Lucas And The Time-Traveling Fog A Field Trip To Remember

Remember that scene from the movie Billy Madison where he - a full grown man - is seen sitting in a classroom with a bunch of third graders where he laughs as he makes a cheeky comment when the teacher instructs them to open to page SIXTY-NINE. Well, I do and that particular scene was one of my favorites as a child where I would laugh so hard my stomach would hurt. But now... I am not so sure about that anymore. I mean I am basically an adult just like him, only smarter but here I am sitting in a classroom, not with third graders but eighth graders who are technically 12 or 13 years my senior but act like they are in third grade still by laughing and making those same types of innuendo jokes.

There was a time that I would have joined too but I was better than that. After the first bell rang, signaling the five minute passing period to the second, I was one of the first people out the door and patiently waited outside Josh’s classroom for him to get out. When I spotted Josh out of the crowd of kids, I greeted him but noticed how much of a sour mood he was in, especially when he made it perfectly clear to me that “I can’t wait to go home.”

To which I snarkily replied,

“The day just started… so cheer up, you can still fix this.”

“How? It’s hopeless.”

“Josh, don’t give up. All you gotta do is apologize for all the mean stuff you had said over the years… that’s all. It’s that simple. Besides I–I-I may have already told Allison… that you would.” If looks could kill, then I would have been dead. I tried to calm him down by stating, “Look, she’s willing to put everything behind you if you just take back every single mean thing you ever said including the loser with no familia comment that you made on Friday, which honestly is a new low even for you. I had a hard time convincing her on that one.”

“A loser with what?” he asked, puzzled.

“You called her “a loser with no familia” and she told me that someone told her that you said that under your breath on Friday.”

“I didn’t say that! Whoever told her that is a liar! I say a lot of stupid stuff when I’m upset but not that!” He exclaimed, “Sure, Al might be a pain, but I would never ever in a million years say anything like that to her.”

“Well, if you didn’t say it and I sure as hell didn’t… then the only person who she told me she heard it from was..”

“Me. I’m the one that told her.” someone said rudely yet with a nasally high pitch voice interrupting us. The two of our heads spun 180 degrees around wondering who this could be. But here came this Blondie, with two neon green scrunchies on her pigtails, bleached jeans, white Pumas and a dark green with yellow and white stripes on a polo shirt.

“Brittney,” Josh muttered under his breath, his fists clenching.

“I warned you there would be consequences,” she said. “Boys like you never listen.”

“You’re going to regret that,” I said.

She laughed. “Yeah, right. What are you going to do about it, Wildcard?”

I had to hold Josh back before he could do something stupid. “She’s not worth getting suspended over, dude. Trust me.” He let go, and then it was my turn to lose my cool. “Yeah, keep that animal in check, Ben. Don’t want to get animal control involved.” Laughing at her own joke. “Later, losers.” She smiled cheekily as she walked into her class.

If I wasn’t mad before, I sure as hell was now.

I muttered, “Oh she’s such a—”

“Pendejo?” Josh chimed in to ask where I just answered, “Yeah, she’s whatever… uh you just said. Let’s head to class before the bell rings.” Me and Josh then got inside the classroom the moment the bell rang. We then sat down in the only two chairs that were available which were in the far back. We didn’t talk much after and if we did, it was just about how we were going to deal with her and Allison.

But Josh still didn’t say if he was going to apologize or not and only mentioned to me that he would

“Think about it.”

I was starting to get worried. Second period had turned into third, and third had turned into fourth. I thought the drama was over for the day. But I was wrong.

Fifth period, Josh and I headed into what looked like Social Studies. There was a world map covering the dry erase board, a poster of history facts about WWII, and a bunch of other stuff. But I was not expecting to see Miss Allison Perkio sitting on her desk with her back turned to us in the middle of the room, chatting away to a group of kids a few desks behind her. One of them must have told her we were there, because she whipped her head around, locked eyes with me, and smiled. But when she saw Josh, she gave him a death glare. We had no choice but to fake-smile back and say hi. Josh sat down on her left, leaving me to sit right in front of her, because that was the only empty seat.

The school bell rang, signaling the start of fifth period. The teacher, who had been calmly sitting at his desk drinking coffee, stood up. He was huge! He had fair skin, black hair, a beard, and hair everywhere. His hands were practically the size of a gorilla’s, and he was as tall as a professional basketball player. He was wearing a plain aquamarine polo shirt, a black belt, and khaki pants. He started calling out names to take attendance.

I was starting to regret coming to school today.

So, after attendance, Mr. Goodman (I learned his name pretty quick) announced, “Before I hand back your graded tests from Friday, I want to go over the plan for tomorrow.”

The other students groaned and complained, but I sat there patiently, giving him my full attention. I wanted to know what the plan was, too. Maybe it would give me some leverage to get Josh and Al to become friends again. He then walked over to the world map that was being displayed in the middle of the classroom and pulled a string and as it went back, it revealed three different groups on the whiteboard:

GROUP A GROUP B GROUP C

Below the groups the first name or nickname and the last name of every 8th grade student that would be going on the trip was displayed. (It was a long list of names that I barely remember half of them so I saved you and me the trouble by leaving them blank.) I easily spotted Ben’s name though as he was the first name listed in GROUP C. Below him I spotted a few names that I recognized like Joshua, Allison, and of course Brittney. Then there were these names that I’d never heard before like Khalil, Trinity, among several dozen others. Mr. Goodman then pointed at the numbered list that was right next to it and here’s what the list had stated for what I assume was the first day:

1. Make sure you have a big breakfast. We’ll leave Franklin Junior High on school buses at 6 am sharp and after headcount, go straight to the airport.

2. Arrive in Washington DC and get on your assigned Group Tour bus.

3. After head count, buses will depart to their three designated locations.

(Group A - Lincoln Memorial)

(Group B - Thomas Jefferson Memorial)

(Group C - Washington Monument).

4. Groups will then visit each other’s location in clockwise fashion after your designated fast food joint for lunch.

5. After eating, groups will depart and visit their last two memorial locations.

6. Once all groups are finished with the tour, they will then be led to the same restaurant for dinner and after eating, we will finally rest at our hotel and prepare for DAY 2.

The instructions may sound simple, but in my experience, nothing ever goes smoothly when dealing with a class of annoying and immature 8th graders. Especially when I’m grouped up with Ally, Josh, and the Wicked Witch of the West herself, Brittney. (Who knows what horrible things she could be planning.) is a recipe for disaster. My biggest issue that I have with all of this is trying to not have Josh and Ally grab each other by the throats as even now I am catching their death glares at one another and school isn’t even over yet.

Mr. Goodman then grabbed a nice neat stack of papers and said, “I finished grading all your tests that we took on Friday and all of you impressed me. Now once everyone’s got theirs back, we will review and if you didn’t take the test, would you please step outside.“

Here’s the moment of truth. I thought to myself.

If he fails, then I have a lot of explaining to do back at home.

I put my hands over my head just stressing about this. Then it happened. It was my turn to receive my test score and it all happened in slow motion too. From the teacher slowly walking his way to me while children beside me began to whisper amongst each other of what they got. Time suddenly resumed as if someone started a stopwatch at the moment when Mr. Goodman got to my desk with his gorilla hairy hands and handed me the test paper. I took one look at the number and the percentage sign in the big red circle that was on the top left and looked up at him in shock where all he said was “Nice work, Ben.” with a slight smile.

He then walked away to hand back the graded test to the next student in the other row. Wow, that was lucky. I thought. Benjamin somehow scored a 92 on this multiple choice and short answer test. Phew. That saved me a lot of hassle from home. Wiping the sweat from my forehead, I got a nudge on my right shoulder. I looked behind and saw Ally who had a big goofy smile and kept tapping me anxiously.

“What’d you get? What’d you get?”

“Uhh. Why don’t you go first?” I stammered.

“Well, I don’t want to brag.” Al began to whisper and looked both ways before speaking up again “But I got a Ninety-SIX. What about you?” with a little smirk.

“I got a Ninety-Two.” I answered still bewildered that this wasn’t a dream.

“Awesome. See what happens when you study… with me. We get shit done.” Ally replied, eyeing Josh as she said that.

There was silence between us as Mr. Goodman passed test scores in the row next to us. Once he went to the opposite side of the room, Josh whispered,

“Hey, you didn’t ask me what I got, Al.”

“Don’t waste my breath. I already know based on how much you studied with us. “

“Well just so you know I got an Eighty-Seven.” Josh cheekily proclaimed while whispering.

“Yeah right, let me see that.” As she snatched Josh’s test score from his desk. I couldn’t tell where she was looking or what she did to the paper as she blocked it from both our views but when she was done going over it, she sarcastically said,

“Wow, I’m impressed. You really did get an Eighty-Seven.”

“Told yuh.” Josh replied, still being oblivious as ever to what she was really planning.

I didn’t want to tell him that she was only messing with him, so I let her give him this sense of hope before she quickly broke the news to him rather harshly by saying,

“If you took the test upside down… that is. You got a Seventy-Eight. That’s nothing to be proud of, my mom or even Bens wouldn’t hang that on the fridge.”

“You care to share what’s so important to the rest of us, Ms. Perkio?” Mr. Goodman announced as he finished handing out the test papers.

Allison’s eyes went bug eyed with her face turning red in embarrassment as she stammered,

“Uhh–Uhh other than Josh being Josh and annoying me, no, not really me.”

The entire class burst into laughter where Josh humiliated himself by asking,

“Do I have any say in this?” Mr. Goodman with the most serious and emotionless look on his face growled a startling,

“No.”

The rest of the class seemed to carry on as if this was just another day in the neighborhood. After reviewing, we took our textbooks that were actually underneath the desks as I saw the student in front of me did so I copied him, opened to page whatever and began reading about WWI. I started to take notes on what we were covering so when the real Ben got back, he could thank me later, but when it came time to partner up for an activity, Josh partnered with someone else for a change.

This caused a chain reaction as Ally did the same, leaving me all alone until a nice girl with brown wavy hair with a pink butterfly clip, round green glasses, wearing black converse, blue ripped jeans, and a red and yellow striped long sleeve shirt, walked up to me and kindly asked if I would join her group. Leaving me no other choice but to accept her offer as I didn’t want to work alone. This could be just Ben talking here but I hated being left out and forced to go out of my comfort zone. That and I hated seeing “my friends’ ′ acting like this and being totally helpless to do anything about it.

When class was over, I guess it was time for lunch as I got led back to my locker where I checked inside my backpack where somehow I had a sack lunch packed inside. I grabbed it and followed Josh to his locker where he grabbed his lunch sack. I then followed him where I asked one more time before heading to the cafeteria,

“Are you going to apologize?”

“You’ll see.” as he patted my back and opened the metal gymnasium doors.

If you thought the morning was like a zoo, then this was a war zone with food chunks on the floor and people whispering. It was so weird but yet felt so nostalgic as I had flashes of my eighth grade seeing people around me. Josh found a spot in the back of the lunch area where we sat down and opened our sack lunches. Josh tried to start a conversation by asking what I thought of the GIANTS GAME yesterday. As I started to tell him what I thought, he interrupted me and hissed,

“Oh no, here she comes.”

Before I could ask Josh who it was, I saw it was none other than Ally who put her lunch tray down at our table and gave me a huge smile. All the while I was thinking,

Uh Oh, here comes the moment of truth.