“Okay class, now remember, all French words have gender. Sometimes you can tell what it’d be. Like mother, or m`ere, would be... what class?”
“Female.” The class muttered in unison.
Courtney looked across the room at one of her friends, Cherish. Cherish made a funny face at her. She started laughing uncontrollably. Of course, it would be her luck that she was in the front row, in plain view of Miss (or Mademoiselle, whatever) Ingledue. Miss Ingledue shot her a ‘be quiet’ look. Courtney stopped laughing immediately.
Courtney looked out the window and let her thoughts wander. She was oblivious to the French lesson being taught. She slipped into yet another daydream.
“Please, please..” She begged. “Kiss me..”
He leaned in and brought his lips closer to hers. His hands slid around her waist. She pressed closer to him, wanting him, needing him. He broke off the kiss, but only to catch his breath. She hadn’t realized it at the time, but she too was breathless. He leaned back and picked a newly-budded red rose off the rose bush behind them. He handed it to her.
“For you, my love.” He looked into her dark, dark brown eyes as she looked into his.
“Oh, Tay.” She sighed “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” He brushed a stray strand of honey-blonde hair away from her face and caressed her cheek ever so gently. He leaned in to kiss her again.
“I love you...” she muttered. “so much.”
RRRRIIIINNNGGGG!!!!!!! The bell rang, interrupting her luscious fantasy. “Damn.” she muttered as she gathered her belongings and walked out of the room. She walked to her locker, #2343, and lifted the handle to open it. She didn’t have to put in the combination, she had it set to open. Unless somebody comes by and spins the dial, then, well obviously, she’d have to use the combination. Since it was a Monday, all she needed was her clarinet for band. She grabbed her instrument from the bottom of her locker, paused to look at a really cute pic of Tay and Zac on her locker door, and picked up her books and shut her locker. Courtney wasn’t used to the crowded halls of her school. She’d been at Grant Middle School for the whole 7th and 8th grade year, (well, up to this point) but this being the first day back-to-school after the two week break, everything was in chaos. She walked past the cafeteria, past Mrs. Ambrose, and on to band.
“Hi Courtney!” Mrs. Ambrose called.
“Hi Mrs. Ambrose!” She called back.
“Courtney,” Mrs. Ambrose started.
Courtney stopped walking and turned around to face Mrs. Ambrose. “Yeah?”
“About that solo, I want you to keep it exactly how you have it. Okay?” Courtney nodded as she leaned up against the wall. She was going to be here a while.
“So, walk up there,” Mrs. Ambrose took a few steps forward, demonstrating. “do the pose, very dramatically, say the line, then walk back to your place on the risers. Okay?”
“Okay, will do.” Courtney smiled at Mrs. Ambrose, secretly trying to break away and go to band class. She started to turn around and walk away.
“Oh, and Courtney,”
She sighed. This was gonna be a long day. “Yeah?” She asked impatiently as she turned around.
“Don’t forget the eyebrow thing, okay?”
Courtney gave her a thumbs-up sign, turned on her heel, and practically ran to band.
Mrs. Ambrose was the choir teacher and the leader of the school show choir, (a singing choir) Generals & Generallets.(G & G’s for short) Courtney had tried out for G&G, and she made it. Actually, this was her second year in G&G, but anyway, she had a solo, and well, now she was late for band.
She walked past Mr. Niehaus, the band director,(teacher, whatever) and didn’t seem to notice. He really didn’t notice much. You could sit 10 feet away from him and be eating candy, drinking soda, talking to your friends, and well, not playing, and he still wouldn’t notice. You’d have to play every once on a while though, or else he probably would notice.
She walked into the room, over to her seat and set down her black clarinet case with the old piece of half torn off masking tape on it, with her name carefully printed on it, like it had been since 5th grade. She sat down next to Bethany, who was turned around talking to Amanda.(her last name is Clennon, for future reference.)
Courtney leaned back in her chair and glanced at the clock. Mr. Niehaus was usually 5 or 6 minutes late to start class everyday. He walked to the front of the room. 5 1/2 minutes late. Right on time.
“Okay, class!” He yelled to get everyone’s attention. Half of the class tuned in, the rest kept talking or staring off into space. “CLASS!” That got everyone’s attention. Courtney started laughing, quietly of course.
“God, he is so impatient!” Bethany whispered.
“Wouldn’t you be? I mean, if you had a class of over 60 kids yelling and screa....”
“COURTNEY! Be quiet!” Mr. Niehaus’ yell rattled the windows above him.
All eyes were on her, half of them laughing silently. “Um, I’m sorry Mr. Niehaus.”
“Well, good. I was trying to tell you that the chairs’ auditions are tomorrow for clarinets and alto sax!” He looked at Courtney. “Or would you rather talk to Bethany?”
Courtney kept her cool. “No, please continue sir.” She replied bitterly.
Mr. Niehaus glared at her. “Thank you. Now like I was saying....”
He continued talking as Courtney sank lower in her seat. Now she felt the embarrassment she hadn’t before. ‘It’s only third hour, and already it’s a bad day’ she said to herself. ‘Yikes.’ She sat up and started playing “Legend of the Eagle”. ***** “A test in science, algebra, auditions for band, French quiz, and,” Jessica paused to look at her forearm. (She always wrote her assignments on some part of her body. ‘So I won’t forget’ is what she claims to why she does that.) “a history assignment.”
“A worksheet?” Lori asked hopefully.
Jess looked at her arm. “Nope, um,” she struggled to read her own writing. “a chapter review,” Everyone out on the hill held their breath as she was reading the assignment, hoping they’d luck out and have a short assignment. “numbers one through sixty-five.”
“Aw, man!” Courtney complained. Their were groans all around. No one liked history, or the howework envolved.
“Is it due tomorrow?” Kiel (pronounced Kyle) asked.
Jess had just taken a bite of her mystery meat sandwich. Since she couldn’t say anything with the imitation Spam in her mouth, she nodded.
It was lunchtime, and Courtney and all of her friends were on the hill over looking the upper field and part of the basketball courts.
Courtney, Lori, Bethany, Amanda, Jessica, Erica, Cherish, Helen, Colleen, Sara, Kiel, Gage, Dasha, Nicole, Dasha’s boyfriend(and quite the social butterfly) Chris, Michelle, Katy, KimVong, Lauren, and occasionally Ally were all up there sitting on all three of the benches that were up there, eating lunch. They usually had a pretty good time, joking around and the whole bit, but Courtney wasn’t.
Not only did they have ten thousand tests tomorrow, today wasn’t going all that well. Her daydream got interrupted in French, she got yelled at band, Mrs. Ambrose is really annoying, her algebra grade wasn’t exactly what she’d expected,(she’d expected a B-) and she wasn’t having a very good day.
She clutched the blueish-green cross that hung from her neck. She’d found it to be a kind of good luck charm over the past few days. She hoped that it’d hold up for the next few days.
She tuned back into her friends’ conversation. Most of the girls at the bench were talking about the sleepover that Friday night.
“So, Lori, you gonna be able to come?” Erica asked.
“Yeah, I think so.” She looked at Jessica. “It’s at your house, right?”
Jess nodded. “Yep.”
“Who all’s gonna be there?” Colleen asked. She leaned over Cherish to throw her soda can away.
“Everybody here, I think.” Jess looked at Cherish questioningly. “You coming?” Cherish nodded. Jess looked at Courtney. “Courtney? You coming?”
She looked at Jessica. “Yep. Are we gonna stay up all night again?”
“Do you want to? I mean, we’ll be walking zombies the next day, but....”
“Well, yeah. We always do anyway, so ya know....”
“Yeah. Okay.”
“Hey!” Jess started.
“What?” Courtney replied nonchalantly.
“You could bring your quija board!” Jessica cried triumphantly.
“Yeah, I could..” Courtney tore off the top of her M&M’s package and popped one in her mouth.
“Well, could you?”
Courtney thought for a moment. “Yeah. I’ll bring it.”
“Cool.” Jess said.
“So, who all is gonna be there?”
“What? At the sleepover?”
“Uh-huh.” She peered in at the M&M’s. She reached in the package with her finger and pulled out a blue one.
“Well,” Jess took a bite of her banana. “let’s see.. there’s you, me, Lori, Bethany, Helen, Colleen, Nicole, Cherish, Amanda, and Erica.”
“Oh. What about Sara?” She offered an M&M to Jess. She shook her head ‘no’
“Shh!” Jessica cautiously looked where Sara was standing, talking to Kiel about getting drunk. “She doesn’t know.”
Courtney followed Jess’s gaze and listened in on Sara and Kiel. “What are they talking about?”
“Oh, who knows.” Jess joked.
“So Sara’s not coming.” It wasn’t a question.
“Nope. That cool?”
“Fine by me.” Courtney was actually relieved she wasn’t coming. She can get a little annoying after about four hours, and at a sleepover, they never sleep. They stay up all night. Usually, anyway. “So what all do you have planned?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a movie or something. You could make us popcorn or something.”
“Or we could order a pizza,” Courtney suggested. Even though she loved to cook, she didn’t like cooking for that many people. They were gonna be eleven people there, and most defiantly was not going to cook anything.
“Well, whatever.” She was quiet for a moment. Then she half-yelled, “Hey!”
Courtney jumped. “What, Jess?” She asked, rather annoyed.
“You could bring your Hanson CD’s! I love them! Could you?”
“Both of them? Mmmbop and Boomerang?”
“Sure! You know, that middle one is s..”
“Taylor.” Courtney interrupted.
“Huh?” Jess was clueless.
“ ‘The middle one’, Taylor.”
“Oh, sorry. Anyway, he is so cute!”
“I know. Believe me, I know.”
Jess laughed. “Yeah, I know you do.”
Just then the bell for sixth hour rang. “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow!” Jessica said.
“Okay, see ya!” Courtney said as she walked inside the school building. She walked to her locker and got her books for language arts.
For some strange reason, she just couldn’t wait until Friday night. But, it was only Monday. She had a while to wait.
