Harold placed the school map on the desk of the of the storage room, the room had 1x3meter perimeter with a single faulty lightbulb lighting up a small portion of the room. The map was a blueprint of the school with green marker pointing out a route and locations.
"We start in here at 5:40pm, 20 minutes to the dance, we crawl up the air vents." he pointed on the map then above his head were I could vaguely see them. "Then Gloria goes left towards the science room to fetch the fire hose and passes it along to me who will be in the middle while you make it towards the air grate over the hall (Where the dance is going to be held)," he made a little gesture between him and Gloria, "Then I double check the hose by firing it into this bucket," he pointed to a blue bucket with a small crack near the sports closet, "Then if it is successful I thread it towards you and you fire it into the grate and we make it out back to Gloria."
"That's it?" I asked him sarcastically as he gathered the map up and opened the door.
"Pretty much." he told me walking out as Gloria placed both of her hands on her chin with a hearty sigh.
"He's so dreamy." she sighed as I pretended to gag myself.
THE NEXT DAY
Harold stood at the doorway as I walked in with Gloria he pulled her aside as I got some of the materials ready, overhearing them of course, just to see what they were doing.
"Sorry we can't go to the dance Gloria, but next year we can." Harold tried to be hopeful, I felt my gut churn, just to save myself I'm going to ruin 1200 kids day. But I just tried to ignore that and climb up the ladder into the cramped stainless steel air ducts. My gut begged me to stop again, my mind was in a rush but I decided to compromise.
"Go to the dance, or at least dance outside, sorry." I blurted as both of them grew a smile from ear to ear.
"Really, thanks Lachie." Gloria and Harold said in unison and bolted out the door, I climbed up the vent and turned left towards the science room.
I didn't like going into super tiny vents at first but after a while you get used to it and they seem roomier. I had been crawling for about 5 minutes when I saw the door of the science room through a vent grate. I kicked it down and tried to jump down on the floor like Spider Man, but with my luck I fell flat on my face and got a bleeding nose. Pushing myself up I realized I had made a ginormous dent in the blue polished floor. The fire hose was only 3 meters away I gave a shuffle and was so grateful no-one saw me. But then someone did, that someone being Mr. Myron, my history teacher, he's not that bad but he would definitely get suspicious.
"Lachlan, are you alright?" Mr. Myron asked with a raised eyebrow, I didn't want to lie to him but he wouldn't accept this.
"I had a bleeding nose so...so...I and going to the office... to get a tissue." It was only a little lie but why did it feel so bad?
He nodded with a awkward smile, "Okay... do you want me to join you?"
"NO!" I shot out as he gave a little jump back.
"Alright." he walked off and I continued towards the fire hose, a brown wrinkly hose that seemed to look damp, but it was drier than a desert. Lugging it through the air vent I quickly scoured the halls for teachers.
"Phew." I told myself as I saw two kids grabbing the fire hose, "DONT TOUCH THAT!" I screamed as they dropped the hose and held their hands across their face. These kids seemed my age, one kid had thin brown hair with wild blue eyes that seemed to always to be staring at something, he also was short, like really short. The other one had blonde hair with streaks of brown seeping through, he had glasses balancing on hi small nose with a substantial height advantage over the other kid.
"Don't hurt us!" the short one called. his hair raising as if it was a defense measure.
"I won't just... don't tell anyone." I begged them as they glanced between each other back and forth. They were clearly distressed.
"What if we-" I interrupted the blonde one with.
"If you tell someone I'll... get...," I thought to myself, "Mindy and her goons." I blurted as they widened their eyes in shock.
"OK we'll zip-it." they called in unison.
"Good," I grabbed the edge of the air vent and yanked the hose up through as the two kids watched me disappear.
It was when I crawled halfway through the journey back I heard something rumble in the vents.
YOU ARE READING
The World around us
HumorLachlan is a socially disadvanted kid, he just can't say the right thing to the right people, his only friend is a stubborn year 8 that just doesn't like anything. But the town comedy show turns up after a failed school dance and Lachlan accidently...
