, too. But the tuna sandwich could have been left over from the last time I ate at Crawford: tuna-flavored paste compressed between two slices of doughy, alleged wheat bread, and decorated with a piece of aging lettuce. Some things never change. *Reposted article from the SD Reader by Gordon Smith of November 10, 1983

[german-italian-ties]

Awkward Part 1

Summary: Both Feliciano and Ludwig haven’t been acting like themselves. Kiku decides that it’s up to him to figure out what’s going on. Three part story

Pairings: Eventual (?) GerIta

Part 1 | Part 2 |

Pfft. I’m just laughing at the eventual part but I don’t know how else to say it. Anyway. I decided to work on two things at once so my muse doesn’t burn out on me. There is like three one-shots that I have in mind, but I wanted to work on a multi-chapter thing but not a long multi-chapter thing so since I know that this is going to be three chapters I decided to work on this. I have each chapter planned out and just need to write them. Enjoy!

~*~

Whispers. There’s been a lot of that today. He was only able to hear bits and pieces as he walked to his locker, but Kiku frowned nonetheless. A lot of people were talking about a fight. Some suggested a lover’s quarrel, though it wasn’t proven that the two were together. There was talk on how the two would stumble over their words as they talked. Some even claimed that they would avoid each other’s gaze and stand in silence before one of them excused themselves.

Kiku bit his lip as he passed by another group of students, hearing the names Ludwig and Feliciano floating around their conversation. He didn’t like hearing all of these people talk behind his two friends’ backs, but he had to admit that he was curious. Ludwig and Feliciano were known to be close to one another. If you saw one of them, the other usually wasn’t too far off. Kiku hadn’t been around them for the whole day, but the Japanese man was able to see something was off.

Ludwig had been very deliberate in making sure Kiku was between Feliciano and himself when they first entered school. Feliciano himself seemed to be quieter and kept his gaze to the floor when the German was around. He could just feel the tension between them and every time the darker haired man tried to speak about it, either Feliciano or Ludwig would talk about something else. Though, they weren’t talking to each other like they usually did. They only shared a few sentences with each other before becoming silent and it became Kiku’s job to break it. Between the three of them, Kiku was the one they conversed with the most, causing the Japanese man to have two separate conversations on one subject because they refused to build upon each other.

He just couldn’t understand it. Everything had been fine on Friday. What happened the past two days to make the inseparable friends so distant all of a sudden? The Japanese man gave into a frustrated sigh as he gathered his homemade lunch. He was going to get them to talk about what happened. Kiku didn’t think he could handle being the wall between his two friends for much longer. He was close enough to the two of them to know that they weren’t happy. He saw that they would sneak glances at each other when they knew the other wasn’t looking. This tension had to be relieved as soon as possible.

Kiku headed outside after relieving himself of unnecessary baggage from his backpack. The three of them shared lunch and with how nice it was outside; the Japanese man knew the other two would be eating out in the courtyard. There was a specific tree near a pond that had been their designated lunch spot for two years now. As Kiku approached their spot, he was disappointed to only see Feliciano. The Italian had his sketch book out beside him, a fish outlined on an open page. It looked that the brunet had abandoned his usual afternoon sketching in favor of eating…or rather, picking at his food. Feliciano looked distracted and upset. Did he and Ludwig have a fight or did Feliciano come alone?

Feliciano’s mood perked up once he was close enough, “Hey Kiku! What took you so long?”

The darker haired man settled himself under the shade of the tree as he took his lunch out, “Had to swap books for next period. Where’s Ludwig?”

“Talking to a teacher about some extra credit. Said it might take a while.” Kiku hummed, hiding his disappointment. He guessed it wasn’t the full truth with how much these two were avoiding each other. “So how was your weekend?”

“Relaxing. Yao took the family out of the city to camp and look at the stars. How about you?”

“Really? He finally got all of you guys together for a family outing? It must have been fun to see everyone again!” Feliciano continued on in his usual babble, suspiciously avoiding the question.

Kiku frowned. So it happened over the weekend? Feliciano was about to start talking about good star gazing spots he read about when the other decided to interrupt, “Is everything alright? You’re not acting like yourself.”

The Italian froze, staring at Kiku like he was going to spill the beans on some great secret he promised to keep. It took Feliciano a moment to compose himself as he moved his gaze down to the grass. “I-It’s really nothing. I’m just having some trouble with Chemistry. There’s supposed to be a really big test on Thursday and… I-I don’t feel ready. I’m not doing too well in that class.”

“I understand.” The Japanese man offered him a reassuring smile, “Mr. Aden isn’t exactly the easiest teacher to have. Ludwig has that class with you right? He could help tutor you.” Feliciano only nodded in agreement but sadness overcame him. Kiku watched him, feeling pity for his friend. “Did you and Ludwig get into a fight?”

Feliciano jumped in surprise and shook his head wildly, “No! Nothing like that happened.”

“Then what happened? It’s obvious something happened between the two of you.”

“Nothing happened. Everything’s going well between the two of us!”

“Then why aren’t you two talking as much as you used to?” Kiku asked, sounding more forceful than he intended, “Since this morning, you guys have exchanged only ten sentences with each other in my presence. The two of you only talked to me and you both avoided each other’s gazes between classes. Even now it looks like the two of you seem to be avoiding each other. Ludwig and you are always the first people here yet I’m here while he’s still gone.” Feliciano was quiet, looking like he was ready to start crying. “Please Feli.” He continued, his voice soft as he put a hand on his friend’s shoulder, “Tell me what happened. I don’t like seeing you two so tense around each other.”

“We-I…” the brunet sighed, pulling his legs to his chest. Golden eyes were still focused on the ground, welling up as he sighed with defeat, ���It’s…my fault.”

“So it was a fight?”

“No. It…” Feliciano’s gaze moved up slightly, looking around with suspicion. They only looked back down when Kiku moved closer so his friend could speak softer, “It happened Sunday. Ludwig came over to help me study for the Chemistry exam. You know better than I do that he knows how to word the most difficult problem in a way I could understand. Kiku…everything was going so well! I was able to understand the work. If I didn’t zone out, we wouldn’t have…” The brunet hid his face behind his knees, a muffled groan coming from his lips. “I have to confess something. Promise you won’t laugh at me?”

Kiku blinked in confusion and could have sworn that his friend’s ears were becoming red, “I promise.”

The Italian was quiet for a moment before continuing in a softer voice, “I… I like Ludwig. M-More than what a friend should.”

Feliciano refused to look up at the Japanese man while Kiku remained silent. In a moment of fear, the Italian peered up to see his friend looking amused.

“Is that all?”

“You said you wouldn’t laugh!”

“I’m not.” Kiku stated, patting Feliciano’s shoulder when he hid his flushed face behind his knees once again, “This isn’t something you should be embarrassed about. It’s natural to gain strong feelings for those close to you.”

“Yeah, well I know for a fact that Ludwig doesn’t feel the same way.” The other mumbled, lifting his face to rub his eye, “He ran away when we accidentally kissed.”

“You what?” Kiku’s voice was louder than what Feliciano was comfortable with and the Italian quickly clamped a hand over his friend’s mouth.

“You heard me.” The other stated, giving the Japanese man a glare before releasing him. Feliciano resumed his previous position, not even looking at Kiku as his face brightened with more embarrassment. “It happened while I was zoning out. We were sitting closer than usual and I think I was staring a bit too long. It just happened and we both seemed to realize what was going on at the same time because we both shot away from each other. Ludwig then said he just remembered he had to do something for his brother before rushing out.”

Feliciano once again hid his face, this time to hide the tears that started to roll down his cheeks. Kiku didn’t know how to respond, taking in the information. If what the Italian said was true, then his friends’ behavior was understandable. But how long will they act like this? Kiku thought as the brunet beside him composed himself. They have to eventually talk about it or else they’ll just push each other away for good.

“I ruined our friendship, didn’t I?” Feliciano asked, sadness evident in his voice.

“No. You just need to talk things out with him.”

“How? It’s awkward being around each other! I don’t know how I’m going to bring this up without him running away again or without bailing last minute. It’s better to just pretend it never happened.”

“That won’t help.” Kiku shook his head, “It’ll just make things worse. Look, I’ll help you figure out how to talk to Ludwig about this. I don’t like seeing you guys like this.”

Feliciano smiled, giving his friend a quick hug, “Thank you.”

The bell rang and the two of them gathered their things as fast as they could. As the two of them entered the crowded hallways, the Italian stopped Kiku. “Hey, you had Mr. Aden last year right? Can you help me study?”

The smaller man smiled and nodded, “I’ll text you when I’m able to.”

[readingontheedge]

The Good Inside Me

by Barbara Russell

Genre: YA Paranormal Romance

 Dragons, short-tempered archdemons, and hysterical damned souls—Shax is used to dealing with all that. He’s a young fire demon and lives in Hell, after all. What he’s not used to is being possessed by a human. A very good human and a pretty girl at that: sixteen-year-old Tolis. Despite still having control of his body most of the time, Shax can hear Tolis’s voice inside his head and feels what she feels constantly.

 Shax’s mentor claims that Tolis hides an ancient, powerful grimoire, a book of spells, and proposes a deal: if Shax finds it, he’ll help Shax get work as a dragon keeper—Shax’s dream job. Tolis swears she doesn’t have the grimoire and asks Shax to help her father, whose soul is turning evil by the minute. Unless Tolis does something, her dad’s soul will end in Hell. Hoping to convince her to give him the grimoire, and not because Shax cares about the man’s soul, he agrees to help.

Goodness is overrated. Since Shax decided to help Tolis, his life has turned into a hurdle race. Thugs chase him, the scientists in Hell want to prod and examine the first possessed demon in history, and he can’t find the darn grimoire.

 And the worst part? Due to the unavoidable presence of Tolis, who keeps intruding into his evil thoughts, Shax discovers an almost decent side of himself. In no time at all, he catches himself doing actual good deeds. Is he becoming—yuck—good? 

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Book Trailer:

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Chapter One 

NOT MANY THINGS scared Shax. He was a fire demon, lived in Hell, and dealt with dragons and other infernal beasts every day. Attempts to stab and roast him were pretty much a part of his daily routine. Not to mention his short-tempered archdemon mentor, who threatened him with disembowelment at least ten times in an hour. Yet, being trapped in the limbo between Earth and Hell, the nowhere space that had no entrance or exit, made him want to throw up out of fear. When he’d dematerialized from Hell to reach Earth, he hadn’t focused on his destination.  He’d landed in the middle of the corridor of St. Cecil High School in Auckland, as he was supposed to, but had ended up sandwiched between the infernal portal and the human one. Again. Whoever said ending up in limbo was a rare thing had never dematerialized with Shax.  

Blurred figures brushed past the limbo’s walls, and muffled sounds echoed around him. Pushing at the opaque walls that caged him was useless. Screaming didn’t solve anything, and even tossing one of his mighty demonic blazes wouldn’t do any good. The metaphysical cage was fireproof. Besides, he’d tried demonic fire before and only gotten burned. But this didn’t mean he was a hopeless demon, as many said back in Hell. Anyone could’ve made this mistake.

He leaned against the cold barrier and counted the stains of mud on his sneakers. Not much to do but wait for Astharot, his mentor, to rescue him. As only a fifth-level fire demon, Shax needed an expert’s help to jump in and out of limbo.

A tall dark figure approached the wall, and Shax waved a hand. “I’m here!”

He wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans. Great Sathael, not even Hades Park with its roaming werewolves was so creepy. These icy walls, the distant sounds, the fuzzy silhouettes…it all seemed as if he were trapped in a fishbowl.  

The dark figure lifted an arm and hit the barrier. A crack appeared, letting in a draft of fresh air. The fist struck again until the fractures expanded like cobwebs. The wall shattered, exploding into thousands of glassy pieces. Shax fell over, dropping onto a blue vinyl floor. He moaned, massaging his back.

Astharot loomed over him. His lips curled to bare his teeth in a threatening smirk—as if being a massive archdemon, almost eight feet tall and dressed in black leather from head to toe, wasn’t menacing enough.

“What were you doing in there?” Astharot pulled Shax to his feet.

Shax adjusted his red hoodie. “I miscalculated the dematerialization.”

“Miscalculated?” Astharot scowled at him. “Your lack of focus will cost you a few points on your final score.”

“What?”

“Complain and I’ll have you weed dragonwort from my garden.”

“Again? I did it last week.” Shax flexed his fingers, which were still throbbing from the spiky dragonwort’s bites.

“It has regrown.” Astharot grabbed his arm. “We’d better hurry. Our divine colleagues are already here.”

Shax shrugged himself free and dodged a teacher striding past. A long corridor, lined with yellow lockers on both sides, stretched in front of him. Kids wearing blue and green uniforms milled around, bags strapped to their shoulders. Girls with colorful rucksacks covered in freakish rainbows, ugly unicorns, and hideous flowers filed in. Goodness wafted from them like the scents of their flowery perfumes, causing his stomach to roll. A guy ran through Shax as if he were a ghost, and Shax shouted. No point in keeping his voice low. None of these humans could see, hear, or touch him unless he revealed himself.

The students’ chatter and click-clack of lockers being closed and opened echoed off the walls. At the end of the hallway, in a quiet corner, two men stood, dressed in blinding white suits. The shorter one, Jilhael, fussed with his snowy cravat and pulled back his long blond hair.

Shax waved at his friend. Looking at Jilhael’s sapphire eyes and sensing the goodness in him, no one would ever guess he was half fire demon, half air angel. Jilhael’s mentor, Nithael, surveyed the crowd of kids with his sharp gaze, like a German shepherd watching a flock of sheep, his ebony skin a stark contrast with his white suit. Shax squinted at the circle of blue light on the floor; it marked one of the celestial portals that led to Heaven.

Astharot and Nithael exchanged a curt nod.

Shax playfully shoved Jilhael. “Hey, Jay, ready?”

Jilhael loosened his shirt’s collar. “You were right. This white suit is a tad uncomfortable.”

“Told ya.” Shax tugged at his hoodie and twitched his nose. His clothes smelled of sulfur and French fries. “Hell: less rules, more fun.”

Jilhael raised a golden brow. “This is work. It’s not supposed to be fun.”

Astharot toyed with his dagger—the athame—scrutinizing the oblivious human kids. “Have you already chosen Jilhael’s subject? Who should Jilhael possess?”

Nithael straightened and golden sparks flew about him. They fell on two girls passing by, who laughed. “Sure.” He flourished a hand. A white book appeared in his palm, and he skimmed the pages. “Jilhael has already possessed three young humans with excellent results, despite his lack of control.” He gave Jilhael a piercing look.

Astharot snorted, but Nithael ignored him.

“Jilhael’s subject today will be…Chad McKee, sixteen, prone to anger and envy. He harassed a few girls in the past weeks, and he’s that boy over there.” Nithael pointed to a broad guy with short brown hair and hazel eyes, standing in front of an open locker. A large duffel bag dangled from his shoulder.

Shax poked Jilhael in the ribs. “Looks like a tough guy. I don’t envy you.”

“No pun intended, right?” Jilhael chuckled.

“What about Shax?” Nithael closed the book and made it disappear with a casual gesture.

Astharot scratched his unshaven chin with his blade. “Don’t know…not sure yet….”

“I need to know who Shax is going to possess, Astharot.” Nithael’s hands twitched. “It’s our right to have the chance to repair the damage you and your apprentice are going to—”

“Shut up. I’m no rookie. Let me think,” Astharot scoffed.

“You promised to be ready this time,” Nithael hissed, blue sparks shooting from his body.

Shax stifled a chuckle. Had Nithael believed Astharot would be ready?

“Don’t get your wings in a knot.” Astharot held out a hand. “Give me a minute, and I’ll find Shax’s next target.”

Jilhael leaned closer to Shax. “What creature is next on your list? Or are you still working with objects?”

“I’ve finished with appliances.” Shax gestured to a fly zooming by. “An insect? Or a small animal maybe.” He rubbed his hands. “This is the first time I’ll possess a living thing. I can’t wait.”

“It’s a lot of work.” Jilhael brushed his white jacket. “But I love searching for the good inside a living being and helping it grow.”

“There!” Astharot pointed his athame toward Chad’s left.

Shax squinted. A huge black spider crawled on top of the lockers, but Chad and a pretty blonde girl next to him ignored it.

A spider. Cool. Being a spider for a few days would have to be fun.

The girl shifted sideways, her pink lips and rosy skin, her long wavy hair— Nope. He had to focus. On the spider. Astharot mumbled something Shax didn’t catch—probably the usual list of dos and don’ts.  As if he didn’t know that taking a life was a big no-no. Inside a spider, he could scare girls, build cobwebs, sneak into the girls’ changing room. Finally, Astharot had given him an awesome test. 

 I’m an entomologist and a soil biologist, which is a fancy way to say that I dig in the dirt, looking for bugs. Nature and books have always been my passion. I was a kid when I read The Lord Of The Ring and fell in love with fantasy novels.

When I discovered cozy mystery and crime novels, I fell in love with Hercules Poirot and Sherlock Holmes. Then I grew up and . . . Nah, I’m joking. I didn’t grow up. Don’t grow up, folks! It’s a trap.

PS I hate gardening. There, I said it. Sorry fellow Kiwis. 

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