Page 8 - Meeting Romeo

In the end, the biggest problem they ran into was the presentation! With all the

information they had gathered and written, and the great art work that Rory created, Judy

was so confident that they would ace the thematic analysis. However, Rory said "no way"

to doing the presentation in class with her, no matter how hard she tried to persuade

him. The assignment required every student to participate during the presentation, but he

flat out refused. “You can talk to me -- you can talk in front of the class!” Judy raised
her voice.

“I won't. You can't make me,” Rory persisted.

“Why?”

“I just won’t!”

“If you are nervous about it, that’s totally fine, everyone gets nervous. I’m nervous too.

I just imagine talking to a whole bunch of potatoes and carrots!”

“I DON’T WANT TO TALK TO POTATOES AND CARROTS!!”

Judy noticed Rory’s face had turned red and his hands were clenched. He had started

doodling so fiercely that he was about to break the pen.

She suddenly felt bad about pushing him so hard, and apologized sincerely: “I am so

sorry! I didn’t realize how much it would bother you..."

"I just like to talk to you," he said. His grip on the pen relaxed just a bit.

Judy sighed, "If you don’t want to talk in class, how about talking to me with your cell

phone camera? We could record your part of the presentation.” After a period of silence,

Rory said in a calmer voice: “If we are doing a video, then the right way to do it is with

video camera and costumes. Like in the movie. That's what they do.”