Not a Bad Day, After All

I was about to enter the Principal’s office when I saw someone walking towards me from the corner of my eye. I ignored the person and entered into the room. 

“Good Morning Sir,” I greeted him. He was about to reply when that person entered. I turned around and saw William Blake.

“I am glad you both could join us today,” our Principal, Mr. Thatcher started. “This is Mr. Halpert from Tarapore School. He is here to assess our school. Its you both’s responsibility to accompany him for the day. Make sure to make his visit worthwhile.” He smiled his strict smile indicating us not to spoil this wonderful opportunity. We hummed our replies and guided Mr. Halpert out of the room. 

William Blake and I, Cathy Lockheart, are the members of the Student Council. While he is in charge of the various sports activities of our school, I am in charge of the cultural activities. In short, we rarely cross paths. I am not even sure if he knows my name or not.

One thing is for sure. We both are going to try our best to impress Mr. Halpert. And judging by the challenging look William is giving me, he is trying to convey something serious. Something as in, “Do not you dare come in my path of impressing this person.” Huh. As if I am going to give up such a golden opportunity and leave everything upto him.

We started walking down the corridor.

“Tell me about the various sports activities of your school,” Mr. Halpert had not even finished his sentence when William jumped in. “Skywood High has a wide range of sports in which it mostly excels. Our football team had won the Nationals last year and our basketball team got qualified to play for the States. Our baseball team also bagged some prizes in the inter school competition.”

We were in the first floor now. William continued to describe the achievements of our school in sports but judging by Mr. Halpert’s expressions, he did not seem very interested. He cut William after a while.

“I asked about the sports your school has to offer, not the number of prizes won by you all,” He stated with an almost yawn. “Shit,” I thought. And judging by the almost panic look William was giving me, he was thinking the same. Mr. Halpert had to be impressed or else the consequences would not be pretty.

So I tried to cover up. “What William meant is that our school wins prizes in almost all the sports activities that are available here,” I smiled. “The practices are held mostly in the second half of the day, so then we can take you to see them.” 

Internally, I sighed. This was going to be a long day.

Mr. Halpert was, indeed, very hard to impress. He looked bored while conversing with us. He again yawned at some instances. Either he had not slept well last night or he was trying the freak the daylights out of us. William and I were trying our best to keep him interested. We were answering his questions promptly. We were telling him about whatever he was asking in detail. But nothing was working.

Finally it was lunch. We escorted the rude man to the staff room. 

After the door closed behind him, I sighed loudly.

“What the hell was that?” William sighed too.

“Our punishment for being the part of the Students’ Council?”

He weakly smiled at me. I smiled back. And then we remembered our current situation.

“Cathy, we need to work this out,” he rushed. “We need to get on his good books or else we are screwed.”

I nodded. I was surprised that he knows my name. I even felt a tingle in my stomach. I shook my head. Now is not the time to develop a crush on him Cathy.

After thinking for a while, an idea stuck in my mind. “William,” he looked up. “What if Mr. Halpert wants to assess out teamwork?”

He furrowed his brows. “What do you mean?”

I continued. “What if he wants to see how good of a team the two of us make? Maybe we need to converse with each other too while talking to him. That will give off vibes of a good team spirit. We need to make him believe what we are saying is actually true. We need to convince him. Our school is literally the best in this town, and we both know that.”

He nodded vigorously and then grinned. “You are a genius.” 

I flipped my pony tail. “At your service, Sir.” I said in a British accent. 

He started laughing and I joined. It was good talking to him. The butterflies were growing in my stomach. I wanted to shush them but they were not cooperating. 

After lunch, we met Mr. Halpert again. Everything went much better from then on. Mr. Halpert finally seemed interested. We roamed around the whole school and at last reached the football field. The students were practicing and following orders from their coach. All in all, they looked quite professional. 

We were now standing at the entrance of the school building. Mr. Halpert smiled at us. 

“I am impressed. Not only by your School but also by you both. You both make a great team.”

William and I glanced at each other and smiled.

After Mr. Halpert left, it was almost the time of dismissal. I was about to go to my locker when William stopped me.

“It wasn’t such a bad day afterall,” He grinned.

I grinned back. “Yes, I had fun too.”

“Do you have to go somewhere after school?” He asked. I shook my head. 

“Lets go to Dominos. My treat.”

My face brightened up. “Sure, why not.”

I never thought I’ll make a friend over the stupid assessment of our school. I have already developed a crush on him, yes, but I am happy to have him as a friend I looked up to see William smiling as we were walking towards his car.

Today was not a bad day, after all.