The Education of Hailey Kendrick - Eileen Cook [6]
“Summer with Tristan would be good, but you have to admit my end-of-summer party will be amazing.” My dad had arranged for me to be able to invite all my friends to stay in a five-star resort as one last blowout for our group. Everyone would be heading in different directions in the fall, so knowing we would have one last chance to be together was huge.
“Are you kidding me? Your summer party is already the event of the year, and it’s still months away. All I’m saying is, spending the summer with Tristan in Paris wouldn’t be a bad thing. In August you could swing by your dad’s leper colony, put in an appearance, and then have the party.”
“You know I can’t do that. Part of the reason my dad arranged the party was because I’m doing an unpaid internship. It’s his way of paying me back.”
“I know you’re looking forward to this summer with your dad, and I’m sure working for free is very rewarding in its own special way. I also get that you don’t get to spend a lot of time with him, but passing up Paris? With Tristan? Croissants, fancy cheese that stinks, French wine . . .”
“I haven’t spent a whole summer with my dad in forever. There is no amount of stinky cheese and wine that would make me give it up.”
“And no amount of Tristan?”
“Not even Tristan.” I smiled and opened my laptop. “Now back to our project. I’ve got a great idea for our presentation that pulls together everything. We’ll take the time line you did that shows the major battles and generals and combine it with the pictures I downloaded. It will totally support the position paper I drafted.”
Kelsie’s eyes slid away, and she suddenly became fascinated by a microscopic chip in the polish on her thumbnail.
“Kels?” My stomach started to sink, and I felt the KitKat boiling in a rush of acid.
“I need to talk to you about the time line.”
“You didn’t do it?” I had deliberately given Kelsie the job of doing the time line because it was the easiest part of the project. It was time consuming, but not hard. I’d done all the research and written the paper, not to mention the bulk of the presentation.
“I started it.” Kelsie pulled out a notebook. She had a line drawn on the page. Down the side it read: War starts, Washington crosses the Delaware in the snow, War ends, Create Declaration of Independence. I closed my eyes.
“I know I’m missing a bunch of stuff, but I can finish it now while you work on the presentation,” Kelsie said.
“The Declaration of Independence happened at the beginning of the revolution,” I pointed out, proving so far that 25 percent of what she had down on the page was wrong.
“Really?” Kelsie looked down, surprised, at her history textbook. The binding didn’t looked like it had been cracked yet. “Don’t be pissed,” she said.
“The project is fifty percent of our grade. Our presentation is tomorrow. Why didn’t you tell me that you didn’t think you would get your part done?” I wanted to kick myself. I loved Kelsie, but I knew what she was like. I should have made her show me her progress at least a week ago.
“Because I totally planned to finish it. Look, I’ll talk to Ms. Brown and tell her the time line part was mine and not to have it reflect on your grade.” Kelsie raised her right hand as if she were about to swear an oath.
I sighed. Kelsie knew I wouldn’t let her take the fall. Besides, knowing Ms. Brown, all that would happen if Kelsie confessed is that we would get a lecture on the importance of teamwork and how learning to work together was part of the assignment. I felt like screaming, but yelling at Kelsie would be like kicking a puppy. I forced myself to take a deep breath.
“Okay. Make some coffee and do as much of the time line as you can while I work on the presentation. Then I’ll take everything back to my room and polish it up.” We both knew when I