In Love With the Heartless Boy (6)

          “All Freshmen report to the gym.” Coach Tubby said over the intercom. He had never showed up for their lesson and with ten minutes left I doubted he would. I got the hell out of that room in a flash. Those kids were evil.

            Both my friends are sophomores, this sucks. I saw Kathi and Maribel climb to the top of the bleachers on the other side of the room. I glared at them, Kathi in particular. At that moment Coach Tubby waddled in with his signature Diet Pepsi in hand yelling for silence.

            “Hey! Listen up!” he tried to shout over the crowd. Coach Smith, the P.E. and baseball, coach blew his whistle and the mob of adolescents grew silent.

            “Ok, as some of you know, we are having locker problems,” Coach Tubby started, “and we are trying to solve them.” Yeah, I know, I don’t even have one!

            “What we are going to have to do is put some of you under the senior’s lockers.” He concluded. That won’t be so bad; at least I’ll have a place to put my books.

            “Everyone who’s name starts A-F come up here and get your lockers.” He commanded. Ah, the benefits of having an adopted grandparents with the last names starting with an F. That’s the only good thing about my dad; otherwise I’d be waiting for the R’s because his biological parents were the Rodriguez’s.  

            I stood up and was one of the firsts in line. I received my locker number and combination. I sat down and waited for the commotion to be over. The bell rang for 3^rd block and I went to find locker #122. It was on the front hall of course. But as I approached, I saw something that saddened my spirits.

            Melody Sprinkles, head cheerleader and queen bee, was standing at locker #121. Why me, God? Being a patient person, I stood there and waited, I mean really, how long was it going to take her to get her books?

She flipped her platinum blonde hair in a mirror a few times, applied lip gloss, and chatted with her no name friend. Her name wasn’t even worth remembering because if your best friend was Melody Sprinkles, you weren’t the important one anyways.

The late bell rang and Melody turned around. “Oh, did you need to get to the bottom locker?” she asked surprised. She looked like Coke Head Barbie smiling at me innocently.

“Yeah.” I said.

“Well, just tell me next time, silly.” She said. “I mean we are neighbors now, huh? And we need to be good neighbors!” she giggled at her attempt at a joke which had made no sense to me. The she picked up her designer purse and marched away.

“Ughhh what a bitch.” I said to myself. I opened the locker and put up my 1^st and 2^nd block books. Cargile didn’t have books. He referred to teach orally at the front of the class.

I was late and I didn’t know what the policy for lateness was. I went to the back of the school and out the double doors to the Ag shop. I knocked on the closed door. Cargile answered.

“If you can’t get here on time, get here when you can.” He smiled. I loved Cargile. He was by far the coolest teacher ever. I took my seat by Law while Cargile went back into whatever corny joke I had interrupted.

            “So, why were you late?” Law asked.

            “I had an encounter with Queen Bee.” I told him.

            “Oh, did you get stung?” he eyed.

            “No, but it’s bound to happen sooner or later.”

                                                            ***

            3^rd and 4^th block came and went in a flash. So did later that night being locked in my room for hours on end with nothing but a piece of crap radio. The next morning was Saturday. I never understood why school started back on Thursdays.

            The reason why I woke up was due to a bang on my door.

            “Someone wants you on the phone!” my mom said. My Dad thankfully worked during the day on Saturdays. I opened the door and answered the phone.

            “Hey, it’s Law. Aimee gave me your number.” He said.

            “Oh, hi.” I wonder if he could tell I was blushing.

            “I was wondering if you wanted to go to Vision Land. It’s the last day of my season pass.” He asked. (For the people who don’t live near Alabama, Visionland is like the smaller version of Six Flags)

            “Ok, sounds fun. I live in Marvel, do you know where that is?”

            “Yes, I do.” He told me.

            “Ok well just go 3 miles past the Cahaba River Bridge and it’s the first house on the right.”

            “Ok, I’ll be there in 20 minutes.”

            “20 minutes? You live close to here?” I said shocked. I lived in the middle of nowhere.

            “My mom and I live on Cahaba Lily Bend.” He informed me.

            “Wow. We are really close!” I said amazed.

            Ok, well I’ll see you in twenty.”

            I guess you could classify this as a date. I couldn’t wait.