Daydream Believer

li. school and the future

li. school and the future

It was finally the first day of fifth grade. I sort of wanted to go back to school and I sort of didn't. At least I would have something to do all day.

Mom didn't go to the bus stop with us this year. She said it was best if she got out of our lives now, whatever that was supposed to mean. So Noah and I went to the bus stop ourselves, since Dad was at work. He had been spending more and more time at work for some reason.

"Hi Aaron!" I said when I saw him.

He smiled. "So what class are you in?" he asked me.

"I have Mr. Greenacre," I said.

"I think that Justin has him too," Aaron said.

"Oh good," I said. "I'm probably going to need help in math again."

"He should have been in my class," Aaron said. "I need help in everything!"

"Even PE?" I asked. I knew Aaron was pretty athletic, unlike Justin and I.

"Especially PE. Do you even know how bad I am at dodgeball?" I shook my head. "Well, it usually goes something like this." Somewhere in Aaron's demonstration of how he always gets hit in dodgeball, he ended up slipping and falling into a puddle. I helped him up, but then the bus came.

On the bus, Aaron and I stayed quiet. He was still sort of wet, but it was getting better. I looked out the window, but everything just looked the same. I sighed and waited for the bus to arrive at school.

I still had to walk Noah to class, even though he knew exactly where the classroom was. I was a little late, but class hadn't started yet, so it was okay.

I didn't learn a lot that day, but we never really did anything on the first day of school. The one thing that was different was that the teacher talked a lot about middle school. I started making a list of things that my teacher said that I needed to check with Rebecca and Robin:

1. In middle school, the teachers rip up your paper if you don't put your name on it. That was bad because I only put my name on my paper sometimes.

2. You get a detention if you call PE "gym."

3. Everyone is a complete jerk in middle school.

4. If I'm not super organized like Justin, I'm going to fail middle school.

5. If I fail middle school, I'll fail high school, and then I'll fail college, and then I won't get a job, and then Mom will kill me.

That was just the beginning. I hoped not all of those were true. I didn't want to face the future yet. I still had to live through today.