It seemed like forever before Monday evening ended and Tuesday morning began. I had a very restless night. There were just too many questions, and too many unknowns. Here I was a young man at age 15 who did not really know who I was; and I wanted to know a pretty girl, Amanda Westbrook, but did not know how to go about it. I also knew that the quarterback of the high school football team, Lance Gordon, wanted me to find virgin girls for him so he could do his stud work on them and that the guy seemed like a lunatic as a result of losing his childhood sweetheart. To make matters even more confusing, I provided emergency first aid treatment, without training, to a man who suffered a severe concussion yet I could not tell you much about where I lived six weeks ago. My parents were also acting weird, wanting me to pretend I was fat and have me stay in the background. All of this stuff was starting to pile up on me and affect me. I could not concentrate on my homework and for the first time I missed some of my weight training sessions. I decided that I must do something and I would try to start unravelling some of these questions by asking Lenny about them as he seemed genuinely interested in trying to help me. He was probably my best friend. If I had other friends before my climbing accident, I had no memory of them. It was also weird that no friends from my past life seemed to come by looking for me. Nobody missed me.
When the bus arrived on Tuesday morning at my bus stop I was eager to jump on board. I walked past Amanda, who was sitting at her usual seat on the right side of the bus. This time she was not reading a book but instead looking through her backpack at her seat on the bus. I was careful not to stare, but she was awesome looking as usual. She had her little silver neckless on over a pink girl's T-shirt and kaki shorts with cuffs. Her dirty blonde hair spilled all around her neck in awesome ringlets and highlights. My crush on her was really bad now. I could barely stand it. Somehow I needed to do something. I was so frustrated I think I could have bent the bars holding my seat to the floor of the back of the bus as I sat down. At least I now knew Amanda by name and knew where she lived, so I made some progress, thanks to Lenny.
When the bus arrived at school there was a sudden down pouring of rain, like it sometimes does in Hawaii for short periods. Over in the parking lot I could see Lance and his football jocks and groupies huddled in the cars around Lance's white mustang. Lance had closed the convertible top.
Our bus door opened and we started popping out the door. I watched Amanda go outside and get hit with the rain. I would have taken the shirt off my back to protect her, but then again I have to play the fat man and can't show my true self. I hated that more than ever. I just kept watching Amanda running towards the school building as I trudged towards the door. I did not care if I got totally soaked.
When I entered homeroom water was pouring off of me as I sat down next to Lenny. I looked at him and he smiled, but I was not smiling.
"Lenny, I need to talk to you today or I am going to go crazy", was all I could say when a voice came over the school intercom.
"Will Cole Hammond please report to the principals office?", was all it said.
The homeroom teacher acknowledged me for attendance and told me to go. Before I went I asked Lenny if we could talk during lunch period, and he said he could. I knew his period was just before mine because that was when he got stuffed into the garbage can. It would now be a long wait for me to endure until lunch, but there was nothing I could do about it. I had hoped to talk to him now rather than later, but now the principal wanted to see me about something. This seemed really bad.
I did not know anything about principal Barska. He was one of those guys that was always behind the scenes and you would only see the assistant principles walking the halls or doling out punishments. I was not actually sure where the principal's office was but eventually found it near the library. When I entered the office area there were other teachers getting their mail and making photo copies for their courses. I walked up to a counter covered by an administrative assistant and told her who I was, upon which she gestured that I enter the principal's office, which was close by. A man stood inside when I entered.
"Hello, Cole Hammond?, he said. "I am principal Barska. I wanted to meet you and to thank you for what you did yesterday".
"Oh, you mean helping the guy that fell from the light fixtures?", I asked.
"Yes, that is it.", he said. "Please have a seat. He gestured for me to sit down and get comfortable and he then proceeded to sit in his own chair behind his desk".
"Cole, what you did may have saved his life, or at least his brain so he could live a normal life. I personally wanted to thank you for that. We have been tracking how well he has been doing at the hospital and the doctors there are quite pleased with his progress. They tell me that with head injuries like that the first few minutes are critical and they said you did all the right things within a very short time of the fall, even much shorter than they could have done with their emergency vehicle and crew. This is what I want to thank you for, and what the school wants to thank you for, and what the family of the man wants to thank you for."
"The emergency medical technician on the scene of the accident was very impressed with the steps you took to protect the man, particularly his brain. You seemed to even know little "tricks" that could be done to help his brain that he himself was not trained on yet.", he continued.
The principal looked at me waiting for a reaction. I did not say anything as I really did not have anything to say.
The principal continued, " I was just curious how one of my 15 year old students knew all that and wanted to ask you? Did you do some volunteer work with a local emergency rescue team as a summer intern or something? Still, you are so young, so it is curious".
"Err, no", I honestly said. "I don't know of any training that I have had. I can't think of a single course that I took on the matter."
"Well, the tech said you even seemed to know how to orient the head to maximize the drainage to keep the pressure off the brain, and insisted that nobody deviate from that, which is weird if you were never told how to do any of it. If your ignorant of it, then why insist to do it a certain, but correct way?", asked the principal.
"I don't know", I honestly answered. "Its like the information just popped into my head from somewhere, but I don't know where".
"Well, as I understand it, from the perspective of the injured man, you basically saved his life. He would either be brain dead now, mentally retarded, or totally dead. Instead, he is expected to make a full recovery and will probably be home from the hospital by the end of the week. This man is very lucky to have had you right there and for you to have the correct information just magically pop into your head. It's like God intervened or something and you were chosen to make that happen."
The principal stood up at his desk. "We have ordered a plaque to commemorate your save of this man and will have it installed in the foyer. I just want to again shake your hand and thank you again. Congratulations, Cole! "
"Thank you, sir." I said.
"Well, you better get on to class. You should not need a late note because the whole school heard your call to visit with me. We will plan a little ceremony once the plaque we ordered is installed. You deserve it! This will probably be written up in the paper and will be good publicity for our school. You don't mind if I mention your name?"
I started to wonder if my parents would mind, but then said simply, "No, go ahead." I really did not know any reason not to get recognition for this.
The principal waited a little while for my reaction, but I really did not give one.
Okay, Cole, talk to you later".
With that, I left the principal's office and headed towards English class. I was starting to not like English class as I was always behind due to interruptions and this teacher was unforgivable. It did not matter that I saved a guy's life.
All through English I was thinking about Lenny and what I needed to ask him. I had to know if he picked up any new information about Amanda, and what he might suggest as a way I could meet up with her. I also needed to know what he knew about Lance Gordon and his parties and what Lance was doing to girls. English was a drag.
Biology was a whole different story. Something weird happened in this class again. On this day the teacher was talking about chemical cycles in life and wanted to know about respiration, the process of breathing and getting oxygen into the body's system to burn energy. The teacher called on me to describe how it worked and it seemed he just wanted to know the high level information such as the cycle between plants and animals, but instead I recited all the chemical pathways within the body that followed that cycle, including the breakdown of energy molecules. Even more weird I did all this while absent-mindedly staring at the flirty girl's chest that had exposed herself the previous week.
When I finally caught myself doing this I looked up at the teacher and half expected him to tease me about why the girl's breasts served as a crystal ball to give me this information. Of course he did not do that because that would embarrass the girl. Weirder still, the girl became more self conscious of her own breasts and looked down at them looking to see if I was reading some text off of them. Really strange. I knew I was getting weirder by the day. The whole class went silent. I just looked down at my desk.
Finally it was study hall and lunch. I ran down to the cafeteria and started looking for Lenny. Eventually I found him in the lunch line. I was supposed to be in the study hall portion of the lunch room but decided to cut that and join Lenny for lunch. I would probably get caught, but I did not care at this point. I was going to go crazy if I did not get some of my basic questions answered. It was a matter of my sanity.
Lenny and I sat down in a corner of the room with our lunches.
"Lenny, I really appreciate you telling me about Amanda, but I have been thinking about her a lot and wondered if you knew any more and had any suggestions on how I might somehow meet her", I said.
"Well, the only other new thing I found out about her is that she likes art, particularly graphic art such as characters. These are like manga or anime figures. She is trying to learn how to convert real world scenes into a kind of manga Japanese style. It's actually kind of cool, because she wants to mix in some of the scenes she has found here in Hawaii, including beaches, attractive girls and guys and monsters coming out of volcanoes. I learned this from my younger sister. Socially, I don't really have any new information other than, as I told you, she is new and shy like you."
"Do you think I should learn some stuff about art so I can talk to her?, I asked.
"No, Cole. There is not enough time for that. I think your best bet is just to be yourself. Tell her about your interest in exercise and swimming. She obviously likes the beach from what you have been telling me. You have that in common."
"Hmmm, I don't know Lenny. I don't feel all that highly about myself these days, and don't think I will impress her. Besides, yesterday I saw her gushing at a big guy I think might be a football player. Maybe by now she already has a boyfriend and I am a loser. I believed you when you said I had to make a move because she was not going to last. She may already be gone."
"What the heck, Cole!", Lenny exclaimed. "A girl is not totally gone just because she smiles at a guy. How do you know she won't smile at you if you go up to her and talk to her. Maybe she is just a nice person and does that."
"Yeah, maybe. I do agree I have to do SOMETHING. You may find it hard to believe, but even though I am a big guy, I am totally terrified. I have such a crush on her now, that if she rejects me I might just swim out to sea and never come back! This girl has so much power over me right now that I would do almost anything for her if she will just would give me a tiny part of her attention."
"Ok, Cole. You are obviously love sick or something, and you have never even met her. I will ask my younger sister if she has any ideas. She is only about seven years old, though, so I don't know what kind of answer will come back. Maybe she will recommend that you and Amanda play My Little Pony together or something." Lenny chuckled. "I have no idea. She might surprise me. You know there are all those Disney movies where little kids play tricks to get love interests going between older folks."
"Yeah, maybe that will work. I never thought of that.", I said. I was not laughing. I was desperate.
I took a few more bites of my sandwich.
"Hey Lenny, I have a few more questions, but on a totally different matter."
I looked at him in the eyes. He paused to look back, obviously intrigued, since most everything I always asked of him related to Amanda.
"What do you know about Lance Gordon and what he is about?", I asked.
Suddenly Lenny's face grew dark.
"You know, Cole, I don't care for him or the people that run with him. I don't even attend the football games. Kyle punishes me by destroying my homework and throwing me down stairs and into garbage cans, as you learned. Lance is different, but I think he is bad too. They are all bad boys."
"I had a talk with Lance.", I said. "Or, I guess you can say he had a talk at me telling me about his life and why he is the way he is and how everything is working really well that way."
"You mean about screwing girls?", asked Lenny.
Well, from that reaction from Lenny I guessed Lenny knew all about that. The whole school must know.
"Yeah, he says it gives him the power to win football games for the school, and he especially wants virgins. He wants everyone he knows to help him with that and then he rewards them."
"Yeah, he's got a bad boy reputation for screwing girls. I mean he is basically a stud. That is what he wants to be. I just stay away from him and all that he knows.", said Lenny.
"I agree with you, Lenny. To me he seems more like a rapist in disguise. He does not care about girls, really."
"Well, his friend Ray has invited me to one of Lance's parties this Friday.", I continued. "Do you think I should go?, I asked. "Have you ever been to one?"
"No, I haven't and don't care to. Like I said, I don't like those guys and stay away from them. I have heard that a lot of wild things go on at those parties. I'd just rather stay home with a few close friends and hang out and play video games or something. —— Cole do you want to come over my place and do video games with me instead?", Lenny asked.
I looked at Lenny for a while and simply said, "I would love to play video games with you, but I think this one time I should go to the party to see what goes on there."
Lenny looked disappointed.
"Don't worry, Lenny. I share your feelings that these guys are mostly bad, but I am new to the school and I really need to know what goes on here. Otherwise I feel stupid, and with Amanda I am not only stupid, but a dork."
"Okay", he said. "If you feel you must.... I know your certainly not in any danger."
Lenny gave me a smile.
"Don't worry, I will fill you in on what happens there. It will be interesting to see if what happens is as you say it is", I said.
We then broke off and left each other. Lenny had to go to class and I did my study halls, using my lunch period as the fake study hall. This still gave me one period to observe Amanda. She was fantastic in her kaki shorts and pink top. Nobody talked to her. She either read her books or dabbled with things in her back pack. Maybe there was some hope with her, after all.
I hoped nobody noticed or cared that I rearranged my lunch period. I certainly didn't, but schools can do weird things with rules. I figured they might find something odd about the attendance record.
The afternoon classes went fine. Lance again acknowledged me in Spanish class. I told Ray I would go to the party and he said he would have the car that carries him also stop at my house. It did not bother either of us that we were not old enough to drive.
The instructions were that the time of the party would be 7:00 PM on Friday and to dress nicely, but casually, whatever that meant. I guess Lance did not want any slobs.