Field Trip

This is what happens when a class of High School Juniors and Seniors go on a field trip...

Damn that was fun.  Just gotta say that before I get into the story.  My only regret: that Elena wasn't there.  I spent the most amazing road trip in the car with my best friend's girl friend... sound weird?  Yea, it is.  

K, one more note before you start reading this, if you have a problem with reading swears, skip this chapter.  If you don't like crazy rambling stories being told by crazy teenagers... well skip this book.  Oh yea, and you grammar Nazi's out there: shut up and let me write okay?  Cus, frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.  

That out of the way I guess I gotta say: I have no idea where to start, some of my story might kinda irritate the people in it--and they're all gonna be like: hell that ain't me b***h!  and complain, and some of the stuff might get them in trouble, but i guess thats the story, I'll just tell it like it happened I guess.  

I guess for the hell of it I'll start with when Carter came through the doors, stoned to hell while we were sitting at the window sill.  Right, yea just for a sec, Carter is a kid on the baseball team.  According to Elena--damn I keep forgetting you don't know us, Elena is my girl friend, I'll tell you more 'bout her later--anyway according to Elena, Carter's an a*s hole, she had a crush on him in 7th grade ('case I didn't tell you that's 4 years ago... yea she keeps grudges) and he humiliated her in public... called her a f*****g stalker and mocked her for liking him.  Yea, he seems a decent kid most of the time to me, but a stoner so... eh.  

Yea, so behind him were a couple of his friends, stoned as badly as he was... Ben--damn he used to be a FRIEND of mine like 7 years ago... wow thats a long time... and a couple other kids... they were all in my Spanish class--we were on the windowsill during 1st lunch... right back to the story now that you know everything you need to...

God damn I forgot to say who "we" are.  I'll just give you the bare bones of who "we" are for now, I'll introduce you to them later.  "We" is the group of kids who sit on the windowsill in the morning and during lunch.  

"We" is divided into the new kids--friends of Chris (he used to be my friend for all of middle school and freshman year... irritating kid... dumb, Republican, and cant take anything seriously...  total spas who doesn't give a f**k about the kids around him) and Jett (another spas just as bad as Chris) there's Lily, who panics and freaks out over everything, Chris's Ex, who he probably never liked anyway who obsessed over him (IDK how she liked him or how she thought he liked her... all water under the bridge now) and there's Lara--Chris's girlfriend now, who is like Chris's opposite in that she can't hurt ANYONE and she's to freaking vulnerable, ANYTHING hurts her.  But she's nice, she's a senior, she's smart enough to have discussions and debates with me (Darth Vader... I'll explain later) and help me come to terms with the whole Darth Vader/Robin-Hood Complex I'm juggling (again I'll explain it later).  There are some others too... I guess Maggie (a big lonely gothy girl) and some others depending on the day, including Leonard the school nerd who is VERY proud of the term.  

Then there's the OLD window sill group.  I think they started with either Elena and Kaylyn or Johny (Kaylyn's BF) and Kaylyn.  They went there... and Matt--my best friend, like my brother, the kid who everyone mistakes for me... even my Elena has called me Matt and Michelle (Matt's GF) has called me Matt or him Nick... god!--had a massive crush on Kaylyn for like all of Freshman and Sophomore years, so he joined the group.  Then I joined 'cus I was best friends with Matt... and then I started going out with Elena after Cotillian (thats another story, I'll tell you another time... see guys: I resisted a tangent!  Be proud of me!) so I'm pretty sure I'm part of that group.  And then recently Michelle (re)joined the group (allegedly she was windowsill before any of us, and an old friend of Kaylyn when she was in Middle School but then they drifted apart... but now she's back: as Matt's girl friend... and one of my best friends.  On some days my OTHER best friend and oldest (continuous) friend David shows up... he's a blessing but I almost never see him any more.  

So that's "we" if we're all there... I guess at that point (when Carter and his stoned friends came staggering in) I guess "we" was Michelle (she had gotten out of Art class) Lara (she had 1st lunch... like me) and me.  Lara was forging--oh right, I gotta tell you that... brief (I hope) side story... and yes it does have to do with the Russian trip so bear with me guys.  

So yea, we had to get permission forms signed for the trip and well... I asked mom and she was cool with me going but i kinda forgot to put it out for her so... no signature.  But I had to go so... yea, I had to forge it.  Well no one can ever convict me of forging very often (never done it before) if they do all I have to do is show them this job and the accuser will just shut up and give the case over to me, insti-win.  But back to this, so I tried to forge it in a 3rd block free... usually I use cursive now a days... but well that would look too much like the faked "mom's signature" so I printed... then on the "parent signature line" I started signing MY name.  International fail hotline: we have a bad case of an unregistered fail... the badge of idiocy has already been awarded.  

So I crossed it out, scribbled it over and started signing my mom's name.  But it came out all weird, like half was messy, half was perfect cursive... so I started tracing over making it uniform, but then it just looked retarded, cus no one traces their signature.  I guess I gotta practice but I'm not sure I want that to be my skill, forging signatures... any event, I decided to white it out.  

Wow, right there: proof: I've never done this before.  So what did I do?  I signed a plausible cursive signature for mom this time.  But... well its on white out... how many people white out their signatures and write over it?!  How many people are stupid enough to fall for it???  

Then I came up with the brilliant idea of photo-copying it, it'll be harder to see the white out like that...right?  Check!  No visible white out, and an almost plausible signature to do... only problem?  No ink on the page.  So thats where Lara came in, she traced it over, which brings us back to when Carter and his friends came in past us at the window sill, stoned like crazy.  

There... I was pretty close to brief right?  Not soooo bad.  Still awake over there?

Well so then Carter came through the doors, and Michelle says: "Carter!  I'm gonna text Nick when I get back with the car when you should get out of class."

Carter looks up like he's just realizing we're there--he probably is--"oh... uh... car?"

"Yea, I'll tell you when I get the text" I said, "and we'll leave."

"Uh... what?"  Carter's out of it.  Even I can tell.

"The Russian trip?" Michelle says, she can tell he's stoned "I'll text Nick around 11:30-11:45 when I get back..."

"yea" Carter says, the others are still there, standing around him, barely comprehending "I'll just follow Dudek"... another brief side note: thats what the baseball team--and most of the other "social/cool" kids call me... pisses the hell out of me.  He's stoned enough to have no clue whats up.  He and his friends sorta slouched off then.  

Alright, alright, I'm getting there, fine sorry Elena but I'll just tell it brief, cus I guess it was brief in real life as well I guess.  So yea, I guess thats when Elena showed up, or near enough.  Its also when everyone else vanished.  Or at least: they vanished to me.  I kinda forgot they were there for a few seconds... I went over to Elena and gave her a hug and like I still talked to the other people there for the two minutes between when she showed up and I have to leave.  

Oh yea, I've started getting in real trouble for all the times I've showed up late to Spanish so I actually planned to leave early enough to show up, and well, I had to see my History teacher briefly before class to give her my flash-drive so she could give her my flash-drive so that she could give me the video we were watching for the day.  So, unfortunately I only had a few minutes with Elena... then I left, ran off, and entered my history teacher's class briefly to give her the flash drive... they were watching super-size me.  Lucky them.  Its a great movie... freaky, but great.  

So, any event, all thats great but it really just distracts you guys, so I suppose I should cut to the chase.  So yea, on the way back, just 1 more side mention: on the way back I ran into Jolisa--a senior in my Spanish class, kinda the only one who b*****s back to Carter and the other guys in the class they are both amused by it, and I'm still not sure if they like or hate each other.  But yea, she knows Spanish, not them though 'cus she and the others were all stoned... I don't know what happened but it seems like 1/2 the school was stoned then... damn I should break this into 2 chapters: stoners and drivers.  Or something like that, but yea, back to the story I promised to tell.  

So I legit sprinted full out down the halls and up the stairs 3 at a time (screw conventional 2 at a time or no running in school, to hell with that) so I ran up and sprinted in right with the rearmost members of the class... minus Jolisa.  Remember, like I said: there's a bunch of confusion at the beginning of class, so it took a little while for people to realize that I was there... I think they sorta assumed I wasn't gonna be.  So when I get in there no one says anything, I wonder if the teacher already marked me late... she would.  But then people start seeing me, like "there's Dudek" or "hey, Nick's here" (wada-ya-know one of them knows my name!) and then Gagnan (yes I just used his last name, his first name is Alex but well... he's a stoner, and a*s hole, ehhh sorta a friend hard to say, not the person I pay so much respect to... hence Gagnan... and there are so many kids called "Alex" in our school, yell "Alex!" down the hall and 40 million kids look up!) says like at the top of his lungs, like suprise and total shocked honesty (if you ever need to lie--not that I suggest it, I don't lie--go for surprise.  Sound surprised and everyone thinks its honesty cus if you're suprised u won't have time to think of a lie... and just speak honestly) "hey, look Dudek's here!"  

Yea, I was here... but not for long.  So I settled down to go through another awful boring Spanish class--newly come to the top of my "least favorite classes" list--this one actually wasn't so bad, I was on time, I had the HW, I was just reading from the book, doing the work... I could survive 1/2 an hour of this class, if not a full hour... but 15 minutes in I get a text from Michelle: "Now!!" 

I stand up: "Senora?  Carter y yo tenemos k irnos" (at least I think thats what I said, I don't remember exactly, what it means is: we have to go... I'm pretty sure I said it right, even if I mighta got it wrong here, cus the teacher didn't protest about bad grammar.  She did, however protest over us leaving.  

"?Porque?" She said (wow I almost just said "ella dijo"--that's Spanish for "she said")

"La vacacione de Russia" (technically incorrect, vacation rather than field trip, but whatever).  

Carter and I were getting up getting our stuff... "pero este no es hasta 11:45, ahora es solo 11:30" she said.

"Yo solo se que recibi un text que dijo que necicitamos ir ahora" (I just know that I got a text saying that we need to go now)... I didn't mention that the next text said something like "Elena has to tell you something"--I was freaking out, 'cus I was (and am) paranoid that some day she'll just wake up and realize that she doesn't like me... and dump me.  She had said she had a crush on her teacher today so... maybe... I was scared.  

Well ordinarily I would have thought that would have been enough but nooooo my teacher decided it was time to make some calls.  She called like 4 classes like trying to find out the truth.  In the end she just found the head of the department which said that the plan was for us to leave at 12:45.  So we were sent back to our seats, the class laughing at me.  Carter on the other hand just mumbled "this is bullshit, bano" and left.  

I went to my seat like "f**k this" and texted Michelle: "I can't come, my teacher won't let me ou--" thats when my teacher came over and took my phone, and even though I protested "senora estoy respondiendo que no puedo ir!"  (Miss, I'm just replying that I can't go!) she took my phone.  That was total bull s**t, but I didn't need any more Spanish teacher anger.  

Liam and the other kids however, for once, came to my help, Liam pulled out his wallet and fake texted, it would have been interesting at the least, to see her reaction, her to come over and humiliate herself by saying "Liam, dame el celephono" (Liam give the the cell phone) and him showing her its just a wallet.  But then Carter came back into the room, heard what happened (we do that, when someone leaves the room and comes back if they miss anything all the kids rush to tell them) and Carter just turns to her and says: "Senora, no es justo!" (Miss, its not fair!)

Thats when she snapped.  She freaked and yelled in her Central American accent: "I've had enough of you two!  Out!  Go on your field trip for Russia!"  I wasn't sure if she was kicking us out (she did that to Carter and Liam earlier in the year) or just saying "screw this, you guys go."  So I went.  Hell, I got out of class,and to the field trip, and there was still time to see what Elena had to say.  

So we hurried out and down the stairs to the door, where we saw Hovig, and Kelly (two kids in our Russian class) who told us we were actually on the late side getting out... as if to emphasize this, we almost got run over by Mae (yes my neighbor) as she pulled in to pick up Kelly.  But Michelle wasn't there (nor was Elena... which--needless to say--worried me... what did she have to say?!)  After a moment I told Carter to wait here and ran back inside, sprinted up the entry way, spun left, then right, and up the ramp to the windowsill (basically a long bench with the wall being the window behind us... its totally safe) where Elena and Michelle were waiting.  I went straight to Elena (Carter was stoned, he wouldn't care if we were like 2 seconds late) "what did you have to sayyyy?" I asked her?

"I love you" I wasn't sure how to take that, it wasn't the shock of the first time hearing it, it wasn't what I expected--I didn't know what to expect, I was just praying she wasn't gonna tell me that she liked some other kid or that she was done with me.  

"I love you" I said back and smiled at her, relieved.  It still didn't sound like something that she "desperately needed to tell me" badly enough to risk a text in school.  

"I don't wanna break up your cute little moment here but we kinda have to go"... that was Michelle.  Typical, but probably right.  Sadly.  I gave Elena a last hug and fled.  

1 minute, 30 seconds, 5 near slips later, 100 feet out the front doors we're stopped by... our Russian teacher, who's asking what the story is, 'cus we're kinda walking away from school with our backpacks on... kinda looks like we're just leaving, though he of all people should know: we're just going to Michelle's car, which is still parked a (normal) 10 minute walk from the school.  

Yea, Mr. Simon needed our permission slips... specifically mine.  I handed it over to him, unable to meet his eyes, looking at his face, but not his eyes, looking at his face.  He glanced at it briefly, nodded and accepted it.  After perhaps a 30 second conversation with Michelle about the driving rout (time I spent alternately wondering if he was gonna call me out for forgery and worrying if he was gonna realize that Carter was still stoned).  But, I don't know what I--the atheist who openly blasphemies a god--deserved to get a god looking down on me then with a helping hand, but... he was there for me then, 'cus he didn't call us to either account.   

Ten minutes turns into 15 or 20 when you have 2 feet of snow and ice to contend with.  Perhaps the least fortunate part was when we got to The Puddle.  I swear the thing should be on the maps by now, at least the state map, perhaps even the national maps: The Puddle.  It was like 10 feet long, and it covered the entire path.  The only way around it was to try clinging to the fence.  I went through the water.  In my new shoes.  Yay me!  I'm sure my shoes love me.  Well they'll go through worse.  And its better than my OTHER shoes... my OLD shoes... 

Author's Note

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