Mr. Chavez takes the last of the papers as they’re passed to the front. “Now, I know tomorrow is your very last day of sophomore year, and you’re all eager to get on with your vacation, but tonight is still a school night, which means, here’s your homework assignment.” The class releases a unanimous groan as he uncaps a green marker and starts scrawling across the whiteboard. “I know, I know. But just think. This could be the last chance I get to impart you with my superior wisdom. Give me my moment, would you?”
I take out a pen and begin copying the assignment down into my notebook.
Quint doesn’t.
When the bell rings, he’s the first one out the door.
THREE
“I’m not opposed to homework, generally speaking,” says Jude, idly flipping through the pages of his marine biology textbook. “But homework on the second-to-last day of school? That’s the mark of a tyrannical overlord.”
“Oh, stop whining,” says Ari from behind her menu. She spends a great deal of time studying the menu each time we come in, even though we always end up ordering the same things. “At least you get a summer break. Our teachers gave us detailed reading lists and assignment plans to ‘keep us busy’ over vacation. July is Greek mythology month. Hooray.”
Jude and I both give her dismayed looks. The three of us are sitting in a corner booth at Encanto, our favorite spot on Main Street. The restaurant is a bit of a tourist trap, right off the main thoroughfare—you can even see traces of the beach through the front windows—but it only ever gets crowded on the weekends, making it the ideal quiet hangout after school. In part because the fusion of Mexican and Puerto Rican food is mind-blowingly good. And in part because Carlos, the owner, gives us free sodas and as much chips and salsa as we can eat without ever complaining about us taking up valuable booth space. To be honest, I think he likes having us around, even if we only ever order food between three and six o’clock so we can get the half-off appetizer specials.
“What?” Ari asks, finally noticing the looks Jude and I are giving her.
“I would study Greek mythology over plankton any day of the week,” says Jude, gesturing at an illustration in the textbook.
Ari huffs in that signature you-guys-don’t-get-it way. Which, admittedly, we don’t. The three of us have been arguing about which is worse—attending the prestigious St. Agnes Prep or navigating our Fortuna Beach High—ever since we met nearly four years ago. It’s a typical grass-is-greener situation. Jude and I are forever jealous of the seemingly obscure topics and lesson plans that Ari complains about. Things like “How the Transcontinental Spice Trade Changed History,” or “The Influence of Paganism on Modern Religious Traditions.” Whereas Ari yearns for the teen-movie normalcy that comes with low-quality cafeteria lunches and not having to wear a uniform every day.
Which, I mean, fair enough.
One thing Ari can’t argue, though, is that St. Agnes has a music program that is far superior to anything she’d find in the public schools. If it wasn’t for their dedicated classes on music theory and composition, I suspect Ari would have begged her parents to let her transfer.
Jude and I go back to our papers while Ari turns her attention to two women who are sharing a dessert at the next table. Ari has her notebook in front of her and is wearing her trying-to-come-up-with-a-rhyme-to-make-this-song-lyric-work face. I imagine a ballad about coconut pudding and early love. Pretty much all of Ari’s songs are about early love. That, or they’re about the tumultuous angst of love-gone-wrong. Never anything in between. Though I guess that could be said for almost every song.
I read the assignment again, thinking that maybe it will inspire an idea. “Two hundred fifty words on what sort of underwater adaptation would be useful in our aboveground environment.” It’s not a hard assignment. I should have been done an hour ago. But after the last few nights spent finishing the ecotourism project, my brain feels like it’s been put through a meat grinder.
“That’s it! Basking shark!” says Jude, thumping a finger down on his book. The image shows a positively horrific shark, its enormous mouth gaping open, revealing not huge, sharp teeth, but what appears to be its skeleton or rib cage or something extending back into its body. It reminds me of the scene when Pinocchio gets swallowed by the whale. “It swims through the water, scooping up whatever bits of food come its way.”
“And that would be useful to you, how?” I ask.
“Efficiency. Whatever food I passed by could just get swept down my throat. I’d never have to chew or stop to eat.” He pauses, a thoughtful look coming into his eye. “Actually, that would make a great dungeon monster.”
“That would make a disgusting monster,” I say.
He shrugs and jots down a note in the sketchbook that is always at his elbow. “You’re the one who’s obsessed with time management.”
He does have a point. I grunt and flip through my textbook for the sixth time while Jude takes our shared laptop and pulls it toward himself. Rather than opening a new document, he merely deletes my name at the top and replaces it with his before he starts to type.
“Here we go, little worker bees,” says Carlos, arriving with a basket of tortilla chips, guacamole, and two kinds of salsa. A sweet guava-based salsa for me and Jude, and an extra-fiery pseudo-masochistic why-would-anyone-do-this-to-themselves? spicy one for Ari. “Your school isn’t out yet?”
“Tomorrow’s our last day,” says Jude. “Ari’s got out last week.”
“Does that mean I’ll be seeing more of you, or less?”
“More,” Ari answers, beaming at him. “We’re pretty much going to live here this summer, if that’s okay with you.” Ari has had a schoolgirl crush on Carlos since we started coming here. Which might seem a little weird, given that he’s got to be close to forty, except he looks an awful lot like a young Antonio Banderas. That, plus the Puerto Rican accent, plus the man can cook. Who can blame a girl for being a little smitten?
“You three are always welcome,” he says. “But try not to take too much advantage of my free-refill policy, yeah?”
We thank him for the chips as he saunters off to tend to another table.
Jude sits back and dusts off his hands. “Done.”
I look up from a photo of an anglerfish. “What? Already?”
“It’s only two hundred and fifty words. And this assignment isn’t going to count for anything. Trust me, Pru, this is just the tyrannical overlord’s way of testing our loyalty. Don’t overthink it.”
I scowl. He and I both know it’s impossible for me not to overthink.
“That’s a good one,” says Ari, gesturing with her chip toward the book. A speck of salsa lands on the corner of the page. “Oops, sorry.”
I wipe off the splotch with my napkin. “I do not want to be an anglerfish.”
“The assignment isn’t to say what you would be,” says Jude, “just what sort of adaptation could be useful.”
“You’d have a built-in flashlight,” adds Ari. “That would come in handy.”
I hum thoughtfully. It’s not terrible. I could work in something about being a shining light in dark times, which may be a bit poetic for a science paper, but still. “Okay, fine,” I say, pulling the laptop back in front of me. I save Jude’s document before starting my own.