Young Adult Revisited

In case you didn’t know, Jessi is an amazing dancer. She tells us multiple times when the book starts and again in other parts of the book. Her teacher decides to host a series of classes for underprivileged youngsters and asks for volunteers, but only Jessi and this girl Mary decide to help. Jessi is a little surprised because Mary is a lousy dancer who has no future. After their next class, Mary mentions that she feels fat and needs to lose some weight, even though Jessi can’t see any fat on her. One of the other girls tells her that if she loses 10 pounds like she did, Mary can dance like a dream. Jessi basically forgets about the conversation until she notices that her classmate is acting a little weird. The first class goes a little weird because it isn’t disciplined like her earlier classes were. She notices this boy Devon who keeps acting up even though he dances really well. There’s another little girl who has some good skills but is too shy to even answer when she gets call

Mr. Siegel announces a new project for the entire middle school: marriage. All of the girls think the idea is super romantic, which annoys him because he wants them to learn something. He warns them that he will pull their names out of hats, randomly assigning everyone a spouse. Even though they know what’s coming, the Unicorns still think they will come out on top. When the partners get announced, it seems like no one is happy. Elizabeth gets Bruce, Janet winds up with Randy Mason, Ellen gets paired with Winston, Lila’s with Todd, and Jessica gets Rick Hunter who constantly teases and picks on her. Todd convinces Elizabeth to talk to their teacher, but before she can, he announces that he won’t change the partners. Bruce is a pain in the ass. He acts like Mr. Cool all the time, never doing any assignments. The teacher decides that they have to do everything together, including eat lunch and attend classes. When Bruce is late, he won’t even let Elizabeth sit down until he gets there