Katastrophehenduo

The troublesome love of two children.

"This is a stupid idea, and it's gonna have us expelled." I told her as she pours another pack of orange juice down the drain.

"Relax, I'm gonna handle the anger." She says.

She looks at me and winks, her half smile makes my heart beat faster.

She smacks her hands together to remove the accumulated juice powder, and takes the plastic full of packets of orange juice out.

"This is stupid, the sprinkler system is connected to the whole school, Everybody's gonna get juiced." I warn her.

"We've done worse." She replies.

"Come on, help me down."

I jump down the ladder and held her waist as she climbed down, carefully trying to not look up her skirt.

"Take a peek." she says.

"No. Shut up." I reply.

When she got down, she tilts her head to the side.

"And now, we wait."

"And if we get caught?" I ask  her.

She presses her shoulders together in a shrug.

"If? We always get caught." She breaks into a grin.

She looks at the window opposite of the room.

The chemistry class already started their experiment on smoke.

"You know the sprinkler won't react to small amounts of smoke right?" I tell her.

"Not if you adjusted the sensitivity." she crosses her arms while breaking into a grin.

I look at her and I see in the reflection of her eyes that I was also grinning.

"Countdown?" she tells me.

"Okay. 3, 2-"

I couldn't even finish before the entire school blared with the sound of a fire alarm and the steady pulse of the sprinklers started.

Yet instead of clean water, the sprinkler sprayed everybody with a fine orange mist.

Students started screaming as their white uniforms started turning orange.

I look at her as the teachers started banging on the locked door of the maintenance office.

We were also wet with orange juice, and in the chaos she managed to fist bump me.

"Success." she says.

"Success." I agreed.

"What were you two thinking!?" Mom shouts as me as I tried to act as apologetic as I could.

"She told me to and I just-" Mom cuts me off.

"And because she asked you, you do it? Think for yourself Archer!" she yells some more.

"The principal wanted to kick you out! Thank God her father's rich otherwise we have to pay an entire school's worth of white uniforms!" she added.

"Mom, I'm sorry I really am." I tell her, trying to keep myself from grinning.

"Yeah, keep telling yourself that, maybe one day you'll believe it." She says as she rubs her temples.

She sends me to my room.

"And clean it while you're up there! I'll check in an hour so you better-"

"Yeah, got it!" I yell back at her.

I started cleaning up my room when I heard a knock from my window.

I opened it and let out a strangled yelp.

"Sienna, what are you doing here?"

I look behind her and realized she was casually standing up on a 2 feet long stone awning of the bottom floor window.

"And how did you even get up here?" I added.

"Ladders." She says calmly as if it explained everything.

"Now come on, let's go!" she tells me.

"Go? Go where?" I ask.

"The Falmar lighthouse, it's a perfect night! We can see boats for miles! Come on, just like always."

"Oh right. It's the end-of-the-month ritual."

"Yes, come on."

"Mom's gonna kill me." I told her.

"She says that, but does she do it?" she asks.

"No."

"Good, now let's go!"

I took her hand and I held her waist again to keep her from falling of the ladder.

"Take a peek." she whispers.

"No, idiot." I tell her.

Just then mom bursts into my room, and I saw her looking over us through my bedroom window.

"Run!" Sienna screams while laughing, and we took of running, holding each other's hands.

"ARCHER!!!!!!" Mom screamed behind us, but we didn't care.

We sat above the highest point of the lighthouse. Thankfully the old man managing the lighthouse let us.

"But if you fall, it's not my fault." he warned.

" we sat by the metal floor, holding the railing as we watch the pinpoint light of the boats flicker in and out of existence.

"You know the kids call us katastrophehenduo." she tells me.

"Disaster duo, really?" I tell her laughing.

She smiles, but somehow there's a sad glint in her eyes.

"Sienna, are you okay?" I ask her.

"Well you know, this past few years have been real fun. I wish you could attend my 10th birthday this year." She says.

"Of course I will, why wouldn't I?" I ask.

A tear slips from her cheek.

"Sienna?" I asked her, alarmed.

"I really like you Archer. You're brave and stupid, all this time I only got you in trouble. Why'd you stick with me?" She asks.

"Because I like you too duh, I'm a troublesome kid too, we're much alike."

She lets out a small chuckle, then stops and sighs.

"Maybe one day, we'll be together again." she says.

"What?"

"Nothing." she added.

The next day after mom yelled at me some more I went to school either to see Sienna again.

The teachers kept grinning.

"Looks like Sienna is absent today Archer." they said.

I pouted my lips.Why she'd skip class today of all days, when the quizzes are by partners?

Afternoon came, and looks like there was no sign of her showing up. When class ends, maybe I'll visit her house.

I mentally prepared myself for the scolding I was about to get as I knock at her door.

No answer.

I knocked harder.

Still, no response.

I looked at the window, and was shocked.

No curtain, furniture, or anything.

Panic clenched my throat.

I knocked on the neighbors door.

The door barely opened before I started frantically talking.

"Mrs. Banna, where is Sienna?" I asked her.

She looks down at me and gives me a sad smile.

"She's moving to the U.S Archer, they left only minutes ago."
My hands shook.

"Where, which airport?"

"The McCantan Airport. They should be-"

I didn't even let her finish, I took my bike and hurriedly pedaled towards the airport.

It's not far, I thought.

I can make it.

When I got to the airport I started yelling her name.

People stared at me like I was crazy, but they mostly ignored me.

I screamed for what seemed like hours before I heard her screaming my name too.

"Archer! Please, No!" She yells as she began fighting off the grip of her own father.

They were in the departure area, and the security began walking towards me.

"Sienna!" I yelled as the security officers began grabbing me by the shoulder and dragging me off.

"It's for the best, honey, it's for the best." Her dad kept repeating.

"No! Archer, don't let them take me!" She begged.

But she was getting farther and farther away.

I kept screaming her name as she slid farther and farther away from me.

The last I saw of her face was when she gave me a last smile, her face covered in rivulets of tears.

A decade has passed since I last saw her.

Her sea green eyes , and her long blonde hair still remained in my head, but already the memory of her face is starting to get cloudy in my brain.

"Archer, you'll be late." mom calmly said.

I rubbed the lines of scabs on my wrist.

What's the point?

I go to school and then what? Hang out with the sheeple of tomorrow?

At least Sienna dared to be different, even though she was trouble for me.

I sigh.

I got my clothes steamed.

My breakfast consisted of cornflakes and bacon. This will not go down well.

I took my backpack, gave my mom a half-hearted kiss, and rode my bike to school.

The bell rang as I parked, indicating that I was late.

Everybody was already settled down in their seats when I arrived, and they began snickering.

"Oh look, It's Loner the Loser." They said, and they began snickering.

I sat in my seat, which someone had moved an inch back, causing me to slip and fall into the floor.

The whole class exploded in laughter.

"Fuckers." I muttered under my breath.

The teacher began tapping the table.

"Class, we have a new student today. She's from the U.S so lets welcome her." The teacher explained.

The class began sitting up in anticipation.

Then the fire alarm blared loudly.

Students began screaming as the teacher tried to calm them down.

The sprinkler started.

I was about to get up too when I saw the clean water of the sprinkler slowly turn orange.

Everybody was being led out by the teacher's but I just sat back down in utter disbelief.

And I laughed.

"This brings back memories." I said to the empty room.

Then a girl came through the door.

Her white clothes drenched in the orange juice coming from the sprinklers.

Her blond hair stuck together from all the juice, and her sea green eyes look at me with familiarity.

She tilts her head sidewards.

"Success." She says.

I look down on my desk, and I cried.

I began crying so hard and she approached me and gave me the biggest hug she could.

"I'm so sorry Archer, I didn't have a choice. I'm sorry."

She repeated it, over and over again, but I didn't care, I'm just glad she's back.

I hugged her back, and when we let go, she gave me a fist bump.

"Idiot, you're gonna get expelled first day of the class." I said through my tears.

She shrugs.

"What do you mean me? We will get expelled first day of class. I left the packets in the maintenance room with your name on it." She gives me a sly grin.

"Damn it, you got me in trouble again, idiot." I tell her.

"Well, you wanna get drenched in the orange juice or should we-"

She gestured at the open door.

When we got outside, the whole school was staring at us.

"Damn it, these two again." one teacher said under his breath.

They all gave us looks of anger and frustration.

We looked at each other and saw two idiots grinning because they know they're in trouble.

I held her hand,  she took it gallantly.

Then we began running away as the school security came running at us full speed.

Just like old times, I thought.

Watch out world, the katastrophehenduo is back in business!

Reviews

[OneAmongstMany]

Some of your expression in this piece is beautiful eg: 'holding the railing as we watch the pinpoint light of the boats flicker in and out of existence.'

I loved how your use of short snappy sentences provided such a contrast to the longer ones - like the one I cited above - especially after Sienna left, highlighting the mundane, uninspiring nature of Archer's life without his childhood sweetheart.

Overall, this is an entertaining read, and a lovely tale of young love. You have great talent as a writer, keep it up!

[Matthew Soliguen]

Thank you so much! I read from a lot of author's in this site, and I see I still have a long way to go before I can be considered a good writer, but I'm learning. This really helps me a lot. Thank you!