Reapers Never Smile
By Stephanie J. Prochaska
Copyright 2012 Stephanie J. Prochaska
Chapter 1
Senior year of high school was supposed to be the best year of my life. I was supposed to hang out with Steve and Marcus. We were going to be the best three on the varsity basketball team – we were going to be kings of the school. Instead, my parents decided it’d be the perfect time to move 2,473 miles across the country. Dad got a new job, and there was no way he could put it off – not even for the year it would take for me to graduate with my friends.
My parents said it’d be great – a chance to try something new. I definitely had my doubts, but I decided to try and be optimistic about the whole thing. Sure I didn’t know a single person in this state, but I’d made friends before. I had a ton of friends at my old school, and I was sure I could do it again. That wasn’t really the problem. The problem was I shouldn’t have to make all new friends. I’d spent three years at my school, and I deserved to have my fourth year there too. I’d put up with all the jokes that get played on freshmen, like being told the class had been moved to room 117 – a number that didn’t actually exist, even though there was a room 116 and 118 – or told that certain teachers liked papers hand written instead of typed, or that it was ok to get up and go to your locker real quick without asking. Not that I was planning on pulling these same things on the incoming freshmen myself, but at least at my old school I knew the kinds of tricks that people pulled. Now, I was going to be a senior at a new school, which meant I’d be able to be tricked by the same things that the freshmen were! All the good things about sticking with the same school for those three years were about to be washed down the drain.
I never would have thought it’d be hard to make friends; I’d always gotten along pretty well with everyone at my old school. So when I moved, I’d been hoping I’d be able to talk to a few people and at least have a couple of acquaintances by the end of the week. So far, it wasn’t looking like that’s the way it was going to go. I talked to people here and tried to get to know the kids in my class, but these kids had already known each other for years. Some of them had been friends all their lives, and it seemed like they were all pretty happy with the friends they already had.
At least I got to start school on the first day just like everybody else. It was bad enough that I would be going to a new school as a senior, but it’d have been even worse if I had to start in the middle of the year.
I walked aimlessly down the halls. I was trying to find my first class, but I wasn’t looking particularly hard. I figured the first week or so I’d have basically a free pass to be late to any class. All I’d have to do was tell them I’m new and I got lost, right?
I wandered into my first class with the rest of the students. Chemistry. I sat towards the back next to one of those kids who was obviously built to play football. A few minutes later, a tall blonde girl sat next to me. As much as I hated to admit it, I started to feel better about this school. She was pretty cute. And if she was already sitting next to me, how hard would it be to start up a conversation with her? Nervously, I leaned over and gave her my best smile.
“Hi. I’m James.”
“I’m Karen.” she smiled back at me, and I was glad I was already sitting down.
“I just moved here.” I told her, even though I was pretty sure she knew.
“Oh, really? Well, it’s nice to meet you.” She smiled at me again. I sat there a second, trying desperately to think of something to say. But before I could come up with anything really clever, a hand came down on her desk and she turned away.
The hand belonged to a tall, thick guy with close cut hair. As soon as Karen saw him, she got right up out of her seat and gave him a hug. They talked for a while, and my shoulders started to slump. Well, there was always the chance that she was just friends with the guy.
The teacher came into the room, and the guy finally took a seat. He’d been talking to Karen so long almost every other seat in class had been taken, and he had to head back up to the front. Now that he was sitting far away, maybe I’d be able to talk to her again later, without him around.
“Good morning, everyone.” our teacher said, looking around the room. He was a tall, thin man with greying hair that for some strange reason he’d decided to spike. “Most of you I know, but there’s a few faces out there that I don’t recognize. So, for those of you who don’t know me, my name’s Mr. Ingersol.”
Mr. Ingersol turned around for a second, and came back with a huge stack of papers, separated into two sections. He walked over to the far corner of the room and passed the first section to the girl sitting in that desk. As he crossed the room, he continued talking. “I’m passing out my grading policy, and an overview of the course.” He paused when he got to the other side of the room and handed the second half of his stack to a kid I couldn’t see. He continued talking about how the class was going to run this year and the things we were going to cover – periodic table, measurements and calculations, atomic theory. I was only half listening; the lecture was basically the same in every class, every year. And since he was already passing out a syllabus that would say exactly what he was telling us, what was the point? The atomic thing did sound pretty cool, though. I tried to pay attention to see if he’d talk about that any more, but by the time I’d decided to actually bother listening he’d already moved on to the end of his speech. “So, as long as everybody’s clear on the rules, I think we’ll have a good year. Now, does anybody have any questions?”
……
The rest of my day went by pretty quickly. It turned out that Karen was in two more of my classes, which worked out pretty nicely as far as I was concerned. She said hi to a few more people in each class, but not to me. Somehow, I’d managed to pick seats in both of those classes that were on the opposite side of the room from where she sat. I’d hoped she would recognize me even though I wasn’t sitting anywhere near her, but she didn’t really get the chance. I knew she was pretty, but it was turning out that she was also really popular too. Every time I glanced her way, she was talking to someone new.
I tried to come up with an excuse to talk to her, but sitting on the other side of the room made it really difficult to get a conversation going. For the first time in my life, I actually considered pretending I needed to sharpen my pencil to go to the other side of the room. It was so cheesy, I was actually embarrassed that the thought had even occurred to me. Besides, I’d already checked out the pencil sharpener, and it wasn’t that close to her. I wanted her to notice me, but if I walked across the room staring at her the whole time, I was pretty sure any reaction I got would be a negative.
Over the next two days, I tried to get Karen’s attention, especially in chemistry; I sat too far away in econ and math to worry about talking to her much then. So the pressure was on in chemistry. Too bad I seemed to always walk in the door just before the teacher did. By the time I’d thought of something to say, class was already starting.
My schedule said I had “Lunch 3”, so I was surprised to see Karen sitting in the cafeteria with her friends. I hadn’t noticed her on either of my first two days, and I’d figured she had either first or second lunch. Besides, already having three classes with her seemed like such great odds, I hadn’t expected to have any other periods with her. I decided to go over to her and see if I could sit with them. So far, I didn’t really have anyone to sit with, and this seemed like a good opportunity to squeeze into her group. But first, I had to get my own lunch. I’d spotted them while I was already stuck in line, and there was no point in going over to sit with them before coming all the way back here. So I waited. The line moved so slow, I could hardly stand it. I watched as the seats at her table slowly filled up
. By the time I got out of the line not only was her table full, but so were the tables next to hers. The only place I could see to sit was on the far end of the cafeteria, furthest away from the doors.
Feeling somewhat dejected, I slowly made my way to the only open table I saw. The cafeteria bordered the gym, and this far back, there wasn’t much light coming from the windows at the front of the building. The light overhead was dim, like it was going to give up at any minute. The only kids at the table with me so far were sitting a few chairs away, and looked like they were all freshmen. I stared down at my canned green beans and ham sandwich and realized that this was going to be a long year.
Chapter 2
I got home from school, made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and slumped into the nearest chair. It had been a week and a half since I’d started going to this school, and so far I could honestly say that this whole “new experiences” thing was a terrible idea. I still didn’t know anyone any better than I did on the first day, and it was getting pretty sad sitting next to those freshmen at lunch all the time.
My mom walked in and saw me sulking. I tried to cheer up a bit, just so I wouldn’t have to talk about what was wrong, but it didn’t work.
“How was school today?” she asked.
“Horrible.” I’d meant to say something else, like “not bad”, but the word just came out before I could stop it.
“Oh, honey, I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”
“It really was though.” I told her. No point in backing away from it now.
“You just need to be more positive.” I knew she was trying to be helpful, but it wasn’t working. How could she possibly know how bad school was? If she really thought that a good outlook was all it would take to make this school even somewhat ok, then I really wasn’t sure what else I could tell her. I sighed inwardly.
“I’ll try.” I told her. And silently added “even though it won’t help.”
“That’s the spirit! I know you can do it.” She stood up from the table, convinced she’d just had a successful pep talk with me. Whatever. “Oh, you remember that my schedule changes tomorrow, right?”
“Really?” I asked. “On a Thursday?”
“Tomorrow’s the first. So for the next four months, I won’t be home when you get here.”
“So what time will you be home?”
“Not until eight or nine.”
“Ok.” It’s not that I didn’t care. I just wasn’t in the mood to talk to her about it. Normally, I liked coming home and having her there. She didn’t really understand what was going on in my life, but at least she was around. Now, I was going to have to go to that boring school and come home to an empty house. Figures.
Chapter 3
Over the next few days, I sat next to Karen in chemistry in near silence. I tried to work up the nerve to talk to her, but it was a lot harder than I thought it’d be. I’d managed to say hi, sure, but every time I felt like things were going good, someone would come up and interrupt us. The good news was that it was at least a different person each time. But it was still discouraging. How was I supposed to get to know Karen if I never got a chance to talk to her? And how was she supposed to remember me? The more our conversations got cut short, the harder it was for me to start one up the next day. I hated to admit it, but I was starting to give up hope of making friends at this school. Maybe I was so out of practice that I’d forgotten how to get people to like me. Could that really be what happened? So far, the only friend I’d manage to make was a gangly kid named Derek Porter.
Derek was in my P.E. class. He’d been easy to spot, and I’d made a mental note to stay away from him. He just seemed… different. He was a little too skinny, a little too eager, a little too loud. He was the kind of kid that didn’t have a lot of friends. Other people tolerated him, but he was obviously someone that was best in low doses.
We were picking teams for a game of forced baseball. I knew I wasn’t popular enough to be picked first, but I’d played sports for years. I looked athletic enough that I should be at least comfortably in the middle, if not sooner. As the first couple of guys were picked, I nodded to myself. I’d expected that, after all. A few picks later and nearly every normal-looking guy had been put onto a team; I knew I my turn was coming. As the girls started getting picked over me, I got a little nervous. I didn’t have anything against girls or anything – a lot of them are really good at sports. I knew a couple girls at my old school who were way better than most of the guys. It’s just that I knew how these line-up-and-pick-people-for-teams things work. As good as the girls might be, they just didn’t tend to get picked first.
Soon it was down to me, that skinny kid Derek, three girls who looked like maybe they’d never seen a baseball bat in person before, and a kid I was pretty sure I’d just seen picking his nose. Oh, come on! How was I still waiting for a team next to these kids? Sure, no one here had seen whether or not I had any skill, but did I really look like I belonged with this crowd?
I was picked next, and while I was relieved, I couldn’t help but be annoyed at the same time. I sighed. At least I beat the nose-picker. Derek was picked last; I couldn’t say I was surprised. He didn’t seem surprised either.
Derek’s team started up at bat, and my team headed to the outfield. I ended up in center field, which was ok, I guess. I’d wanted to be a little closer to the action, but it looked like that would have to wait until next time. Maybe I’d get lucky and someone would hit a ball to me, but I tried not to get my hopes up too much. I put my glove on and settled in for a 50 minute period of watching seagulls land on the roof of the building across the field.
For the most part I was right. No one hit the ball in my direction, and the only time I really got to do anything was when I was up at bat. Every time I’d been up, I’d at least managed to hit the ball. I got a triple, a double, and once I almost got a homerun. I was starting to feel pretty good. And I could tell my teammates were happy enough with me that I wouldn’t be that far down in the team-picking list next time. Maybe I’d even get to play infield.
We had about ten minutes left the last time I came up to bat. A stocky boy threw the pitch at me, and I swung. I connected easily, and out of the corner of my eye I could see the ball fly into the air as I sped off towards first base. I made it to second easily, and as I turned and headed for third, I saw why the other team hadn’t been putting much effort into it. Derek had been stuck in the outfield like me. Unlike me, Derek was less than athletic. When the ball had flown up into the air, Derek had tried to catch it. Maybe there was a glare off his glasses or something, because he failed miserably. As I rounded second, I saw him sitting on the ground, the ball nestled in the grass beside him. His hands were covering most of his face, and I could see thin lines of red seeping out from between his fingers.
For a split second, I thought about running past him and trying for a homerun. As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I knew what a terrible idea it was. I’d basically just hit a baseball at full force into this kid’s face; I had to see if he was alright. I heard someone shouting at me from the dugout to run home, but I ignored them with a wave of my hand. I trotted over to Derek and knelt down beside him.
“Hey, kid, you alright?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He put on a brave face, but I could see he was trying hard to hold back the tears. For some reason, none of Derek’s teammates had come over; maybe they just didn’t know how bad it was. Or maybe they’d grown used to it from Derek by now. I looked over at the shortstop, who was the closest person around. It was the nose picker.
“I’m going to take him to the nurse’s.” I told him. “Go tell Mr. Jeffries, ok?”
Nose Picker nodded and scampered off to find our teacher. I helped Derek up to his feet and together we headed down to the office.
As we started off, I turned around and screamed over to my team that Derek was hurt pretty bad; I didn’t want to just leave the game without letting them know there was a good reas
on. I caught the look on Derek’s face and realized that by screaming about how badly he’d failed to catch a ball I’d accidently embarrassed him even more.
“Sorry.” I mumbled.
“It’s ok.” he said. “I’m pretty sure they won’t think any less of me because of it.” Suddenly, I felt even worse.
Derek had hurt himself pretty good, and there was a lot of blood. But it wasn’t really as serious as I’d made it sound. Maybe it was just my way of justifying leaving; even though I knew there was really only one choice, part of me still felt like I was abandoning my team. I figured if I made it sound like Derek’s head had almost been knocked clean off, my teammates would be more understanding.
We walked in silence for a few minutes, Derek sniffling quietly, his hand still over his nose. I decided to talk to him to try to get his mind off it a bit.
“So, what’s your name?” I asked. I was 90% sure his name was Derek, but since I’d never met him, I wanted to be sure before I started calling him the wrong name. Besides, it was the only thing I could think of off the top of my head; I wasn’t really good with making conversation on the fly.
“I’m Derek.” he said from behind his hand. “You?”
“James.” I told him.
“Nice to meet you.”
“Same here.” I said absently. “Sorry I hit you in the face.”
“It’s ok. I almost had it – it just slipped off the tip of my glove at the last minute.”
No it didn’t. If he’d been even somewhat close to blocking that ball with anything other than his face, he wouldn’t be nearly that bloody. I was willing to bet his glove was nowhere near the ball – probably down by his side – but I sure wasn’t going to tell him that. He was feeling bad enough as it was; why make him feel worse?
We made small talk for the next few minutes, and I discovered that Derek was not only not fond of baseball, he didn’t like any sports at all. It wasn’t exactly shocking; he didn’t really strike me as the sports type. Especially since in just the few minutes we’d been walking to the office I’d watched him nearly fall off a curb, walk into a wall, and almost trip over his own sneakers.