I love my Sweater

chapter three: just my luck

CHAPTER THREE: JUST MY LUCK

The next morning I awoke with a start and rushed to get all my stuff ready for school. I had no idea why I was in such a rush to get to school; I hate school, what was with me this morning? For some reason I felt as though I had to be at school early so I continued rushing through my morning schedule.

 My mom, dad and little brother all noticed my rush and asked me why I was in such a rush, when I replied that I had no idea they all gave me a look that clearly stated that they thought I was crazy. Oh well no time to worry about that now, I have to get to school!

Once I’m there I have no idea what to do, classes don’t start for another twenty five minutes. So I wander around aimlessly for ten minutes before making my way over to my locker to grab my stuff for first block. I start the walk towards my first class; once I get there I enter the class and notice that I’m not the only person in the class, wow, some people show up this early on regular bias, nerds.

As I enter the teacher looks up from whatever he was working and seems surprised that I showed up, and early at that. I give him a glare that clearly says ‘you got a problem’ and he quickly busies himself in his work once more.

After taking my seat I find that siting and staring at the white board is very boring and begin to tap my pencil on the desk the same way I had done yesterday while trying to get Daniela’s attention.

When left alone with your thoughts time flies and I hear the loud ring of the warning bell and see people pour into the class. I subconsciously look for Daniela’s face amongst the crowd but don’t see her. Just as the bell for class to start rings Daniela enters the room, once again clad in her sweater. She took her seat beside me and turned her head to the front of the class, completely ignoring me.

During the class I didn’t listen at all, I was way too busy taking in Daniela’s every movement. How when the teacher said something important she’d jolt it down in a small notepad, how her hair was too short in certain areas and always fell in front of her face so she had to continuously brush it out of her face.

Class seemed to end rather fast which bugged me, it meant I had to stop watching Daniela, it was really depressing.   

***

Throughout the next class I debated whether or not to ask Daniela to eat lunch with me and the guys. The bell that started lunch rang and I decided to man up and grow a pair and ask her.

I was wandering around the school looking for her but couldn’t seem to find her until I went to the court yard and saw her sitting alone under a large tree. Since no one was sitting with her I wouldn’t have to feel embarrassed if she said no.

“Hi Daniela, why are you sitting alone? Don’t you have any friends?” Smooth Jace, smooth. You don’t just insult a girl right after meeting them! Oh well, too late now.

“Who are you? And don’t call me Daniela, my name is Danny.” she says plainly. Ouch, that hurt, she doesn’t even remember me! I’m in two of her classes and we had an arm wrestling match, how can she not remember me?!

“I’m Jace; we have English and gym together.” I say try not to try and shake her into remembering me.

“Oh yah! You’re that guy I beat in arm wrestling, you’re pretty strong.” She says. It sucks to be remembered as that-guy-I-beat-at-arm-wrestling but hey at least she remembered! And she called me strong! Yah sure tons of girls call me strong, but it actually meant something coming from this short swimmer in front of me.

“So um… since you have no one to sit with do you want to come eat lunch with me and my friends?” I ak praying that she says yes.

“Sure” she says like it’s no big deal when really it is, to me.

“Aren’t you hot in that sweater?” I ask, its early fall here in Atlanta and here she is in that huge oversized sweater. As I say that I place one hand on her shoulder. The second my hand touched her shoulder her head snapped to face mine.

“if you sit beside me in English then you should know what I said to the boy who sits in front of us about touching my sweater; do not touch me or my sweater ever! And those same rules apply to you to!” with that she gets up gathering her lunch and storms away.

Can you say ’what the hell’?

***

I don’t see Daniela for the rest of the day and as I make my way to gym I can’t help but think that she’ll skip. When I arrive I’m surprised to see her there, arguing with coach.

“TAKE THAT SWEATER OFF NOW!” Coach shouts at her angrily, and she responds with just as much anger a him.

“NO! It’s my lucky sweater! I can’t take it off!”

“I DON’T CARE IF IT’S THE CAT’S PAJAMAS! TAKE IT OFF!” coach yells. Wow, just wow. Who says ‘the cat’s pajamas’ anymore?

“It’s my lucky sweater.” she says calmly. “You know every sports player has some sort of ritual or ‘lucky’ object they need to win their games or do well in their competitions. What would you do if I took all of these ‘lucky’ objects away from your team, you wouldn’t have much of a team now would you?” now that shuts coach up real’ fast.

 I can’t help but see the truth in what she said; our team would have no real players if you took that stuff away from us. I mean even I have a lucky object; my first pair of football cleats, now I know that sounds weird but my dad gave them to me and when I out grew them I just have always kept them in my bag. I can see why she loves her sweater so much now.