Josh

Smack!

The sound was deafening, and had apparently hurt, for Josh was glaring at me, his hand pressed against his cheek. Then he ran for it. Grumbling, I ran after him, for I knew exactly where he would go. To the Recess Monitors.

‘It was his own fault,’ I thought to myself, ‘I thought he had come to pick on me again‘. Which was entirely true. Josh had been picking on my friends, and I had stood up to him. But the big meany didn’t stop, so I told on him. What? I was seven, and in first grade, the whole snitch thing hadn’t come into play yet. The Monitor had told him to stay away from us, and I shoddily hoped for him to stay away, but you know us little kids, if you tell us not to do something, then that something becomes the top of our to-do list. So of course, Josh came near us. He walked straight toward us, and Alexis, and Amelia ran for the bushes. I stood my ground, scowling right back at him, with my fists clenched. Apparently he thought I looked harmless, so he walked right up to me and I well, slapped him.

And it wasn’t a girly slap either. It was a nice, right on target slap, which hit him right on the left cheek. I must of hit it harder than I thought, for once I had caught up to him, there already was a bright red mark on his cheek. I couldn’t help but be proud of myself.

I seriously thought I’d get off the hook, since he had been the one who had come at me. I simply pleaded self defense, but it didn’t work. The Monitor took us straight to Mrs. Beckner, our teacher.

Looking at my feet, I listened to Mrs. Beckner tell us she was very disappointed in us. She already knew that I had anger problems, not that I showed any in class, but mostly toward any bullies who decided to pick on me, so she wasn’t surprised to see me in front of her. She wasn’t all too shocked to see Josh either. He was big, with a buzz cut, and a permanent scowl on his face. I had never seen him smile. Josh was always in trouble, in class or out, it didn’t matter. Trouble always found him no matter what.

The worst part was going to be telling my parents, not the punishment, but Josh didn’t seem to upset about that, until Mrs. Beckner told us what our punishment was.

We were in first grade, so it couldn’t of been anything that bad, or most thought so. She told us that we had detention, and no recess. Josh blew up saying how it wasn’t fair, and it had been me who had slapped someone not him. But Mrs. Beckner waved his complaints away and said we would have no recess tomorrow, and would have to stay in the principles office. She turned around, and Josh and I immediately sneered at each other. He whispered something I couldn’t make out, and knocked my desk over while he went to his. I muttered darkly under my breathe, and went back to my desk, picked it up, and then smiled at him. I didn’t care much for recess anyways, and he knew it. This punishment was for him not me.

I placed my arms behind my head, and leaned back in my chair. Any minute now my classmates would come in, and see us both…and the big red hand print plastered onto Josh’s face.
…
My mom hadn’t been too mad when I told her what really happened. It sure didn’t help that the first thing she asked me was how my day was and I said I got detention. We had been driving at the time, and the streets of Egypt are not a great place to slam your brakes and turn around to scream at your kid. The guy behind us almost hit us, but he didn’t, he just honked at us in that special honking language Egyptians have (I swear, they have their own little language! One honk means move, and then if there are more it could mean all sorts of things. It’s like having your own conversation with whoever had cut you off without having to yell at them. It’s amazing!). It’s just a good thing mom was driving or she probably would have spanked me, but after I told her my story, and she was satisfied that I wasn’t lying, she left me alone.

Dad on the other hand, well, not what I had expected. When mom was around he was all like “Brittany how could you have done such a thing!” or “You aren’t getting your allowance this week.” even though I didn’t get an allowance. But once mom turned her back he asked me how bad the mark on Josh’s face was. I told him it was as if someone had dipped their hand in red paint and pressed it against his cheek. He gave me a high five, and I got the diamond fork to eat with( we get to eat with it when we did something real spectacular, and yes beating up a guy counts!).

I felt so special.
…
Josh sat next to me in the hallway in the principles office. There were two principles, one for the littler kids, and one for the older (we had grades preK-through twelfth grade all in one school). We sat in the hallway between the two. I was so embarrassed! I kept seeing people I knew come in, like my art teacher, and P.E. teacher Mrs. Yuosiff. I’d hide my face and pretend I wasn’t there. Thankfully no one saw me, and Josh completely ignored me. It was one of the worst 30 minutes of my young life.

Mrs. Beckner came to get us when recess was over. Sniggers followed Josh as he sat down. His cheek still looked as if someone had painted a red hand print onto it. He shot a dirty look at me, pushed the books off of Walied’s desk, and sat in his own.

Man was he mad.
…
The next day at recess I was playing with my friends once again. Alexis, Julie, Palavi and I were on the merry-go-round when Josh came up to us, and got on too. My friends and I went silent, and stopped playing the color game. Alexis who still had her eyes closed, opened them and saw why no one was talking anymore.

“What do you want?” I asked coldly, folding my arms across my chest.

“I want to talk to you.” he said flatly.

“Why should I listen to you. You’re just a big meany.” I shot back. My friends came up behind me as if to guard me from harm. But I knew that if Josh made any move toward them, they’d scatter.

“So what?” he said shrugging. “Or are you just scared?” a small smirk came across his mouth as I instantly replied.

“I am so not! And I’m most certainly not afraid of a jerk like you.” Turning to my friends I added, “I’ll be right back, and I’ll be in the middle when I do.” Alexis sighed in relief. She was never very good at the color game.

I hopped off the merry-go-round and onto the sand, and walked down in Josh’s direction.

“You know I wasn’t going to do anything to you the other day. I just wanted to bug you is all.”

“Well,” I said, blushing at my mistake, “Then you did a pretty good job at it.”

He turned and said, “Yeah, I guess I did.”

We walked in silence around the entire playground. If we kept up this slow of pace, it would take us an hour to get back to the merry-go-round. Shuffling my feet, I avoided eye contact. I had to admit, this guy sort a scared me.

My eyes ran over the ground, looking for something, anything to keep my mind off of what I was doing. And I found it. There, half embedded in the dry dirt, was a shiny black rock.

“Ooo!” I cried and grabbed a stick, “It’s a rock, I love rocks!” I poked the stick at the ground, and slowly pried the gem from the earth. Picking up my stone, I ran my grimy fingers over the surface of the black gleaming rock. To me, all I had to do was clean it under some water, and them I could place it on a ring. It was that perfect of an oval.

“You like rocks?” Josh asked, a look of astonishment on his face, a nice reprieve from the regular scowl.

“Yeah, I love rocks!” I said, glancing up from my stone.

“I do too.” Josh said, and held out his hand, “Can I look at it? I’ll give it back, I promise. And see,” he held out his other hand, “No fingers crossed.”

I looked back down at my stone, and back up to Josh’s pleading face. I shrugged and dropped the rock in his hand. Josh ran his fingers over the precious stone over and over again, just like I had. He turned the stone this way and that, and I marveled how black the rock really was. It was so black, it almost looked blue….well, almost blue anyhow.

Josh nodded his head as if satisfied, and handed my rock back. “It’s a good stone.”

“Uha,” I said, pocketing the thing, “And I’m gonna take it home so my dad can tell me what kind it is. He likes rocks too.” I replied smiling at him.

“Well I can tell you what kind it is too.” Josh said.

“Really?” I said in awe. I could never tell what kind a rock was, or at least not it’s scientific name anyhow. Black rocks were black rocks, red rocks were fairy rocks (and if you made a wish on them it would come true) and so on and so forth. You get the idea. But I was always impressed whenever someone said they knew what kind of rock it was.

“Yep!” Josh said, straightening himself up, and placing his hands on his hips.

“So what is it!” I asked excitedly.

“It’s basalt, a volcanic rock.” He replied proudly. (Later I found out he was wrong, but it was a good try for a 1st grader. And he was right about the volcanic part, it was just black granite, not basalt)

“Wow,” I said, “My rock came from a volcano?”

“Yeah, ain’t it cool?”

“Bloody hell yeah!” I said excitedly. Then an amazingly clever idea popped into my head. “Hey,” I said, my mouth twitching into that peevish smile I get when I’ve got a perfect plan, “Why don’t you help me look for rocks, and then you could tell me what they are!”

“That would be fun.” Josh said scratching his head in thought. Then he smiled, and held his hand out for me to take, “Deal?”

“Deal!” I cried, and we skipped down the field hand in hand, searching for rocks.
…
Josh and I made the perfect rock hunters. Josh would get down and dirty, and I would either find the rock, or pry it from wherever it was placed. Then Josh would take it home to clean, and polish the stone, and then bring it back. We lived in perfect harmony together, and most days I had almost completely forgotten how mean he had been to me in the beginning. All of the scowls, and dirty looks washed away and became glorious smiles instead. And all were toward me.

Sometimes, I’d go for days without playing with all my other friends. I was too busy now. Josh had a small bucket, shovel, and a hand pocket book about rocks. We identified most of the stones we gathered, but others, such as the fairy rocks, were not. And you know what? I think it’s better off not knowing. It would only ruin the magic of them.
…
Josh and I were making our usual rounds around the playground, when my eyes spotted something on the ground. I stopped, and Josh walked for a while before he realized I had found something.

He kneeled down next to me, and I pointed to what I was staring hungrily at. There embedded flat into the ground, was a flat stone. Or, it seemed flat for it was stuck under ground. The flat edge above the soil was spotted with perfectly round dots on a blackish-blue surface. The white, brown, and gray dots intrigued me greatly. I’ve always had a soft spot for speckled rocks.

The Little Tike shovel bit deep into the ground, as Josh dug up and underneath the stone. He brushed off all the excess dirt, and wiped the stone on his shirt. Then he held it out in his palm for me to see. The stone was about as long, and as wide as my small thumb. It had the flat speckled top, and the rest was sort a rounded looking. The rest of the stone was gray colored , with a few more interesting speckles. I nodded, and handed the stone back to Josh. He nodded too, then held our rock up to the light. That was when I heard him gasp.

“Brittany!” he cried excitedly. “Brittany, the stone is orange!”

“What?” I said. I had been pretty sure the last time I looked at the rock it was gray not orange.

“Yeah, see!” Josh said moving over so I could see the stone too, “If you hold it up to the sun it glows orange!”

My jaw dropped. He was right, the stone was emitting a orange glow. And it seemed to be coming from the inside of the rock.

“Brittany,” Josh said softly.

“Yes?”

“I think I know what this is…” and he trailed off in wonder.

“I think I do too.” I replied taking the rock from his hands. I knew exactly what it was, for I had a much bigger one at home. It was a rock with crystals in the center of it, and if you split the rock in half, then you could see the crystals. “It’s a geode isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Yep, it is. One with orange colored crystals.”

“Gee,” I whispered, “I’ve only seen white or clear ones, but never orange geodes.”

“They can come in any color.” Josh stated. “And when we break it open, you can have half, and me the other.”

I agreed, it only seemed fair that we both got a piece. So I let Josh go home with our treasure. I didn’t tell anyone about it, I was too excited to.
…
Josh came up to me the next morning, holding the small geode. He had a frustrated look on his face when he came over. I stared at the geode. It was still in one piece.

“My parent’s don’t have a tiny enough hammer to break it,” he sighed, looking forlornly at me, “So I’ll go over to that Science teacher, who we do labs with and stuff, to take a look at it. Maybe she can break it.”

I let Josh take the rock once more, and instead of Josh going to recess, he went to the Science Lady, while I played on the swings with my friends.
…
Josh didn’t tell me he was moving until the day he had to leave. I wasn’t upset, not really anyways, just upset that I couldn’t have a piece of the geode too, so I could remember him by. But that wasn’t going to work that way.

That night was Parent’s night, when all of our parents came to see our work at our classes. Josh came for the last time to take all of his stuff, and to say goodbye. He was holding his fish print picture when he took me outside to talk.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he said sadly, “I just didn’t want to make you sad.”

“It’s s’okay,” I said waving the idea of me being sad away, “It’s what I would of done too.” It was a lie, but he didn’t have to know that.

“Thanks.” he said shyly, giving me a small smile, “And oh before I forget,” he said, rummaging through his pockets for something. He pulled his hand out, and placed whatever it was inside my hand. It was warm. I closed my hand over the small thing, and said thanks.

“It’s because it was unbreakable,” he said, “And so you don’t ever forget me.”

I smile and took his hand. “I’d never forget you Josh.”

Then his parents came and took him away, to somewhere else. I waved goodbye to him, and watched him go through the gates and leave. I then for the first time glanced down at the object in my hand.

It was the orange geode.
………………
This was a true story, and I’ve never forgot the true friendship of my friend Joshua. This ones for you, and to say I never forgot you, just like I promised you.

And the geode is still with me, in one piece, as it always will be.