Between the Bell

         It’s fascinating how life is so sudden. How it passes by without us recognizing. Amazing how one’s life can end and feel no regret, remorse, or reconciliation. The desire to start all over knowing what we know now, but we know it’s impossible. Why is it I had to die? Why is it that I went after her like a dog after a cat? You probably do not know what I am rambling on about. No one ever does. I don’t have the answers to my life. So please listen to my undoing and decide for me…
         I was a freshman in homeroom, waiting for what ventures high school would bring and the people I would meet. I was already acquainted with a couple of the unintelligent seniors who were trying to follow the tradition of, “make the freshman’s year miserable.” The classic, “laugh at the new kid because he forgot his combination,” works every time. I could tell that those overly body pierced burn outs will most likely end up working for me at a minimal wage job, when I am older. It’s all just another speed bump. I managed to compare class lists with a few of my friends before the bell rang. It turns out I have a friend in every class except English, my specialty. I had always done well in school, but this year was supposed to be extremely strenuous. I also had all the sports tryouts to worry about. I was hoping to make the team for basketball and track this year. I’m quick on my feet and a good shot. So I had a good chance. In reality, I was basically thinking the same thing as every other freshman.
         As the bell rung to begin first period, World History, I walked in with my best friend Josh Neil. We had been friends since the beginning of the first grade and we’ve been inseparable ever since. The class the teacher just droned on about what we were planning to cover this year. The same droning happened in Health and Biology. As the bell rang, once again, to tell everyone that the middle of the day would soon be here, I confidently sauntered into English. I thought I would breeze through this year without even breaking a sweat. If only I had known what awaited in that room, I would have darted out of the classroom, the school, and kept going.
         I walked in to behold the most spellbinding human to walk the Earth. I saw the reason Troy fell in her pearly smile and the intellect of Einstein in her sapphire eyes. I could sense the challenge just by the way she held herself.  I knew right away what I was feeling, passion and love. I wished it would stay for eternity. Yet, I sensed for an instant, there was something hidden beneath that perfection, probably nothing, then again… At the same time, I was praying we could sit together, even though the odds were stacked in misfortunes favor.
         The teacher, Ms. Zando, told everyone to get up so she could give us our seats for the rest of the year. I felt a boulder hit my stomach. It was all or nothing. Randomly Mrs. Zando raddeled off names, “Nick Slander, Lauren Zombi, Aarron Burr.” After each person I held my breath. “Mark Carnol, Caroline Masker.” My girl then sat down in the end of the middle row. My heart was pumping, my breath raspy, and my vision blurred. Did she say Mark Carnol? Who was Mark Carnol? What demonic being would sit next to such an angel? The teacher then looked at me and said, “I believe you are Mark so please sit down.” I felt so stupid. What idiot forgets his own name? I silently took my seat and the dull course introduction began.
         The rest of the day I was in a dream. Nothing could wake me.  I don’t even remember going home. I couldn’t wait for tomorrow so I could talk to Caroline. She hadn’t even looked at me during class, I was confident I could make it all change. When I woke up for the second day of the school year, I was determined for her approval. I breezed through my first three periods and got to the English classroom first. I was hoping to make the girl of my dreams laugh just a little. Just a giggle and that would be enough. But what would I say? What kind of humor did she like? Did she even have a sense of humor? As I was raging war with all of my jokes, I hardly recognized Caroline sitting down beside me. I was also confused at the half smile and entergetic wave she gave me. I returned the gesture and she giggled. Just like that a giggle.
         “Mr. Carnol, if you would kindly stop making faces with Caroline we shall begin,” Mrs. Zando belted across the room.
         “Uuuhhh…sorry,” I said weakly, completely humiliated.
         “Since you can’t speak in complete sentences I would like you to ‘volunteer’ for this question Mr.Carnol,” he said.
         “I volunteer, your majesty,” I said sarcastically managing to make the classroom laugh. Looking to my right I saw Caroline laughing to.
         “Very funny Mr. Carnol. If you are done making jokes would you please tell me what your favorite quote from an Elizabethan play,” she asked knowing no one knew what she was asking. Except me.
          “I am going to have to say to say it is from Shakespeare’s Julies Caesar. ‘Cowards die many times before their death, the valiant never taste of death, but once’,” I smirked. The grudgingly teacher nodded his head showing approval. She then continued with the lesson. After about ten minutes into to her I felt a tap on my shoulder.
         “Hey, how did you know what Elizabethan is?” asked Caroline.
         “I pay attention in History,” I honestly responded.
She chuckled for a second and then asked, “So why did you pick that particular line?” she asked.
Words then sprang out of my mouth like faster then lighting, “Because I would want to be with someone who would be brave then a coward.” We didn’t say anything for a little bit. I was too shocked at what I had just said. What I really wanted her to say was, ‘It is not in the stars that hold our destiny, but in ourselves,’ from the mouth of William Shakespeare. I blew that chance. Is it too early to flirt a little?
“So what do you think about me?” her voice anchoring me into the present, “Would you want to be with a girl like me?” she said with a flirty smile
“Dear heavens yes. I would love to be with you. Please let me prove myself oh please oh please oh please,” my head was screaming, and I knew right there I had a shot. “I don’t know enough about you. Maybe we should get together sometime and we’ll see what happens,” I said nonchalantly.
“That’s sweet, but I’m going to have to say no. I am busy all week with my girlfriends and I don’t really plan ahead,” she said. The bell then rang and everyone left the room. Rejected, a flat out rejection made the pretty girl way. Lovable and sweet, but still a flat out no.
As I went to lunch with my friend Josh I told him about what happened. “Dude, you just got majorly rejected,” he said in awe.
“At least try and make me feel a little better,” I said.
         “Okay, I’m sorry. But man she didn’t totally trample you. So something has to be there at the very least,” he merrily responded. I thought about that for a little bit and realized he was actually right. So for the next quarter I tried whenever I could to make Caroline like me more. I made jokes, asked question that started class long conversations with her, and got A’s. I continued to ask her out here and there, but she declined every time.
         “When are you just going to accept the fact that she will just not say yes?” Josh asked me after another feeble attempt at asking Caroline out.
         “Maybe she’s into jocks and so far I haven’t done any sports,” I said. He pondered about this for a couple moments. “You know, you might actually be right. You’re one of the best basketball players I know. So if she doesn’t like you playing you’re screwed, dude,” he agreed.
         “Thanks…I think,” I said uncertain.
         Basketball tryouts were announced. I managed to be on the team. Practice was everyday and it was rigorous. I think the coach had some military background because he wanted everything done perfectly. If we messed up, we had to do push-ups. If you missed a lay up, ten push-ups.  If a guy blocks you, twenty push-ups. If you get out dribbled, fifty push-ups. Since we had so much fear of the coach we worked together to make sure everyone was equally good before the first game. When the game arrived we had to go on a bus ride for an hour just to mutilate the opposing team 76-34. Game after game we were like that and Caroline even came to a few of them. She cheered whenever I scored and hissed with the crowd when the referees made a call against us. Every game I talked to her and twice I asked her out. Yet no matter how I tried it was always a refusal.
         I asked Josh what I could do, but he didn’t have any answers. Then a week before winter break, I walked into English and Mrs. Zando was playing Jingle Bells from her radio. I noticed then that there was something different about Caroline. Her body language said she was lost while her eyes were a hawk’s, constantly darting around the room, looking for something. I managed to get a conversation going with her about our away game yesterday. I was feeling lucky because of the win, so I asked Caroline out knowing I would get a no. Yet karma came my way and she agreed to study for midterms with me tomorrow. The class bell rang and everyone left. I think I saw Caroline pick something up and put it in her pocket. It was rectangular and small, but I shrugged it off because she said YES. When I told Josh about it, he gave me a little bit of his lunch in his form of congratulations...or maybe it was because he hated the chicken sandwich. 
         The next day came swifter then I expected. Before I knew it I was in the library after school with Caroline and she seemed her usual cheerful self. My heart was running a marathon and my stomach was on a roller coaster at the same time. We were on the second story of the library seated at a table right next to a window. Outside of the window snowflakes were appearing, but no one was out there to greet them. I started to think what conversations the snowflakes were having as they looked in at us.
         “They seem good together,” dainty one might say.
         “She’s out of his league. She probably said yes out of a bet,” a bully snowflake might say.
         “Make your move now,” another would say.
         “How was the theme shown in the way the old man reacted to the ghost?” a heavenly voice asked.
         “Hmmm…what?” I answered trying to figure out who said that.
         “I said how is the theme shown in the way the old man reacted to the ghost?” the voice answered a little annoyed. “Hello is you paying attention to me,” Caroling said in a playful tone, as she finished applying her scarlet colored lipstick. Did that lipstick mean a kiss? She put it in her purse so it must.
         “Oh…yeah, wait. That shrewdness is able to be conquered by fear,” I said, “and I was to paying attention to you. I just thought that the snowflakes earned my attention for a bit,” I said playfully to Caroline.
         “Wrong. The answer is that a person should shoulder their pains no matter the situation and to see how much the snowflakes like you,” she said and before I could stop her she opened the window. A gust of freezing wind blew in causing our notes to scatter everywhere and Caroline’s purse, to fall out the window.
         “Oh shoot,” Caroline said, “that had all my stuff in it. Could you go down there and get for me?” she asked with a puppy dogface.
         “Okay fine. Just don’t do that again,” I toyed with her. I put on my jacket and went downstairs. As I got outside I noticed that something was eerie, out of place. As I went toward Caroline’s purse I realized that her belongings had fallen out. A bell, maybe for the holidays, lay next to her lipstick and other miscellaneous objects. I started putting them into her purse. I grabbed something small and rectangular shaped. It was floss. As I was about to put it away I had a nagging feeling. I turned to look and I saw Caroline a good way away. Why was she out here without a coat on? Why was she getting closer and yet she didn’t move her feet? Why is the floss moving so violently? Before I knew it something was holding me by the neck. I couldn’t breath; I couldn’t get the thing off me I couldn’t win. Yet Caroline just kept getting closer and closer until she was right next to me. As she stopped a couple yards in front of me, I heard a vibration. A single vibration starting to speed up and up. Until I could make out a voice. A voice full of knowledge, wisdom, boredom, and wrath.
         “It seems you have met an end,” a voice so low it couldn’t be Caroline’s. It couldn’t be her. “How foolish you were chasing me like a dog, clumsy and dumb. While I, like a cat, kept avoiding you oh so sweetly until I pounced. Tell me, do you feel regret, remorse, or confusion? Most likely confusion, they always do. Your attacker right now is me the floss you hold in your hand. Something unsuspecting and safe to you humans. You see, I am a scientist. What I want to know is can my creation recognize and escape me. Over the millenniums I have tried to find which one of my lab rats can have, the honor of being part of my experiment. The hypothesis is that no one can spot me. I make bodies, but some I control and others I don’t. For instance, Caroline and you. She is a mindless puppet having any persona I wish. You on the other hand, have your own wants and desires.  No one has ever escaped even though I give them hints and clues along the way. Starting from the first humans to walk the Earth, but of course I chose to be a snake, the animal of evil. If only you could have spotted my subtle hints. I was hoping you would. You were definitely something else. But there will always be another. Goodbye.” It said and as I breathed my last breath I heard a fire trucks bell’s and whistles for the library was on fire.