Suzie’s House 298 : Homework

“Cumbersome.”

“What? Going to school with me?” Lisa glanced over at Tracy as they walked.

They shuffled along wet sidewalks, in no hurry. Most of the snow had melted over the weekend along with all of Lisa’s plans.

“Isn’t that a great word? Come Brrrr Some. It makes me think of cucumbers.”

“Yeah, but why are you thinking about it now?” Lisa could think of all kinds of reasons for an interest in the word, but with Tracy you never knew.

“I don’t know.” Tracy shrugged, totally unconcerned. “It’s not on the word list for English or anything. Maybe because Justin used it a couple of days ago.”

“Yeah, that’s the kind of word Justin would know. Did he ever write that love song he was talking about?”

“I don’t think so. The band hasn’t gotten together since that time Ben said he loved you in front of all of us. No one wants to do it at his house anymore because Mrs. Hammacker always looks like she has a headache when we play.”

“Well, if he doesn’t write it, maybe I should.”

“You write songs?” Tracy gave her a look and a grin.

“I can if I want to.” Lisa lifted her chin, then realize she probably looked really arrogant and made herself act more humble. “Maybe.”

“Morbid.”

“What?!” Lisa glared at Tracy. “What do you mean by that?”

“It’s a word on the list for English, right? I means when something get’s stuck, I think.”

“Um… no. I don’t think so.” Lisa tried to figure out what Tracy was confusing the word with. “Morbid means something gross, like a zombie movie or something. Oh! You’re thinking moribund.”

“So it’s one of those sound-alike things. Like lecture and lectern. I almost lost my special privileges on that one.”

“Almost all my teachers are doing it now. They let me do whatever I want in class as long as I get straight A’s and don’t get noisy. I can listen to my mp3 player or do homework for other classes or whatever. It’s great!”

“But don’t you end up doing the same things everyone else is anyway?”

“No I don’t. I do my homework for social studies during the lecture instead of after, and same for Math, except that I sometimes have to wait until the teacher shows us a couple of problems before I can do the rest. But the point is that I have the choice.”

Lisa just shook her head. As near as she could tell it wasn’t any different than what she’d been doing all along, but she wasn’t going to say that. No doubt if the teachers didn’t have this kind of agreement with her, Tracy would have long since gone on a rampage. Better to let her think she had something special going on.

“Periodic. That has something to do with tables, right?”

“Only in chemistry,” Lisa answered.

“So what are you going to do about Ben?”

“What?!” Lisa flinched.

“Well, you two were supposed to go on a date, right? But you never left the house.”

“That’s because… That’s not… Oh, just forget it.” Lisa glared at her cousin.

“Not a chance,” Tracy muttered. She had a grin on her face that made the hair on the back of Lisa’s neck stand on end.

When it came to Tracy, you could never be sure what would happen.

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