Grover High School was just like any other high school in America.  With a population of 637 students, it wasn’t the largest school in the state.  It had everything that any other high school had; a gymnasium connected to the school that leads straight to the cafeteria, a wellness center, and even a small library.  There were all sorts of cliques at this school ranging from geeks to jocks.  Needless to say that Randall was popular with all of them because he knew what it felt like to be picked on.  He would stand up for anyone in that was being picked on, and pick on the people who tried to degrade others.

            Today was going by extremely slow in Randall’s opinion, and Mrs. Fisher’s lecture on ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ wasn’t helping his mood.  In his opinion the book had a horrible story with improper grammar and horrible sentence structure.  It also didn’t help that this book was being praised when any story he would write would be criticized for minor mistakes.  It wasn’t that he didn’t like Mrs. Fisher; in fact it was the complete opposite.  He loved the way she interacted with the students and tried to make even the most boring subjects interesting.  English as a whole just wasn’t Randall’s subject.  He had all A’s in every class except for this class which he was running a high C.

            Even though he was a good student, he couldn’t hold a candle to Ashley.  Ashley was a straight A student and would get upset if she got a B in anything.  Luckily this was one of his classes that he had together with Ashley so he would just take a look at her notes at some later point.  One reason that he liked this class was that Ashley was able to sit right behind him.  The classroom was set up in rows of two on three sides of the room.  This allowed the teacher to use the center of the floor for teaching and demonstrations.  Also, on the walls was an assortment of medieval banners, weapons, and statues of gargoyles.

            The reason that Ashley go to sit behind him was that her legs would extend past her desk and end up under whoever was in front of her.  Considering that Randall had to sit on several books just to see over his desk and that his feet couldn’t touch the ground anyways, this worked out well for the both of them.  Another bonus to this is that Ashley would keep him in line if he managed to dose off or start to daydream.  Of course this was happening right now as she was kicking his feet with hers seeing as it was his turn to stand up and read.

            Most teachers would make accommodations for Randall such as not having to write anything on the board or give him more time to go to his locker because he couldn’t carry all of his books with him at the same time.  Mrs. Fisher on the other hand thought that it was her duty to treat all students equally so she insisted that Randall get in front of the class at her podium to start and read the next page of ‘The Grapes of Wrath’.  This resulted in a few awe from the girls and more than enough snickers from the guys.  Randall went through the standard procedure of jumping out of his seat and finding a chair for him to stand on.  After dragging the chair over, he would climb on top of it and find his place in the book.  He would get really annoyed every time the teacher would ask him to speak up.  She did this to everyone to help increase their public speaking ability but when you can barely see over the podium and the audience can only see everything from your nose up, this tended to get annoying having to repeat yourself.

            Luckily for Randall, when he finished his part the bell had rang signaling the end of English and the start of his favorite class of the day, gym.  By the time he had put the chair back Ashley had already put the books he used to sit on away and was waiting to walk together by the door.

“I never thought that that class was ever going to end.” says Randall retrieving his backpack from Ashley.  Another advantage to his size was that he could get better backpacks than other people so he ended up getting a black and yellow Batman backpack.  Being the size of a kid let him get away with doing certain things.

“It wasn’t that bad and you know it.”

“Yeah right, I swear sometimes that she just wants to give me a hard time and bore me to death.”

“We both know that that is not true.”

“You’re right but I hate it when she insists on me reading in front of the class.  Seriously, she could at least get the chair ready but nooooo she can’t do that.”

“Well it wasn’t all bad, I thought it was adorable.”

“You think that everything is adorable.  Anyways, do you want to go to the schools Halloween dance this Friday?”

“ Only if I get to pick out the costumes this year.”

“Fine, but you better not get anything stupid.  Anyways I’m heading toward the boys locker room so I’ll see you in the gym.” As he says this Randall and Ashley parts ways to go and get ready for their next class together.