the trail and they were beautiful and smelled so good. There was one moment when I ran out in front of my parents; probably to pick a flower.
“When I turned around I saw my parents talking softly to each other. They both looked so happy. They were holding hands. My dad said something and my mom got just the biggest smile ever and leaned into him. It was almost as though she melted right into him. And then my dad put his arms around her and hugged her so tight.
“Then my dad turned and looked at me, let go of my mom, and said, “And you; get over here munchkin!”
“And I ran to him as fast as I could and jumped in his arms. He stood up and hugged me just as tight as he had to my mom. Then both he and my mom kissed me; one on each cheek at the same time.
“At that moment I knew for sure that, no matter what, my parents love me and that’s a great feeling. The sort of feeling that will make any time in your life so much better."
“That’s my happiest memory.”
Sean thought for a moment and asked, “So that moment makes you generally happy?”
“It’s not the moment itself that makes me happy; it’s the love that it displayed in my life. It’s all about your family and that real unconditional love. That’s what makes a happy person. So many people look for happiness in all the wrong places, and I think that might be your problem.”
This made Sean think. He had a family; a good family. He knew they loved him unconditionally. He had great friends. In fact, everyone liked Sean and he knew it. What was missing that made him need that poster so much? Or was Ashley absolutely right when she said he was looking for happiness in the wrong places.
The next day he was back to business. His “Locker List”, as he began calling it, was growing very quickly. In the two days since his poster had been taken from him, Reid had been to the scene of the crime fourteen times, Ashley had stopped to say hi seven times, Marcus had been there nine times, Brent had been there five times; two of those were with Julie, and Matt, a freshman who wanted to be included in the “crew” as he put it, had been there thrice. Sean was disappointed that he hadn’t received any video tapes from the Taliban with footage of his poster. As terrible as it would be, it would still be pretty kick ass!
He looked down the hall and saw Marcus walking towards him. “Hey dude.” Sean greeted.
“Hey” Marcus said “Did you watch Conan O’Brien last night?”
“No, I missed it.”
“Sucks! Blink was on. They played “Stay Together For The Kids”. It was awesome.”
“Did you tape it?”
“No. I didn’t know they were going to be on so I didn’t have a tape ready.”
“Snap!” Sean cursed.
“Sorry.”
“It’s ok. Did you go see a movie last night?”
“No, Reid wanted to see “Harry Potter” but I’d rather go to “Donnie Darko” so I just stayed home. What did you do last night?”
“Not much. I went to Loon Lake Park with Ashley, then I went home.”
“Reid said you were busy investigating the poster disappearance.”
“I was going to but then Ashley asked if I wanted to hang out. So, I did that instead.”
“Interesting” Marcus said, “I’m gonna go to English.”
"Alright, dude. Peace out.”
As Marcus went on his way to English, Sean made a tenth mark next to his name and closed his notebook. He didn’t think Marcus took the poster, but he had to be thorough with his investigation or his investigation would mean nothing. He had to be honest with himself and that meant that he had to admit that he was a little on the discouraged side. He knew that with every hour that went by, his poster was getting further and further from him, and the chances he’d find it were lessening. He had to start acting instead of watching.
At lunch he ate a super slice of pizza. It was a triangle slice of pizza, but it was about twice as long as your usual slice of pizza. Sean sat down at a table of kids he knew just a little. They all liked him a lot though. Sean was pretty sure that everyone liked him a lot. He sat between Felipe and Matt the freshman.
“Sean!” Felipe said
Sean knew that when he answered Felipe, he would just say, “Shut up, Sean!” and so he ignored Felipe.
“Sean!” Felipe repeated. Sean took a bite of his pizza.
“Sean! Sean! Sean! Sean!” Felipe wasn’t going to give up.
“What, Felipe!” Sean finally gave in. Felipe knew he would.
“Shut up, Sean!”
Sean sighed and dropped his head in defeat. He took another bite of his food, chewed it, swallowed it, and said, “Why do you do so many drugs, Felipe?”
“Sean! I told you, I’ve been clean for two years!”
“What’s with the paper above your locker that says “BRING IT BACK” on it?”
Sean didn’t know the kid who asked the question, but he didn’t let on and answered, “I had a Britney Spears poster above my locker and someone stole it.”
“That was you?” the kid asked. “I heard about it, but I didn’t know it was your poster.”
“Where did you hear about it?”
“I was at Reid’s house yesterday and he was talking to his mom about it.”
“Reid, huh?” Sean got up and left without finishing his lunch. He was hungry, but there was work to be done.
Sean started walking towards his locker; he wanted to run, but Mr. Dahline was standing right there watching him. He had been paying a lot of attention to where Mr. Dahline was ever since the coffee incident. It hurt and he didn’t need hot coffee on him anymore.
Turning the corner, Sean started running and didn’t stop until he arrived at his locker. Sean was going to wait there until Reid showed up. He didn’t know what he was going to say to Reid, but he knew he had to act. He also realized that he should have gotten more information from that kid, like how the poster came up in conversation, or was it on his wall, but he didn’t think of that. He probably had time to go back and get that information, but he was so tired from running that he really didn’t want to think about going back and doing it all over again.
Sean sat by his locker in solitude and silence with nothing but his thoughts to keep him company. If he only had his poster, this moment would have been perfect. Sean treasured time alone to think. He liked his own company a lot, although even he would admit that he would get sick of seeing only himself after a while, but these brief moments were pure bliss.
He let his mind drift as though he were laying carelessly on a grassy hill on a beautiful summer day. It drifted to the afternoon before and he thought about his date with Ashley. “Was it a date? It had to be a date. What else would you call it?” Sean was pretty sure that she liked him. He was even more sure that she thought he was the cutest thing in the world. He couldn’t help but think about what she had said to him about happiness. Sean had always considered himself a bit of a loner, but just maybe she was right about that. Maybe he was looking for happiness in the wrong places.
Before he knew it the hallway was once again full of students and Brent was standing at his locker.
“Hey, Sean, how’s the list going?” Brent asked.
“Well, so far Reid’s been here the most, and like ‘they’ say, ‘the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime.’” Sean thought for a moment and said, “Wait, how do you know about the list?”
“You’re not very sneaky. Everyone knows about the list. Hey, Reid was wondering who ‘they’ are, and I was like, ‘I don’t know’.”
Sean frowned, “I thought about that, too. To tell you the truth, I really don’t know who ‘they’ are either. I guess ‘they’ are just 'they’. It would be cool if ‘they’ did my homework; ‘they’ seem really smart.
The two started watching people walk as they walked by. “I wonder if some of them are ‘they’.” Sean wondered aloud.
“Yeah” Brent answered, “I bet at least one of them is ‘they’.”
About thirty seconds passed and
Brent said, “Well, I should go to Julie’s locker.”
“Alright, buddy. I’ll see you in a few minutes at Creative Writing.”
“Peace.” Brent said while walking away.
“Millennium Peace” Sean said while flashing a Millennium peace sign by holding up his middle and ring fingers. It was a fad Sean was trying to start. Although it would never catch on and topple the popularity of the conventional peace sign, he would never stop trying.
As Brent disappeared into the crowd, Sean made a small tally mark next to Brent’s name on the list. “It’s only fair” he thought to himself as he completed recording the visit. Putting the list away, he looked up and down the hall realizing that he was bored. He scratched his head, yawned and started walking towards class.
He wasn’t sure what he was doing; only that he had been hanging out at his locker for far too long. Turning into the doorway to Mr. Moon’s classroom early seemed so foreign to Sean. There were a few kids sitting around talking about “South Park”. Mr. Moon looked up from this desk at Sean and immediately took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, slapped his face softly, put his glasses back on and said “My glasses must be broken.”
“Why?” Brent