I met a new girl at school today. Her name is Gretchen Rodgers (I think thats how you spell it) and she just started at our school earlier this week. She joined our history class and I heard her speak for the first time yesterday. She is kind of shy, but is very beautiful and has red hair. I don't know why they call it red because its really orange. That is the only thing I could think to say to her and she just looked at me and smiled politely. I then asked her where she is from and she said "New Mexico". I told her that I rode through there once on a family trip and she smiled again politely. I thought maybe I was boring her and said that it was nice to meet her, but when our teacher made us pick a partner to tell one story from our family history project she looked at me and smiled politely again, so I got up to sit down next to her and asked if she would be my partner and she nodded her head yes. Then I smiled and before I could sit down George Davison bumped me out of the way and asked Gretchen if she wanted to be his partner. I was so mad, but couldn't do anything but look at Gretchen and hope that she would tell him no. She looked at him and then at me and seemed afraid to say anything when the strangest thing happened. George was about to sit down on the chair that I was about to sit down on and just before his butt hit the chair I pulled it away and he went crashing to the ground. The whole class became very quiet and all of a sudden as we were all looking at George laying on his backside I heard the sound of someone trying to hold in laughter. I looked over and it was Gretchen. Once she realized that now everyone was looking at her she stopped and looked at her feet. I backed up thinking that George was going to stand up and hit me and instead he looked really embarrassed and even seemed like he wanted to cry. The whole class was really surprised because George is usually a bully, but Mrs. Ramsey the history teacher helped George up and sent him to the school nurse before he started crying. Mrs. Ramsey asked what happened and I figured I was going to get in trouble, but somehow I said that I had asked Gretchen to be my partner and she said yes and was about to sit down when George tried to steal my seat and he missed. Mrs. Ramsey asked Gretchen if this was true and she looked up and nodded her head yes. That was it. No one else said anything and some people even looked at me and smiled as if I was some hero. But I felt kind of bad and was surprised that I would do something like that to hurt someone. In one way it made me feel good to stand up for myself, but at the same time I was feeling guilty. I was a little confused when I sat down and started to ask Gretchen the questions that Mrs. Ramsey had given us, but once I heard Gretchen speak about her family and how sad it was that her father had died when she was five, I forgot all about george davison and the chair.
Next week we have to start bringing in pictures of our family and discuss two stories with the class. I just hope that Mrs. Ramsey makes us keep the same partner.