The Last Day – Afternoon
It's lunchtime, and you know what that means...
Food, duh?
...It means an upper-level kids pizza party, and two-and-a-half hours until I'm home sweet home in more ways than my apartment bedroom. Kieran has decided to sit at the other end of our table, Lucky for me, Max hasn't fully abandoned me. He eats pizza, too. It's plain cheese, which I'm not crazy about, but standardized test funding probably paid for it and not me, so...yay!
At my old school, I'll get to do everything that I missed, with friends, real friends that I missed. This is a dream because here, the activities, the other kids, it's all fading on me with every bite. I've freed myself from the Borg, and I'm off to hop on one of the trains in the railyard like Luca at the end of that movie.
Speaking of movies, we're watching one handpicked by Ms. Tudor this afternoon. I wonder what kind of taste she has in movies. I don't think she's the Hallmark type. I bet she's secretly a closet horror fan, the cheesy 80s ones, into collectibles. We can't watch horror movies, though, because not every kid is me.
Could you imagine a school/kid-friendly Freddy Krueger?
Technically, Freddy could already be for kids. I've seen the movies. That guy knows how to drop rhymes. He also teaches you how to count. I'm no certified teacher, but rhyme time and counting seems like it would be kid-friendly. Am I wrong?
Max, the squish who I just can't shake, taps my foot under the table to get my attention. If he wants it, he's got it. Just because he's a jerk at heart, doesn't mean I am. Two-and-a-half hours until I never see him again, anyway, right?
"So, what did they want?"
Don't get sad, me. It's a trap.
"Who?"
Like crazies in the news say, I will not comply because...freedom!
"Was that your parents outside?"
Max, that nosy...
"You looked like you were about to cry."
"Oh. It...it was about my old school," I say.
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"You're going back?"
Is he fishing for information, or does he genuinely want to know? Either way, he'll tell Kieran, Kieran will tell Gregory, Gregory will tell James, who will blurt something out loud. Steven will hear it and spread it like a cold through the rest of the class.
YOU ARE READING
Castling: A Novel (NaNoWriMo21)
Novela JuvenilIt's a slice-of-life centered around "Chase the Ace," who finds himself changing schools against his will mid-year to help make the most of that brain of his. It'll be good for him, they say. He won't be so bored. He'll get to be with an old friend...
