September 21

"Why are you watching the same clip of Jack rubbing his nose over and over?" Mallory asked me.

It was lunchtime and I was eating in the media room, while I edited the music video for Jack. I had managed to get the entirety of the music audio edited within two days and I was now working on editing the footage. The media room was filled with Apple computers and all of them were equipped with Final Cut Pro. I had never edited before, so I often ended up staring at the screen for a long time, trying to figure out what to do.

Mallory pulled up a chair and sat down beside me. "Are you going to answer my question, Beantown? You haven't been at lunch all week."

I looked up and nodded. "I'm editing a video."

"I can see that," Mallory said. "As I said: why are you watching the same clip of Jack rubbing his nose over and over?"

I sighed. "I'm trying to remove that part of the clip, but I cannot remember what button to press or what—"

Mallory sighed. "How did you manage to edit the the audio then?"

"I did that using Garage Band," I said. "Then I uploaded it here and now I'm stuck trying to cut out footage."

Mallory raised an eyebrow. "How long have you been working on this?"

"This one clip or the entire project?" I asked.

"Just this clip," Mallory replied.

I checked the time. "Nine minutes?"

Mallory sighed. "Ask for help, Beantown."

She stood up. "Hey! Can someone help my friend over here?"

To my surprise, it was Gunilla who came over to help me. Apparently she was a part of everything at the school: the Valkyries, student council, debate, even the school's media program. She was very helpful if a bit condescending. She kept using technical language that was beyond me and complained multiple times about having to help lay students. "I think you got the basics down," Gunilla finally said after fifteen minutes.

I thanked her and worked on trimming the clip. Just before the bell rang, I cut out the nose rubbing. I still had loads of editing to do, but as I stood up and swung my backpack over one shoulder, I found myself smiling. I could do this.

***

    "I cannot do this," I said, letting my neck droop until my forehead touched the smooth wooden table we were sitting at.

    Samirah waited until I straightened back up. "Come on," she said. "You'll never learn if you never try."

     "Why do you put up with me?" I asked.

      "I like teaching and besides," Samirah said, "tutoring others helps me learn the material better myself."

    That must be true because she had the highest grade in the class. Of course, I only knew this because of the amount of times our teacher boasted about her. She'd share the highest score on each exam and both times so far, it had been Samirah.

     We were studying derivatives now and I couldn't help thinking that Algebra II had not prepared me for calculus. Then again, it was AP Calculus and perhaps nothing could've prepared me for that. I looked down at the equation again and studied it as Samirah had told me.

   To find the derivative, I needed to use the formula we'd been taught in class. The problem was, there were about nine million of them. I shuffled through my notes until I found what I was looking for and began doing the problems. I hoped that we'd be able to a formula sheet during the exam, but I guess that was like expecting someone's tears to be gold.

When I finished, Samirah went over my problems and explained the mistakes I made. It was 4:36 PM when her phone buzzed. "Oh, it's a text from Amir."

I raised an eyebrow. "A date?"

She blushed and shook her head. "We're going to the mosque later this week — together and supervised."

"That's cute," I said

"We've done it every week since I was three," she said.

"Still cute," I said.

I waved goodbye to Samirah as she left the library. I personally didn't believe in any deities myself, but I respected and sometimes was jealous of others' faith. I was alone now and I sighed and began working on Biology homework. We had our first exam of the semester coming up soon and Mimir promised it would be the most difficult. "If you can pass this one," he has said. "You can pass the test."

There were a lot of terms to remember — everything from natural selection to punctuated equilibrium to meiosis — and my head was hurting by the time my mother picked me up from the library at a quarter before six.

"What did you do today?" she asked.

"I'm still working on the music video for Jack," I told her, "and I've got nearly all of my homework done."

The thing with homework is that some weeks you have barely any and then all your teachers suddenly decide to make their projects and exams fall around the same date. "What about you, mother?" I asked. "How was work?"

She shrugged. "Same as usual. We were clearing another trail today. It wasn't too bad and as you can see, I only gave a minor sunburn."

Her face and neck were pink, but I'd seen her with worse sunburns during the summer month before her skin started to tan. "I got an email from the PTSA about Homecoming," my mother said. "Would you like to go?"

"Maybe," I said.

"Is there anyone you'd want to go with?" my mother asked.

I shrugged, thinking of Alex. "I guess I could go with my friends as a group."

My mother smiled. "I'm glad to see you're making friends. Would you want to go shopping for clothes this weekend? You could hang out with a friend if you'd like."

"Sure," I said. "Blitzen would probably love that."

"Good," my mother said. "Then we'll plan that this weekend."

"You're awesome," I told my mother as she turned to her favorite radio station.

My mother gave me another smile. She was always smiling and I was struck by how much she looked like an adult version of Tinkerbell. We drove home, listening to her favorite tunes and if I'd believed in any deity, I'd have thanked them for giving me such a wonderful mother.