Finally, we are back. I have been so lazy lately. Hopefully I can continue this at a weekly pace: Dawn

Chapter 69 – High School

Tuesday, Sept 6, 2016

Rachael and Lullana headed to school at 7:00. Homeroom was at 8:00, and the schedule they had received said their homeroom teacher was Ms. Smith in Room 212. Ingersoll high was on the same block of land as Wislow Public, Bobby’s old school, and Ainsborough Middle School, where he would start Grade 5 today. However the primary and middle schools started at 9 a.m. while the high school started at 8, so that the same busses could be used for both. Thus Bobby was now going to have to get up on his own. The girls stopped at the bakery and got hugs from Maria and Geoff before heading to school.

Tony was sweeping when they passed by, and hurried to be able to walk with them. The other students would be coming in the busses, which would probably be coming in 20 minutes. Rachael realized that they could have waited a bit longer before coming. She had taken Lullana to the school a week ago to get registered and to explore the building, which was 10 times bigger than any she had been in, excepting airports.

To use some time up Rachael and Tony pointed out various places in the school, and had Lullana seek them out, to help build her confidence. Truth be told, neither Tony nor Rachael was that familiar with the building, and trailing after Lullana helped them recognize the locations in the building.

Eventually they got back to Room 212. Tony was in Room 216: there were seven grade nine classes, so all their friends were split up. Mikki was in Room 217 but Larissa was in 212 with Rachael and Lullana.

“Hello Rachael,” Ms. Smith said as the girls entered. Rachael could see her assessing Lullana as a possible member of her basketball team. Lullana was thin and fit, and taller than Rachael: about 5’6”. “Who is your friend?”

“This is Lullana, our exchange student,” Rachael said. The teacher looked down her attendance register. Just then the first bell rang, and other students started filling the room. Rachael put a book on the desk to her left, saving it for Larissa, while Lullana sat in front of her.

The room was full by second bell, and Rachael recognized Darla, along with another six students from her former school. Ms. Smith, knew all those of course, but she took attendance and Rachael tried to associate as many of the new names with faces as possible.

“Welcome to Ingersoll Collegiate,” Ms. Smith started, “Like you I am new to this school: I taught phys. ed. to some of you in the last two years at Ainsborough Middle School. I hope to have some of you girls in phys. ed. this year. I am also coach of the basketball teams. I’m sorry, but I won’t be teaching any of the boys, unless you wind up taking Women’s Health, which I also teach to Grade 10s.”

“You will report to home room here for five minutes every day for attendance. Today will take a bit more time because you will receive your lockers. Grade 9s share lockers, and I have taken on the task of matching partners with students from your past school, so you might know your locker mates better. If you absolutely cannot share with the person I assigned, then you should go to the office at lunch or your spare. She then handed out locks and numbers. Lullana and Rachael shared, as per the arrangement made when Lullana registered. Larrisa and Darla also shared.

As people figured out their locks, the tall blonde teacher continued to speak. “The next thing that happens this week is the class elections. Each class will have one representative in the school parliament. You will sit on either the athletic committee or the social committee as well as the full parliament. All the main positions are filled by senior students, and were elected in June. Getting elected to the class position in Grade 9 is a good way to work your way up to the chair positions. Tomorrow I will accept nominees and Friday we will vote. Candidate speeches will be on Thursday.”

“And I want to take a personal minute here. Girl’s basketball tryouts are in the small gym after class today in your gym suits. Please show up if you are interested. If you don’t make the school teams, you will get to play house league, and I can promise you that it will be way more fun than Phys. Ed. classes, which will become spare periods if you are on a team.”

The high school was on a three-day calendar, unlike the two-day one in middle school: and English was the first class. In each class there was a similar routine. The students would stand and introduce themselves, giving a short biography of their special interests. Darla, looking especially cute in a plaid skirt and mohair sweater, lied a little, saying she was new to the local schools, which she was in a sense. No one from her country school seemed to recognize her, to her relief. Darrel had not been popular in that school, and relating that gawky, shy boy with the cute girl just wasn’t possible.

The students also got their textbooks in each class, as well as a list of class rules and a brief idea of what they would be learning over the year. This meant that they had to go to their lockers between classes or carry all the books.

On a Day 1 Lullana and Rachel had French in period two, then Computer Studies before lunch. After Lunch they had Math and final auto shop. Other students had different schedules, based on their options. Each subject was taught twice in the three days, and the girls had one spare, right after lunch on Day 2. Mikki was in Math and Computer Studies with them.

At lunch all the Ainsborough Middle School students gathered together around two tables in one corner. Robert was only in Auto Shop with Rachael, and his brother Steve had come over from the Grade 12 tables to have lunch with Lullana, to her pleasure. They had dated twice, and gone to church together once, and the African girl was head-over-heels for the Canadian farmer, who reciprocated her feelings.

Mikki and Tony were also together and Larissa and Mark Russell seemed to still be together. In fact many of the movie couples were together again, although not all.

“Are we doing the movie thing at the library again?” Tony asked.

“I do have the room booked, starting next week,” Rachael said. “But I’m starting to wonder about it. There are seven grade 9 classes: that’s 240 students. It wouldn’t be fair for us to just let 24 attend. Plus some of our gang might meet and want to date kids from the other schools, and that could make too many to fit in the hall. I need to think this through a bit.”

“Okay. Just let me know a week ahead so we can order popcorn and drinks,” Tony said.

The rest of lunch was a buzz of students telling about their summer activities. Rachael had tried to claim she did nothing of note, but Steve, and then Robert interrupted telling about her success at the farmer races.

Several girls asked Rachael about working at the church on Sunday’s in the nursery: word was out that all the girls who had kept up over the summer were busy most weekends babysitting and making good money for a young teen. She took names and later made a schedule so that girls would only work one of the services.

After lunch Lullana, Mikki and Larissa followed Rachael to math class, where a quick look through the text convinced her that she would have no problems with the algebra covered this term. Trigonometry and Calculus were where Ron’s math training had ended, but Rachael was determined to master them in Grades 11 and 12 when they came up.

The last period of the day was Auto Mechanics, and the teacher, a portly man with a slight beard that verged on scruffy seemed surprised to have two girls in his class. Home Ec is down the hall, girls, he said, turning his back.

“Yes, but we were looking for Auto Mechanics,” Rachael said. “Is this the right place?”

“Girls again!” the man muttered. “Two tried out last year, but dropped out because of the mess. Tearing apart lawn-mower engines is a lot messier than baking cookies and sewing aprons.”

“Well, I can already bake and sew, so Home Ec. isn’t going to teach me as much as I hope to learn here,” Rachael shot back. “I’m not planning to get married until my late 20s, so I suspect somewhere between then and now I will need to cut a lawn, or change the oil in my car.”

“Glad to have you aboard, girls,” the man said. “My name is Mr. Henderson and if you stick with the course I guarantee you will be able to run a lawnmower, and fix it, and do simple maintenance on a car. Although I have always found that cute girls like you have ways of getting a tire changed without touching a tire iron.”

“Thank you,” Rachael said, as she and Lullana took seats in the small classroom adjacent to the garage area. Soon boys, who seemed to have problems concentrating on the teacher rather than the cute girls in the front row, filled the room. There were no dirty hands at the end of the class, as the teacher spent most of the time explaining the class. Apparently most of the time the students would be taking lawnmowers apart and making them run again. There would also be cars brought in that the Grade 10 classes would be refurbishing. The Grade 9s would learn to change the fluids on those, and replace tires.

“How many of you can get a non-working lawnmower by next Monday,” the teacher asked. A lot of hands went up, and Rachael urged Lullana to raise hers. “Lets go the other way,” he said. “How many cannot get a mower.” Now there were about six hands.”

“Less than half, good,” Mr Henderson said. “We can have those of you who don’t get a machine to share with others. It isn’t ideal, but it can work.”

Rachael raised her hand and the teacher called on her: “I know where we can get lawnmowers. Maybe not six more, but a couple. Do you want me to ask?”

“Yes, please do,” the teacher said. Other girls just seemed to cause problems in class, but these new ones might be different.”

After the final bell, Rachael and Lullana headed to the small gym, where they found Mikki, Larissa and most of her team from last year there. As Lullana shyly changed into her gym gear, Rachael noted more than one girl sneak a peak at the exchange student and her miraculously flawless black skin.

Soon the girls were lined up in the gym and were surprised to find a dozen older boys shooting baskets.

Ms. Smith came out and blew her whistle: “Is everyone out here? Let’s head outside. The senior boys basketball team are practicing here, and the big gym has all the younger boys for tryouts.

Muttering, the girls headed out the doors. “Endurance is a key for basketball, so we will start today with a little running. We will do some gym work … later, when I can get some time booked. Today we will do some running. Four laps on the track. It’s a mile. Follow me.”

The lanky teacher started running to the track, and Lullana, of all people, was soon after her. The girls who had been with Rachael in Middle School looked to her, and she just shrugged and started to run, and they followed. Finally the other girls started running after and by the time Ms. Smith and Lullana were at the halfway point on the track, everyone was running.

Rachael was a good 100 yards behind the blonde teacher and the black girl, who loped along at an easy pace. Lullana ran everywhere back in Africa, so she had no problems keeping pace with the teacher. Rachael had to motor hard to gain ground on them, but slowly shrank the distance. Larissa kept pace with her for the first lap, then fell back slowly, but was far ahead of the others, who were starting to be lapped by the end of the first lap.

Rachael ran wide on the second lap, and started to catch up when the teacher and Lullana had to weave around the runners they were lapping. Eventually she caught up with the leaders on the start of the fourth lap. Lullana hadn’t broken a sweat, but Ms. Smith was looking much more spent. She had never had a student close to beating her in a race, and now she saw there were two of them just behind her.

As she ran Rachael wondered why Lullana hadn’t passed the teacher. Then it hit her. Ms. Smith had said ‘follow me’ so that was what the girl was doing. And suddenly Rachael realized that her teacher’s competitive streak would not handle it well if one of two of her students bested her. So Rachael, slowed down a bit and ran side by side with Lullana, letting Ms. Smith set the pace.

At the end of the fourth lap, the teacher finished first, although Lullana and Rachael were a yard behind. All three slumped on the benches, and panted, although Lullana was not breathing all that hard.

“Will we run longer races?” she asked innocently. “Back home I had to run five or ten miles sometimes.”

Rachael felt a tingle, and suddenly was no longer so tired. She stood and saw Mikki going by at the start of her third lap. Some girls were still on their second lap, or walking. Rachael caught up with Mikki and Carla, who were running together. “Come on guys, you can do it.”

“Will you sing at my funeral?” Mikki panted. “I’m going to die out here doing this.”

“Don’t be silly.” Rachael laughed as she ran alongside. “Don’t you realize just how much weight you are losing? Pfft, pfft, calories are dying and falling away in your sweat. You do this run a few times this week and by Christmas you will wearing skinny clothes.”

“I already wear skinny clothes,” Carla panted. “So why am I doing this?”

“By Christmas you will be the prettiest girl in the class and Leon will be so crazy in love with you it will hurt. Him, not you. Come on, finish this lap and I’ll get Ms. Smith to stop it.”

That comment seemed to fire the girls up, and they continued to run. Rachael moved, first to the girls she knew, then the new girls in her class, and finally to the others. She came up to a group of about 24 who had given up and were just walking the rest of the first lap.

“Come on you guys,” she called. “Keep running. I know Ms. Smith and if you walk across the finish line she will make you run the rest. If you run from here to the end, or at least jog, I will talk her out of the last laps.”

Having the end in sight inspired the walkers and some started to run, and others to jog to the line.

“You still have more laps,” Ms. Smith shouted, but Rachael ran up to her and stopped in front of her. “No, that is enough. They are out of shape, and killing them won’t make them fit. Next time we run I promise we will do better.”

For several seconds the teacher glared at the student who was usurping her authority. That glare was supposed to make a teenager back down, but Rachael just stared back. Finally a smile appeared on Ms. Smith’s face and she said: “Still being the teacher, eh Rachael? You better make the team and be a leader there as well. You win this one. And thanks for letting me finish first. You and Lullana both had enough left in the tank to leave me behind. I’m going to have to start running again.”

She looked around, and saw that there were at least 50 girls lying on the grass, panting heavily. Another 20 were sitting on the benches. Only Rachael was standing. Ms. Smith had not expected this many to try out for basketball.

“All right girls, we have all had a good run. There will be more, but I promise they won’t hurt as much as it hurts now. Oh, it will still hurt, but less. And since you all lived through this, you will live through that. Now let’s all head up to the showers. First ones back get the hot water.”

That comment just lead to groans, and Lullana and Ms. Smith started running to the showers, with the African girl quickly taking a lead. Rachael stayed back and encouraged the girls to follow. Soon she was jogging back with the last group.

Lullana had showered and was out watching the senior boys. Of course, Steve Jackson was out there, trying out. He was pretty poor shooting, having never played the game before. But he was tall and muscular and just had to get his shot down to make the team, which was not that strong this year.

After Rachael showered, she told Lullana where the stairs were. The run had just taken a half hour, including the shower, and all the girls were up in the balcony to the large gym, where the boys their age were working out. Robert was there, along with the boyfriends of so many of the other girls, and once the boys saw the audience, they started working harder. Eventually their coach, who was definitely not in shape for a mile run, sent the boys to their showers.

The busses were gone, but Steve had one of the farm pickups, and the four crammed into the cab, with Rachael and Lullana both close to their boyfriends. The ride to the Barron house was quick: they could have walked, but why pass up a snuggle with a squeaky-clean boy?

After the truck sped away, Rachael and Lullana went into the empty house. They started making dinner for the family, and it was almost prepped when Bobby came in, full of news about his first day in middle school. He ‘made the sallid’ and then took off to join his friends on their bikes.

Shortly after six Geoff and Marie came in, snuggling together and smelling of bakery. Bobby returned and they sat down to dinner. The chair at the head of the table sat empty, to honor grandpa, with a poppy sitting where the plate normally would be.

Geoff and Maria didn’t have to go to bed early. Mike would start the bread, and Jane would start the early prep. They both lived above the bakery in the tiny apartment, and the former hooker couldn’t believe her luck in landing such a man. Mike had paid for her first operation, and she no longer looked so grotesquely large. Jane had told Rachael that she was still a mess there, with folds of excess skin, but an operation next year would clear that up. Now she was slightly smaller busted than Maria in her uniform, and loved working in the bakery.

After Bobby was finally convinced that he should go to bed, a half hour later than usual ‘since he was now in Grade Five’. Only a reminder that he had a hockey practice tomorrow got him moving. And he had to have a half hour reading Harry Potter, with Lullana on one side of him and Rachael on the other. Lullana’s reading was improving and she had gotten the first Harry Potter book from the library and was reading it alone to catch up.

After Bobby was asleep, and Lullana went upstairs, Rachael kneeled at the side of the bed.

Dear Lord

Thanks for such a wonderful first day of high school. I know someone up there made it so I could run like that. And all my classes are easy, although I know that trig is coming down the road. Tomorrow my first class is Phys.Ed., and that will be a spare since I am trying out for the team. I wonder if I should go anyway, and help Ms. Smith out.

Thank you for putting me here. I hope I can do what is necessary.