Too Late To Save Time

Meeting Up

"NO MORE PENCILS NO MORE BOOKS, NO MORE TEACHERS' DIRTY LOOKS! KICK THE DESKS, KICK THE CHAIRS, KICK THE TEACHERS DOWN THE STAIRS! NO MORE PENCILS NO MORE BOOKS, NO MORE TEACHERS' DIRTY LOOKS! KICK THE DESKS, KICK THE CHAIRS, KICK THE TEACHERS DOWN THE STAIRS!" I screamed with my friends on the bus. Summer vacation was starting as soon as we left the bus, and while I was happy for the end of school and homework I was going to miss my friends.

It was tradition for us to sing the Anti-School song every last day, setting our bus driver on edge. He couldn't do anything either because we would all say in unison "It's the last day of school! What are you going to do, suspend us? Tell the principle? Call our parents?"

Nothing mattered after we got on that bus, kids were untouchable. I screamed the song until I got to my bus stop, and even as I got off. I was the first on off, leading a line of ecstatic kids yelling along with me.

"NO MORE PENCILS, NO MORE BOOKS! NO MORE TEACHER'S DIRTY LOOKS! KICK THE DESKS, KICK THE CHAIRS, KICK THE TEACHER'S DOWN THE STAIRS!!!" we sang. Out of the corner of my eye I think I saw the bus driver flip us off discreetly. I smiled and sang as I skipped homeward. I stopped at Meyers Hill and turned to the bike rack.

The people who lived on the side of the top of the hill noticed the kids riding their bikies down and made their property into a sort of preteen recreational center. It was for 5th-8th graders, and right outside the fenced in area was a bike rack.

Everyday before school I walked my bike up the long, steep hill and locked it to the bike rack. Every time I got off the bus I walked to the hill and got my bike to ride down the hill and speed to my house. I had footrests intstalled were the pedals wouldn't reach and I wouldn't be bothered by them when I was pedaling. But today I was swimming in the pool there.

I took my backpack and gave it to Mrs.White, and she locked it behind an animal cage like the ones you find at the ASPCA. She gave me a slip with the combonation of the lock, the one she always gave me. I looked around quickly and took off my outer clothes, revealing my bikini. I handed my cothes to Mrs. White and she locked them away with my backpack. I walked away to the pool, tying up my dark reddish brown hair in a ponytail around the laminated slip of paper.

The pool was huge, and deep. The low end of the pool was twenty feet, the high end was four. There were two diving boards at the low end.

I climbed up the tallest one and did my best dive. I heard cheers above me and swam away form the submerging point. No one else dived in so I assumed that the cheering was for me. I smiled slightly but didn't go to the surface. I swam deeper and the pounding in my ears receded. I watched the people swim around at the surface. They cleared away and I knew someone was about to dive.

I waited patiently to see their face. The splash sent those little bubbles into my eyes and I squeezed them shut to the tickling. When I opened my eyes there was a boy from my class I barely knew way too close to my face. I backed up against the bottom of the pool. So did Lucas. I blushed and pushed off the cement past him to the surface. I rose gently and swam to the edge. I put my arms on ground level and waited for Lucas to surface too. He bobbed up beside me and blushed too. My own red face had faded and I was as cool as the water around me.

I nodded a greeting but didn't smile. I caught the gaze of a girl across the pool. Then my eyes were pulled to like five other kids who were all watching me. Casey, a guy in my class that had the nickname Cassie- I knew him and sometimes talked to him playfully, teasing him about his nickname; A girl with waist-length dirty blonde hair (grayish blonde-brownish haired I should say) who I knew to be Dawn; Eli, a kid who I always heard being called to the guidance office; A girl with curly golden brown hair falling to the end of her shoulder-blades, and a fifth grader girl with waist-length brown hair and emerald green eyes. Lucas noticed them too.

"Come back here tonight, tell the others to too" he said solemnly. I nodded, somehow knowing he meant the people I had seen. I took a deep breath and then shot to Casey. Dawn wandered over to us.

"Lucas wants us to come back tonight, tell Eli-"

"-Honey and Miranda" Dawn interrupted. "Honey is the brownish-blonde, Miranda is the creeper who watches people" Dawn's silver-blue eyes darted to the two girls as she said their names. "We know. It's you who doesn't." and with that she swam away. Casey put his hand on my shoulder. I glared at Dawn.

"Ever since I brought up the skirt length conversation and unwittingly got her in trouble she's just been a spoiled brat to me" I growled. A splash near her suddenly forced her under and she returned spluttering to the surface. I laughed and Casey smiled. She glared at me.

"Brat!" she yelled at me. I laughed and did the sinking thing again only now it was easier because my feet were touching the ground. Casey sank with me and it kind of looked like we were in an invisible elevator going down. We swam over to the deep end and came up laughing. Lucas was mysteriously gone. I got out of the pool and sat on the edge, Casey next to me.

"Brat!" I mocked in a ridiculously high voice. Casey laughed. I leaned into him as I smiled. "So what's up Cassie?" I asked. He chuckled.

"Oh, you're going to regret that" he said.

"Oh really? What are you gonna do?" I asked, laughing. Casey picked me up in his arms and threw me into the water. I laughed as I hit the water and came back up. "You demonic child!" I yelled at him. Good thing the music drowned it out enough. I would have been embarrassed to death if I had screamed that in dead silence. He helped me out of the pool and I went to go get a towel.

Once I had dried off and put my clothes back on I had a race with Casey down the hill and we went our seperate ways at the base of it. My backpack thudded against my back and the laminated slip lay in my palm as I walked home.