asked.
“Sean Donner just walked into class” Mr. Moon looked at is watch, “three minutes early. I don’t think he’s ever been on time, let alone early.”
“I’m full of surprises” Sean admitted while walking to his desk in the back corner next to Brent.
“What are you doing here so early?” Brent asked when Sean sat down.
“I don’t know I just decided I was bored of standing by my locker watching people walk by.”
“That makes sense.”
Sean sat quietly for a few seconds and asked, “Have you been to Reid’s house lately?”
“No, he keeps making excuses anytime I ask if he wants to hang out.”
“I think he has my poster.”
“Yeah, I was talking about that to Julie last night and we decided that most likely he took it. We talked about all the people around here and the Taliban and decided that Reid took it.”
“Why not the Taliban?”
“Sean” Brent said as caring as he could “we decided mostly that it’s stupid.”
“Oh, that.” Sean had heard that it was stupid and if he was going to be honest with himself he also thought it was stupid , but he couldn’t ever let anyone know.
During class, Mr. Moon talked about haiku’s and assigned the class to write a haiku. Sean thought about what he should write. The more he thought about haikus, the more he hated them. His hate became pretty severe considering he didn’t like them to begin with. Then Sean saw the light of inspiration and started writing.
Haikus are not fun
Whoever invented them
Should eat shit and die
“Perfect” Sean said.
“What did you write?” Brent asked.
Sean handed him his paper. Almost immediately Brent started laughing uncontrollably. Hearing the laughter from the back, Mr. Moon walked to the back and picked the paper up from Sean’s desk. As the Moon walked to the front of the room, Sean could tell that he was counting. After a few seconds he started laughing.
“Sean, this is really funny! Can I read it to everyone?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
The Moon cleared this throat and began reading the haiku.
Haikus are not fun
Whoever invented them
Should eat shit and die
Most of the class laughed out loud. Sean was proud of himself for being so hilarious.
He sat through the rest of class aloof from any and everything that was going on around him. He felt almost as though he was floating above the rest of the class. He felt like that often and wasn’t sure if he was experiencing projection or if he was just so self-impressed that he didn’t notice that he wasn’t the epicenter of everything. He was brought back to the ground, and reality, when the bell rang announcing the end of class.
“Sweet haiku, dude.” Brent congratulated.
“That’s something I never thought I’d hear anyone say. You should have said it with some kind of crazy voice that you’d expect to hear come out of an art collector’s mouth.”
“Yeah” Brent said slowly, “it tasted weird coming out of my mouth.”
“I’m telling you, man” Sean answered, “the voice makes it; it’s like word ketchup.”
“Word ketchup?” Julie asked as the boys approached her locker.
“Yeah” Sean explained, “word ketchup is anything you do to make words sound better.”
“I need examples.” Julie was interested.
“Take a song, for example; most of the time the lyrics to songs sound really weird when they’re outside of the song, but when you add the melody and the music they suddenly sound awesome.”
“Okay” Julie replied, “but why catsup?”
“Woah, Julie! It’s not word catsup, it’s ketchup.”
“Okay, why ketchup? Why not ranch dressing or barbeque sauce?”
“Think about it. Word Ranch Dressing? Word Barbeque Sauce? They just sound bad. You’d need to use word ketchup just to say them. Besides that, ketchup is universally the most popular condiment!”
“That can’t be true, Sean.” Julie disagreed. “There are so many other places in the world where they don’t even know what ketchup is.”
“And in those places” Sean interrupted, “they don’t even know what words are, so what’s the difference?”
“That’s the most ignorant thing I’ve ever heard you say and I don’t know if we can continue this conversation.” Julie was semi-serious and both Sean and Brent knew it.
“It was a joke, Julie, and you know it.” Julie gave Sean a look that said, “Do I?” She and Sean watched each other in silence for a few seconds until Sean continued, “I chose ketchup because it’s frickin American! You know who hates ketchup? Terrorists.”
Julie started laughing. She knew Sean wasn’t nearly as ignorant as his statement and was also only joking with Sean. “You’re probably right. Terrorists do hate ketchup.”
At his locker, Sean was greeted by Ashley, who he hadn’t seen all day. “Hey, you.” She said.
He had his head in his locker getting his books and other supplies for Foods class. He hit his head on the locker door while turning to see who it was.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry” she bent down and kissed his forehead where he had collided with the door.
“It’s okay” Sean said, “but thanks for that.” He stood up. “I haven’t seen you today.”
“I came here before fifth hour, but you weren’t here.”
“I went to class early, which was really weird. I’m not sure how I felt about it.”
“How long has it been since that happened?” Ashley questioned.
“I don’t know. I’ve been on time recently, but never early.”
Ashley smiled. “You’re so weird.”
Sean didn’t know exactly what to say to that, so he said nothing.
“I had a lot of fun with you yesterday.”
Sean smiled. “Good.” He liked her, which was easy to do. She had long golden blonde hair, grey eyes and legs that went on for days. It was likely that he wasn’t the only guy who fell madly in like with her at first glance. But more than that, Sean liked talking to her. She was smart and funny, but mostly just really easy to talk to. What made everything better was that Sean was pretty sure she liked him, too. “We should do something like that again very soon.”
She smiled. It was the kind of smile that can’t be held back. It was a real smile. “What’s new with the poster?” Ashley asked.
“Nothing much, I have to have a serious talk with Reid; I’m almost positive that he took it.”
“Why?”
“He won’t let any of us come over anymore. He’s been really distant. Last but not at all least, he took my Christina Aguilera poster. So, he’s got a history.”
“Well, that all seems a little fishy.”
“A little indeed” Sean interrupted.
“But,” Ashley continued, “have you asked him about any of those things? There might be a very reasonable explanation for it all.”
“No.”
“Well, you should. He’s at your locker enough. Just maybe he’s distant because you treat him so mean.”
Sean didn’t say anything.
“Think about it. I have to go to class. I’ll see you next hour, okay?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Good.” Ashley turned to leave, but stopped and turned back. “Will you walk me to class next hour?”
“I guess I could do that.” Sean couldn’t help but smile.
“Pick me up at my locker, and don’t be late.”
With that Ashley turned and disappeared into the sea of people. She wasn’t happy that she had to coax Sean into making a move, but sometimes a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do.
Sean stood at his locker and thought about what had just happened to him. Ashley liked him for sure; he was ninety percent sure of it. He wasn’t watching people. He wasn’t thinking about his poster. He w
as just staring off into the crowd.
“What’s wrong?” Courtney asked
Sean didn’t answer. He wasn’t there.
“Hello, space man?” Courtney waved her hand in front of his eyes.
“What?” Sean finally noticed that someone was talking to him. Just as he realized that he was being spoken to, all the words that had been said flew into his mind as if they’d been hanging in the air waiting to be noticed.
“What’s wrong?” Courtney repeated.
“Why? Nothing. Why did you call me space man?”
“You were standing there totally spaced out like you were thinking of something heavy. Something’s either very good or very wrong so I took a gamble and went with wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong. I was just spacing out. It’s good to do sometimes.”
As Sean finished talking, one of Courtney’s friends, Sarah walked up ready to talk. “Oh my God,” she said, “I was in American Lit last hour and we were talking about American poets. Ms. Larson got an e-mail from Mr. Moon with the best haiku ever.”
“Haiku’s are Japanese.” Sean stated “Why are you learning about them in American Lit?” but no one seemed to get the joke.
Sarah stopped and looked at Sean for a few seconds and continued, “But it was so funny. Someone in his class wrote it. Let me see if I can remember it right.”
Counting on her fingers, Sarah started reciting “Haikus are stupid, Anyone who likes them, no that’s not right. Anyways it ends “eat shit and die”. It was so funny.”
Sean was happy that it brought so much happiness to the world and that the Moon liked it so much that he was emailing it around, but all those feelings of pride were out shadowed by how pissed he was that Sarah couldn’t remember how it went. It was twelve words. Why can’t you remember twelve words? He wanted to say that, but didn’t. He held all that anger in and just said, “That sounds awesome. Going to Foods.”
He wanted to take credit for his work and honestly wasn’t sure why he didn’t. Best case scenario he would have signed a bunch of autographs and would have been late for Foods. He didn’t want to be late today; they were going to make cookies. Sean was excited for cookies. He couldn’t wait to eat them just after they came out of the oven and were still warm and gooey.
“Cookie time!” He announced as he walked into the class room.
“Get to your station and get started.” Mrs. Carlson commanded. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
“That’s why I got here early!” Sean said proudly.
“Yes, thank you for giving us that much respect.”
It wasn’t a matter of respect that kept Sean from getting to class on time. He didn’t know why he was late all the time. It was just how he lived his high school life. If he learned anything about high school from eighties movies, high school was the best time of your life. It was surely the only time you had any amount of control over your life. And if life was going to suck more and more as it went on, you might as well live it up while it’s at its peak.
There was a terrible fear that came along with this way of thinking, and it bothered Sean daily. “If this is the best life will get then life after high school must be terrible, because this really sucks actually.”
“My mom says that high school is the worst part of life” his cooking partner, Jesse said.
Jesse was a nice enough kid, but he had very little personality. He spent most of his life in home school and didn’t really develop the social skills that life requires. To put it straight, Jesse was awkward, and not in a good, funny way. He was the kid that made everyone feel uncomfortable. He probably didn’t enjoy his time in high school very much. So, it made sense that his mom would tell him that it gets better, but still, Sean liked her words of wisdom, because even for a guy as cool as him, high school just kind of sucked.
There were good things about it, but in general he was pretty sure that everyone else hated it, too. What a sad thought that this would be the shining pinnacle in anyone’s life. That would mean that you have most of your life, eighty years in some cases, to sit and think about how great high school was.
“She’s probably right” Sean said as he patted Jesse on the back. “Now, let’s make some cookies.”
The two had fun with their cookie making, except the part where they had to mix the dough with a spoon. Sean was sweating and his arm hurt while he mixed. “Jesse,” he said “tell your parents to vote “Yes for Schools” next time. Tell them we need electric mixers.”
Jesse laughed. It was really funny when Jesse laughed because always had to lean on something as he convulsed. Also Jesse laughing always made Sean feel really funny, probably more so than he was, because Jesse never just laughed a little; he laughed as hard as he could anytime something struck him as funny. Most often it didn’t take much to make Jesse laugh. He was good for the old self-esteem.
“These are going to be so good.” Jesse said as he dropped the dough on the cookie sheet.
“Yeah I know. I can’t wait to eat a tasty, warm, gooey cookie.” Sean hadn’t been so excited about food since the rectangle pizza a few days earlier.
The two boys washed dishes in complete silence as they waited for the cookies to be done. The only time they said anything was when the cooking partners next to them pulled their cookies from the oven. They looked so yummy.
“I can’t wait” Jesse said.
“Right,” Sean answered, “I’m going to piss myself with anticipation.”
Jesse laughed really hard. Luckily he had put down the big glass mixing bowl just before Sean said something so hilarious or he would have dropped it. Sean was, of course, proud of his wit and laughed right a long with Jesse.
“One minute and we get delicious cookies” Sean said to Jesse.
“Who gets to open the oven and see them first?” Jesse asked.
“I’ll Rock, Paper, Scissors you for it.”
“Okay.” Jesse agreed and the two boys held out their right hand in a fist and pounded it three times on their left palm. Sean kept his hand in a fist signifying “Rock” and Jesse laid his flat to signify “Paper” and thus won the match.
“Paper covers Rock” Jesse exclaimed “I win!”
Sean accepted his defeat and sat at the table next to their assigned preparation area. Jesse sat down across from him, “I can’t wait to eat those cookies.”
“Me either. I hope they’re gooey.” Sean was salivating, but only a little.
The timer on their oven finally buzzed, announcing to everyone within ear shot that the cookies were done. Jesse leapt from his seat and ran to the oven and said “This is the moment we’ve been waiting for.”
“I can’t wait” Sean screamed “open it already!”
Jesse slowly opened the oven and peered inside. Sean couldn’t see the cookies, but he could tell from Jesse’s reaction that they weren’t as spectacular as the boys had imagined. Jesse reached into the oven and pulled out the cookie sheet. From afar the cookies looked fine. Jesse waved Sean over. Slowly he made his way towards the oven and as he approached he could see what had made Jesse so upset. The cookies didn’t spread at all. They were placed on the sheet as discs two inches in diameter and there they were, slightly darker discs, two inches in diameter. “Well they don’t look the best” Sean rationalized, “but I bet they taste great!”
As the boys attempted removing the cookies from the cookie sheet it became apparent that no matter how delicious the cookies were, their crunchiness made them inedible.
Trying to keep from crying, Jesse said, “They look like tiny hockey pucks.”
“On the bright side” Sean added, “you could feed them to your neighbor’s dog that you hate so much. The chocolate might kill it.”
“I’m not a dog murderer, Sean!”
This was obviously no time for jokes; Jesse was really taking this hard.
“Hey man, they’re just cookies.”
“They’re not just cookies, Sean. My mom said no girl would ever love
a guy who can’t cook. That’s why I took this class, and everything we’ve made has been a disaster. Remember the garlic toast? It was a black brick when we finished with it!”
“That’s ridiculous, Jesse. Someone will love you even though you can’t cook. Snap! It’s probably my fault anyway.”
“How can it be your fault? You’re Sean, you’re good at everything!”
Sean couldn’t argue with that. “Maybe I’m not good at cooking, Jesse. Go home tonight and bring this recipe with you. Make these cookies by yourself. I bet they turn out great.”
Jesse smiled, “You really think you’re the problem, don’t you.”
“It has to be me” Sean answered. Sean was a good person, and he knew it.
After class, Sean hurried to his locker to put away his things so he could make it all the way to Ashley’s locker early. When he turned the final corner and could see his locker he saw Reid standing in front of the locker.
“Hey dude, what’s up?” Reid said with his big, dumb, poster thieving face.
“I just made a batch of terrible cookies in Foods class.”
“That blows.”
“Yeah, it does.” Sean thought about what Ashley had said about talking to Reid about everything that was going on and decided that he should take a ladies advice. She’d be proud of him.
“Reid, where’s my poster? I’m positive that you have it. You’re my prime suspect.”
“How am I your prime suspect?”
“Well, the ugly girls don’t hate me; they didn’t take it. John and Paul are too worried about who has to hang out with their grandpa; I don’t think they took it. I’ve been told multiple times by everyone that the Taliban is not interested in my Britney Spears poster; I guess they didn’t take it.”
“Kid! I’ve said I didn’t take it like eighty-five thousand times. I didn’t take it!”
“Eighty-five thousand and one now. Anyway Reid, my boy, I have two main reasons to believe that it was you who stole my poster. One, it was you who stole my Christina poster. Two, like ‘they’ always say…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Reid’s neck began to pulsate. Anger shot into his eyes like the fire of a thousand cigarette lighters.
Sean looked at him and said with a smirk, “Snap, you have the fire of a thousand cigarette lighters in your eyes. That’s so metal! And your neck is pulsating, too.”
After hearing Sean make such a lame joke after accusing him of the crime, Reid’s wrath had reached its limit. Reid took all that anger; all of the times he’d been teased by his