Reason #12

 

    "Miss, I'm so sorry I'm late, I had to talk to my language arts teacher. I'm not behind or anything, I just had to check with her about a kid in my class. Did you know he died from Covid? I had to quarantine when he went into the hospital, but not everyone in class did. My teacher tested positive but she didn't get sick, so I just did stuff in google classroom. Luckily it's lang arts so I just had to read and do vocab stuff. Did you hear about that kid? I think he's the only one so far that's died. You know I've had to quarantine three times this fall? I've missed almost four weeks of school in quarantine. My parents are really worried about it.  I mean Covid, not missing school. It sucks to miss ROTC and my theatre class, but like math is fine. Nothing is really getting done, no offence, with everybody sick and everybody else trying to sub for them. Like my theatre teacher was my physics sub. The math teacher subbed art for a week. Is she OK, by the way? My art teacher has been out for like two weeks. Do you know if she's OK? My lang arts teacher didn't know, either.

    The kid who died was really nice, his name was Alberto, but he said to call him Jose. Funny kid. He's the first person I've known that's my age that's died. My aunt died last year, from cancer not Covid, but we couldn't have a funeral because everything was closed. We had to wait and my mom was a mess, then they only let my mom come to the funeral, everyone else had to watch it from home online like Hamilton. I loved my Aunt. She lived with us when we first moved here, she was always playing board games with us. She made quarantines not so terrible, you know? Like she taught me how to crochet. I know Miss, right? Imma guy, and I can crochet my dog a sweater. It's hilarious.  Anyway. I had to talk to her and make sure she is doing OK, because she's got a little kid at home. Then we started talking about Jose, and how funny he was about his name because he had three names, and none of them were "Jose", and then we talked about my Aunt, and she said I should go to see a counselor but they're busy. Maybe I'll try again. I think I'll try again. Do you think they're maybe not as busy as they were last period, Miss? Can I get a pass?"