I slammed my locker shut, stretched luxuriously like a cat, and tucked my yearbook under one arm. Grinning infectiously at my friend, I scuffled my red hair with my hand before addressing her.
“Come on, I want to get Ms. Watson to sign my yearbook. Please, Michelle, hurry up!” I begged, tugging gently at my friend’s elbow. Our yearbooks from last year had just come out, and I’d been going around, gathering signatures from all my favourite people. One of the only ones I was missing was my English teacher’s, and I really, really wanted to get her signature before the day was over. The likelihood was that I’d forget by the time Monday came around, and before I knew it, the school year would be over and I still wouldn’t have her signature. But my friends were being annoyingly slow – or, to them, I suppose they were going at a normal pace – maybe I sounded like a chipmunk!
Michelle pulled away, laughing, and tucked her almond-brown hair neatly behind her ear before putting the last of her books away. She’d closed her locker, and I thought we were finally going to get out of there, when she turned around, muttering to herself and opened it again. Coming up behind her (I loved towering over her, especially by five inches! Oh, the power of being tall) I tapped her incessantly on the shoulder and said, “What now?”
And then, of course, she had to enlist the help of our best friend, buffer, and occasional tutor. “A little help, please, Jack?”
He rolled his eyes, and I felt an arm wrap around my shoulder as he pulled me away from Michelle and closer to him. I looked up at his red hair, and matched his mischievous, brown-eyed gaze with my own green one. I waited a second – two – blast off! I slipped easily out of his grip and went back to tapping Michelle on the shoulder, and bouncing up and down impatiently, shifting from one foot to the other.
“Come on, come, come on! It’s the weekend, for God sakes. Please,” I said, groaning. “You can’t need that much!”
They looked at each other, and then Michelle finished packing her book bag and slung it over her shoulder, closing her locker with a definitive bang. I screeched with delight, and began to walk quickly towards her classroom. As I reached the end of the hallway, I stopped suddenly and peeked around the corner – I felt them both bump into me with soft, “Oof!” noises, but I made no move to apologize. Instead, I turned my head and looked back at them, an innocent smile on my face.
“We should’ve brought skates!”
Of course, they had no idea what I was talking about. Instead of bothering to explain, I took one last look at the long, empty stretch of hallway, and began to run like hell. It didn’t take long for me to start slipping and sliding down the newly-waxed floor, and I even turned around briefly to see if they were following – I couldn’t really see, but when I turned around again, I could see the wall, and the stairs going down, approaching – fast. Hmm. I could fall down the stairs, or run into a wall. Which option to choose. Finally choosing the lesser of the two evils, I braced myself, angled myself in the proper direction, and slammed into the wall, collapsing to the floor.
I blacked out for a minute – closing my eyes, I bit back the shock of the sharp pain I’d felt after the collision. A minute later, the feeling passed, and I heard footsteps scurrying down the hall. Trying not to smile, I held in my laughter for a minute, curious to see how they would react.
I was right. Next thing I knew, they were both beside me, and after just a minute of frantic, “Wake up, Dani!” I cracked a smile and began to laugh. Opening my eyes, I looked up at their shocked faces, which just made me laugh even more.
“Good God, you should see your faces!” I said, through the gales of giggles. I heard a sigh from my right, and let the giggles disperse before I looked over. Jack was leaning against the wall, his eyes closed, his face blank. “What’s up?” I said, twisting around so my head was on his knee, and I looked up at him.
He smirked, but didn’t open his eyes. I looked over at Michelle, who was frowning and shaking her head. Groaning, I rubbed my face. Did we have to go through this every time I wanted to have a bit of fun? Sure, maybe the last part hadn’t exactly been fair, but I wouldn’t do it next time! I learned from my mistakes. I just hadn’t experienced a lot of mistakes yet.
“Dani, you can’t keep doing this!”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not safe,” Michelle said, her voice panicked. “I mean, the sports, the surfing, that’s bad enough, especially with your back. But why do you have to do all these extra little things?”
“Because it’s fun,” I said, rolling my eyes. Didn’t they know that about me already? Jesus, it’d been over ten years, for Jack and myself at least. Deciding to try and get some support from him, I tilted my head back and looked up, sticking my lower lip out in a pout. He finally opened his eyes and looked down at me. Though his face showed disappointment, I could see the amusement in his eyes, and I knew I’d found an ally. Now to draw that out. “Come on…I’m not hurt, and you’ve got to admit, that did look enticing. Besides – didn’t I look just a wee bit clownish slipping and sliding like that?” With this last statement, I gestured with my fingers lavishly.
“Alright, alright,” Jack said, a grin breaking out despite his best efforts to hide it. “So after my brain finished going into worry-mode, there was a tiny section of it that was laughing. What about you, Michelle? How do you think we should deal with this?”
I chuckled, and then opened my eyes wide, doing a wonderful imitation of a helpless puppy, as I looked at Michelle. Her head was shaking back and forth, but the corners of her mouth were turned up. After a minute of silence, I was convinced she was going to berate me some more; was I ever surprised when she simply said, humour seeping through in her voice, “Well, she did hit that ground fairly hard. She probably shouldn’t be on her feet yet.”
Now I was confused; what exactly was she talking about? It’s not like I had a concussion or anything. And besides…if I didn’t get on my feet, how could I go get Ms. Watson’s signature? How could I get out of the school? I’d spend my whole weekend in there, all alone, crawling over to the vending machines for sustenance. If I didn’t get kicked out by the janitor, of course. And that’s when I saw the mirth in her face; and when I looked back over at Jack, I could see the same sort of expression on his face. I groaned again; they weren’t really going to do what I thought, were they?
As Jack stood up, and Michelle made a big show up helping me stand up and not letting me do it on my own, it was a combined effort that got me up onto his back. He was only an inch taller than me, but at least he wasn’t one of those guys who insisted on carrying you, even though they were several inches shorter. That was a complete recipe for disaster. I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck, and my legs were in a death grip around his waist, and then we set off down the hall, Michelle beside me, carrying my yearbook; we were all laughing merrily together.
When we finally reached the English classroom, the door was shut. I slipped off of his back, thanking him with a smile for the transportation, and tried to open the door. Ms. Watson usually kept it closed at the end of the day so she wouldn’t be distracted. But this time she’d locked it. I frowned, trying once more before looking back at them with a stunned look on my face.
“Why would she lock it?”
Jack shrugged, and gestured to the door. “Try knocking. Maybe she’s listening to music and can’t hear you.”
I nodded. After school, our English teacher tended to listen to music while she graded papers and worked the kinks out of her lesson plans for the upcoming week. Of course, she never told us what she listened to; according to her, it was one of the many mysteries that she had that made her seem ‘mysterious and aloof’. Naturally, I never stopped pouncing on her and trying to surprise her into telling me. And, naturally, it never worked. But one of these days, it would work! I’d made an oath to myself to find out before the end of the school year. But right now, all I wanted to do was get her signature. I knocked on the door with my knuckles, and waited a few seconds. Silence. I rapped a bit harder. Still silence. Sighing, I leaned against the door. And that’s when I saw the note on the window to the left. I looked at the bright blue paper, reading it carefully. Damn, I’d forgotten about that! She was leaving early this weekend so she could go camping after she’d finished marking. Oh well…now I’d have to make it my personal mission to remember getting her signature in my yearbook on Monday. Not too hard. All I had to do was survive, and get Michelle to remind me. Easy peasy!
All these thoughts flew out of my head when Michelle said softly, “Hey, Dani, weren’t you supposed to meet your mom after school?”
I whapped my head with my hand. Maybe I needed to start taking some sort of memory pills or something! My mind felt like a sieve. Yes, as a matter of fact…I was supposed to meet my dear mother after school. She had some errands to run, and she was going to take me to the library to pick up a book I needed for an essay.
“I’m guessing you didn’t remember?” Jack said, his voice amused.
“No…look, guys, can you just remind me on Monday to get her signature?”
“Yeah, for sure. We’ll see you over the weekend, right? We need to make plans for Christmas shopping.” Michelle asked.
I nodded, about to make my way out to the front doors. At the last minute, I doubled back, and handed my yearbook to Jack, saying, “Keep this for me. I don’t want to lose it. Or get food on it. Either of which is likely. You know me.”
Jack took the book and tucked it under his arm. “For sure, and I’ll even get Matthew to sign it for you if you want.”
I squealed, hugging him. Matthew had been my crush for over a month – of course, he didn’t know that. But Jack and Michelle knew it. I’d refused to ask him for his signature in my yearbook, not wanting to seem too forward. But he and Jack were on the track team together, it would be easier for him to get the signature. I kissed him on the cheek in gratitude, before running through the halls. “See you guys later!” I yelled, making sure to avoid the waxed hallway. I didn’t want a re-do, especially since mom was waiting for me.
Their caller ID never displayed my number that weekend.
Anyway, it picks up in the next bit, where the action heats up a bit and you learn more about the characters, etc.
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