When I got to school Tuesday morning I went down to my locker and dialed in the combination. As usual, it didn’t open on the first try or even the second. I’ve found that when opening a locker at school, persistence and patience were definitely virtues that come in handy. On the third try I gave the stubborn locker a firm nudge with my knee. Presto! Worked like a charm. I grabbed my books for my first class, which was Math, and headed toward my homeroom.
Whoever invented homeroom must have had entirely too much time on his hands. I mean we never did anything. The bell would ring; some future Brian Williams or Katie Couric would come on TV and tell us the day’s announcements. Really important stuff like the track team “gave a great effort in their first meet of the season” and “don’t forget to turn in your yearbook money” and “for lunch today we are having poop with a side of crap and milk.” For the next fifteen minutes our teacher, Ms. Handle, would try to be all “teacherly” and “motherly” by asking us about our weekends, how things were going in school, and junk like that. I mean, maybe she did care, but I think she was just trying to kill time. What a waste.
As I closed my locker door I turned and saw Nicole walking toward me. The instinct I liked to refer to as “wussness” told me to do a 180-degree turn so that it would look like I was headed in a different direction. Maybe facebook wasn’t such a bad idea after all. I calmly walked down the other hallway, creating distance between Nicole and me. As I reached the other side of the building, I thought, What am I doing? Why am I ignoring her? I am such a complete loser. She had to have known I saw her. I looked right at her. I am an absolute idiot. But then it came to me. I had a foolproof solution to my problem. I would simply turn around, walk back to where Nicole was, and tell her I had had to go to the bathroom. I would then proceed to ask her about her weekend, thank her for the email, and have a lovely conversation with a nice girl. That plan lasted all of two seconds. I got scared and walked around the entire school and was late to homeroom just to make sure I did not run into her again. I truly was the biggest wuss.
When I got to homeroom, I asked Ms. Handle if I could go to the library to work on a Social Studies project. Sometimes she would let us work on our homework in homeroom. She said, “Sure,” wrote a pass for me, and off I went.
The school library always had the day’s Star Tribune and Pioneer Press out for people to look at. I grabbed both papers and sat down at one of the tables. There were a few other kids in there, mainly playing “banned” video games on the computers. I didn’t see what they were playing, but I could tell what they were doing because they were constantly looking around to see if any teachers were coming. I always thought the best way to get caught doing something wrong was to look like you were doing something wrong. Middle school kids always looked like they were doing something wrong.
I only had ten minutes to look through the papers, so I browsed the headlines on the front page and through the front section. Most of the war articles had been pushed to the second or third pages. Apparently, as the war dragged on, people became less and less concerned with people like my mom. I browsed the headlines, but saw nothing about a Nurse Hansen.
One of the articles was about a soldier who lost his legs when his Hummer was blown up. It said he had to have twenty surgeries or something. I didn’t read the whole thing, but I remember the picture of him. He was strapped to all these wires. He looked like a mummy in all of his casts. And he had a bunch of black stuff on his arms. I couldn’t tell if they were tattoos or scars. I hoped they were tattoos. He looked miserable. I don’t pray much, almost never in fact, but at that moment I said a tiny little prayer that my mom didn’t look like that soldier did. I prayed that she still had her legs. I prayed that she was okay.
The day ended and I had successfully avoided Nicole, even in the class we had together. I kept my head straightforward. I noticed her turning around to look at me twice and I skillfully turned my head toward the door so it would look like I hadn’t noticed. If anyone ever wanted instructions on how to get the ladies, all anyone had to do was follow me around for a day. Wussness.
After school I waited for Seth. We had a couple of classes together and lunch, but we hadn’t really talked. It was impossible to get a word in when he was around a group of people. For instance, that day at lunch the conversation consisted of Seth and this other kid named Chris Caulfield throwing peas at each other and seeing how many could fall on the lunchroom floor without the teacher seeing them. Okay, so I guess that wasn’t really a conversation, but there was a lot of laughter and trash talking involved. Hence, conversation.
He walked up to me at the main school door, said, “Hey,” and then we walked home as usual. He talked most of the way, but I didn’t really listen. My mind wandered. I wondered if Seth remembered me telling him about my mom. Maybe he was waiting for me to bring it up again. Maybe he didn’t want to pry.
My mind also wandered to thoughts of Nicole. What was I thinking? We exchanged emails. She obviously wanted to talk to me this morning and all I could do was cowardly run away. What must she think of me right now? I hoped she wasn’t mad. Why wouldn’t she be? I probably would be, but then again maybe she didn’t notice that I was avoiding her. That’s ridiculous. I grabbed my phone from my pocket. Should I send her a text? Nope. Don’t have her number. Perfect excuse.
“See ya at practice man.” Seth was heading home.
“Yeah, see ya,” I said back to him a bit surprised. I hadn’t realized we were so close to home. I hadn’t been listening to Seth, so maybe he did ask about my mom. Maybe I just didn’t hear him. I decided to go with that theory.