"Martin, Ann M - BSC052 - Mary Anne And Too Many Babies" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin Ann M)

"I now pronounce you husband and wife, for as long as you are members of my Modern Living class."
I had never been so embarrassed. It was the second session of Modern Living, and everyone in our class had to pair up and get married. At least Mrs. Boyden hadn't asked Logan to kiss me.
Why were we getting married? Good question. I'll give you Mrs. Boyden's answer. "Class," she had said during our first session, "you are in eighth grade. Most of you are
thirteen years old now. Some of you are fourteen, a few of you are twelve. Despite how old or young you may feel, the truth is that you are now biologically capable of becoming parents, or you will be soon. How many think you are capable of parenting, of being part of a couple, or of living on your own?"
I didn't know about living on my own or getting married, but I certainly knew everything about taking care of kids.
So I raised my hand.
I didn't realize Mrs. Boy den would call on me. I'd thought she was just asking for a show of hands. But she said, "Mary Anne?"
"Yes?" I replied. "Oh. Urn, well, I baby-sit all the time," I said, my face flushing. "I can change diapers and everything."
Mrs. Boyden had not seemed too impressed. She had just nodded. And then she had started talking about getting married. "The ibest way to experience adult life is to live it," she said. "That's why you are going to pair up, get married, and stay married until this class is over. You may choose your partners if you wish. I will assign partners to those students who do not choose their own."
Nearby, someone whispered, "Like getting married to someone you see three times a week is realistic."
I had glanced at Logan then, who was sitting on my other side. He'd smiled at me. We were going to "get married." It was an exciting prospect. 7 knew we were ready to take the big step. Well, I thought we were. Okay, I wasn't sure at all, but I definitely wanted to find out. Especially if it meant we could spend more time together.
Our class had spent the rest of that first session talking about stuff like how old our parents were when they got married, and what being married really means. I had dared to raise my hand to contribute to the conversation, but only after Shawna Riverson had said, "I think getting married really means that you have, like, a plastic bride and groom on your wedding cake, not those little bride and groom mice or something. Or maybe you could have, like, a giant plastic wedding bell and some bluebirds or something."
The class snickered, and even Mrs. Boy den looked surprised.
Well, after a comment like that, nothing I said could sound any more stupid. So I raised my hand. "I think marriage really means commitment. It means you love your husband or wife so much that when you have a problem, you try to work it out so you can stay together."
"You are definitely on the right track," Mrs. Boyden said to me. "Thank you, Mary Anne. Class, there's a little more to marriage than the wedding. That's just the first day."
Even so, we had our shot at weddings in the very next session of Modern Living. "Are all of you engaged to be married?" asked Mrs. Boyden at the beginning of class.
Four boys raised their hands. "We aren't," they said, looking disgusted. And Gordon Brown added, "There are nine girls and thirteen boys in this class, Mrs. Boyden. All the girls have been taken."
"We have not been 'taken'!" cried Erica Blumberg. "We are not pieces of property. You can't claim us."
"Sheesh," said Gordon. "All right, the girls have all been used up."
Erica's face practically turned purple. "We are not hot water, either. We aren't some commodity. You can't use us up."
"Commodity?" I heard Shawna whisper. "Doesn't she mean condiment?" Shawna looked really pleased with herself.
"Okay, okay, kids. Please calm down," said Mrs. Boyden, holding her hands in the air. "We'll discuss this some other time. Gordon, you're right. Two of our couples will consist
of boys only. How do you want to handle that?"
"I am not going to be a girl," said Howie Johnson.
"Well, neither am I," said Gordon and the other boys.
"Do they have to decide ahead of time who's the wife and who's the husband?" asked Lo-gan. "Maybe they could decide later. Maybe they wouldn't even have to tell us their decisions."
Mrs. Boy den opened her mouth to say something, but before she could start speaking, Howie said, "Yeah, yeah. We'll decide later."
"Okay," replied our teacher, in that tone of voice grown-ups use when they mean, "If that's the way you want it, but I think it's a pretty poor idea. I guess you'll just have to find out for yourselves."
The girls and the remaining boys had paired up by themselves. Mrs. Boyden created two couples out of the other four boys because they refused to do it for themselves. Then the marriage ceremonies began, and soon I was Logan Bruno's wife and he was my husband and I was being silently thankful" that we didn't have to kiss in front of our entire Modern Living class, not to mention in front of Mrs. Boy-den.
"From now on," said our teacher, when the weddings were over, "when you are in class, you will sit together as couples. In fact, when you are in class you will be couples, and I'll expect you to think and behave as such. You may be asked to be couples outside of class," she added, and her words sounded somehow ominous. (I glanced at my "husband," and he shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "That doesn't make a difference to us. You and I are already a couple.")
Guess what Mrs. Boyden assigned us for homework. She asked each couple to get together, discuss money and finances, and decide whether they could be a financially independent couple.
"Huh?" said Shawna. "You mean like really rich?"
"No, not independently wealthy," said Mrs. Boyden patiently. "Financially independent. Could you support yourselves? Could you live in your own place and buy groceries and clothes and pay your electricity bill and phone bill and taxes and so forth?"
"Don't all married couples support themselves and pay their bills?" asked Gordon. "Don't all families?"
"No," our teacher replied. "Most do, I suppose, but it doesn't happen by magic. You don't get married and suddenly come into
money. So your homework is to figure out how you would fare if tomorrow, say, you were married and on your own." She paused, then she smiled and added, "Actually you are married and on your own. How are you going to do?"
Logan and I found out that afternoon. I went to my husband's house as soon as school let out. The house didn't feel like my husband's, though, since my husband's younger brother and sister and mother were also there. Kerry, who's nine, and Hunter, who's five and has terrible allergies, were in the kitchen with us, waiting for Mrs. Bruno to take a bag of popcorn out of the microwave.
"Put it idto two bowls, Bobby," said Hunter stuffily to his mother. "If you do't, thed Kerry hogs it. She eats faster thad be."
"I do not!" exclaimed Kerry.
At that moment, the doorbell rang and so did the phone. Mrs. Bruno reached for the phone, and Kerry ran for the door.
"Dear," Logan said to me, "I apologize for the noise here today. Let's go work in the dining room. We can close the doors."
"All right, sweetheart," I answered, grinning.
Ew!" cried Hunter. "Dear! Sweetheart! You
guys sound like you're harried or subthig." He sniffed loudly.
"We are," replied Logan. "Hunter, this is your sister-in-law."
I was eager to get to work. "Come along, honey," I said to Logan.
We closed ourselves into the dining room. We were equipped for an afternoon of work Ч newspaper, writing pad, pens, calculator, a bag of cookies, and a Thermos of iced tea.
"Let's see," I said, when we'd seated ourselves at the table and spread out our things. "First we'll need a place to live."
"Right." Logan opened the paper to the ads for apartments for rent. "We'll have to start small," he said. "We probably won't be able to afford a house right away. How many bedrooms do you want?"
"I think two will be enough at first. One for us, one for guests."