Flames of the Heart by John Horton (sci fi books to read txt) 📕

glass doors and turned to go to our first class that we share together. This just happens, due to my incredibly stupid luck, to be Geometry. I didn’t do my homework.
“I did mine. You should have tried harder.” Jake tells me. “Yeah and maybe Mr. Wheese will thaw his heart out and become Teacher of the Year. I wish I had the attention span for homework! Something about it just really makes me want to back away slowly and flee the premises.” I tell him.
“I do too. I just happen to be good at math, that’s all. Maybe you really should try to go in for morning tutoring and quit flirting with every girl that happens to walk by! Then I bet the Wheezer would quit complaining to you about it.” He tried to bribe me. “I do not try to flirt with every way girl that walks by…” my voice trails off as Jessica Sanders catches my eye as she walks past. She gives me a smile. I raise my eyebrows and smirk like the flirt I know I really am. I turn back as she walks away and find my best friend giving me a critical look worthy even of my own dirty looks. “What did I do?” I ask.
We both crack up as we walk into class and stop almost as soon as we pass through the door. We walk to our seats, purposely set apart on opposite sides of the room by Mr. Wheese, who fails to see the importance of friends seated next to each other in such a hostile environment.
“Good morning class.” Mr. Wheese says in his “Jail Warden” voice that he practices before class in front of his classroom mirror (We caught him mid-practice). “Today we will- SIT DOWN MR. TODD! - Today we have much to do, including a pop quiz –ENOUGH GROANING! BE QUIET!” But we had already begun a class-wide groan as he passed the sheets out onto our desks. He slips the sheet in front of me with grunt of acknowledgement and moves on. I write my name and look closer at the quiz in front of me and find a million geometry questions. Or maybe it was just five. Did I mention that I am pretty much Dyslexic when it comes to math?
“You have exactly ten minutes to finish the quiz with NO exceptions. BEGIN!” He barks. I try to procrastinate by writing the date on the top of my paper and catch Jake walking past my desk (conveniently located in front of Mr. Wheese’s desk) with the entire paper done. How long had I been sitting there contemplating today’s date? He looked at my paper wide-eyed as he walked by and mumbled something that sounded like “Get your ass in gear!” Or maybe he said “Get some gas in your ear!” I was twiddling with my ear anyway.
I look down at my paper and pull the information from the very back of my memory. “Oh man. I am so screwed!” I think to myself. “I don’t remember any of this! I barely remember what I had for dinner last night…” I must have groaned or mumbled something a little too loudly because here comes Mr. Wheese like a heat-seeking missile trained on a radio-active X on my forehead.
“Is there a problem, Mr. Smith?” Normally that would sound like an awesome reference to the movie “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”, but instead it just sounds like a loogie as Mr. Wheese spit my own name at me. My mouth says something along the lines of “I think I’m having a baby.”
My brain however thinks “I am STILL screwed… did I just say I was pregnant?” What can I say? My thoughts just aren’t as clear when I’m nervous. The entire room, apparently listening closely to me as I am somehow the last to finish the test, breaks out laughing uncontrollably. Mr. Wheese tried to bring order back into the room and in all of the confusion, I run to his desk copied as many answers as I could, at least as many to get me a C, and turned my paper in.
“QUIET DOWN NOW! EVERYONE OPEN YOUR TEXTBOOKS AND FACE THE SCREEN! Everyone will have 3 extra pages to add to the 4 already assigned in your homework tonight, since Mr. Smith thinks he is a class clown.” He bellows loudly to calm everyone down.

There are still some snickers floating around the room even after the lesson has started. Quiz cheated, homework gained, teacher and class in frenzy, crisis averted? I ponder this as Jake’s eyes tell me he loved the joke but hates the punishment. He also shows me a finger gesture that is simply too rude to describe even in writing. I will tell you I showed him my own finger in return though. Luckily for me and everyone else in the class, the rest of the hour went by quietly without too much torture or added homework. After class Jake and I don’t say anything but grin like idiots and snicker until we’re out of earshot of Mr. Wheese. Then we bust out laughing like children being told their first “Yo-Mamma” jokes.
“I’m sorry; I didn’t realize your water broke when I passed your desk! Otherwise I would have helped you out a little.” Jake said in between gasping for breath and laughing. “I only would have let you if you had made the Wheezer carry me out to the car.” I replied, just as breathless. We agree to see how much rumor damage was created by my outburst at lunch and part ways, him to his Physics class and me to my Biology class. “Try not to kiss any frogs while you’re in there! April won’t like the taste of frog lips!” he called over his shoulder. I wave back, walking away quickly while trying to see if anyone heard us.
I walk into my Biology room just in time to hear my teacher, Mrs. Perry, cry at the top of her lungs “EVERYONE TAKE A SEAT! TODAY IS BEAUTIFUL, THE SKY IS GREEN, THE CLOUDS ARE PURPLE,” and then in a much softer voice “and today we are going to take some notes and do a few worksheets. All in favor of not doing either choice can shove it.”
Mrs. Perri is possibly one of the most dangerous teachers to have, since she likes to yell loudly while simultaneously trying to teach herself German like her brothers, instead of simply talking to us. She is so awesome. Even though she tries to maintain order we always lose track of what we’re doing because we all like to tell weird stories of what happened to us recently and we just get carried so very far, far away. However, she has an incredible knack for getting us back on topic and teaching us everything we need to know before the test. She often tells us of how even though we are her most talkative class, we are also the smartest class she has.
After snorting (did I mention she snorts?) at her own joke, she begins throwing our notes around the room for us to catch. I glance at April trying to catch her own notes in the corner of the room closest to Mrs. Perri’s desk. “How does she sit there without going deaf?” I think to myself. Then I rationalize that by being one of the “popular” crowd in school, you are probably better at ignoring teachers than most, and therefore aren’t as deaf as others in the class. Or maybe she wears earplugs. Either way she never seems annoyed or bothered by our teachers’ outbursts. She just sits there every day, looking up occasionally to glance at the clock or to move her hair from her face (I JUST said I wasn’t stalking her!). Class thankfully goes from loud and chaotic to quiet and studious in just a few short minutes. After we finish our notes and class discussions, we had just begun on the worksheets when there is a knock on the door.
“SOMEONE LET THEM IN!” screams Mrs. Perri. Suzy Keyes gets up to answer and another student returned with her. “Uh yeah, I have a note from the office for you.” says the student. He walks all the way across the room to Mrs. Perri, hands her the note carefully, the walks deliberately into April’s chair and “drops” something onto her binder just out of Mrs. Perri’s sight as he trips. He leaves the room quickly before anyone can ask any questions. April hid the note inside of her jacket just enough so she can open it and read it without Mrs. Perry knowing a thing.

I watch her eyes as they scan the note. They widen, then close a little, then widen again along with her commercial white smile that stretches all across her face, but not enough to make her creepy or anything. She just looks…yeah. Then she looks at me and her eyes catching mine with recognition is so stunning I almost scream from shock. I quickly lock my eyes on my paper and I do not dare look up again for the rest of class. I even make my table-mate take my worksheets up to the teacher’s desk for me so I don’t have to pass April. The bell rings and I try to run from the class but I’m too far into the middle of the class and I get stuck behind too many back packs. April caught me just outside the door by the arm, gently, but still enough to get my attention.
“Hey April, howzit goin’?” I ask her, keeping my eyes on my shoes and fight the urge to rise up from her own shoes. “Hi Jay. I heard that you said some weird stuff in your Geometry class. Is there something you need to tell me?” she asks in that beautiful angel voice. “Uhmm, no I don’t think so…” my voice trails off. “Are you sure? I mean, I think I should at least know who the father is.” She jokes at me. Or maybe she wasn’t. I was still in shock that she even knew my name.
“Yeah, no, I mean…it was a joke.” My words stumbled out clumsily as my tongue gets lost in the dust behind my thoughts. She laughs, completely unaware of the awkward hanging in the air around us. I bet if I swept my pocket knife through the air, the sound of the tension snapping would be so loud I would get in trouble for disturbing the peace.
“I know it was! But, I guess I’m not very funny am I?” she asked sweetly. “Of course you are. You just need some practice from a pro.” I said trying to make a reference to myself while trying to be just as sweet. “Wow, you are funny! Maybe you can teach me sometime.” She tells me. I am numb with realization of what she is saying. “SAY SOMETHING STUPID!” my brain screams, trying to coax me back into action.
“Pfffh, yeah! Just, whenever you want.” I finally manage to say. “Okay Jay, text me alright?” she says as she walks to her next class. I just smile and nod like an idiot. It wasn’t until after she walked away that I realized that I don’t have her number. Damn. Of course I’m losing even when I’m winning. “Idiot” I chastise myself. I walk to my next class, defeated and wait for lunch in silent stupidity.
I SET MY LUNCH ON FIRE
Jake finds me trying to cram my entire head into my now emptied lunch box in the cafeteria after classes let out for Break. “Didn’t I tell you April wouldn’t like it if your