Chapter Seven: The Forest Burns
In Yellowstone National Park, they actually prescribe burning of the forest because if there aren’t fires often, when lighting strikes and makes one it will catch all of the undergrowth on fire and rage out of control.
Rumors are kind of like wild fires. When everyone already kinda knows, a rumor is like that area has been pre-burned and nothing really happens. The story doesn’t pick up momentum because it’s just not quite as fun to talk about. Unfortunately, the Stella-Adam rumors burned very hot and very bright.
The Curly Slide debacle did two things. It made me more interesting to just about everyone in the school, and it made Stella vanish. I mean like pop, she evaporated. To be fair, half of me wanted to just run into her classroom and profess my undying love for her and the other half of me made me want to run into a bunker and hide. So, I kind of wanted to vanish for a little bit too. I hoped I hadn’t made her embarrassed.
One perk was the more people seemed to talk about me and Stella who, as you could predict, was pretty popular, the more Olly and Liam stood up for me and seemed to be more protective of me. Rather than pushing me away, they seemed to coalesce around me, talking about stuff other than if I was going to invite Stella to the Halloween dance.
I decided there were only two ways to go about the situation. Backing down or doubling down. And while I wasn’t sure which one would let me come out better, I decided to double down and own it. So everyone already thought I liked Stella. Well, I did. And Ron likes Hermione and Spiderman likes MJ.
I tried to think of the most discreet way of going ahead and asking Stella to the dance she would already be at no matter what because she was in the choir. Because at this point, the whole forest was burning and I might as well go all the way. Stella certainly knew I liked her.
I didn’t want to embarrass her, so the bold and brash ideas (like of marching into her classroom during class and straight up asking her) were about the stupidest thing I could ever do. Along the same lines as tight roping across Niagara falls and jumping out of a plane without a parachute.
Instead, I thought the beginning or end of day would work. The problem of course, is I took the bus and Stella was most certainly not on my bus. I wasn’t even sure if she took the bus. I mean probably? Maybe… I had no clue.
This made it very distracting in class. Our teacher was doing a section of spelling bee where we were actually allowed to sit on our desks and then spell words. When you got a word wrong, you would have to sit down in your regular chair rather than on the desk, which was a real bummer.
My word was dinosaur and I spelled it D-I-N-O and thought I had spelled the whole word.
Mr. Lombard kept looking at me until I realized that while dino and dinosaur mean the same thing, one most certainly has a lot more letters. I finished my spelling D-I-N-O… … … S-O-R-E and was eliminated.
Recess was still fun and pretty easy to forget Stella and run around for a bit. We played wall ball, where we’d throw tennis balls as hard as we could at the big concrete side of the school’s gym by the basketball court. If you tried to pick up the ball as it rebounded off the wall, but then dropped it, you’d have to run as fast as you could and try to touch the school before somebody else picked up the tennis ball and threw it to the wall.
If the ball made it before you did, you were eliminated. If the ball hit you as you ran, tough luck. The game goes on.
Once I got eliminated however, I spotted Stella across the playground. She was surrounded by so many girls that I didn’t want to make a big show of it. She wouldn’t look at me, although I thought I caught a couple of her friends looking at me. Gee, maybe Liam was right when he said she usually avoids me. Maybe I’d spooked her and she was totally going to pretend I didn’t exist.
When the bell rang of the end of school, I got dismissed along with the other bus kids. I followed Olly down to the main front doors of school, staring at his back, and then out into the sunny afternoon to line up in our bus lines.
The American and Texan flags flapped loudly on the pole overhead as we stood in line to board our busses. After a few more moments, the carpool kids were dismissed and slowly started coming out of the school.
I could feel my chance for today running out. Please please let her come out. Let’s get this over with.
“Olly, can you hold my backpack?”
And then I saw her. She had come outside wearing the same bright teal jacket she’d had at recess, and wearing her purple backpack snugly over her shoulders. Her orange hair flowed down her back and her tiny earrings shone brightly in the sun.
“Oh no.” I heard myself say, addressing the lady who was making sure we were all present. “I forgot my bag.” Olly, my bag slung around his shoulder, realized what was going on and pushed me out of the bus line and I began briskly walking back up toward the school’s main entrance, the carpool line, and Stella – my hands sweaty and my heart pounding.
Stella seemed to have seen something. For a moment, I thought she had seen me coming, but realized she’d instead seen her ride. I was going to miss my chance. Crap crap crap. I’d just look like a real idiot. I began jogging but was still a good 20 feet away when Stella took a few short walks from the sidewalk to the maroon car that had pulled up to the curve. I was 15 feet away, my mouth opening to call out to her as she opened the passenger door.
And then my mouth hung open. As Stella got into the front seat, my eyes drifted toward the back seat, where the window was rolled down. My heart beat shot into my neck and I felt as if I’d been jolted by electricity all over.
Stella sat in the front seat next to the driver.
In the back seat, their arms reaching forward to give their sister hugs, were the roll kids.
Rumors are kind of like wild fires. When everyone already kinda knows, a rumor is like that area has been pre-burned and nothing really happens. The story doesn’t pick up momentum because it’s just not quite as fun to talk about. Unfortunately, the Stella-Adam rumors burned very hot and very bright.
The Curly Slide debacle did two things. It made me more interesting to just about everyone in the school, and it made Stella vanish. I mean like pop, she evaporated. To be fair, half of me wanted to just run into her classroom and profess my undying love for her and the other half of me made me want to run into a bunker and hide. So, I kind of wanted to vanish for a little bit too. I hoped I hadn’t made her embarrassed.
One perk was the more people seemed to talk about me and Stella who, as you could predict, was pretty popular, the more Olly and Liam stood up for me and seemed to be more protective of me. Rather than pushing me away, they seemed to coalesce around me, talking about stuff other than if I was going to invite Stella to the Halloween dance.
I decided there were only two ways to go about the situation. Backing down or doubling down. And while I wasn’t sure which one would let me come out better, I decided to double down and own it. So everyone already thought I liked Stella. Well, I did. And Ron likes Hermione and Spiderman likes MJ.
I tried to think of the most discreet way of going ahead and asking Stella to the dance she would already be at no matter what because she was in the choir. Because at this point, the whole forest was burning and I might as well go all the way. Stella certainly knew I liked her.
I didn’t want to embarrass her, so the bold and brash ideas (like of marching into her classroom during class and straight up asking her) were about the stupidest thing I could ever do. Along the same lines as tight roping across Niagara falls and jumping out of a plane without a parachute.
Instead, I thought the beginning or end of day would work. The problem of course, is I took the bus and Stella was most certainly not on my bus. I wasn’t even sure if she took the bus. I mean probably? Maybe… I had no clue.
This made it very distracting in class. Our teacher was doing a section of spelling bee where we were actually allowed to sit on our desks and then spell words. When you got a word wrong, you would have to sit down in your regular chair rather than on the desk, which was a real bummer.
My word was dinosaur and I spelled it D-I-N-O and thought I had spelled the whole word.
Mr. Lombard kept looking at me until I realized that while dino and dinosaur mean the same thing, one most certainly has a lot more letters. I finished my spelling D-I-N-O… … … S-O-R-E and was eliminated.
Recess was still fun and pretty easy to forget Stella and run around for a bit. We played wall ball, where we’d throw tennis balls as hard as we could at the big concrete side of the school’s gym by the basketball court. If you tried to pick up the ball as it rebounded off the wall, but then dropped it, you’d have to run as fast as you could and try to touch the school before somebody else picked up the tennis ball and threw it to the wall.
If the ball made it before you did, you were eliminated. If the ball hit you as you ran, tough luck. The game goes on.
Once I got eliminated however, I spotted Stella across the playground. She was surrounded by so many girls that I didn’t want to make a big show of it. She wouldn’t look at me, although I thought I caught a couple of her friends looking at me. Gee, maybe Liam was right when he said she usually avoids me. Maybe I’d spooked her and she was totally going to pretend I didn’t exist.
When the bell rang of the end of school, I got dismissed along with the other bus kids. I followed Olly down to the main front doors of school, staring at his back, and then out into the sunny afternoon to line up in our bus lines.
The American and Texan flags flapped loudly on the pole overhead as we stood in line to board our busses. After a few more moments, the carpool kids were dismissed and slowly started coming out of the school.
I could feel my chance for today running out. Please please let her come out. Let’s get this over with.
“Olly, can you hold my backpack?”
And then I saw her. She had come outside wearing the same bright teal jacket she’d had at recess, and wearing her purple backpack snugly over her shoulders. Her orange hair flowed down her back and her tiny earrings shone brightly in the sun.
“Oh no.” I heard myself say, addressing the lady who was making sure we were all present. “I forgot my bag.” Olly, my bag slung around his shoulder, realized what was going on and pushed me out of the bus line and I began briskly walking back up toward the school’s main entrance, the carpool line, and Stella – my hands sweaty and my heart pounding.
Stella seemed to have seen something. For a moment, I thought she had seen me coming, but realized she’d instead seen her ride. I was going to miss my chance. Crap crap crap. I’d just look like a real idiot. I began jogging but was still a good 20 feet away when Stella took a few short walks from the sidewalk to the maroon car that had pulled up to the curve. I was 15 feet away, my mouth opening to call out to her as she opened the passenger door.
And then my mouth hung open. As Stella got into the front seat, my eyes drifted toward the back seat, where the window was rolled down. My heart beat shot into my neck and I felt as if I’d been jolted by electricity all over.
Stella sat in the front seat next to the driver.
In the back seat, their arms reaching forward to give their sister hugs, were the roll kids.