Dancing Between Reality and Reminiscence: Short Stories

The Pinball Queen

Resting my hands against the slick glass and hard metal of the machine, I sighed, wearied by the day's trials. My eyes flicked across the room, comforted by the quiet solitude, and the neon lights that I knew so well. Seeing now that I was alone at last, a hot, salty tear slid down my cheek, landing on the glass before me. I crumpled, legs folding under me as I sunk slowly to the worn carpet, one hand still on the pinball machine, my constant friend.

Years ago when I had first come to this school, after my dad died, I would spend my nighttime hours playing this machine. Waking from nightmares, I crept into this game room by mistake (I had been trying to get to the front door but gotten lost), and just started a random game. I don't know why it was this machine in particular, in fact this machine was rather ridiculous. Kneeling, I examined the pinball machine again, a finger trailing on its cool surface. It was sponsored by Dreamer's Popsicles, so all the ramps, traps, and points were based on popsicles. The jackpot even came up as a lifetime supply of popsicles (1 million points). So yeah, pretty stupid, but somehow I had grown to love it.

Now it will be gone...all of this this will be gone. Gasping, I clutched my knees trying to keep the sobs down, but my body betrayed me. Harsh sobs ripped from my throat. Oak Bridge Boarding School for the Bright, my home for almost eight years, was closing due to financial issues. I had argued with our principal, begged him to keep the school open. Mr. Craley had just looked at me with those cold eyes of his and gave the very cynical statement, "The trouble I would have to go through in order to keep the school open is not worth it. If you really want to stay at this school, come up with the money."

"How am I supposed to do that?" I had asked him, angered by his coldness to the school we all loved, the school he was supposed to be the leader of.

He had just fixed me with a sarcastic smirk,"You're smart Cassandra, you figure it out." I now mentally cursed myself for giving him sass for all those years.

Now as I sat crying in the darkness, I heard a rustle. Like a wild animal caught in a trap, I jerked, looking fearfully at the doorway. I wasn't the least bit surprised by what I saw. Two twin teenage boys peeked in, their cherry-red hair framed faces a little depressed, but still with their usual good cheer. Behind them stood a bespectacled girl who was a year younger than me holding the hand of a little boy. Bouncing a little were two young girls, one blond haired and the other Asian, holding the hands of the person I had been dreading and longing for all at once.

Devon released the hounds with a single look, and I glared at him as our little group piled on top of me with murmurings of "It'll be okay Cass" "Don't worry Cassie, we still have each other" and I had the strongest urge to shove them all to the ground yelling "Don't you get it?! We'll never see each other again!" but I just sighed and patted their heads.

The reason I came to the boarding school, the reason I had to come, was both my parents were dead and they had been only children. I suppose I was lucky I was extremely smart so I could get into Oak Bridge, instead of going to an orphanage or foster care. But I entered the school with hate. I talked to no one, did my work with perfection, then spent my free time alone. Anger for what happened to my dad plagued my heart.

My mother had died in childbirth, so I never knew her, but I loved my dad. He was a brilliant man and he home schooled me himself, because we were always moving around for his work. It didn't give me a very good chance to make friends, but he gave me a better education than any patchwork of schools would have, so I grew up to be very smart, in exchange for being a little aloof. My father was the only friend I needed. Then my best friend was taken by a fire.

It hadn't even been our fault. The fire started from the neighbor's curling iron. It had ravaged the apartment below ours, causing the ceiling, along with the room above it, to cave in. And it took my dad with it. I was getting groceries when it happened, which everyone told me was lucky, but I didn't want luck, I wanted my dad. So I spent my first months at the boarding school keeping my head down, snapping at anyone who came close, and waking from endless burning nightmares. And of course, playing pinball.