"Guys, I got to-", one of the students in the classroom started to speak up.
"Let's GOOOOOO", an overexcited McKenzie spoke up.
"I can understand it!, Never mind that just makes it more confusing, now I don't. Can you explain it again to me", Lucian McKenzie pointed to his sheet of paper again.
The teacher sighed, sitting at his desk with the shadow of another student casting darkness from their figure.
"For the last time Jeffrey, I'm not changing your grade", Mr. Moreno spoke to an eager looking Jeffrey standing in front of the sunlight coming from the classroom windows.
"But Mr. Moreno, you changed his grade", Jeffrey pointed to the student who had been staring at the test for the past 20 minutes.
"You have an 88. He had a 65, there's a big difference", Jeffrey's math teacher pointed out.
"Don't you believe in something called equality Mr. Moreno", Jeffrey argued.
With an exasperated tone Mr. Moreno said as gently as possible, "Get out of here Jeffrey."
Another kid working on a test said, "Michael Jordan said you miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take."
"Thanks for sharing Mr. Ross, however you should be focusing on retaking that test you missed while you were absent", Mr. Moreno reminded him.
For a lunch period, Mr. Moreno had a surprisingly large number of kids in his classroom.
Mr. Moreno wasn't the most popular teacher in the school, that was reserved for some of the cool teachers like Mr. Edgerly, the art teacher Mr. K, or the science teacher Mrs. Smith. However Mr. Moreno's lax grading policy attracted many students to his classroom.
"Jeffrey we can talk about extra credit later, but I've got a few test taking students in my classroom", Mr. Moreno was distracted attempting to proctor the students.
The math teacher got up from his desk and the room became quiet once more.
Jeffrey was promptly kicked out of the room as Mr. Moreno's support teacher came in. The physical education teacher Mrs. Peabody immediately brought a sense of order and discipline to the room.
Jeffrey had already left and was headed down the concrete steps to the courtyard. Seeing another group of the French speaking students, Jeffrey headed over to have a nice discussion.
Although their eyes indicated they weren't interested, Jeffrey shrugged off their glances and pulled out a sheet of paper he had prepared from a prior weekend with Preston Liu and Samantha Watts.
Samantha attended a weekly meeting and certain after school activity programs at the French Jewish Academy near their area. Preston had taken a few summer science programs as well.
Some of the high school and middle school students saw it as both a badge of honor and a place of great suffering. It required a lot of free time and energy to get through some of the chemistry courses and lab experiments, however it was also a point of pride to stick it to those Stuyvescent, Deerfield, and Hartford Westlake students.
Jeffrey lived in the south side of Westchester county. Schools like Maranantha, Jefferson 3rd, Greater Lowell, Hotchkiss, and Calico Carlisle each had their own point of culture and pride.
Each of the schools were quite competitive, but when it came down to it. The West End students were even bigger pricks. Although the North were full of rich kids, usually Spanish families with mountain side and mountain view mansions.
The west end kids were known group of thugs, cutthroats, and cheats. Most of the kids called it, Dodgeball city. There were a few other nicknames as well, X-Games, Downtown, and Suit alley.
Jeffrey saw that the French kids were talking with some of those kids now.
"Where had they come from?", Jeffrey thought.
While Jeffrey was preparing to speak, one of the older kids waved to his friends. As if on queue, a kid brought out a sports mesh bag with mini dodgeballs inside.
Jeffrey knew that the fun was about to begin.
Every group or clique had their own methods and styles of running things. The goth kids had detention meetups and item swaps. The orchestra kids usually settled for a game of ping pong. Band kids played a variety of card games and gambling. And the French kids... their specialty was dodgeball.
Jeffrey thought about the soccer and basketball kids, however the girls reign of terror put a stop to those competitions.