David Is Short

          David Is Short
"The Rope Monster"

“Why Me?” David wondered, as he marched into the gymnasium single file last one on
the boy’s line.

It was another dreaded 10:35 gym class. What made it worse though was David had to
go through this nonsense twice a week!

That’s right. David had a “physical education special,” as the teachers all called it,
every Monday and Wednesday at 10:35. Two times the torture for the shortest boy in
fifth grade at The Hillcrest Hollows School.

Oh how David despised walking into the gym. There was that smell. It was always the
same scent too, fake "Garden Fresh." Ugh.
Maybe it was just a strong ammonia odor that was supposed to fade but
instead it just never went away.

That strong scent stuck to the inside of David’s nostrils, and remained there for hours.
It was not enough to make him puke yet it was certainly enough to convince
David that the chemicals used to polish the glossy, wooden gymnasium floor were
unhealthy for a growing ten year old boy.

Maybe they were even dangerous to breathe in.
“Are my lungs being damaged?” David wondered to himself.

David once asked his friend Aaron, “Do you think those stupid custodians use those
poisonous cleaning fluids on purpose to make us suffer?”

Aaron simply responded by rolling his eyes and walking away.

That of course didn’t convince David that he was mistaken about the chemicals being
dangerous to his health.

His final thought lasted just long enough for David to become distracted by that long,
eight-foot rope hanging high above his head in its usual threatening way. The thick
strand of hemp was waiting for everyone in class to climb. Yes it was rope climbing
Monday. The rope almost seemed to mock him.

David imagined the twisted tan rope calling out to him with big black eyes and razor
sharp front teeth, “Come on David, is today your lucky day? Can you finally reach the
top? How about climbing me even half way up? Then it chortled, "I don’t think so.”

“You’ll never do it. Hah,hah,hah!” David heard the rope hysterically cry out.

David clearly remembered last week when he struggled to climb up the rope about
a quarter of the way. His feet started to fly out into the air flapping from side to side from
under his body. He quickly dropped down from the rope awkwardly landing on the not so
cushiony mat knees first. His classmates had cracked up, pointing at David’s twisted body
while yelling “Shorty!”
Now that was not part of David’s imagination.

David suddenly felt nauseous. He looked around the room at his classmates. David
glanced at his knees in these ridiculous looking cotton, blue shorts which came
down to the bottom of his knee caps. No one had such short legs as he did.

“Did somebody make me have short legs so that I could suffer? Maybe some
children get to have normal legs while others are born with abnormal legs? So it all
has to balance out. And I get the imbalance of course,” thought David.

He pushed one of his dirty blonde bangs to the side away from his right eye,
inhaled slowly and counted to ten in an effort to relax. Sometimes this exercise
worked well. However, David now had a stomachache too, a real live pain in the
middle of his gut. He knew that this would go away if he would stop feeling so
nervous and just calm down. But how?

The rope was ready to make sure everyone in that gymnasium would see David’s
short, skinny legs look helpless once again.

David almost screamed out, “I hate gym!” But he knew better than that.

Nothing mattered right then because at that second the gym teacher, Mr. Moore’s booming voice
echoed throughout the large room.

“Okay children, those whose first names begin A through F line up in row 1, G
through L in row 2; those whose names begin with M through R in row 3, and S
through Z in row 4. If there are any extras in each group then go to the end of your
row,” barked the fifth grader’s gym teacher.

After hearing these instructions, several children made quick, puzzling glances at
the classmate nearest to them. David saw the looks and was confused as almost
everyone else. Maybe these puzzled expressions would help prove that it wasn’t the
students who were mixed up, if no one understood the directions. Especially the
“extras” comment the bossy gym teacher made really baffled the children.


“What does he mean?” Nate whispered to David across from where the rows were
numbered.

David stared at Nate and responded to his question with a weak shrug of his bony
shoulders. Though he was only in the gymnasium less than ten minutes, David felt
as if he had been here an hour. Mr. Moore could tell there was great confusion over
his instructions. He was not about to let a juicy moment like this pass. His booming
voice echoed throughout the gym once again.
,
“For those who do not understand what you were told to do it might be
time to use Q-Tips. Yes, I think you might want to clean out your waxy ears. The
gym teacher continued, You have thirty seconds to get in rows. We’re not in
Kindergarten anymore.”

“Of course a few of you act like you are,” Mr. Moore rambled on in his usual
insulting manner.

Ralph said in a low voice, “I wish I was,” but luckily for him Mr. Moore did not
hear him. Or maybe he did but the teacher ignored the boy so he could continue
to insult the students.? Maybe Ralph would find out later.

However Mr. “Boss Man” as the children liked to call him-behind his back of
course-kept going.

For good measure, the control freak of a teacher said in a lower voice that could
have easily been a whisper in the hushed gym, “As a matter of fact you know
what? I’ll give you sixty seconds to get into the correct rows. If you can’t follow
simple directions then its thirty minutes detention after school. I’m using my
stopwatch. Now go!”


David Is Short

“Saved By A Fire ?”
Chapter 2

(EXCLUDE the “What does that mean” comments from the 2 students beginning this Chap? Include Juan and Linda collision as part of Chapter 3?


Suddenly the ear splitting, high pitched sounds of the fire alarm started beeping. They reverberated through the large room, and out in the halls and were nearly deafening.
The combination of the loud steady rapid beeps and flickering bright white lights added a surreal feel within the walls of the gymnasium. They only caused chaos if there was a real fire, which would create panic more than anything else.

Yet the bottom line was that this was a real live fire drill. An actual fire alarm was going off no doubt bringing joy to even the most ‘gym loving’ students, some currently running around in semi-circles.

The children needed to evacuate the building immediately. There would be not be 28 fifth graders running to find their assigned spots, and therefore satisfy Mr. Moore’s unrealistic demands on this day.
David, figuring that this drill would seriously cut into the gym period, shouted out,
“Yeay, no gym today!” His high pitched comment was barely heard above the commotion of children running to get into their respective, “Girls” and “Boys” lines in preparation to leave the gymnasium.
Mr. Moore’s ears perked up like a caterpillar’s antennae. “A fire drill? No way!”
the controlling teacher thought to himself. He quickly switched gears. The last time there had been a fire drill, Mr. Moore had been coldly chided by the Principal that it wasn’t a “matter of having the straightest lines,” in her school, but exiting the building as “fast as humanly possible.”
Mr. Moore was always into appearances. He had spent an inordinate amount of time trying to have ruler edge lines, before getting the children out of the building as fast as possible, which should have been the priority. He wanted to show everyone that he was the #1 disciplinarian. In doing so, the gym teacher’s students were the last to go outside the week before. This miscue was clearly witnessed by the principal, Miss Wilcox.
“Not this time!” Mr. Moore thought to himself.
“Okay, girls, boys line-up now and fast,” the teacher shouted from his bullhorn, above the cacophony of steadily screeching beeps ringing all around him.
David started to get visions of hot orange tongues of fire sweeping through the school, especially leaving black cinders of those menacing hemp ropes. School would have to be canceled for a long time. David pondered, What if?

*********** OR include section below "Juan and Linda" as a beginning to Chapter 2 instead? Omit entirely Fire Drill premise or use it in connection to another chapter?


Juan and Linda certainly did not want to stay after school. Detention meant sitting on the floor and being told to read. Mr. Moore would yell, “Read a book any book or just shut your trap and stare, but not a word, understand!”

During the last uncalled for detention, the gym teacher would bounce a basketball ten times before making his shot. Mr. Moore thought he was impressing his “captives” while they were held after school. He’d shoot twenty times or more hitting his target maybe six if he was lucky. Juan would think to himself, He’s no LeBron James.

Juan and Linda raced to get to row 2 and figure out their spot. At least they’d show Mr. Moore that there was a serious effort being made..
As they ran toward the row Juan did not look up fast enough, and he smashed right into Linda head-to-head.

They bounced off of each other’s foreheads and crashed down to the floor. Luckily each child did not feel the impact too strongly or maybe they were too stunned to realize how powerfully their heads smashed into one another. . The embarrassed children both tried to get up quickly.
Linda shouted “Can’t you watch where you’re going!”
Juan answered back, “Don’t blame me. I know where my spot is.”

Linda laughed and said, “Yeah on the cot in Pre-K.”
Juan shot back, “Whatever!”
Linda always was too quick with a comeback for Juan even if her comments didn’t seem to make much sense, they made lots of the classmates crackup.

The two children first put their fingers up to their forehead to search for wetness. There was no blood. But the skin was not broken, maybe big bumps for later.
Almost instantly Linda and Juan quickly glanced around to see how many people noticed the collision.

Who would notice when so many fifth graders were running around like chickens with their heads chopped off trying to find their supposed place in line?
Surprisingly, there were very few even paying attention. Perhaps the other children were afraid that Mr. Moore would accuse them of being nosey or tell the students that they should not, “laugh at others because it can happen to you someday, maybe tomorrow.”
“Who cared anyway,” thought Linda. There were five minutes left before Phys Ed ended.

“I can have detention and tell my mother to walk her own beagle,” Linda figured.
Suddenly she heard Juan’s high pitched voice, “Hey day dreamer, didn’t you hear?”
Mr. Moore said since we are all so slow then we’d better call our parents to tell them we’d be late.
“CALL NOW!” Juan shouted just to make sure Linda with the pounding headache would notice him.
“You know you are real annoying. He said no such thing!” Linda yelled back. She was actually unsure if Mr. Moore told them to call their parents or not.
Juan replied, “But at least I don’t fall into dizzy la la land. Are you sure you’re alright Linda? Maybe you should go to the nurse and search for your brain.”

“Very funny,” Linda answered. “Just get away from me before your clumsy ass self falls down again and kisses the floor.”
Good one! Linda proudly thought to herself

Mr. Moore was suddenly standing right in front of the two arguing children. “Well I see you two are feeling just fine,” the gym teacher said in a sarcastic voice.
Obviously Mr. Moore had witnessed the collision.

The teacher continued: “It’s a fine thing too,” because I thought we would have to wheel you over to the lines where the whole class is waiting. Let’s go!”
Juan and Linda quickly walked over to the line up area, where miraculously the children had placed themselves in lines.

All Linda kept thinking was how red her face was. Whatever!