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Physics was going to be the death of Hael. Annoyance #1: the teacher insisted on calling her Haelee. Since three other people in the class were Haileigh, Haley, and Haylie, it got very confusing. She’d started going by Hael in kindergarten for exactly that reason. Annoyance #2: there was so much math. She already had one math class, she didn’t need two. Never mind that she was good at math. That was too much math for one day, especially since both teachers believed in daily practice problems. Annoyance #3: since she was good at math, everyone in the class kept wanting to be her partner so they didn’t have to do any of the work. They’d do the fun parts of the labs and then copy Hael’s work on the calculations. She’d refuse to work with them again, but she was running out of people to work with unless she changed her mind.
She’d never worked with Aaron before. She’d been avoiding him, after working with a couple of his friends and them being the worst about not working. That was reputation, not proof, so she agreed when he asked her to work with him on building circuits. He couldn’t be worse than previous partners, and she could see Haylie staring her way.
Andy grabbed the box of materials and brought it to a lab station. As he sorted through the electronics materials, he asked, “Have you ever built circuits before?”
“Only on the computer simulation we did yesterday,” Hael admitted. And this was where Aaron offered to do all of that if she’d do all the math. Still not worth lying about.
Aaron nodded and shoved the wires toward her. “Then you do this part and I’ll check your work. I do a lot of robotics, I don’t need the practice with circuits. I’ll do the math and have you check it. Sound good?”
Hael paused, pencil already in hand. That wasn’t what she’d expected, and it took her a minute to process what had just happened. It still didn’t make sense. “Wait, what?”
“I know I have a reputation as a slacker because of who I hang out with and what we do. I like getting high, and I’m not gonna apologize for that. It’s fun. Thing is, I’m here to learn, and the math is where I need the practice. I know you’re good at that, so if you check my work you can tell me what I’m doing wrong and I’ll get the right answers.”
She’d avoided Aaron because of his stoner reputation. Now she regretted that. Aaron had just won her respect. “Can you be my partner the rest of the year?”
“Any time we get to pick, sure, but you know Mr. Adler’s gonna pull assigned groups at least once more.” He glanced down at the paper. “First step is to build a simple circuit.”
That was no problem. Hael had no trouble with the batteries, light bulb, ammeter, and switch. Aaron did the math, and Hael only had to help him once – he’d forgotten that the equation for resistance in a parallel circuit gave the inverse of the answer. Hael needed Aaron’s help to figure out how to wire the challenge circuit, and calculating the equivalent resistance was tedious, but they figured it out.
They weren’t the first group to return their box of circuit supplies, but there were still ten minutes left in the class period. Hael checked the board and groaned. The homework for the night looked long, and she already had math homework that would likely take nearly an hour. Oh, well, at least she’d finished early and could get started.
Aaron sat beside her, and Hael gave him a wary look. When he pulled out his book and started working, she relaxed. Answering questions, she didn’t mind, but Aaron wasn’t going to try to copy off her like others might have. Shortly before the bell rang, Hael was about a third of the way through the problems, and Aaron not far behind. She pulled out a piece of paper and wrote her phone number and Discord name. “Hey. Here, if you get stuck tonight, call me.”
Aaron took the phone number, doing his best to hide the surprise but failing. “Thanks, I’ll do that.”
When her phone rang, Hael picked it up despite the unknown number. “Hello?”
“Hi. Have you finished the homework yet?”
“No, I’ve got like three problems left, but I needed a break from math. I’m beating my head against this essay for history instead. Have you done that one yet?”
“The World War 2 one? Yeah, my grandpa’s a Holocaust survivor, so that was really easy for me. So you haven’t looked at 52 yet?”
“Not yet, but let me grab my book real quick.” Hael put down the phone and pulled it out. 52 was the last problem, and it was a complicated one. “Wow. It’s not hard, but that’s…” she counted quickly, concluding “seven steps, at least. Where are you stuck?”
“I can’t figure out how to get started. Once I get started I think I’ll be fine, if I remember to take inverses, but every time I think I’ve found a starting point I second-guess myself.”
“I can see why.” Hael stared at the circuit diagram. “Okay. Start with resistors 8 and 9, I think. Or 3 and 4. I’ll do 8 and 9, you do 3 and 4, compare answers at the end?”
“Sounds good.” Hael set her phone down to focus on the problem. By the time she had an answer – she’d underestimated the steps necessary – she was quite sick of staring at the diagram. “Aaron?”
“Hang on, I’m almost there. Just need to do the left parallel bit, and then add up the series.” Hael checked her work as she waited. “Did you get 34 ohms?”
“Yes. I did. Whew.” Hael glared at the problem. “You probably don’t have this problem, but how many kids do you think are going to ask to copy my work on this one?”
“All of them. Except me.” Hael had to laugh. “Probably not Andy, either, he’ll just take the lost points. As long as he passes, he doesn’t care.”
“Yeah, true. Any others you want me to check for you?”
“No, I think I’m good, unless you want to go on a date.”
Hael blinked and then burst into laughter. “Did you really need help getting started, or did you just want an excuse to call?”
“I really did need help getting started, but if I hadn’t, I would have used it as an excuse.”
“Fair enough, then. I’m good with that. See what happens, huh?”