Jeffrey remembers the day quite well. It was a dark and cloudy day, it's hard to forget that type of day. There were some elementary school kids playing around and splashing in the rain puddles.
Jeffrey reached into his backpack and produced a striped black and white umbrella his grandpa had purchased at the dollar store. It was a bit cheap as some of the hinges were rusted and slightly broken, but it worked.
Jeffrey just hoped the wind wouldn't pick up and destroy it.
For now however it was just a light rain as Jeffrey headed inside Mr. Co's classroom.
"Hey Mr. Co", Jeffrey greeted the teacher.
"Nice to see you Mr. Zhang", Mr. Co greeted him by his last name. Mr. Co said it was a form of respect and that he treated each others as equals.
"Sorry for coming into class late, I was busy talking to a group of girls about a project...", Jeffrey explained.
Mr. Co rubbed his chin listening to him. He shuffled some papers and grabbed one out of the pile.
"I'd prefer it if you come to class on time. I know you get lost or distracted easily Jeffrey, but I don't like delaying class. I have 30 students in my class and if we spend 1 minute waiting for you, we've wasted 30 minutes of class time", Mr. Co explained his reasoning.
Then Mr. Co handed him the pop quiz, in red was the number 92 in red ink.
"Nice job on the quiz by the way, I was surprised that you were paying attention in class", Mr. Co mentioned.
Jeffrey rubbed his head in embarrassment.
"Do you have any suggestions, besides trying to pay attention in class to get my classmates to like me?", Jeffrey asked him.
Mr. Co had lots of experience with previous classes and as stern as he was, he was always there to give advice and help his students. Although few actually had the courage to actually approach him and ask.
Mr. Co thought for a moment before responding.
"Some students gave out snacks like pieces of gum, others didn't let it get to them, some changed their habits. Others did something special, like some sort of ritual of sorts. I'll leave it to you guys to resolve your differences, but I'll step in if it gets out of hand", Mr. Co offered.
Jeffrey heard about some of the creative class punishments in the past. Doing a silly class dance, singing for the class, stand-up comedy. Mostly extremely embarrassing for the student, but it was always great fun and entertainment for those watching.
There was the legendary story of that one kid who held the record of doing 5 class punishments. At first he sucked at dancing, doing things like having to do the Harlem shake, the Macarana, the chicken dance.
At the end, he basically put on a one man dance and song, having to sing Katy Perry's Firework. The guy graduated, but it was still one of the most memorable class punishment and years in Mr. Co's class.
Jeffrey wanted to avoid such a fate, so he turned to his books for some sort of inspiration. After reading Rick Riorden's Lightning Thief Series, his mind was a little occupied with Greek mythology.
"Maybe I could get to do a Greek Chorus or play, but that seems like a lot of work", thought Jeffrey.
"I don't really like the idea of getting things thrown at me or having to buy things for the class. Candy or slime would be easy, but I'm going to be spending a lot of money", Jeffrey reasoned.
As Jeffrey was walking out of the classroom, he saw a crumpled paper ball.
Jeffrey heard a voice say, "Hey can you throw that over here."
Another kid was working on a science project involving a catapult, he had a metal kit and various projectiles lined up. It was the science club working on various projects. There were bottle rockets, baking soda vinegar volcanos, rubber band powered cars, and some exploding watermelons.
Quite a few of those Jeffrey recognized from Steve Spangler's science experiments and the science fair book from last year's scholastic book fair.
"Sure", Jeffrey replied picking it up and throwing the paper back.
"Maybe organize a game of paper football, give the class paper airplanes and fortune tellers?", Jeffrey pondered the problem of a self-inflicted class punishment.
Recently, quite a few kids were getting into Origami because of the new book series, "Paper Yoda". The art class recently made paper balls and Japanese folded paper cranes.
Jeffrey got hit on the side by a paper airplane, turning around he saw the pointy paper plane and threw it back. Various paper planes of different shapes, like toilet rolls, gliders and more were on the poster board in the distance.
There was a mock school rehearsal with a few poster boards having "Art & Crafts", lasers and light with finger lasers and various colors, The big book of paper airplanes.
His science project team was already there.
Meanwhile Jeffrey wandered into some sort of school experimental testing ground. Jeffrey quickly ran to the asphalt basketball courts.
Thankfully they prohibited model rocket engines at school, but bottle rockets were ok. So while he was running they aimed at the human target on the field. He was perhaps one of the only kids that didn't notice where he was walking.
it was then that an idea hit him, literally actually. The catapult kid had launched a basketball and hit him in the leg.
"I got him", Jeffrey could hear the kid yell in excitement.
At the same time, Jeffrey thought of a fun class punishment. Just like during dodgeball at P.E or Napoleon at Leizpeg, he thought it would be quite fitting to vent out class dissatisfaction with them having to launch a paper attack at him.
He'd have to set the ground rule that they were only allowed to use paper projectiles, the class would have to clean up afterwards, they only get one piece of ammunition and he get a 5 second running head start. Something like that scene in Andrew Clements book, "The holiday concert" or that Disney Recess cartoon episode, "School's out?"
It then became the their class tradition of the paper artillery strike that Samantha organized, his class showed no mercy either. Some of the best dodgeballers in P.E. class had really good aim, Jet, Nick Curtis, Melissa almost consistently hit his head of legs.
The art kids also had a lot of experience flicking paper footballs with kids like Eric Shub, Kyle Crayton, and Emily Rias.
We come back to that later though, because Jeffrey was still in the middle of the field. A plastic bottle rocket soaked him from head toe. His shoes were a mess from stepping in the wet grass and flooded areas.
*squish* *squish*
Jeffrey almost slipped, but caught himself. He finally made it to a safe area. He sat on a nearby wooden log that acted as a sort of bench as he attempted to fold his cheap umbrella.
By this time it had stopped raining and the sun was peaking out over the clouds like a glorious morning halo like scenery. It was a glorious sunny afternoon and Jeffrey could hear some orchestra kids playing the violin.
"Siegecus? Waterflame? ", Jeffrey thought he could recognize the song, but the name was just on the tip of his tongue.
Dresden and Samantha were busy laughing at the scene, Preston walked up to help his friend.
"You look wet, how was the swim?", Preston asked.
It was an inside joke about their 5th grade field trip to the city pool. However, Jeffrey shrugged it off and quickly wrote down his sudden inspiration.
Preston grabbed some paper towels and dried off Jeffrey's hair.
"Come on, we're all waiting for you. You're the starting presenter after all", Preston said.
While they walked, Jeffrey left behind a set of muddy footprints trailing from the field.