“Ten more minutes, ten more minutes,” I reminded myself as I was sitting in class. It’d been twenty minutes since recess, so Natalie would be coming back soon.

 “Mason! Are you listening to me?” Ms. Ellis questioned. Her foot was tapping the floor so I knew she was mad.

“I’m sorry Ms. Ellis, what was the question?” I sighed. Two scoldings in one day, this must be a record for me.

“What are two differences between mammals and reptiles?”

“That’s easy,” I thought. “One difference is that Mammals give birth to live babies, where most reptiles hatch eggs. Another difference is that Mammals are warm blooded and reptiles are cold blooded. Reptiles need an outside heat source to stay warm,” I replied.

“Ms. Ellis, does that mean that people are Mammals?” Shirley called out.

“Yes Shirley, that’s right. Please remember to raise your hand and not call out. Mason, those were both correct differences, please pay attention even if some of this is review for you,” she said then turned back to the white board. She was beginning to explain our in-class project on this unit. We were going to be assigned partners and given half an hour today to create a venn-diagram on the differences between Mammals and Reptiles. We needed to have at least four differences and two similarities. We also needed to have a picture representation of one mammal and reptile of our choosing.

The assignment sounded easy enough. I just wondered who Ms. Ellis was going to pair me up with this time. When we get the chance to pick our partners, people only pick me because “I’m smart.” I’ve heard my classmates call me “weird” or “nerd” when they think I’m not listening. It’s not like a study a lot. I mean, I do my homework and I like to read, but I’d call myself pretty normal.

When I was “student of the week” I made sure to tell the class what I do outside of school. I thought that if people knew that I didn’t study all the time, they’d think I was “cool.” However, learning piano and playing with my ferret, Janice, didn’t quite fit that category. The only thing that caught a lot of interest was my Lego building. Building models of cars out of  Legos is something that my dad did as a kid. My mom calls it “father and son bonding.” It’s too bad we don’t have Legos in the classroom anymore. When I was in kindergarten and first grade we had Legos to play with during free time. I had more friends then, but now it’s forth grade and almost time for middle school. My “nerd-iness” is more apparent at this stage.

“…Shirley, you’ll be paired with John. Felicity you’ll be with Keith, and Mason, you’ll be paired with Natalie today. She’ll be back in about five minutes. Class, take a five minute stretch and bathroom break. I’ll put the materials on your desk,” Ms. Ellis said.

“Is this real?” I thought. “I actually get to help Natalie with her school work?” This was going to be fun. People don’t like working with Natalie that much, it seems like we’re meant to be matched.

—————-

“Hi, Mason!” Natalie smiled. “It’s… work time. We have… a project.” Natalie speaks a little funny, but I don’t mind. She’s always so nice to me.