Art and Arts

confinemANT

I sat on the ledge outside of the school. The three of us were trying to teach Olive how to ride a bike without any help. No training wheels, to be exact. Fletcher was taking them off.

"Olive, if you're ever gonna achieve your dream of winning the Tour de France, you really need to learn how to ride a bike without training wheels," Chyna reasoned.

"I've read the Tour rule book. There's nothing prohibiting it," Olive argued.

Fletcher finished taking off the training wheels. "Come on. This is easy. It's like riding a bike."

I hopped down from the ledge. "Well, if it's so easy, then why don't you get on here and do it?" Olive snapped.

"Hey, this isn't about me," Fletcher snapped.

"Forget it. I'm not doing it. Not until bikes have front and side impact airbags," Olive refused.

"Well, you just need a little push." Chyna got behind Olive. "Ready? On three."

"Three!" I pushed Olive off, surprising the girl.

Olive rode into the school. I gasped in fright when Olive ran into Skidmore. We ran up to the crash, concerned. Someone definitely got hurt. Panic ran through my body. What if Olive got in trouble?

"Well, there was no air bag, but luckily, there was an old bag," Fletcher commented.

"Principal Skidmore, are you okay?" Chyna and I asked.

"Please don't need mouth to mouth. Please don't need mouth to mouth," Chyna begged.

"I'm fine!" Principal Skidmore snapped. "I think I chipped my teeth. Now I'm going to have to wear my weekend teeth." Principal Skidmore put in a new set of dentures that had diamonds on them. I wasn't sure if they were real.

~~~

"I can't believe you almost killed Skidmore," Chyna commented.

"Do you think her life flashed before her eyes?" I asked.

"No. If it had, we'd still be out there, barely up to the eighteen-nineties," Fletcher remarked.

I giggled as Fletcher laughed. Chyna looked over, noticing Olive wasn't laughing.

"Olive, why aren't you laughing? That joke had everything you love. Making fun of Skidmore and a reference to the nineteenth century," Chyna explained.

"You know those papers Skidmore dropped? That was the new school budget," Olive admitted. "Skidmore is planning to completely cut the Arts programs. Art, music, dance, theater. All of it."

I sat down in shock. Skidmore just brought me here. Why would she want me out?

"That's crazy!" Chyna exclaimed. "I mean, cutting all the others, I get, but music?"

"Why can't they just cut unnecessary things like math and English?" Fletcher questioned. "That would be, like, a kajillion times more gooder."

"Get this. She added a ton of money to renovate her office," Olive continued.

"Well, it does need work. The horizontal stripes on her couch totally clash with the vertical bells of her holding cell," Fletcher joked.

Chyna sighed in frustration. "Fletcher, you're missing the point. If she cuts art and music and dance, then the three of us will be forced to leave the A.N.T. Program."

Fletcher glanced at me. "But maybe the school board won't approve Skidmore's budget."

"Of course they will. They don't even read them. They just rubber-stamp them and scarf down free scones," Olive snapped.