Ericson High (Short Story)

Ericson's High School

(Temporary 3rd person POV)

James woke up at 9Am to go see his friend at the park before classes at 10, it was rather dark out still since the clouds were covering basically the whole sky. It was pretty cold out but not cold enough to snow or too cold to wear just a hoodie, as James did just that. He wore a purple hoodie with a black accent colour to it, with his signature hat covering most of his black hair. James showed up shortly along with his friend, they walked to a bench in the park between two almost leafless trees as the leaves crunched loudly under their feet. It smelled like straight pine trees in the park which I was fine with "So Sam how's it going." James said. Sam was a dark skinned boy with an older brother named Henry.

"Pretty good, so you're going to a new school huh?" James nodded in response. He thought about how bad his first day of 9th grade at a new school could be, but he quickly shrugged it off.

After talking for a good half hour, Sam had to leave to get to his classes while James decided to lay down and look at the clouds for a while.

At 9:45 James had been walking to the new school and had bumped into someone 'Oh no' he thought, 'What now'. After he bumped into this hulkingly large man he got pushed over and was told to 'watch his step'. Once James got back up he had someone run up to him a rather 'nerdy' looking kid named Andrew.

"Hey I'm Andrew, they really do suck huh?"

"You're telling me, the first interaction I had with him was being shoved over for something insignificant that was an accident." I responded, "Name's James"

"Heh, nice Rhyme"

"Unintentional but yeah I guess, I'm going to math class," I looked at my schedule and class list noticing that Andrew was in my homeroom "you've got math with me huh?" Andrew smiled then nodded.

Standing outside the school I saw the large logo of the school adorned with the name of the school 'Ericson's High School'.

As I walk in I go to math class and it was pretty... well, it was math class. I mean I got to talk to Andrew more and I feel like I know him a little better. He is actually a foster child too, I'm quite surprised at how he takes it so well, or maybe he doesn't and just hides it really well. At that point it could be a skill. 'I am overthinking this now.'

Me and Andrew arrived at Phys. Ed shortly after math ended. We were hanging out in the changing room because we both aren't the most athletic people. Once the teacher noticed our absence, he came in and found us, then we were sent to detention for the remainder of gym class. There we met the "delinquent" Erin. She was a red-headed girl who was somewhat well known around the school. She always wore this tacky orange vest normally with some sort of blue undershirt. The teacher left the class and we engaged a conversation with her.

"What'd you do to get detention?" Andrew inquired.

"I'm not going to say, I'd prefer if the rumours don't get too bad, for all I know you're the type to spread rumours." Erin said "I don't know you and I have no reason to trust you so if you want to know, tell me about you first. I don't care what you tell me as long as it means something at least a little bit important to you, that is proof of trust to me."

Andrew told her about his dog that had recently passed away, and James didn't talk at first because he was scared he would let out the secret about his parents. He didn't want to slip up and have people he doesn't know talking about how he's an orphan. People can suck, I can go without getting ridiculed for having my parents die he thought to himself. I decided to tell her about my family instead, I have no siblings and... not really 'parents' but I didn't tell her that. I chose to lie and say I have 'two happy parents' although I haven't had that in many years. I have a somewhat nice foster family as of now but I still miss how my parents were, quite a bit. How could I not, I guess, I grew up used to how they raised me and just them in general. I shed about one tear, then realized that I did and quickly wiped it away, hopefully before they noticed.

After talking for a while we finally got it out of her, she finally said "I beat someone up, but they deserved it honestly, I don't and shouldn't feel remorse for them." All Andrew could respond with was 'Oh' I kind of just sat there and didn't care, I've been in my fair share of fist fights. It's why I got kicked out of my old school after all. This one guy never shut up about me being an orphan so I socked him. It ended up getting into a more serious fight but I won, I definitely wasn't about to lose to someone like him.

We started walking to Science class in a group and as Andrew and Erin got to their lockers James walked to the office to get assigned one. Once assigned a locker James met Andrew and Erin by their lockers. He was assigned one about 7 lockers down from Erin whose locker was only one or two away from Andrew's. As they started walking I asked Erin about what the other person had done for her to beat them up. I guess she didn't want to talk about it as she just said nothing. As we were walking one of the bullies from this morning had taken my hat and NO ONE takes my hat. I chased after him for about 3 minutes before I eventually caught him and threw him to the ground by his hood. He made a quick 'thud' when he hit the ground. I picked up my hat as the other two bullies arrived once the "main" bully started walking towards me I threw a punch hitting him across the cheek. I felt and heard my knuckle pop. Shortly after, Erin showed up with Andrew taking a little bit longer than her. Erin went up to the 'main' bully and had started punching and kicking at him, she knocked him flat in about a minute's time. I had taken on the more scrawny one that had originally taken my hat, and Andrew took on the one that looked about a mix between the big one and the skinny one, except like neither of those two, he was somewhat short when compared to his 'friends'. After a good 5 minute scuffle a teacher had walked up to see us standing over the beaten and bruised bullies and us also pretty messed up but nonetheless we had won. Of course we were all sent to the office, separately so it 'didn't happen again', 'yeah because we are totally going to fight in the office' I thought. Since we were put outside the office while the guys were talked to we decided to start a conversation. "So why are you so passionate about your hat?" Erin asked me.

"I uh, got it from my mom before she uh..." I stopped.

"Oh, I'm sorry" she said and Andrew's face fell after hearing that.

"Is your dad... you know" Andrew asked following up on the previous question.

"Uh, yeah he's dead too"

They both looked really shocked and went to talk. Right then we were called into the office as the guys left. The Principal had discussed the rules with us 'as if we're dumb enough to forget them'. After some persuasion the Principal was more lenient with the situation and gave us the morning detention for 5 days and the bullies after school detention for 1 week and a half. As we walked out it had been in the last five minutes of the last class. "You guys just wanna wait here until we can leave?" Erin said.

"Sure" I responded. "Also you guys want to hangout for a while?" I said quickly they both called they parents and got the go-ahead then the bell rang and we all walked to this one old run down bell tower that James had liked going to when he was stressed or sad. They climbed it in a short time.

"So this is the place" I said

"Nice, I like it" Erin said and Andrew nodded in agreement to that statement.

After a good few hours Andrew had to leave. "Hangout again tomorrow?" we both nodded.

I know it's not great or even good but this was my LA project from a month or two ago. I wrote it pretty quickly so it wasn't my full effort.