Entry #674236, added on 11-01-09 @ 6:52 pm EST
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| first day's offering -- 2321 words | Entry #674236 |
Hundred-Hit Wonders
The Friday afternoon sun setting over the other side of the city cast a warm orange glow on three boys sitting on top of a racy black Dodge Ram on the edge of Hell Hill. They were sipping beer and watching strips of street lights come on and twinkle in the dim city streets below them. From their vantage they could see Sir Winston Churchill High, the finger park their houses backed onto, and the gravel roof of the strip mall where the last three years of loitering had been played out.
“Last Friday night of high school,” Matt said, his voice low and rich with wonder; wonder that they had made it this far and wondering whether there was life after high school.
As if the moment was too damn bittersweet for him, Braden said, “Like, this is your last chance to f*** Danielle, eh man?”
Josh chuckled and Matt thumped Braden on the shoulder.
Laughing, Braden said, “What? You only have a week left to prove that you’re not gay!”
Matt waited until the other two had stopped laughing at him, and let the still air go quiet, before he said, “I was thinking we should set a rather loftier goal for the last week of school.”
Braden’s perfect pearly whites shone in the dusk. “What could be loftier than f***ing Danielle?” he asked.
Matt smiled too. But it wasn’t a teasing smile like Braden’s; it was an evil grin. He flashed his dark eyes at the two boys on his left, and said, “I was thinking we should go out with a bang, you know; leave a legacy. We need to do something… special before leaving the ol’ educational facility down there. Something memorable.”
“Hmm,” Braden said, considering the suggestion, chewing it up in his brain, not yet at the point of thinking of ideas, just picturing the hallowed halls of SWC in the future, their names still ringing in the ears of students and staff alike, as the final act of Braden, Josh, and Matt is still brought up in every conversation.
Josh said, “You mean like run a pair of panties up the flagpole?”
Matt laughed. “Yeah, like that. Something like that.”
“But where will we get panties?” Josh asked. He began mulling it over.
Braden wasn’t listening to the panties turn the conversation had taken. His mind was still working. It was an amazing thing, Braden’s mind. Almost as amazing as his face. He was the valedictorian, after all, the smartest guy in Grade 12. He took a sip of beer and pondered. He contemplated and masticated as the other two carried on a far-away conversation in silence.
It had to be something completely insane. Something that had never been done before, not in movies, on TV, or anywhere else. It had to be something uniquely them, something that summed up their three years at SWC, and even their previous stint at Simon Fraser Junior High. It had to be something that meant buckets to the staff and students alike. It had to make the news. But it had to be legal: nobody’s parents should be paying for a lawyer, they had the boys’ gap-year trip to pay for.
“What do you think? Braden?” Matt asked. The other two were looking at him. They had learned long ago that when he shut them out, it was because his brain was coming up with something astounding. So they were patiently looking at him, waiting to see if he thought anything about the conversation of theirs he had just been ignoring.
Braden cleared the fog and looked at his pal’s faces, to his right. Josh, in the middle, his unkempt hair all over the place, and his laughing green eyes still sparkling despite the now almost total darkness. Matt, who despite the fact that with his incredible looks could have any girl he wanted, had broken the heart of every single girl in SWC by never having a girlfriend, ever. Josh and Braden had been best friends basically since kindergarten, and Matt had become their third musketeer midway through Grade six. The three of them had grown up in the neighbourhood that now lay twinkling below, going through all the rites of passage together; there was no way they could leave twelve long, hard years of school without leaving an indelible mark behind.
Braden looked earnest. It wasn’t a look anyone was used to seeing on his face. His flame-blue eyes with their black fringes of lash were flicking between the two of them. His superman jaw was rigid, as if his glinting teeth hidden behind his unusually tight lips were clenched. The other two stopped breathing. Did Braden have an idea?
Braden spoke dramatically, like he was practicing his valedictorian speech, and he started counting points on his fingers for emphasis. “It has to something completely unique, never been done before.” The other two nodded. “It has to be legal, but just on the edge of legal.” The other two smirked and nodded. “It has to be so memorable that they’ll still be talking about us in twenty, thirty years.” Matt, that very naughty look back in his eye, gave a low whistle, and the other two nodded again. “And,” Braden continued, his right forefinger poised over his left pinkie for emphasis, he leaned forward and finished in a very low voice, just above a whisper, “it has to be so amazing, so incredible, that it gets on the news.”
The other two yelped, howled, and high-fived while Braden leaned back, his arms crossed in satisfaction across his chest. They still didn’t have an idea, but they had hype, and that was the important thing.
For several minutes there was no sound except the vooming of cars in the streets below and the bubbly sipping of beer on the hood of the Ram.
Finally, Matt had another genius point to add. “We should get everybody involved,” he said. “You know, all the graduating blokes in the whole school.” Matt’s family had come over from somewhere in northern England, and he still drawled his As, skipped his Rs and Ts, and interjected funny words here and there.
Braden and Josh nodded slowly. It was a good idea; the more people involved, the bigger prank they could pull off.
Braden said, “It should be the last day of school. Everyone should show up to school on the last day and be blasted in the face with it.”
Matt nodded. Josh said, “With what?”
Braden gave him a look. “With the prank, dumbass,” he said. Josh was cute but not too bright. He usually had to have stuff spelled out for him.
Josh nodded. “I thought you meant… never mind. Are we doing the crazy-glue thing?”
“What crazy-glue thing?” Braden asked. It must have been something they’d come up with while he was zoned out.
Matt said, “Would that actually work? Wouldn’t everything just fall? I mean, how strong is crazy-glue?”
“What are you guys talking about?” Braden asked.
Matt grinned. “Turn the school upside down. Crazy-glue everything to the ceiling.”
Braden chuckled and shook his head. “It’s been done. Sides, I think those sort of plaster boards they have up there wouldn’t really hold stuff like teachers’ desks and filing cabinets and stuff.”
“Yeah,” Matt said, and went back to contemplating.
“How about inside-out?” Braden said.
The other two looked at him, then at each other.
“’Ow do we do that then, mate?” Matt asked.
Suddenly, Josh surprised them all with a rare lucid moment. “Easy,” he said, “Take everything outside.”
Braden was nodding slowly. “Everything. And set it up like it was when it was inside, desks in rows, all the stuff piled up on the teachers’s desks,”
“We could bring the whiteboards out and install them on the walls outside,” Josh said.
Now they were talking fast. Braden said, “And everything out of the library, shelves, books, computers,”
“The computer lab,” said Josh, “and the cafeteria.”
“Yeah, and the kitchen stuff,” Matt said. He chuckled at the thought of kitchen staff cooking school lunches on stoves perched on the grass of the football field.
Braden was laughing. “The bleachers from the gym. We could set them up in the parking lot, and paint gym lines on the asphalt!”
Matt and Josh were laughing, too, picturing the inside-out high school. Matt said, “and the science lab, we’ll bring all those lab benches and Bunsen burners and beakers out.”
Braden was laughing so hard now he could barely speak. “We have to say…” he laughed, “we have to say that the school’s being fumigated and all classes have to be conducted outside!”
Matt clutched his belly. “I could get some ‘caution’ tape from one of the sites to put on the doors,” he said. Matt’s dad ran a very successful commercial construction company.
Braden had another inspiration. “Hey, do you think you could get some fork lifts and stuff too? Power tools? That would make the job a lot easier!”
Matt nodded. His dad took him around to the sites regularly, and sent him on errands by himself too. The foremen were all pretty used to him; nobody would question him if he showed up with his dad’s truck and said he had to pick up some power tools.
Braden said, “Some electric drills, you know? For taking out fixtures, like the library shelves and the lab benches and stuff.”
Josh, hooting with laughter, said, “and toilets!”
“Dude, we totally have to bring the toilets out! That’s awesome!” Braden shouted.
It took the entire last week of school to organize everything. They managed to get nearly half the graduating class on board, spreading the word through covert conversations between classes and at lunch. It never difficult for Braden to get a large following for any undertaking. On Tuesday and Wednesday evening, Matt and Josh drove around some of the sites in Matt’s dad’s truck, picking up tools here and there, Josh keeping detailed records so they could take everything back when the deed was done. A secret meeting was called for Thursday, six p.m. in the school parking lot. Most of the other students involved didn’t know exactly what they were involved in, just that their class was going to pull an amazing prank for the last day of school.
Thursday evening, Braden, Matt, and Josh stood in the bed of Braden’s Ram waiting. By 6:15, about a hundred kids had shown up. Finally, satisfied that they had the manpower to do it, Braden called the meeting to order.
“Fellow students!” he called over the heads of the milling teenagers. They stopped their conversations, their games, and turned to look up at him. “Fellow graduating class of 2010!” he bellowed, and a cheer erupted. Fists shook above heads, voices yelped and lips whistled.
When the crowd was his, Braden started explaining their mission. “We are going to leave the school, but not without leaving something behind!” he said. More cheers. “The school, nay, the entire city will remember the Sir Winston Churchill class of 2010,” pause for cheers, “because we are going to leave a legacy!” On either side of Braden, Matt and Josh each raised both fists into the air and pointed the metal sign at all the wild faces below them, and the cheering intensified.
The crowd started talking amongst themselves; most of the kids who attended SWC knew that Braden was practically a god, so they knew he had something in store for them. The agitated discussion was the sound of a hundred kids wondering what it was.
Braden raised his hands, palms out, and the kids quieted down again. When he had complete silence and a hundred pairs of eyes on him, Braden continued. “We,” he said, speaking in a voice low yet projecting, and slowly so as to build momentum, “are going to turn the school…” he paused again, letting the anticipation swell to a tidal wave, “inside out!”
The crowd went wild. They still didn’t know exactly what they were there for, but whatever it was, it was damned exciting.
Braden again waited for silence, then he said, “We are going to take every single last thing out of this building,” he pointed behind him at the brick school, “and set it all up again out here.” He waved his hands around, indicating the surrounding grounds. “Whiteboards, Bunsen burners, office supplies… everything!” The audience was starting to smile and laugh now as they caught on. With Braden’s leadership, they were thinking about what the finished product would look like, not about the night of hard work that was ahead of them.
Braden told them that they would be separated into three work groups, with Josh in charge of classrooms, Matt in charge of offices, washrooms, and staff areas, and Braden in charge of all other public areas, such as the library, cafeteria, and so on.
Once the students were in their groups, the boys each started explaining the plan for their area, and sending out delegates to get started. Some kids had to go home for supper or other family antics, but promised to return and spend the night.
Braden paid off one of the custodians, Mr. White, to get keys to all the doors, including the main doors, but Mr. White was so tickled that he insisted on staying and helping out. The other custodians didn’t want Mr. White to lose his job, so they stayed too, and cooked up a plan amongst themselves to cover their asses. The plan involved someone (a fictitious student) breaking into the custodial room during the school day, when it isn’t actually locked, a problem the custodian staff had been trying to have addressed for a long time, and stealing the extra keys out of the key cabinet, which also was not actually locked because the key to the key cabinet was lost.
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© Copyright 2009 katt (UN: kattbee at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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