End of Chapter One

I think I've finished a chapter. Okay, correction. I've finished a chapter. Since I am not going back for revisions till after November I am going to call this next edition the end of chapter one. I've been questioning whether this story is going to stay in 6th grade the entire time or move forward in time. Right now I am inclined to say that I am going to move out of the 6th grade. While it was fun reminiscing in that time period, I think I am going to need to move on so that I can really flesh out my narrator and actually give some more movement to the story. Once things start changing beyond the scope of the narrator already knows what will happen I think things will get interesting. So here we go with the end of chapter one.

-If you still need the beginning of chapter one please read here

I was actually scared to see her again. Julia was a girl that I never forgot. We became friends in college with light communication and then it broke off entirely and I didn't really hear from her. Seeing her again brought back a flood of emotions. It was crazy. I didn't come back just to get with my high school crush. Well I couldn't really say that, I didn't know why I was back. I felt I was doing pretty well at keeping myself in check, but really how should you react when you realize you are sitting in your sixth grade class room again. I had been minding my own business on the subway and it went dark and then I was in sixth grade.
It occurred to me that now I had an interesting situation. I could take advantage of what I knew, but I had to be careful of it. I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do yet, but I knew that I wanted it to be different then what I had done. With a second chance there was no way I was going to end up as a 55-year-old accountant who hadn't had sex since he was in his thirties. That was going to happen a second time. I was going to lead my life how I wanted to lead it this time. But first I had to figure out when I was, predicting the future is useless if you don't know when the future is.
I had the basics. I was in sixth grade that much came back to me easily. I had to be somewhere in middle of the semester of the first term. So maybe September or October, I could figure that out later. What was important was what had happened already. If it was the middle of the term that meant I hadn't done anything too embarrassing yet. I wasn't exactly in with the right group of friends, but I could use Jack. He had been at my previous school and was held back a grade when he came here, he was in with the cool kids and in eighth grade I was even part of his posse. He did get kicked out that year, but that was only a little my fault, and how could he hold things against me that hadn't happened yet.
I watched the rest of Julia's presentation but none of her words even penetrated my head. It was full of too many other thoughts to let anything else in. Mrs. Lawn called up a few more students but I didn't really recognize them. Well I did I just had a lot more trouble recalling them. There was Tim, Neil, John, Alex, Ben. I should remember these guys. I saw them about 5 years ago at our High school reunion.
The bell rang, not Mrs. Lawn's little bell, but the class bell. Everyone packed up and piled out of the room. I kept Rob in view as I walked along with the other kids. It was weird to see them all so young again. We started spiraling down a staircase and then took a right. We were in the cafeteria. This place looked a lot nicer then it was in my memories. I remembered it being dark and metallic, but actually the tables were all wood and plastic. It wasn't even really dark. It is funny how memories play with you.
I got in line with everyone else for food. Since I was a boarding student I got the school lunch for free. It was nice not to have to worry about that, but it would have been nicer to have had good food. It looked as if today I might have lucked out. Pizza day. I grabbed a slice of the supreme and looked around for a place to sit. I knew that the table were super clicky so I had to be careful of where I sat. And then I saw Kyle. He was someone I actually still hung out with as adult, we lived a few blocks from one another in the future. It was weird to see him all little again, and he was pudgy. I walked over to the table.
“Hey Kyle, what's going on?”
“Hey assface,” he responded after quickly checking for any nearby teachers. I stopped my maneuvering to sit down at the table, but then Rob caught up with me. And sat down next to wear I was standing. I reluctantly sat down, I had forgotten that in middle school I wasn't friends with Kyle. In fact we didn't have the best of relationships until high school.
“Kyle, what you been up to?” Rob asked.
“None of your business fat ass,” Kyle responded.
“I'm not fat!” Rob said.
“Are too.”
“Why you gotta be such a butt Kyle?”
“It's cause he is angry about being fat himself,” I responded. Kyle's eyes widened at my comment and I thought he wasn't going to yell at me but he just took another bite of his pizza and gave me a hard stare. It was funny because in sixth grade Kyle hadn't quite gotten down the menacing look. It was actually almost comical watching him try and pull it off in such a small body.
I looked over and Rob seemed to be in disbelief that I had actually said anything. It occurred to me that in sixth grade I would have never stood up to Kyle, it was only after knowing him so long that I felt comfortable do so. Times are changing, and if changing who I was is going to change who I'm going to be, well I am all for that.
“What?” I said to Rob, to get him to close his mouth.
“Nothing, I just... nothing,” he picked up his pizza and took a bite still seeming a bit shocked. Yeah, things were going to change. I just hoped that I wouldn't mess things up too much for everyone else. Actually, fuck them. I know what is going on now, and I am going to take advantage. If it meant pointing out a little kids self conscious weight problem so he'd stop messing with me, so be it.

Copyright 2007 William Curb