Chapter 24

Sunday morning Vicki, and a slightly hung over Tami, had to head back home. They left, but only after they made Zoe promise to take care of me. With a wicked grin she told them she could handle me, no problem. I gave both girls long goodbye kisses, even though I would see them at school the next day. I hid upstairs while their parents picked them up. Better to keep my being at the extended sleepover as much under wraps as possible.

Sunday flew by quickly. We spent the day in our room. Zoe was working on something on the computer, and I was making more notes on my ideas. We did find a little time to fool around, however.

The next morning Coach found me almost as soon as I walked into the school.

“Grey, thanks for calling me.”

“No problem, Coach. Sorry I couldn’t do anything else. I didn’t actually go to the party, myself. By the time I showed up, the cops were already hauling kids out. It’s okay. I am happy to help you and the guys any way I can.”

He smiled slyly at me, “I am glad you said that.”

I could almost feel what was coming next, but I stayed silent and kept looking at him.

“I am going to have to bench the guys who were fighting. There is nothing I can do about that. Put that together with the cheating problem from two weeks ago, and we are starting to have problems with enough eligible players. You showed real promise, before; and, honestly, we need some bodies on the field.”

“Coach, I really want to help but I don’t see how I can. You know I have a job that will interfere with some practices, and maybe games.”

“You work during the day on weekends, right?”

“On Saturdays, yes.”

“So no problem. Our games are at night. As for practices, we will make it work. Honestly, it’s either this, or I have to start going through gym classes and finding kids to convince to join the team, and who knows where that will end! You showed some promise, and will at least give us somewhere to start.”

I sighed. Coach had been good to me, and he’d went along with my recommendation for Josh. I was backed into a corner. I knew I owed him.

“Okay. I’ll give it a shot, I guess.”

He slapped me on the back a little too exuberantly.

“Thank you, Mr. Grey. Also, Mrs. Polaski mentioned that if I saw you, she needed to talk to you. Please head to her office.”

“What did I do?”

“I don’t know, but I think you should be fine. Do you want me to go with you?”

“No, but thanks, Coach.”

I headed for the principal’s office. I couldn’t help but wonder how I had managed to go through all of my schooling, never before being sent to the principal’s office, and this year it seemed like I couldn’t stay away from it.

When I got to the office the secretary checked quickly that Mrs. Polaski was available and then waved me through. When I got into her office I saw a man I didn’t recognize.

“Thank you for coming, Caspian. We needed to talk to you about a few things.”

“Ok.”

“This is Mr. Jenkins. He is the school district’s attorney. We...”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“You haven’t done anything wrong. We have been discussing your situation since the shooting the other week and we needed to know what your plans are concerning the district.”

“I am sorry, ma’am. I don’t follow.”

She looked at the lawyer briefly then back to me.

“What I mean is, do you plan on suing the district.”

“No, ma’am.”

The lawyer looked pleased but Mrs. Polaski looked concerned.

“Really? I had heard there was some kind of settlement negotiations happening between the boys involved, and you. We were certain we were the next people your lawyer was going to turn to.”

As she was saying this, the lawyer was trying to wave her off.

“It’s not like that, ma’am. They approached us about a settlement ... although, I won’t lie, I probably would have still gone after them. However, I don’t think the school district is to blame for this.”

The lawyer was smiling again. He reminded me vaguely of a shark.

“Great. We just need you to sign some documents to that effect and you can get back to class.”

I shook my head at him, “My lawyer will have to review these. For one thing, I am a minor. I can’t sign any legal documents. For another, while I don’t plan on suing the school, I don’t usually sign things blindly. Please contact my attorney. He will get it cleared up.”

The lawyer looked annoyed at this, but Mrs. Polaski put her hand on his arm to stop him from saying anything.

“That should be fine, Mr. Grey. Mr. Jenkins, if you could get started on taking care of that, I would like to talk to Caspian for a little bit.”

Effectively dismissed, he left in a bit of a huff.

“While you are here, there is something else I wanted to talk to you about. I have been speaking with some of your teachers.”

That sentence freaked me out a little bit. Why would the principal be checking in with my classes? Mrs. Polaski must have noticed my concern.

“It’s not bad, and you don’t have to be worried. Actually several have come forward and mentioned you were sailing through on their classes. Specifically your math teacher and science teacher have both come to me and said that they felt their class was not challenging you. They both feel they want to put together some sort of accelerated program for you.”

“I am already in advanced classes, Mrs. Polaski. I didn’t think there was a step above that.”

“Not normally, no, but there is precedence for this. They can accelerate your work this year. Basically, they’d teach you what you would learn this year, and next year. This, of course, would mean more work for you. You would be doing most of your learning in independent study. You would be reading assigned readings and assignments, separately from your class. It would be up to you to go to your teachers and get assistance and instruction on what you didn’t understand. In return for this extra work on your part, next year you’ll essentially be at a junior level on those classes.”

“So if I do the same thing next year, that means I would have finished my required classes in two years. What would I do for the remaining two years?”

“There is always the option of graduating early. There is also the opportunity to take college level courses the following two years and get a jump start on your college degree.”

“I can do that?”

“Possibly. It really depends on how you do this year, and next, with an accelerated school schedule. When you get to your classes you will get your new reading schedule and assignments, as well as another text book in each class.”

“Ok. I guess the worst that can happen to me, is that I’ll fail miserably, and have to drop out of school. Right?”

While my words sounded a bit extreme it was pretty obvious from my goofy grin that I was joking. She was laughing as she stood up and walked me out of her office.

“My thoughts exactly, Mr. Grey. I think you will do fine either way this turns out.”

The next few days were a blur, as far as classes went.

The advanced math class already combined Algebra I and Geometry into a single class. I was expected to accelerate to a pace where I could complete that class by the end of the semester, and then shove the entire Algebra II class from sophomore year into a single semester. My teacher also laid out the next year’s plan, for me to take a combination trigonometry and pre-calculus class in the first semester and a calculus class in the second semester.

Something similar was set up except it was a mix of science and math classes. For my science classes I was going to have Biology pushed into this first semester, Chemistry in the second semester, and next year they would give me Physics in the first semester. Probability and Statistics would be shoe-horned into the second semester, just in case I didn’t have enough math already.

If I pulled this off, that would be all of my high school math and science classes. It would open me up for two years of college level courses in those subjects. They had considered trying to do this with other subjects, as well, but it was agreed that it might be too much of a load for me. I would keep the normal schedule for my English and Social Science classes.

I actually wasn’t worried about any of this. While my study had been extremely focused, I was already doing more math on my own time, than I would have in either of the next two years. Nevertheless, I was actually really excited by this plan. In my personal studies I had already moved well past many of these classes, mostly the math classes and the physics class since those topics interested me the most.

I checked with Doctor Chang, and she told me I couldn’t start back to physical activities. Most certainly not football practice, this week. But, she promised she would look at me Monday, and give me a yes or no then. I passed this on to Coach. He still wanted me to come to practice, if for nothing else than to start integrating with the team, and learning plays. Oddly, I found the playbook much easier this time than I had on my first attempt, at the beginning of the year.