High school is where teenagers get to learn what life is like. You’ve got all the makings of a John Hughes movie. Every cliché. All the stereotypes. Kids who enjoy smoking marijuana. Bookworms, nerds, and geeks who love playing Dungeons and Dragons, video games, and reading about fantasy worlds, the likes of which J.R.R. Tolkien would be proud. Then there are kids like me. The ones that don’t really fit in with the jocks, cheerleaders, or anyone else involved with physical fitness. Even those strange kids wearing all-black clothing no matter the time of year or temperature. I’m still trying to work out why they do that. I’ve concluded those not hurting me aren’t hurting me. So, I’ll let it alone.

Big deal. You don’t fit in with anyone else. Why in the world would anyone care? I guess you’d care if it was your car I stole, right? But it wasn’t a typical day at school, not with senior skip day in full swing.

“Brice, you really think you can crash senior skip day?” That’s my best friend, Jared. He’s a nerdy geek. Yeah. He’s that guy. You know, the stereotypical nerd with glasses? Yeah. He doesn’t fit that description. He’s got a thin frame, almost skeletal and bony, but healthy. His parents are incredibly well-read, intellent people. I don’t know if his mom graduated from college, but Jared’s dad did. How else would you explain him being an engineer at the AT&T facility in San Francisco? Jared was thumbing through a Batman comic book.

“Uh, yeah. Why not?” I replied. “I mean, I’ve got nothing going on Friday.”

“What about your English comp class? Don’t you have a creative writing assignment due?” Jared knew when my writing assignments were due because he was my editor and proofreader. Part of the reason I was a stellar creative writer was Jared. He helped me hone my writing before I published my first book in the early 2000s.

“I turned it in early. Mrs. Henke knew I’d have it done so she asked me to write something else, a tougher assignment, and she’s giving me thirty extra credit points for it.”

“Don’t you already have an ‘A’ in her class? What do you need bonus points for?”

“I don’t. I just wanted the practice.”

“Man.” He tossed the comic at my head. “You are more of a geek than I am. And you know something, Brice?” He got up and punched me in the shoulder. It didn’t hurt, not coming from his skeletal fist with zero muscle tone. “I’m totally cool with it!” After stretching, he moved towards the door. “Are you coming? Thought you might like a snack.”

“You never have anything good.”

“What are you talking about? We got Hot Pockets! Mom bought plenty of pepperoni and sausage ones.”

“Dude. They taste like cardboard.”

He turned back and gave me a funny look. “No, they don’t,” he said, shaking his head. “Even if they did, you’d still eat it, you human garbage disposal.”

“Fine. Hot pocket it is,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Where are you going for senior skip day anyway?”

“Dunnon yet. I am supposed to hear back from Derek in a few minutes. He mentioned Santa Cruz or San Leandro. Maybe San Francisco, but I don’t know.” He gave me a funny look. “You aren’t coming, no matter where we are going.”

“But why not? I’ve never skipped out on school before.”

“That’s not true,” Jared said, shaking his head. “You ditched P.E. a month ago. Remember how much trouble you got into? And hell, you stayed at school like a dunce. Why on earth wouldn’t you leave campus?” After peeling off the plastic wrap and sliding them into their metallic sleeves, he popped both Hot Pockets into the microwave. Actually, he was right. I did skip P.E., but not because I hated physical exercise. I did hate physical activities, but I hated changing into shorts in front of the other guys more. Unlike Jared or the other guys in the junior and senior class, I wasn’t exactly fit. I wasn’t fat, either, but I felt like it, which was enough for me. My other problem was with our current coach, a woman. Now, before you start in on me about, ‘Oh? You had a problem with a woman?’ spiel, let me explain my history with her.

She was a wench from the first time I met her in sixth grade. It was an experience I’d love to forget but for me? As a twelve-year-old, it was traumatic. I got yelled at for skating around the quad at our elementary school after school. And she just happened to be in charge of the afterschool care for those kids with working parents. There were several of us, but most were younger kids, ages seven through ten. I was one of four twelve-year-olds that had to stay. And it sucked being twelve and being watched by some woman who was barely twenty-three. She screamed at me to take off the skates, stop skating around the quad, and threatened to spank me! Me? You are going to try to spank me? Not even my mother would do that. My grandmother? Oh yeah. But not my mom, especially the last time she tried and took dad’s belt out of her hand and threatened to hit her with it. My dad laid into me that night, but he didn’t spank me. Was I grounded from watching VHS movies? Oh yeah. Did he take my cassettes from me? Yeah, every one of them, and I had over three hundred. It took dad four trips to get them all. But he took each of them. And my walkman, too. C’est la vie! But the skates? I never put them on again after being threatened by Karen Harper. I don’t know if dad ever asked or knew why I put the skates in the closet, only to be tossed in the Goodwill box a few months later. I lied and said I outgrew them. It was probably true, but the reality was more complicated than the truth.

“I ditched Mrs. Harper.”

“Naw, dude. You were scared about leaving campus.”

Heat crept up in my face. Jared was right and often called me out, especially when I was trying to obscure the truth. “So?” The microwave beeped, leaving us to eat the Hot Pockets. Jared managed to eat most of it, steam drifting from it, hot as it was! Me? I couldn’t do that. I figured Jared’s sinus problems afforded him dead or deadening taste buds, preventing him from burning the crap out of his mouth. Me? I couldn’t handle eating hot pizza, let alone a mini-calzone.

“You’re such a baby,” Jared said, taking three bites from the steamy Hot Pocket. “You could’ve left campus and returned before anyone knew you were missing. As it was, it took them three days to notice that you weren’t in class when you should be. I never thought our school was that bad at record keeping. Apparently, you managed to slip through the cracks on a bad day for attendance.” He shook his head. “You are so lucky!”

“Lucky? I got two days of detention, grounded for a week, and my dad took my car.”

Jared laughed. “It’s your dad’s car, right? His prerogative! You blew it. Dude! My parents would’ve been all over my case. You and I,” he pointed at me with his remaining two bites of Hot Pocket, “wouldn’t have seen each other for a month! So, yeah. You are lucky.”

“Whatever. I’ll see you tomorrow?”  

“I doubt it. I’m going somewhere.”

“When will you know?”

“Derek was supposed to call me back,” Jared finished, the phone ringing, almost as if whoever was calling was expecting him to say that. “Hello? Oh, hey, Derek. Yeah? Santa Cruz? No. I’m cool with that. Sure. Together? I guess we can. I may drive myself. Why? Oh, well, yeah, that makes sense. No, the Honda gets excellent mileage. Close to twenty-two miles a gallon. Yeah. Sure. I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye.”

“So I guess we’re going to Santa Cruz tomorrow.”

“I keep telling you, Brice. You are not coming.”

“We’ll see about that,” I said, walking out the door.

“Hey! Where are you going?” Jared followed me outside. “You were going to show me the secret levels in Super Mario Brothers! Hey, man. You can’t just leave!”

I started up the Volkswagen, put it in reverse, and left rubber on the pavement as I shifted into first gear, tears filling my eyes.