SWNOVELS Chapter 10 School Belles
Who knew walking in the great outdoors is a great way to explore the unknown? I decided to take a look at my watch, and it was exactly 8:15 a.m. That’s great…..not that I totally want to skip the first period and have some fun, but I’m still in the neighborhood, and I can’t take a detour through time since I can’t drive out of here for the moment. But the one thing that I liked about walking, though, is how quiet it was outside. Almost too quiet if you ask me. But it didn’t take me long before this quiet suburban area started to wake up.
Like just now, I saw a dude in a white uniform get out of this delivery truck and carry this basket of glass bottles of what appears to be milk walking towards a house, but as he got to the front door, he waved at me before knocking. I waved back to him, but man, the 50s were weird. Why is everyone so friendly to me? Geez, what did I even do to make them so friendly to me? Oh my gosh, just now, an elderly woman waved at me, and she told me, “Good morning, have a nice day.”
I nodded my head and continued walking, trying to wipe that strange encounter from my mind, but every time I tried, there were more of these strangers, some old and some young, being friendly to me. The first time was fine, but now there are more of them trying to strike a conversation with me or even wave at me. The more they waved or talked to me, the more I felt paranoid and just wished they would leave me alone. But that all stopped once I got into the downtown area where there should be a crosswalk around, if my memory serves me right, which should lead me directly to the school. Then for the heck of it, I decided to look at my watch again and was kinda surprised that not that much time had passed. You know, being how peaceful it is outside, I never really had a chance to look around and enjoy not seeing or hearing people blast music from their cars as much, or walking around with earbud headphones.
There is so much more to experience here. After a couple more crosswalks and the occasional glances at businesses and people turning the closed sign of their stores to open, I saw the school. Yeah, the one where I wished I would never see again. But this time, I figured I would do something different. Rather than just ignoring what people are saying, I would listen to people’s conversations while walking through the halls. Perhaps I could figure things out and possibly get some answers as to why exactly I was stuck here.
Did I get any answers that day? No. All because Janet decided that this was a good time to talk to me in the corner of a hallway. She just HAD to ask what happened to me yesterday. I had no choice but to bring her up to speed on everything. But I intentionally forgot to mention what I needed to do to get my ride back and why I needed hers or some other girl’s phone number to get it. Janet then asked, “Ok...So how did you get here then, did someone drop you off or...?”
I said, “No, I just walked.”
She replied, “Gary…. I’m being serious here. How did you get here?”
I told her that “I really walked here, it wasn’t that hard, and besides, my pops won’t let me drive his car, so I had no other choice.” I hate to say it, but Mary’s advice was working! If this indeed is a sign, it’s an awkward one. Considering the fact that I may or may not get my first phone number from a girl who is also my grandmother, I bet Mary didn’t think of that one, but hey, I gotta take what I can get, right?
So, I decided to ask Janet if she had any plans for the weekend. She said, “I do...actually. I’m going to see a flick with my friends...you know the ones that I introduced to you yesterday? Well, we are seeing a flick tomorrow night. We are still deciding, but are you interested in joining us anyway?”
“Sure...I have nothing else to do,” I said.
“Great. I’ll tell the gang, and by the way, I may or may not know someone that likes you who is going to be at the movies with us.”
My eyes widened, and I kindly asked her, “Can you please tell me who this someone is?”
“Not yet….but first,” she then grabbed her notebook from her backpack, opened the notebook, and wrote her phone number on it. The two things going through my mind right now is...is she really doing this, and why does it have to be her, my grandmother of all people, to get my first phone number from?
After she was done writing, I guess it was my turn. However, I had no idea what the phone number of this dude named Gary was, so I just wrote down a bunch of numbers that came to mind and hoped she never tried to call me.
But the way Janet looked at me, though, while giving me her phone number seemed strange. But it was even stranger how she sounded when she said, “Here you go…...and call me when you get home…. well...see ya later, Alligator.”
As she left, the only thing I could say back to her was, “In a while, crocodile.” Like how did I know to say that? Just as I asked myself this question, the first-period bell rang.
So, Adams high school starts at 8:30 a.m., …. interesting. I don’t remember how I got to my classroom, but somehow, I did. I was thinking this wasn’t a bad start to the day. Maybe I could accomplish a whole lot more.