“No! That’s impossible!” Meg gasped in French. It was the first week of October.
All of us turned to look at her. We had just gotten our tests back on an article we had read. I was looking at mine with pleasure. Four years of French and I still was earning an A+.
“I mean,” Meg continued. “I actually studied for this one.”
“Meg, how many times have I told this class you cannot study for these kinds of tests! You have to remember that article tests are for you to learn about the country. You are here to learn the language, but we want you to learn something about the country if we want to get you there this year.”
This was news to us. The only trip we knew about was the trip to Disney World.
To tell you the truth, field trips were exciting when we were in elementary school, but in high school we could care less. In about ten months we were out of here anyway.
We all stared at Miss Carter like she had just spoken Chinese.
“That’s right,” she beamed. “If you can raise the money, we’re flying all the French, Spanish, German, and Italian students overseas.”
Our faces fell when she said the words ‘If you can raise the money’.
“You mean,” I said loudly. “This whole trip thingy isn’t for certain?”
“No.”
“Ohhhh that’s perfect. What about the other languages?” Meg groaned.
“What about them? If we can’t get everyone there, then no one will go,” Miss Carter said a matter-of-factly.
“No. That’s not what I mean,” Meg said coldly. It was common knowledge that no one liked Miss Carter. She was really new. I’m talking about last week. “I mean, if you’re taking another language, where are you supposed to go?”
“You’ll choose wherever you want to go. If you’re taking Spanish, and you want to go to Spain instead of France, then you’ll go there with the Spanish students,” said Miss Carter.
“That’s great,” Meg said to me as we were leaving the class. “There go my dreams of traveling around the world before college.”
I sniggered. Then I remembered Sean took German. Damn! It was my dream to go to France…but being in an exotic country with the love of your life is a dream of anyone’s...especially mine. How was I going to survive?
“Awwww...Steph. I know what you’re thinking. At least we’ll be going to the airport together,” Meg said sympathetically. I knew there was nothing else for her to say.
“If he goes. He takes Latin too, and Miss Carter didn’t mention Latin going on the trip. He’s going to Germany, I’m going to France,” I said with a sigh.
“If we go at all,” Meg said as we entered the cafeteria. She had a mischievous glint in her eye.
“What are you-”
“Hey guys!” It was Cat emerging from Spanish.
“Hey Cat. Did Lopez tell you about the trip?” I said to her as she joined us.
“Yeah. I heard nobody wants to go to Spain. We’re going to have so much fun in France!”
“Steph’s not,” Meg said to her as we sat down. “Sean doesn’t take French.”
“Oh that’s right. It’s German and Latin right?” Cat asked me.
“Yeah,” I said.
“But,” said Meg. “How are we going to raise that much money? I mean, c’mon. Who are we kidding? Our school’s poor to begin with. They shouldn’t get our hopes up like that.”
“Mr. Lopez said that the airline’s gonna give us a discount, and some of the rich companies and families are gonna donate money,” said Cat. “You never know. We might get to go.”
“Yeah, if someone donates a million dollars,” I said.
Deep inside, I really didn’t care. But, I had to admit. How many times would you get the opportunity to got to France, even if it did depend on a small miracle?
* * *
“Okay, we know that they’re probably gonna make us run a car wash or whatever, but what else could they make us do?”
It was Friday night, and all the rest of the week, all anybody could talk about was the trip.
“I dunno. Ewww,” I said thinking. “What if they made us do a stupid fair or something.”
“With one of those stupid booths where you chuck pies at people. That actually sounds fun,” Meg said. I looked at her. Was she crazy?
“Fun?” said Cat.
“Only fun if Miss Carter is one of the people,” she said evilly.
Cat and I laughed. Miss Carter was SO annoying. If it weren’t for the fact that I had to take French this one last year, I would drop it.
“So, what are you going to do about Sean?” Cat asked me as we got up to get lunch. Barf. School lunches.
“I dunno. I’m trying not to think about it. I mean, seriously. Even though how much we wish it, do you really think they can send us to France?”
“Yes,” they both said at the same time.
It was hopeless.
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