Thrill Me (Fool's Gold #18)(73)

DEL HAD SEEN Maya’s nerves before her class and now it was his turn to experience some of his own. While her students had been adults, he was facing a room full of fifteen-to eighteen-year-olds. He thought to himself that Eddie and Gladys were a bit less intimidating.

He’d watched Maya’s presentation and had enjoyed her breezy, friendly style. While he’d always enjoyed talking to kids, the ones he usually interacted with were younger. Although it wasn’t the teens that had him on edge. It was what they were going to say. Not counting Maya, they were going to be his first audience for the videos he’d done, and he was asking them to be critical.

Whatever happened, he would get valuable information, he told himself. If his work was crap, he would start over. If it was salvageable, then he would save it. Maya’s editing had already made a huge difference. If only he’d had her along to do the filming, he thought.

The high school classroom was large, with a wall of windows and plenty of space between the desks and the dry-erase boards up front. Open shelves along the back wall were filled with clear plastic bins labeled with things like hats, masks or poster paint.

Maya flipped through the stack of papers they’d brought with them. It had taken nearly two days, but they’d come up with the questionnaire. The format of their class was going to be simple. The students would watch different clips from various videos and answer the questionnaire, then participate in a question-and-answer session.

The drama teacher, a tall, thin woman in her thirties, introduced him and Maya and explained why they were there. When she had finished, he walked to the front of the class. Starting was always tough. He’d come up with various opening lines, then figured out one that accomplished what he wanted.

“How many of you can read?” he asked. “Show of hands.”

The students glanced at each other, then at him. Slowly they all raised their hands.

He grinned at the teacher. “Good to know,” he said with a chuckle. “Because in ancient Rome only about 2 percent of the population could read. Today there are over 774 million people over the age of fifteen who can’t read. Fifty-two percent of them live in South and West Asia. Twenty-two percent of them live in sub-Saharan Africa. If you can’t read, you can’t know what’s in an instruction manual or a textbook or understand the label on a bottle of medicine.”

He paused. “Who here knows the country with the most college degrees?”

“The US,” someone called out.

One of the female students rolled her eyes. “By percentage or actual numbers?”

“Good question. By percentage.”

“Sweden,” she said smugly. “Higher education is free there.”

“I’ve heard that. Any other guesses?”

“Australia.”

“China.”

“America, dude. The answer is always America.”

“Not this time,” Del told him. “The answer is Russia. Fifty-four percent of their adult population has a college level degree.”

“Whoa. No way,” one of the guys in the back said.

“Way.” Del settled on a corner of the instructor’s desk. He was feeling more relaxed now. These students were older, but not all that different than those he usually talked to. The trick was to engage them.

“I’m here because I want to create a series of videos showing what life is like for kids living all over the world. What do you and they have in common? What’s different and in what ways? You’re going to watch clips from videos I made before I knew what I was doing. Then I want your feedback. The more honest, the better. What do you like? What don’t you like? When did you start wishing you could be doing something else?”

A few students laughed at that.

One of the girls raised her hand. “Later, will you come back and show us what you’ve done with our feedback?”

“I promise.”

* * *

MAYA HIT THE pause button on the computer. She waited while the students wrote down their comments. Del paced along the side of the room. She would guess he was trying not to look nervous, but she could see the tension in his body.

So far the feedback had been excellent. They’d prepared several short clips, varying the content but not the length. Some had him doing the voice-over, some had her. They’d added music, written notes and suggested questions for discussion. They were getting a lot of good information from the students. She had pages of notes and was sure Del had the same. The potential was there.

When the last student finished writing, Del walked to the front of the room.

“If you’ll pass your papers forward, Maya and I will look them over later. But for now, let’s talk about what you think.”

“The videos were good,” a guy said. “Interesting, you know. I didn’t like the music.”

“Me, either,” one of the girls added. “It made it too... I don’t know. Commercial, I guess. Just let us hear what’s happening. Like the bells on the cows. That’s better than music.”

Several students nodded.

“The discussion questions were good,” another girl said. “But you know that means teachers are going to use them to make us write an essay or something.”

Del held up both hands. “I can’t be responsible for that.”

“The questions were good,” someone else said. “They’re things for us to think about. We’re lucky here, in Fool’s Gold. We need to know this stuff.”