2006-11-21
three days until turkey day
"Do we have to write exactly what's on the board?" asks Thayer. He bolts out of his seat and marches toward Ms. Armstrong's desk. She's digging in an Altoids tin (not that it covers up her coffee breath) and looking annoyed...as if she had better things to do than babysit us.
Everybody else is staring into space. The A.C. rattles like a jet engine. I snuggle deeper into the hood of my sweatshirt, like a turtle tucking into its shell. Sharon Lubbitz shoots me a dirty look. No matter what I do, she finds something to point out...like, "Why do you drink ginger ale? Only old people do that." Or: "Why are you sitting so weird?" (I tend to fold both legs beneath me in the hope that it will help me keep warm. It doesn't.)
Yesterday she said that my clothes looked like they came from a flea market.
"Why are you such a bitch?" I asked, not really expecting an answer. Sharon just laughed like that was the funniest thing in the world, cracking her mouth so wide, I could see her silver fillings.
Today she's wearing cut-off jeans rolled (instead of tucked) into boots. Every so often, she scootches forward at her desk and I can see her flowered underwear.
Thayer flops into his chair and sighs like he has a lot on his mind. He stares at his blank sheet of paper, writes a sentence, crosses it out, tries again, then crumples it. The noise makes everyone whip their heads in his direction. He grins and waves at them.
I wish that I could tune out the world the way he does.
I glance out the window, which is smothered with cactus plants. Twenty minutes until freedom. Already I can hear the baseball players swearing and grunting in the hallway. One of them beams something hard against the window. They all laugh and take off running.
Ms. Armstrong gets up and goes to the door. She stands there, peering out into the hall. Thayer says, "Can we go now?" which makes me look at the clock again.
I'm slicing and dicing numbers in my head, dividing them into infinity. I think about that word, "infinity," and picture a string of zeros like the spots floating in front of my eyes. I start counting the ripples in my fake wood desk, as if I could guess its age. I add up the strips of masking tape that keep the carpet from curling off the floor. I am running out of things to count when the bell finally rings.
Three days until turkey day.
f-i-n at 12:43 a.m.