CHAPTER 14: DOG DAY AFTERNOON, PART 2 !

The Human Beings sit in their classroom, waiting for Chang to arrive.

"Where is he?" Steven asks. He glances at his watch. "Class started 5 minutes ago!"

"Ten minutes more and we can leave," Randy says dreamily.

"We can't leave!" Dylan cries out. "Our exam is tomorrow! This is the last day we have to review and ask questions!"

"How much help is Chang really going to be?" Troian points out.

The Human Beings murmur their agreements.

"Okay, okay," Dylan says. "You have a point."

They are startled by the classroom door swinging open.

Standing in the entryway is...not Señor Chang. A fierce looking woman with glasses and a tight bun enters the classroom.

"Hola, clase," she says, speaking in Spanish faster than the Human Beings had ever heard in class before. "Me llamo Doctera Escodora y yo soy tu nueva profesora por Español."

They all blink in confusion.

"¿Como estás?" she asks, pointing to Ezra.

"Uhhh...muy...bien?" Ezra says, sweating bullets.

"Bueno."

Ezra grins and relaxes his shoulders.

Unfortunately, Dr. Escodora is not done with him yet.

"¿Puedes decirme en qué capítulo estás? Sé que esta es una clase para principiantes."

Ezra gulps.

"Uhhhh..."

Abbi tries to help him. She scribbles the answer on her notebook and tries to hold it up for him to see.

Dr. Escodora scowls when she notices.

"No pasar notas por favor," she says.

"Sorry," Abbi says, beet red.

"En español, por favor," Dr. Escodora says, crossing her arms.

"Lo siento," Abbi corrects.

"Bien. Now, since this a 101 class, I will allow us a few minutes to converse in English. What chapter are you up to in the textbook? I want to make sure tomorrow's exam is not too difficult for you all."

Leila slowly raises her hand.

"Yes?"

"Um, excuse me ma'am," Leila says. "But where's Señor Chang?"

"Señor Chang is no longer a professor at this institution," Dr. Escodora says, folding her hands behind her back.

Claire widens her eyes.

"Is he okay?" Claire asks. "He didn't like, die, did he?"

"He's fine," Dr. Escodora says. "He's been terminated from his position for...well, we won't get into it."

The Human Beings murmur to each other, trying to figure what bad thing Chang could've done to get fired. Truth be told, it's not too hard to imagine a myriad of scenarios.

"Quiet down!" Escodora says. "I still need to know how for into the book you are."

"Chapter 8," Luna says, looking up for her notebook doodles of vampires and zombies. "We just learned -go verbs."

"Hmm," Escodora says. "That's not as far along as my 101 students usually get. No matter. I'll take the last third of multiple choice questions off the test and add an extended essay portion on conjugations."

"Essay?!" Riwa says, jaw dropped.

"Si, un ensayo," Escodora says. "Time to transition back to Spanish only for the rest of the period."

"Before we do," Eve says, "can we just ask a few more questions about-"

"Abre tus libros," Escodora says, holding up her own copy of the textbook. "Es hora de discutir la conjugación de verbos. ¡Vamos!"

✏️ ✏️ ✏️

40 minutes later, the Human Beings shuffle out of the classroom, looking defeated.

"I have no idea what she just said," Troian says, face pale.

"And now we have to write an essay?!" Leila says. She fidgets with her backpack strap nervously. "Chang never made us write essays!"

Jared notices the confused faces of the other 101 students as they pass him in the hall.

"What's wrong with you guys?" Jared asks, face scrunching in concern. "You look like you've all seen a ghost."

"New teacher," Ezra says, glassy-eyed and unable to say much more.

"What?!"

"New tough teacher," Dylan adds, biting his thumbnail. "She spoke in Spanish practically the whole freaking time!"

"And tomorrow's final is going to have an essay now," Claire says with a huff. "Like, relax lady! We're freshman!"

"What happened to Chang?" Jared asks. "Is he okay?"

"He got fired!" Steven says. "We don't know why, though."

Jared's new 101 classmates begin to file into the classroom.

He starts to follow them, but Randy grabs his shoulders.

"Don't go!" he cries out. "It's a trap!"

"Let go of me!" he says, wriggling out of his grip. "Geez!"

"Good luck in there," Eve says, saluting Dylan.

"I think you mean buena suerte," Leila corrects.

"Same thing."

Jared nods his appreciation. He watches his old classmates stumble off to lunch and grips his own flashcards nervously. This is going to be interesting...

📖 📖 📖

Although tomorrow's exam stresses them all out, the Human Beings can't help but spend some of their study time at the Greendale Animal Shelter's puppy playtime event.

"Wow!" Abbi squeals, petting a yorkie wearing a little pink bow in her hair. "She's perfect!"

"I think that one looks like me," Luna says, pointing to a brooding St. Bernard in the corner of the large metal pen. "And that one looks like you."

She points to a frantic, shivering Chihuahua with wiry fur over his eyes and then points to Randy.

He inspects the dog, and nods.

"Wow! It's like looking in a mirror!"

"All these puppies are adoptable!" Dylan reminds them, holding up a clipboard of adoption forms. "Help them find forever homes!"

"Are we allowed to have pets in the dorms?" Claire asks, petting the silky ears of a beautiful beagle. "If so, we want all of them, thank you very much."

"We're not even allowed to have turtles!" Riwa says glumly. "No way the Dean would let us have a dog."

"I work with him in the front office," Eve points out. "Maybe I could get him to budge the rules for us...his favorite Human Beings?"

"Second favorite," Troian corrects. "Jeff Winger's study group is his first favorite."

The others nod and murmur in agreement.

"We won't have to worry about pets in the dorms when we get kicked out for flunking Spanish," Ezra says, pacing nervously.

"We won't get kicked out of the school," Steven says. "We'll just have to retake 101 in the fall. It's inconvenient, but not the worst thing that could happen."

"That means two semesters with Dr. Escodora!" Ezra says, eyes wide with fear. "102 with her is going to be hard enough!"

The Human Beings gulp.

"Maybe we should get back to the library," Leila says, putting a goldendoodle back in the playtime pen.

"Wait!" Dylan says. "The puppies are supposed to calm us down, not stress us out more!"

Before they can decide whether to stay or go, the Dean arrives.

"Ah!" he says. "I see my second favorite group of Human Beings is already enjoying the school-sponsored puppy playtime!"

"Told you," Troian murmurs to Eve.

"Dean," Leila asks, "we're a little bit concerned about tomorrow's Spanish 101 exam. I mean, we only just met Dr. Escodora, and I'm not sure if she realizes how...erm...woefully unprepared we might be."

The Dean waves away her concerns.

"Oh, don't worry about it," he says. "Finals week jitters are very common. You'll all do fine!"

"But Dean-"

Dylan's boss at the animal shelter, a hunky guy named Lorenzo, flexes his biceps for the Greendale cheerleaders. They giggle.

The Dean blushes. Leila can almost see cartoon hearts in his eyes.

"Excuse me for a moment," he says dreamily, going over to introduce himself properly to Lorenzo.

Leila sighs and shakes her head.

"Looks like he's no help," she says.

"So, what should we do?" Riwa asks. "Study more, or play with puppies?"

They watch the puppies race around their pen, stumbling over their too-long ears.

"Puppies," Claire says firmly. "If we don't already know what we need to know, we won't learn it in 15 hours."

"I second that," Troian says.

They continue enjoying puppy playtime, choosing to enjoy the beautiful spring day with adorable dogs instead of wasting away under fluorescent lights.

{Published October 8, 2020}

A/N One more chapter of this episode, then it's time for the summer vacation one-shot, Camp Greendale!

After that, Season 2 begins, and so does my shift to a different kind of writing. If you read the author's note from the last chapter, you know that I'm going to pick one of the 12 protagonists to be the main focus of each "episode" I write. It's going to give me the chance to develop each character more, and I also think it will be really fun!

QOTD: What pets do you have? I have two dogs that my family adopted from a local animal rescue: Dixie, a Chihuahua-Pug mix (a Chug), and Benji, a Dachshund-Pekingese mix. They are sooooo cute! But also very mischievous...