Living High School to the Fullest (Completed)

Chapter 25: Pizza, Pizza

Chapter 25

After we had cleaned up the football field and ourselves, most of us headed to Il Colosseo, our town’s best pizzeria. There, the staff rearranged some tables and put them together so that our group of almost twenty could be seated as one. I never would have thought that the staff would do that, but apparently Il Colosseo is a regular hangout spot for our football team. I’ve learned that the pizzeria does a bit of sponsoring them, too. A little counterproductive, if you ask me. Pizza is not necessarily the food of champions. Shouldn’t they be sponsored by something healthier? Like Juice or Lose, the juice bar next door, maybe? Not that I was complaining. Hey, greasy hot pizza all the way!

Finally, a very good reason for me to consider joining some kind of sports team! I really should do that. Maybe I could get Roma to sponsor us? Free ice cream after our games… meets… whatever. The type of team or sport is not really important to me as long as Roma sponsors us. Oh, the possibilities!

The interior of the pizzeria was actually pretty nice. The wall in the back was a collage of black-and-white pictures of different sites in Rome, Italy. The biggest one in the center was – no surprise there – a huge picture of the Colosseum. Behind the counter hung a photo of Jefferson High’s very own football team. As soon as the Lions, Nick up front, entered the pizza joint, they were greeted like celebrities. It certainly does seem to have its perks to pursue some kind of sport. If only you could get the perks without actually having to do sports. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no lazy couch potato. I certainly enjoy swimming, a game of beach volleyball, bike tours and such. I just don’t like the competitive, weekly practice part. It’s not my thing.

Hey, maybe I could convince Roma to sponsor our environmental club? I mean, why should only jocks benefit from dedicated sponsors? If they had managed to find some connection between pizza and football, it shouldn’t be a problem at all to tie ice cream to our environmental club. I should talk to Lauren about it at some point.

Maybe not right at the moment, seeing that she had her hands full to actually carry a conversation with Dan Kingsley who was sitting right next to her. Based on her pained expression, I would say that she didn’t enjoy it very much. Maybe I would help her out later. She deserved to suffer a little for her bossy personality. I was sandwiched between Kingsley and Nick for some reason; across from me Emma was sitting between Josh and Mike. Coincidence? I mean, Nick is Josh’s best friend and of course he would sit somewhere close to him. But right next to Emma? I was still thinking about Brian’s comment earlier and vowed to myself to pay special attention to any subtext in Josh’s behavior.

Everybody seemed to enjoy the little impromptu outing; jocks and environmentalists mingled nicely. Peaceful coexistence. Maybe we really could pull off overcoming the typical boundaries of high school cliques and score an invitation to Oprah. Not to mention the Nobel Peace Prize.

Aaron was chatting with TJ; Brian and Cameron were talking to Jason, and Dinah was engaged in a conversation with Lucas most of the time. If I didn’t know that they weren’t together any longer, I would totally think that they still were a couple. I guess it’s kind of hard to stop giving off a couply vibe after having been together for a long time. I don’t know how they do it, but they are always very civil to each other. No bad blood. Lucas is a nice guy; I’ve always liked him. It was pretty cool of him to help us out with the match earlier. Maybe there is a chance for them to get back together? Hm. We’ll see. I most definitely wouldn’t do or say anything about it. No need for me to pull a Dr. Emma Love. Che sara, sara.

When our food arrived, all of us applauded and cheered. It was such a wonderful sight! We had ordered the special: the Colosseo pizza pie. The Colosseo pizza pie is not an ordinary pizza pie. It’s more of a food sculpture. Edible art. It’s actually four layers of pizza pies in one; sitting on top of each other on some sort of cardboard construction resembling the famous Roman amphitheater. The Latin words Panem et Circenses are embellishing the printed paper skeleton. The top two layers aren’t a whole pizza pie, though, to make it look more like the real thing. Each layer has different toppings and the whole thing is simply gigantic! One Colosseo pizza pie feeds seven adults according to the menu. And that’s one of the reasons why I’ve never had one before.