Changing Strides

~Chapter 2~

  I looked around crazily. My pencil tapping wildly onto the phony wood desk. I started down at my paper, then looked at the clock. I felt a hand ceasing me from moving my pencil. I gazed at Sammy as she slowly brought her pointer finger to her mouth and quietly hissed her breath between her teeth. I rolled my eyes and started air tapping my pencil as Sammy refocused her eyes back on her test. I re-read the unanswered question, confused, I laid my head on my paper watching Sammy do her test like she held the answers to the world. Sammy noticed my stare, tilted her head, and gave me a puzzling look. I shrugged my shoulders and set my pencil down silently on the table next to me. I rolled my pencil along the table, somehow fascinated with the mechanics of the pencil. I stole a quick glance at the clock. Two minutes left. That's what the clock told me, but my conscious told me two hours left. In any case, I managed to scribble down some wrong answer I could scrounge up before class finished. I put my paper on the teacher's desk and sat back down organizing my things into a pile

The bell rang and I bolted for the door elated to be done with math for the day. I briskly walked to my locker, spun my combo in a popped open the door. I shoved the math stuff deep into the shallow abyss of my ancient locker. I grabbed the few things I needed for gym, shut my locker, and ran into my friends. Kristen, Jordyn and I walked downstairs to gym chatting like songbirds the whole way. I changed into my uniform in less than two minutes. I strolled out of the locker room and went to grab a booklet that we needed to fill out everyday for "challenges" which is actually our warm-up. I filled out the booklet, set it down near the gym's boundaries and took off running five laps around the gym. Kristen caught up quickly joining in on the second lap. Together the two of us finished warm-ups rather quickly and put our books before hearing one of the gym teacher's announce roll call. I waved goodbye to Kristen and jogged in an unhurried fashion to my spot along the wall for attendance. The teacher's then called us together and announced the plans for today. "Okay guys, today we're doing a friendly game of dodge ball." I laughed in my thoughts, there's no such thing as a nice or friendly game of dodge ball, especially with the sporty and competitive guys in my class. I knew someone was going to get hurt, I just didn't want to see what would happen when it would happen. It would be the classic class vs class style with no throwing at the head, shoulders, and other various places that the generic safe style of playing would include. The classes lined up facing each other for the game, only a line of cones and dodge balls separating us. The teacher then blew the whistle and stepped back to a safe distance. I grabbed the nearest ball and whipped it at the nearest person. It smacked them hard. The game was on.