Katie and I cleared the table, and then went back up to my room. My MacBook had finished sorting the data that we fed it and had gone to sleep. I moved the trackball and woke it up, typing in my password to regain access to the computer. Katie had glanced over my shoulder at the monitor…

“You know, you really should change your name so that it’s correct.” Katie said. I hadn’t changed the username on the MacBook to reflect my name change.

“Maybe, but my name change isn’t legal yet. I still need papers from Dr. Franklin for that.”

“This isn’t official, silly. It’s just the name you use to log on to your computer. You could have it be anything you wanted…” With that I went and changed it so that my login name was Morgan Smith. Katie beamed. I went back to where Numbers had compiled our data and looked at it. I selected a few fields and then told the program to create a chart.

“What kind of chart did we need.?” I asked Katie. She flipped pages through the book before looking at me.

“It doesn’t say any kind in particular, just that we need to have a chart for production versus sales, R&D costs versus sales and it says that if we can do it using the data we have, to project sales year over year on the improvised widget.” I looked at Katie.

“Do we have the data for that?”

“Yep. We might need to add some more data to the spreadsheet to generate the chart, but it’s on page 213.” I flipped my own book to page 213 and looked at the page. Sure enough, we had the data that we needed to do the projections on a year over year basis as well as a six month projection chart. I wondered how many of our classmates would catch the six month chart. I quickly entered the data and generated the new charts. I switched from Numbers to Keynote where I told it to create a new file. I grabbed a sheet of paper from the printer on my desk. I started to lay out the Powerpoint presentation on paper. Katie looked at my ideas.

“I like it. Now lets convince the VPOPS to give R&D More money, so we can finish out the year in the green.” Katie said. I nodded and started transferring the paper I’d drawn up to the slides that made up the powerpoint presentation. I finished building the presentation and then looked at Katie before starting it from the beginning.

“Thoughts?” I asked her after letting the show play on it’s own.

“It looks good to me. Mom called me while I was at Barnes and Noble, she would like me to come home and sleep in my own bed tonight.” I pouted.

“We knew it was going to come eventually.” Katie said, running her fingers through my hair.

“Yeah. Do you have a thumb drive with you?” Katie reached into her purse and pulled out a purple thumb drive. She handed it to me as I saved the file. I went to where I saved it and then copied it to her thumb drive. After the file had been copied, I ejected the thumb drive and handed it to her. I repeated the same process on my own thumb drive and then dropped it in my backpack. It never hurt to have multiple copies of something like this. I stood up and stretched. The bedside clock blinked and it caught my eye. It was already nine PM. “What time did your mom want you home by?” I asked Katie, pulling her into a hug.

“Ten. And not a minute later or she will take my car away.” She kissed me on the lips and then pulled back to look at me.

“Do we have anything pressing that needs to be done tomorrow?”

“Umm. I have some math that needs to be done. I did my preliminary ideas for Snyder’s paper over lunch. I still need to talk to her about that. She might reject it. Other than that I think I’m good.”

“Ok. I’m going to head home so that I don’t get in trouble. Call me if you need anything.” Katie and I walked to the front door where I helped her put her coat on. I handed her backpack and purse and kissed her again. I stepped out onto the porch and watched as she got in her car and drove around the corner to her house. I walked back in the house and shut the door, locking it behind me. I went up to my room, changed into a lilac colored satin night gown and promptly fell asleep.

I rolled over at six thirty the next morning and hit the alarm clock, causing it to silence one of the most annoying sounds I think that has ever been produced; certainly not something I want to hear that early in the morning. Who ever designed the thing needed to be taken out back, shot, and drawn and quartered… I sat up and turned on the lamp on the table. Jen poked her head in the door.

“Morning. Shower’s free.” She said with a smile and then disappeared. I stood, feeling my nightgown fall to my knees and disappeared to take a shower. Ten minutes later, I was standing in my room staring into my closet when my phone beeped to indicate that I had a text message. Getting a text message at quarter till seven in the morning was odd in the first place. I looked at it and saw that it was from Katie. “White button up shirt, pink tee shirt, short black skirt, black knee socks, black shoes with two inch heel.” Well, so much for me needing to figure out what I was going to wear today. I pulled out the various pieces of clothes that Katie had specified in the text message. Once that was done, I got dressed, and then brushed my hair. When I entered the kitchen, my nose was assaulted by the smell of coffee. Jen was manning the coffee pot, and Mom was nowhere to be seen. Jen turned on her heel and offered a cup of coffee. Mom came in the kitchen a few minutes later and Jen offered her the cup of coffee that she had just made.and started another cup for her.

“Thanks sweetie.” Mom said, taking the cup of coffee. She looked at me. “Are you going to stay out of trouble today, Morgan? I’d like to get in a whole day of work…”

“I haven’t been doing it on purpose…” I said. Mom smiled at me.

“I know. When is Katie getting here to take you to school?”

“She should be here any minute…” I munched on a piece of toast and finished my coffee. As soon as I had sat my cup in the sink, My phone beeped, indicating a text message had been received. I looked at my phone. “My ride is here.”

“Ok, I’ll see you at school.” Jen said, hugging me. I hugged mom and then walked outside. I was instantly assaulted by twenty degree air blowing up my skirt. I ran for the car and got in. I was grateful that the car had heated up a little bit on the short drive from Katie’s house to mine. I turned to Katie and kissed her, and then she put the car in gear and let the car roll backwards out of the driveway. Katie pointed the car in the general direction of the school and drove us there. Katie pulled the car into a parking spot and we got out. There was no one around as we walked toward the school.