Chapter Fifty-Two: Mia

Luke was so worried about the math state test Thursday afternoon that we spent all of our lunch periods Tuesday and Thursday in the library going over possible problems and the review sheet that the teacher had given him. He's so sweet, and I feel so bad for him. He just doesn't understand math, and I want to help him so much, but he just tenses up whenever we go over some of the harder stuff. I just want to give him a big hug and tell him everything will be all right.

In his remedial math class, Luke said they just started in on the Algebra lessons the second semester, and he's so bad at it, I'm not even sure he knows what Algebra is. I mean he doesn't even know the basic information. He said his math grade has dropped from a high D to a low one recently, and it seems like I'm helping him more than ever, and still he's just barely passing for this nine weeks.

Toward the end of the lunch period, when I had time to go over the most important equations one last time, I realized there was no way he was going to pass the test. And I think he realized it, too. He just sighed when I said good luck, and right then I wanted to kiss him for the first time. But I didn't want our first kiss to be in the library and when he was going to take a standardized test in a few minutes.

More and more, I've been thinking about our first date next year when we're sophomores and our first kiss. I want both to be special. I know he's going to ask me out, and I know I'm going to say yes. What I don't know is where we will go on our first date and how Mama and Poppa will feel about it, and how we will get to wherever we will go. I would be happy riding our bikes somewhere and having a picnic; we wouldn't need any money to have a good time together. Just being with him and talking about things would be enough for me...and I think for Luke, too.

The bell rang for lunch to be over, and I squeezed Luke's hand, and he squeezed mine, too, and I told him to meet me at the entranceway of the school before we got on our buses, to let me know how he thought he did. He said he would. When I saw him at the end of the day, he looked so gloomy, and he said the whole test had been a disaster. He said he got so nervous, and it seemed like he was taking too much time on the questions; they were all multiple choice, but Luke called them "multiple guess."

Luke said with about 20 questions left on the test, the problems got harder than ever, and everything that we had drilled about went "right out" of his head, so he just decided to "Christmas tree" those last 20 questions. He penciled in A, Β, C, D, and then did D, C, Β, A, until the test was over, and turned in his test and left.

I had taken my math state test that morning and felt like I had done really well. When my scores for my class came back a week later, I had made a 578, which was about what I thought I had made...some of the problems were really hard, so I had felt like I had missed a few of them. Since my scores came back for my honors Algebra I class, I knew Luke's must have come back too, so I could hardly wait until we met in the library to see if maybe he had gotten lucky and passed.

When I entered the library, Luke was already sitting at what we call "our computer," and I hurried over to him and he saw me and gave me the biggest smile. He said he had passed with a 405, that "Christmas treeing" over those last 20 problems must have turned out okay. I was so happy for him that I gave him the biggest hug right there in the library. I don't care who saw us. Later when I thought about Luke passing that test, I sort of had doubts about the whole system of those state math tests. I mean if Luke, who is just absolutely horrible in math, could pass the test by just pure luck, really now, how valid could those tests be. Of course, if he had failed the test, that wouldn't have been good, either. At least, state testing is over for the spring.