“Found him camping in one of the bathrooms.” Mandy announced flatly as she entered the classroom.
“Glad you could join us today, Lyle.” Mr. Stupanic declared as Lyle sheepishly stepped inside.
“It’s no problem.” Lyle exclaimed, standing up straight and placing his hands behind his back. “I’m happy to help however I can.”
Lyle was trying to sound energetic and presentable, so it was totally unexpected when the class erupted with laughter around him.
“Yes, yes...” My. Stupanic responded tiredly… “Very amusing… Why don’t you have a seat?”
“Sure.” Lyle replied, trying to maintain his composure. “Uh, who would you like me to mentor today?”
The room chortled with lively energy and smaller giggle fits at Lyle’s response, but for the most part everyone was beaming with smiles and staring intently at the strained interaction playing out in front of them.
“Just take your seat next to JJ...” Mr. Stupanic sighed, half burying his face with his hand in exhaustion... “Grace him with whatever mentorship you can muster today, thank you.”
Lyle couldn’t believe how entitled these people seemed to be. He respected his obligation to the mentorship program, and he wanted to help out, but in the end, he was doing THEM a favor, so he could really do without the apparent sarcasm... Still, he couldn’t easily weather a bad report from Mr. Stupanic and he HAD accidentally forgotten about the whole thing, plus he showed up late for his first day, so he swallowed his pride and looked around for “JJ”…
The desks in the room were scattered around haphazardly, but they were situated so that each desk was paired with another desk such that they were facing one another. All of the students were already paired off together except for two, and when Mandy joined her partner, it became pretty clear who JJ was. He was a cute little freshman boy wearing a soccer uniform and jiggling his leg with mad energy. He was beckoning Lyle to sit down with globs of overeager excitement.
Lyle slid into the desk with a slightly bemused look on his face and stowed his gym shorts on the book rack under his seat. It didn’t look like Mr. Stupanic was going to be providing any more direction for the class, as he was sitting at his desk mulling over papers… The rest of the class was busy chatting amongst themselves in their two-person groups.
“So...” Lyle began. “What are we doin-”
“Oh SPIT man, that was a crazy dive!” “Did you need stitches?” “Does it hurt?” “Did you have to go to the doctor?” “How long were you knocked out?” “Did you break your wrist even worse now?” “Are they still gonna let you get the cast off next week?” “Are those new clothes?”
Both JJ’s legs were pumping up and down at a manic pace now, he looked like he was about to pee his pants as he leaned in closer to Lyle with every question.
“Jeeze!” Lyle exclaimed, leaning backwards. “I don’t know… I don’t remember much about what happened… I, uh... didn’t need stitches.”
“That’s cool… That’s cool...” JJ replied, nodding. “Oh SPIT man, that was a crazy dive!”
“Ok, try to calm down.” Lyle suggested softly. “I guess we’ve got some kind of assignment we’re supposed to be working on?”
“Uh huh. Each group is supposed to do a diorama for a different country, and you’re never going to guess which one we got!” JJ said with excitement.
“Which country?” Lyle asked.
“Canada, man!” JJ practically shouted. “This project is going to be so easy. I mean, SPIT man, Canada?... and YOU!? This is going to be such a breeze!”
Lyle nodded in agreement, figuring he knew what JJ meant... Canada was socially and culturally similar to the United States in a few important ways, and JJ did have a huge advantage being paired with an honor society mentor… (and he certainly looked like he might need that kind of help...)
Lyle spent the rest of the period trying to lay out the groundwork for the research they would need to do to learn about their country, and he also began a rough floor plan for the layout of the diorama, but it was pretty difficult keeping JJ on task for any length of time. He often branched off onto tangential subjects and frequently asked Lyle if he remembered things that never happened...
“We will obviously need a maple leaf in a prominent place-”
“Do you remember the time you fell out of that tree?”
“No.”
“Oh, SPIT… You went after that foxtail that got stuck in the branches and you fell out, and you broke your leg, man… Did that hurt?”
“Uh, no?”
“You were crying, man. Oh, you were BAWLING, man… It hurt, huh?… It did, didn’t it? You couldn’t stop crying… Do you remember -”
“I don’t remember, JJ! That never happened. Can you please stay on task right now?”
“Oh SPIT, man… You were crying for your mom! It was nuts!”
Just then the bell rang and everyone rushed for the door.
“Oh SPIT, man… I gotta go, but we’ll hang out later.” JJ said, as he walked away, merging effortlessly in with the crowd of bodies funneling out of the classroom.
Lyle was quickly left alone organizing the materials he had accumulated on top of his desk. He didn’t have a backpack, so it took a little longer to get everything travel-ready. He retrieved his gym shorts from under his desk and folded them neatly on top of his, or rather JJ’s project materials, and walked out the door.
Lyle’s head was starting to throb, and he felt like everyone was staring at him. A few more underclassmen commented gleefully on his supposed lacrosse dive, but he really wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone… When he got to the junior hallway, he expected everyone to pile on with the jokes. They were the ones responsible for pranking him with the oh so hilarious jacket and arm cast after all, but except for a few confused looks, everybody just seemed to ignore him.
When he got to his locker, he gently placed his materials on the floor and started entering in his locker combination. Parker Ramero was standing next to him, pulling stuff out of his locker as usual, but today Lyle felt especially uneasy next to Parker… It almost felt like he was staring daggers at him.
Lyle shrugged it off and as the locker popped open, he did his best not to open it too wide so as not to encroach on Parker’s personal space.
“What the fuck are you doing in Reese’s locker, freshman?” Parker demanded.
“Huh this is my -” Lyle cut himself short as he looked inside the locker and found someone else’s possessions inside.
“That’s Reese’s locker, asshole. How did you even open it?” Parker asked accusingly.
“Reese? You mean Cody Reese? That’s his locker right there…” Lyle said defensively, pointing to the locker next to his. “We’re in alphabetical order, Ramero, Redding, Reese... Did you guys swap our stuff as some kind of joke?” Lyle asked in irritation.
“Nobody here did anything you little shit… You just strolled over like you owned the place and broke into my Bro’s locker. Now why don’t you go back to your own hallway and keep your hands off stuff that doesn’t belong to you, freshman!?”
Parker gave Lyle a shove that was just light enough to cause him to step backwards and trip over the foot that Parker had surreptitiously planted behind him. He fell sprawling backwards and went to catch himself with his right hand, only realizing too late that he couldn’t catch himself with the cast covering his palm so he quickly repositioned himself to land on the flat of his arm but ultimately ended up striking the ground hard with his elbow, his funny bone was vibrating with intense, shooting pain that came in waves that didn’t seem to stop… He grabbed his elbow in a vain attempt to ease the relentless throbbing.
Parker slammed the locker shut and scrambled the dial, then he kicked Lyle’s papers across the floor and told him to leave, or else…
Lyle’s eyes were filling up with tears and he couldn’t see where all his papers had gone. He was doing his best to hold the hot liquid back from breaching the rims of his eyelids in a valiant attempt to hide his pain, but it was no use. A single tear got past his defenses and slid shamefully down his cheek. He used the moment of clear vision to grab his gym shorts and glimpse momentarily towards Parker’s gleeful face before turning to run away, huddling over and cradling his painfully ringing elbow in his arm as he turned tail and fled, abandoning his and JJ’s hard work on the junior hallway floor.