|
mandymui
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: Mandy
Country: United States
State: Hawaii/Massachusetts
Birthday: 9/26/1985
Gender: Female
Interests: traveling, helping people, graphic arts, creative writing, net-surfing, chatting, gaming, anime, movies, music, anything hawaii-related, photography, making movies, reading, wasting time...
Message: message me
Member Since:
5/20/2002
|
|
SubscriptionsSites I Read
|
|
|
|
| PROLOGUE, Etude to Senior Year
I glanced at my watch to gage how much time had already passed since we first awoke at 1 a.m. It was 2:30 in the morning now, and my friends and I assembled in the garage of Edna’s house. The six of us, exhausted from our measly two hours of sleep the night before, yawned constantly. My eyes drooped as I searched in darkness for my other five friends. Our black, ninja-like outfits hid us in the shadows and made us invisible to the naked eye.
Edna lifted up her video camera and shined it in my direction. I squinted because of the unnaturally bright light. I could see everyone now. Each of my friends wore an excited expression. “Say something to the camera,” Edna whispered to me.
I grinned. “We embark on an important mission now,” I began in a very professional tone. “Our target: benches. It’s time to define who we really are. Seniors!” I chuckled menacingly to close my short speech, jokingly to indicate to the audience we had a top-secret plan.
“Yesterday, Edna, Christine and I mapped everything out. We tried the route. It only took us an hour to get in,” Chris (Iraha) said to the rest of us. “Only thing we need to watch out for this time around is…” He paused surreptitiously. “Guards,” he finished.
“That and Mr. Lee,” Chelsea chimed in.
Chris divulged more of his plan to us. “Benches open up at 5:30. We’re going to get there before then so we can steal the one we want. We need to get going now if we want to make it on time.”
Our party was about three blocks away from school. We walked swiftly and arrived at Ala Wai Elementary School on schedule. From there, the six of us bolted to the side road near the football field. “I think someone saw us,” Jen (Saito) whispered. “I saw a light shining from the top there.” We all grumbled. “Adam (Maruyama), you stay here and keep a watch out. Call us if anything happens.”
Sneaking slowly and carefully, the five of us proceeded toward the small green shack in the far end of the football field. We paused in still silence each time a light shined in our direction. We finally arrived near second destination and after much struggle, jumped the fence to reach the green shack. The five of us immediately ran behind the shack’s drapes as another bright light searched our previous positions.
“What now?” I asked in my quietest voice possible.
“We’re going to have to get across to the baseball field,” answered Christine in the same tone.
“How are we going to do that with all the guards out there?”
Chris thought for a moment, and then responded, “Roll there.”
“Roll?!” Chelsea whispered in disbelief.
“Yeah, just cross your arms over your chest like this and start turning over on your side. I’ll show you. Just watch me.” Chris carefully walked out from under the green drapes. He dropped to the ground, put his arms over his chest and began rolling across the field. After about 15 minutes, Chris returned to give the signal that the coast was clear.
“You go next,” I told Jen. And one by one we surreptitiously rolled across the field, arms crossed over our shoulders. I stopped several times because of the dizziness it caused when the world started spinning. I rested on the damp grass and turned my gaze to the heavens. The stars were speckled across the sky, so clear, that even the planets were visible. The faint red glow radiated from Mars, and the yellow, from what seemed like Venus. And there was Orion’s Belt, and the Big Dipper, and so many more unidentifiable twinkling stars. I remembered the mission at hand and resumed my rolling across the football field.
Edna, Chelsea, Christine, Chris, Jen and I all gathered at the next shack at the entrance of the baseball field. A newly cemented walkway was fenced around with black tarp. In groups of two or three, we were to make it to (where the players sit in baseball, whatever it is called). Chelsea and I teamed up We sprinted across the field to the cement walkway, where we proceeded to crawl, as difficult as it was with our t-shirts and jeans. “We’re so slow, haha” Chelsea laughed.
“I think we can skip this part,” I said, as I got up to a standing position and began to dust myself off. “I doubt anyone will see through this black tarp.” As we neared the end of the cement pathway, we noted the distance between (the place where to players sit) and where we were.
“That’s kinda far,” Chelsea whispered. “I think Iraha said we should roll.”
I laughed at the thought again, and individually, we tumbled our way to (where the players sit). To compensate for exerting ourselves, we sat down for a rest before moving on. “Edna and I will go on ahead,” Chris said. “That way, if any of us get caught, you guys can continue.” Chris and Edna continued furtively and sneaked past the student center. The four of us eventually realized that we wouldn’t know “when to continue” since it would be difficult to find out if Edna or Chris had been caught.
Then, much to our dismay, search lights began appearing. We decided to hide underneath the benches in (where the players sit), hoping to conceal ourselves so the security guards wouldn’t find us. Unfortunately, it wasn’t very effective. Soon enough, we heard the footsteps of a security guard passing through (where the players sit). He shined his flashlight under the benches and said gruffly, “Gotcha!”
We sat up from our crouched positions under the bench and heaved an overwhelming sigh. “You the ones we caught before?” he asked.
“Caught before…? No, this is a first,” we replied with a hint of confusion and disappointment. (I think it might have been Tiger who was also trying to sneak in, ^_^)
“I’m gonna call Mr. Lee. You guys stay right here. Don’t move!”
Jen laughed—“What is Mr. Lee going to think when he sees me here?”
“Heh, doesn’t really matter for me… pretty sure he hates me already,” I grinned proudly.
“Eh whatever,” Chelsea said. Christine didn’t seem too worried either (or maybe I just forgot her reaction :D).
“Jennifer Saito?” said a very familiar, snake-like voice, otherwise Mr. Lee’s. “tsk tsk, you should know better,” he told the rest of us while escorting us out to the lower school entrance. “Now, I don’t want to see you guys until school starts, all right?” We all nodded solemnly as we reached the entrance to lower school.
At the entrance, a large crowd of our classmates greeted us with jeers (they were jealous of course, and glad we got kicked out instead of getting a bench hehe  )
We spotted Chris and waved to get his attention. As he walked over, he told us “Edna is still in there.” We all expressed our excitement.
“Where is everyone else who said they would come. We need our track people!”
“Vince and Matt are in the front.” (Patrick must have been still sleeping, lazy bastard!) When the gates finally opened, the crowd of newly initiated Iolani seniors sprinted as quickly as they could to the benches, hoping that speed would be their advantage. Much to everyone’s surprise, there stood Mr. Lee in the center of the roped-off senior benches. And there was Edna, standing at the front of the crowd. The entire senior class waited anxiously to claim a bench, as the minutes crawled by. “…Go.”
The crowd of seniors lunged forward to make their claim. Our group, representative of werdlag, scored one of our target benches, but satisfactorily adjusted the senior living space to our desires… sort of.
I wrote part of this for creative writing and just found the unfinished file in my old folder. I thought it would be a good memory for those who participated, or at least a fun story to tell for those who didn’t. J | | |
|
