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 Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 7:40 am
Mili wasn't quite sure she liked this whole "learning" thing. Sure, she liked school, but having to do homework was such a pain. Work, work, work, that's all teachers made them do, and none of it was ever fun.
She sighed and put her head face down on her open Literature book. Her assignment was to read the excerpt from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and to answer the questions about it on p. 146. Not a hard assignment, but Mili couldn't bring herself to focus. Everything around her was a distraction, her computer, her cell phone, the wishing that she was at the shopping district instead; it all worked against her.
Then, she remembered something... rather, someone. Mili pulled out the piece of paper that had Tallulah's number on it, and dialed it. While the phone was ringing, she took all of her books and haphazardly began to throw them into her bag. She muttered, "come on, come on, come on, pick up the phone".
Finally, the ringing stopped, and before the girl on the other end of the line had a chance to pick up, Mili blurted, "Tallulah, this is Mili. Want to meet at the library and work on homework?"
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Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 8:07 am
Tallulah's ring tone was the Finland national anthem, and when it started playing during Model UN practice, Finland politely excused itself to go answer it in the hall.
"Milli?" she asked, keeping uncertainty from creeping into her voice. Oh! Right! From the library. "Hi," she said. "I'm kind of in the middle of a Model UN meeting. We're trying to decide on nuclear policy and I'm a big part of the committee."
She glanced down at her watch.
"I've really got to get back in but we'll be done in fifteen minutes and I'll meet you there, okay?"
She waited for a reply and looked through the window in the door. Things seemed to have come to a halt while she was gone.
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Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 3:32 pm
"Fifteen Minutes? I can do that. See you there!"
Mili hung up the phone and threw it on top of the books that were already in her bag. Thankfully she didn't have any more to put in there, or her phone might have gotten crushed due to the hastiness she was in.
Thankfully, it was less than a fifteen minute walk to library. Living in a large city was convenient like that. That was one of the things Mili liked about Destiny City, and something she knew she would miss if she ever moved away.
Mili pondered these things on her walk, really she had nothing better to be thinking about. Once she came close to the library, she looked at the clock on the bank across the street; she was running right on time. She didn't see Tallulah yet, so she just walked up to the stairs leading into the library and sat on them, waiting.
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Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 1:22 pm
Tallulah jogged up a few minutes later, her backpack slung over her shoulder. "Sorry," she said, coming to a halt beside Milla to catch her breath. "Running the free world is kind of complicated." It was hardly an exaggeration to say that Model UN kids used their club's premise for every joke they could milk out of it.
"We finished The Scarlet Letter last week, if you're still on it?" she continued, her voice indicating a little bit of uncertainty as to what this impromptu study meeting was about. "But, I mean, if it's not, I'm still happy to help."
Tallulah was born to help. After all, what was superior intelligence good for if not to help those less fortunate in the brain department? But it wasn't like she let her intellect go to her head or anything like that...
Well, sort of. She tried not to let it show too much.
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Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 6:32 am
"Hey, Talluah; the free world is quite a task to take on, Mili said. "Well, we finished the book too... in fact, my copy is now overdue. I didn't think to grab it today to bring with." Of all the things for Mili to forget to throw in her bag, the overdue library book was probably pretty high on the list of things to remember.
Mili sighed. "I need your help with an assignment that I'm having trouble focusing on: I know why the Caged Bird Sings. We just have to read the part that is in our literature book, and then answer the questions that follow. A simple task, but I am having trouble getting into it. Do you have a similar assignment?"
She really hoped that Talluah either reading the same thing, or at least willing to help.
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Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 6:44 am
"Oh," said Tallulah, "No, we haven't got that one. What Literature book do you have? Our teacher assigned the Their Eyes Were Watching God excerpt."
Of course, she'd done that during fourth period study hall, so now all that remained for tonight was some math problems, and she could do those later. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
"But I'll take a look and see if I can help you," she said. Maybe it would help her get ahead. You never knew when your own teacher might be in the mood for some Maya Angelou. She motioned to the library doors. "Let's head in and find a table," she suggested, and gave Milla a sympathetic wince in response to the tale of the late library book. She'd returned hers on time, but knew that not everyone was quite as with it as she was.
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Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 7:07 am
"Thank you so much!" Mili gushed. She usually was capable of pushing through the boredom of homework, but today was different. She just didn't feel up to it, and everything was a distraction. But she tried to hone in her focus now as to not waste Tallulah's time. Mili hated it when her time was wasted, and she wouldn't want to do the same to anyone else.
She walked up to an open table, and set down her bag. She pulled out the book her class was using. It was orange with gold font on it, quite flashy for a book. "I have to admit I haven't looked trough the book, so I don't know what excerpts are in it. This is the one we're currently using though."
Mili felt slightly embarrassed that she was not as prepared as Tallulah was. She prided herself on her logic and the ability to think ahead, but she never really applied that to her homework. It was something she'd have to consider doing.
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Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 7:23 am
Tallulah set her bag down beside Mili's and pulled out her own book. It was roughly similar, the same shade of orange though significantly battered, and the front cover was yellow, not gold, and was beginning to peel.
"Oh, the joys of the public school system," she joked, setting it down on the table. Though it was interesting to know that they still had the same textbook. Maybe the Meadowview and Crystal curriculums were more similar than she had thought.
She set the book on the table and sat down. "What page is it on?" she asked, and drummed her fingers on the worn cover.
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Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 6:20 am
"The questions I need to answer are on p. 146," Mili said as she opened her fresh and new book. The spine made an unhappy sounding crunch as it cracked slightly despite the fact that she had opened the book once, maybe twice before. Mili certainly never opened a textbook more than she had to, and this was the first reading assignment she had been given out of the book this year.
Mili wondered if Crystal was kind enough to donate it's used textbooks to Medowview at the end of each year, after all, hers looked in a lot better shape than Tallulah's. She also wondered what the tax write off would be on something like that. She would have to call and ask Father later. Mili continued, "The excerpt we were assigned starts on p. 132. It is not long, but I am having trouble reading it".
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Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 1:59 pm
"Uh huh," nodded Tallulah, opening her book. The pages turned limply, and page 132 seemed to have had coffee spilt on it. She scanned it quickly. "Are you having trouble with Angelou's style?" she asked.
"First person prose can be tricky," she sympathized, though this was only slightly true for her. Nothing was ever tricky for long when you were Tallulah Cowden.
She flipped ahead to the questions on page 146, which had been copiously highlighted. One of the pros of having used textbooks was that sometimes they had the answers already written in, though you always had to check them.
"Let's read the questions first and see what we should be looking for in the reading," she suggested. Good grades started with good study habits, after all.
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Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 6:36 pm
Mili's eyes glazed over while Tallulah was talking about style and prose. Literature was very much not her subject. She nodded, "I'm having trouble with the style". Really, she was having trouble with all of it.
She flipped along to the page with the questions on it. It made sense to look at them first. Mili was sure she had been told to do this before, but the study habit had not stuck. She made a mental note to do this again in the future.
As she read over the questions, Mili picked out the key words she needed to remember while she was reading the actual story. When she had finished doing this, she looked up at Tallulah with strained and lost eyes that begged to be told the answers or at least what to do next to find them.
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Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 10:34 am
Had Tallulah been given the same assignment, she might have been content to simply tell Mili the answers, but under these circumstances she was more in favor of letting the other girl do some of her own work. However, effective study habits were for everyone and so she had no problem pointing her in the right direction.
"Now we read the selection," she declared, and flipped back to the beginning. She kept her thumb in the page with the questions. "It's faster if you answer as you read," she explained. "So just keep the questions in mind and when you see the answer stop and write it down."
Really, she thought, a bit impressed with herself. It wasn't that hard.
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Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2009 5:47 am
'Wow,' Mili thought, 'she really makes this look too easy.' She followed the instructions she was given and flipped to the first page of the story.
She cleared her throat and began to read in a clear, loud voice, "When I was three, and Baily four, we had arrived in the musty little town..."
A chorus of "Shhhhhh" came out of everywhere in the library at once, and she stopped reading. Mili made it a point to look around the room and give each of them as big a scowl as she could muster, which at the moment, and given her academic frustration, must have been quite intimidating.
She leaned in toward Tallulah and whispered, "maybe we should read the selection silently."
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Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 4:53 pm
Tallulah winced at the barrage of shhhhhs. She was not one who liked getting in trouble, least of all at the library. And she certainly hadn't been expecting Mili to do that!
"I thought that much was implied," she replied quietly, too meek to be wry. She refused to acknowledge that, maybe, in helping Mili, she had bitten off more than she could chew.
"Just read it quietly," she said, leaning in. "Read it to yourself. And remember the questions."
She looked down at her own book and read the passage as well. When she was finished, she looked up. The other girl was still going, she supposed.
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Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 8:36 am
Mili gave Tallulah a half-smile; it was about all she could do right now. Well, she could admit that she was wrong in talking in the library or apologize for being a burden, but those really weren't options.
She tried to gather some focus and read the story. Silently she read each sentence carefully looking them over for the answers she needed to get this over with. Mili unconsciously began to chew on her pencil. It made little crunching noises as her teeth put dents in the wood.
When she was done reading, she looked up to see that Tallulah had finished before her, and it seemed by the expression she had that she had finished a lot longer before her. "You know, your help is very appreciated. I couldn't bring myself to really read the story, but now that I have, the questions look like they're a lot easier than I made them out to be."
Mili again tried to smile, and this time it worked a little better, "thank you."
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