Page 2 of Escape

Josie Day.

Of all the people he could have paired me with, Mr. Lewis had chosen the one person in the classroom I hadn’t ever communicated with, not even once. I’d known Josie since middle school. She was a bit of a loner, and she always wound up sitting behind me in any of the classes we’d had together. She never talked to me, though. In fact, I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen her talk to anyone.

How was this going to work? Would we even be able to accomplish this task together, and do it successfully? I couldn’t stop myself from wondering what was going through her mind. How did she feel about needing to do this project together?

Once Mr. Lewis got through all the pairings, he said, “Alright, I want you to huddle up with your partner, and I’m going to come around with your envelope containing your specific assignment. You’ll then spend the rest of this class brainstorming ideas and coming up with a game plan for attacking the project.”

Since she was sitting right behind me, I spun around in my seat and found her looking rather nervous. I offered a smile, wanting to appear friendly, but it seemed to have the opposite effect. Her cheeks flushed, and she shrank back in her seat.

Great.

I hadn’t even said a word, and she was already uncomfortable.

“Huck, Josie, here’s yours,” Mr. Lewis said, holding an envelope out to us.

I took it from him, returned my attention to her, and asked, “Do you want to open it?”

She shrugged. “You can do it.”

I slid my finger beneath the sealed flap, opened the envelope, and pulled out the small square of paper. After reading it, I looked at Josie and said, “The topic is to demonstrate, through a real-world application, how to convert potential energy into kinetic energy.”

Josie offered a slight nod and reasoned, “That shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“Do you have any ideas on how we could do it?” I questioned her.

She considered her answer in silence a moment before she returned, “I guess it depends on how we want to handle the project.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, do you think we should just do some research and write a report, or should we actually attempt to demonstrate the concept by doing a project, sort of like a science fair project?”

My mom’s words from the morning rang inside my head. I needed to find something to be excited about. Sure, this was a project, but it seemed we were going to have our first period of the day on a Friday free from actual instruction. Plus, even if I didn’t know much of anything about Josie yet, at least she seemed to think this project would be simple. I could have wound up with a partner who would have left me to do all the work. Maybe I could get excited about this.

“Considering this project is going to count for sixty percent of our grade in this class, we probably shouldn’t skimp and just do a written report,” I said. “I think going above and beyond in this case is going to be worth the effort.”

Josie nodded. “I agree, and I’m glad you feel that way.”

“Alright, so how do you think we should tackle this?” I asked her.

Surprisingly, even if Josie had seemed incredibly shy when I first turned around, she didn’t hesitate to give me a detailed response. “I think we need to come up with a list of real-world applications for the project. We should make a list of all the instances where we’d be able to demonstrate the conversion of potential energy into kinetic. Once we do that, we can narrow them down to the one that’ll do the best job of proving we understand how the concept works and is likely to get us the best grade.”

My brows shot up so high, it was a wonder they didn’t become part of my hairline. “Wow. Okay. That’s a really great idea.”

A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Thanks.”

For the remainder of our time together in class, Josie and I brainstormed ideas for the project. While I came up with some options for the project, I was impressed by how many great ideas she had.

And by the time I was sitting down at the dinner table with my mom, there was something I was able to talk to her about that I was excited about at school.

“We can’t leave here until we decide.”

I stared across the table and noted the determined look on Josie’s face. Clearly, she meant business.

“Works for me. I have nowhere else to be today,” I told her.

Nodding furiously, she returned, “That’s good. Coming here was an excellent idea, Huck.”

A confident smile formed on my face. It felt good to receive that kind of praise from a girl who was as smart as I was learning Josie was, but I especially liked hearing her say my name. For someone I’d believed was a loner and weird for the longest time, the reality was that she had been quick to open up and be friendly enough with me for us to work on our project.

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