Money, an example:
If everyone who's ever been to my blog invested $5 into my paypal account, I would have absolutely no chance of affording the yacht above. (Yes, that's exactly how I meant to phrase that.)
In case you're wondering, that is the Mirabella V, the Tallest Single Masted sailing vessel in the world and she's presently moored in San Diego. I get to ooh and ahh at her regularly, though I've never quite seen her sail. I've seen her from my boat, which may pail in comparison, but, the boat I play on is cooler...So what if the boat I'm on doesn't have six suites, span 242 feet, cost 55 million dollars to build, or stretch 290 feet straight up into the heavens?????
This is the photo I caught of the Mirabella:
But I don't need a climbing harness to touch top of the boat I play on...so there.
Alright, enough of my my sharing random facts - on to the show! Op, there I go again, story! If you're new to the Weekly Read, WELCOME! You may want to back up a few posts to start at the begining. Click on The Place Between on February 25th, 2015 to see the start of this Tteen edition of the Weekly Read!
For the regulars, here we go!
The Place Between: Part 8
A silver six foot pole dropped to the floor, slamming upon the cold concrete ground with a harsh, resounding crack. The ringing of the pole's reverberating snap vibrated throughout the classroom where the students now clutched to their ears.
"There now," the silver haired biology and shop teacher said to his pupils. "That got ya to shut your yaps."
Cassie and her friends had foreseen the dropping of the pole a mere second before the fateful sound. This was their teacher's least preferred method for silencing the chatterbox students of his classroom, but after eighteen years of teaching, there was just no other way. Cassie and her bunch did not mind - it got the popular kids to shut up, after all.
"Now, while your ears readjust to the beautimous ringing of the world around you," the teacher started with a satisfied smile on his face. Most of the students were grimacing still. "Let's get our stuff together here. Now, we were going to go over the test that most of you did abysmally rotten on, but the principal has seen fit to let people from the district take over my class today."
"Why?" one of the front row people asked. The front row people really wanted to be in this advanced biology class, the second row people (where Cassie, Chelsea and Mike) sat, was the average students and the third row, that was reserved for the kids who believed they were above it all. Life would teach them differently soon enough, but for now, they were on top of the four year mountain.
Mr. Pryer shook his heads above his hands, his nine and a half fingers demonstrating his frustration. "I don't know, I guess they got a grant to restore an older part of town, so they're hoping to use your young minds to do their dirty work, something like that." Mr. Pryer was gruff, and he rarely washed his hair, but he told it straight and that was something his students always appreciated. (Even when he dropped metal pipes onto the ground.) "Hopefully these guys'll show and you all will get to leaarn about pesticides, rather than us review mitochondria."
Leaning to Chelsea and Cassie, Mike whispered, "Isn't that pretty much ninety-nine precent of most of our lives anyway?"
Chelsea scoffed, but she was barely paying any attention. She was watching Cassie who was not paying attention at all. She had her box of pastel pencils out and was doodling away in her smaller sketch book. Sketching was how Cassie drew herself away from any stress that bothered her. The tip that she had received from the librarian and the books given to her were on the farthest back burners of Cassie's mind.
She had seen them. On her Sunday night visit to the Place Between, she had finally seen the long eyed creatures that had been watching her from the beginning. They were not scary or the least bit intimidating. They were odd, there was no doubt about that, but they were alright. Edgar told her that they were known as "Rooties" because they ate the roots of weeds. They looked a bit like potatoes to Cassie, but she would never share that with the creatures that at last welcomed her by extending to her gifts of cleaned roots. Cassie had yet to eat those, but they looked lovely in the San Diego Zoo cup she erected them within. They added a nice, earthy touch to her room.
"What are those, Cass?" Chelsea asked, pointing to the unusual image that her best friend was working on.
Cassie leaned back and tried to think of a way to make up a story about the scene of the rootie at the entrance of the tunnel that lead into the heart of the secret place.
Leaning in his head awkwardly, Mike considered the sketching for a moment then said, "It looks like a walking, radioactive piece of sh-"
"Alright, guys," Mr. Pryer chimed in. The door in the back of class had opened. The people from the district were entering the room. Mr. Pryer walked to the two people that had entered to get to know their names, hoping to preserve at least some rights and control within his classroom.
Some of the teens turned to look at the incoming visitors, most pretended not to care. The subject these people were bringing in was not going to be on any of their upcoming tests, so there was no point to paying attention.
Cassie and her friends were among the latter portion of those teens. They giggled and laughed among themselves as Cass explained that the brown creature in her drawing as something she had seen in a dream.
The conversation at the back of class left Mr. Pryer huffed. He did not care for these people who were pushing their way into his classroom and taking over his lesson.
"Alright, alright, kiddies," Mr. Pryer slapped his hands together and walked to the front of the class with the two district people. "This is Eddie and Angela, they going to tell you folks all about this district project. Give 'em your respect, and don't make me look bad. I'm going to go find coffee and sanity in the break room and be back in a few." Mr. Pryor's bluntness never failed to impress his students, even the ones who could care less.
The district people were not impressed, but their ear to ear smiles that instantly creeped out the class hid the distaste for their host.
"Hi guys!" Angela started brightly. Already the majority of the class was waning in enthusiasm for skipping out on mitochondria. The tall, thin blond before them clearly was overcompensating her own lack of enthusiasm with an over abundance of cheer. "Eddie and I are here to tell you all about an epic opportunity that awaits you!"
The curly haired Eddie's feigned enthusiasm was even less appealing than Angela's. "Alright guys, now show us with a raise of hands how many of you have ever been on a farm before?"
The class of students stared blankly at their teachers for the day.
"You've got to be kidding, right?" one of the more popular boys in the class asked. His question was not to bring attention to himself, but to shed light to the fact that everyone in this room had without fail more than meagre experience on farms.
"Of course not!" Angela dismissed the qualm with a wave of her hand. Looking around the room, she asked, "Anybody?"
No one moved and certainly none raised their hands.
"Okay, then," Eddie moved awkwardly on to the next question. He was clearly disapointed in the lack of enthusiasm and engagement from the teens. "Tell us then, how many of you are planning to go to college to make sure that your farm or ranch becomes the best darn one this golden state has seen?"
Silence and stillness once more met the pair.
After the longest, heaviest minute in the classroom passed, a student in the first row raised her hand, but mostly becuase she pitied the pair in front of them.
The two began to ramble off a few questions to this poor fool who raised her hand.
Mike slid his notebook to Cassie and Chelsea so that they could see the note his pencil scratched in its messy pages for them:
The girls chuckled as discretely as they could. Chelsea wrote a note at the top of her neat page and shoving it over Mike's note, wrote in black ink:
All three teens chuckled, but their moment of laughter was abruptly interrupted.
"Do you think this is funny?" Eddie who plainly did not have a sense of humor stopped everything to point out the three teens.
Mike, Chelsea and Cassie sunk a little in their seats even though indeed they did think this was laughable.
"Huh?" Eddie walked around the front row to stand beside the table where the three sat. "Silence is not an answer." He snatched awaay the notebooks of Mike and Chelsea.
"Hey, man!" Mike shouted.
"Those are our class notes!" Chelsea argued, pointing to the batch of pages in this weird guy's hands that she had worked so hard to keep neat and organized.
"Perhaps you should have thought of that before you disrespected us," Eddie said. He scanned every inch of the pages in front of him. All the students found this a bit more than unnecessary. Even though his eyes clearly saw the two sentences that made the teens giggle, his eyes kept scanning. "We'll just have to take these with us to inspect to make sure you're not causing any more troubles than necessary,
"Hey!" Cassie started up, her friends were beside themselves with anger to say anything yet. "We're students here - we kinda need our notes."
"Would you like to turn yours in too?" Angela sharply asked of Chelsea. The bright smiles and fake facades were gone.
Everyone in class doubted the sanity of their district to send in creeps like these.
The popular boy in the back of class snorted then said, "You guys wanna like, tell us why you're here? Or you just going to harass us?"
"That's it!" Angela yelled, "You, young man, can go to the principle!" She pointed her hand at him like a deity would when disgracing an angel.
Standing up and collecting his things, the popular boy, "That's fine with me - beats the hell out of the hell in here."
Clapping his hands together, Eddie tried to redirect the class. He looked slightly manic when he did so. "For the rest of you, students, we are going to tell you about this opportunity: in a few days, we will be embarking upon a paid internship opportunity." All of the students wondered at what cost those precious dollars could come from working with these two. "We are a part of a historical restoration project here in town for a little area that has long been neglected. It was supposed to be a local and tourist destination, but a nasty little moth took over the area, stopping progress of restoration dead. It's taken years and years, but we finally got approval from the big guys to clear out the area of the moths using a harmless sodium product. Now, we're going to need your help!" Eddie made it sound as if they were recruiting for a fun outdoor adventure and not the genocide against a bug. Cassie wondered how many of the students in class were considering helping this creep.
"How are we supposed to help you kill the bugs?" a guy in the second row asked.
"No, no," Angela and Eddie answered as if disgusted by the thought. Angela explained, "The sodium mixture is kind of like a really strong smelling cologne, so it just chases them off, but we need help. It is a really big area and we need about ten of you to help us. But there are some requirements. Ed?"
Nodding enthusiastically once more, Eddie continued, "That's right; we're going to need signed consent forms from you, along with verification that you are over 18."
"Why?" a boy in the front row asked.
"Because," Angela's answer made every other soul in the room appear to be far beneath them. "We'll be working with chemicals, so we need to make sure that you are fully aware of the hazards, but you will be wearing complete protective gear and the chemicals that we will be using are completely harmless anyway. It's just a general precaution as we'll be doing some real, hands on science that will prepare you for life after high school! Now, how cool does that sound?"
No one in the room looked a lick excited about playing with chemicals, not even the odd kid in the front row who had a recurring habbit of burning whatever items were available whenever the bunson burners were lit.
Cassie and her friends were still fairly upset for the scene that Eddie and Angela caused for them. The trio were too busy hatching plans for getting those notes back when one of the front row kids asked, "What area of town will y'all be spraying down or whatever, anyway?"
With a great big smile on his face, Eddie shared, "Oh, you guys have probably driven by it a million times! Some of you have probably even been there!" He sent a leary eye at Chelsea and Mike - the trouble makers. The glare creeped out all that saw it.
Missing the look completely, Angela finished, "It's the old cattle ranch down the road, the one that's been abandoned for years!"
Without hesitation, Cassie immediately thought, "Oh no. Are these the people Martin and President Andrea warned me about?"
Sweeping his creeping eyes across the room, analyzing every single expression, Eddie said, "As soon as we have enough qualified volunteers, our insecticide project will begin."
Every part of Cassie sunk. She knew that there was far more to this Eddie and Angela than met the eye. The odds of them acctually being from the district seemed impossibly thin.
~*~*~
Uh-oh? What's going to happen next??? Who were those creepers? What is this sodium mix they're going to use? And will Chelsea or Mike get their notes back? You know how to find out!
See you next week!
Your humble author,
S. Faxon
No comments:
Post a Comment