An Unlikely Pairing

[CONNOR NOLAN]

Connor thought Mr. Solomon was cool. He was animated when he spoke and he explained things in such a way that he really made Connor feel like he was just another student. Until he assigned a group project on the first day of class. Really, who does that? It wasn’t that Connor minded doing schoolwork or even projects, but he wasn’t a fan of group projects. He was mostly a loner and usually ended up doing all of the work on these group projects while the other person shared the credit. At least this was a topic he wouldn’t mind doing a lot of work on. The Revolutionary War was always interesting. They’d barely started studying it, but Mr. Solomon wanted a presentation for every aspect of the war. The groups could pick their topic and depending on when the event occurred, that determined when they would present. Connor was actually pretty interested in presenting on the Boston Massacre or the Battle of Lexington and Concord, but those were really early events in the war and his group would have to present in a couple weeks. Actually, it wasn’t really a group; it was just a partner.

Mr. Solomon had gone around the room and divided the class evenly into groups of two. Connor sat in the back next to a girl he recognized but didn’t know. He’d seen her in the halls before and some of the girls at his table at lunch talked about how weird she was, but he’d never paid much attention to it. All he knew was she had bright, bright red hair that made her stand out from the crowd in their high school. Apparently, he was going to get to know her; Mr. Solomon paired them together on the project. When the man pointed to the two of them, Connor let his eyes drift to the girl sitting next to him. Besides her red hair he really didn’t see why the girls would think she was weird; she was actually really cute. Maybe it was her personality, but those girls made judgments on people they didn’t know all the time. He wouldn’t be surprised if they had no idea what this girl was really like. He gave a small smile to the girl when she glanced over, but his eyes didn’t linger. Instead, he looked back to Mr. Solomon so he could explain what was acceptable and unacceptable in terms of the project. It was the typical stuff but Connor still made a couple notes just in case. He preferred to be safe than sorry.

“Okay, so I’ve given you all a list of topics you can choose from. There will be no repeats, so you should have back-up choices ready in case your topic gets picked. I’ve also given you dates for your presentation based on topic. I’ll give you guys ten minutes to discuss and then I’ll go around the room and ask for your topics. Have at it!” Connor turned slowly to face his partner, giving another small, lopsided smile. The only hesitation he felt was that he was a little shy around people he didn’t know. If he was getting weird looks from his classmates, he didn’t notice them. He lifted his hand in a small wave. “Hey, um…I’m Connor. What’s your name?” he asked, sliding the handout Mr. Solomon had made for their project closer to him on his desk.

[CONNOR NOLAN]

“Name’s Quinn.” That’s right. Connor knew the girls he hung around had said her name, but it wasn’t until she said it that he remembered. Quinn. He wouldn’t forget it this time. "So any ideas for this project thingy? I don't really know much about all this stuff so I am hoping you do. I will do work though, don't worry. Might take me a while to get it done though. I have terrible focus but I am great at art. I could like draw something or something like that. I don't know. Art class is the only class I am actually good at. Sorry if I don't do great on this project. Not always the best at doing, well, work." For a second Connor just sat in silence. Wow…she liked to talk! And fast too. It sounded almost like she a ton of thoughts bouncing around her head and she had to spill them out before she lost them. He had to admit, it was actually pretty funny. Finally he grinned, glancing down at the handout before he looked back up at her. “Uh, yeah, I know a lot about this stuff actually. I mean, I could explain it all so you’re more familiar with it when we have to do our presentation. I figure we can split up the talking half and half.” He wasn’t sure how good Quinn would be at spouting off facts from a PowerPoint and elaborating on them, but if she could talk like that, they might get a decent grade. Or would they? It was something to consider.

“I think having art in our project would be pretty cool. I do some drawing, but I bet you’re way better at that stuff than me.” He smiled a little more, pegging her for an artistic type. Maybe that was why she wore her hair as a bright red. “Maybe you could draw a comic to illustrate the event or something. I think that would be really cool. Unless comics aren’t your style, then we could do something more basic, like a picture of every major part of the event. I don’t want to dump too much on you, so I would put the PowerPoint together and we could decide which scenes you wanted to do.” Connor was really flexible about this sort of thing, and he liked the idea of having something unique like personal art within their project. He doubted anyone else would have a project like that. At least Quinn was willing to put in the effort unlike a lot of kids their age.

“I was thinking we could do the Battle of Lexington and Concord or the Boston Massacre. Those are coming up in the next two weeks or a month, but at least we’ll have it over with, right? If you wanted to do something else, though, I’d be open to do any of these topics. I guess our meeting schedule would be figured out based on when we were going for the presentation. Oh, and I guess we should get each other’s numbers too, huh? Just in case we have questions for each other. May I?” He leaned over and gently took her handout off her desk, scrawling his number on the top corner of the sheet. With a smile he gave it back to her and then handed her his sheet. “And you can write your number on here. I’ll save it in my phone later. You can ask me questions about the homework too. You know, in case you’re having a hard time understanding. I mean, you don’t have to, I just figured I’d offer.” Connor felt a little awkward offering her help with regular assignments, but it was the way he was. If she needed help and he could do anything to give her that, he wouldn’t mind answering her questions. Maybe that was weird, but he would have offered the same help to anyone who needed it. He gave a lopsided smile to show he was serious about his offer, though she almost seemed suspicious. He hoped he hadn’t offended her…