Oliver ^^ or >>> depending what you are reading on
The song on the side is by The Stars of Track and Field, just thought the band name fit the chapter.
UNEDITED
Ms. Whales kept typing on her computer, trying to figure out who on the newspaper and photojournalism team could go on the bus to the cross country meet in Plano. She was trying to pair a photojournalism with a newspaper person, which she normally does with any sport that is coming up. But if one person cannot make it, one usually goes all by their self and tries to do both of the jobs.
Sometimes that fails though because there are only five of us in photojournalism and thirty people in newspaper. So, to make it even, three photographers and five newspaper people get to go to the main sport events.
For the HUGE football games, like the one that is going to happen on Friday, everyone is going, but the photographers have to be paired up.
When paired up, the two people can discuss what needs to be photographed and what needs to be asked and talked about when interviewing the players.
"Autumn," Ms. Whales calls out, "can you come up here?"
I take one more glance at a picture that I took this morning at the volley ball players conditioning and decided to delete the photo. I just went because Ms. Whales wanted a post-season follow up for volley ball. No idea why, volley ball did not do so good this year. And no one interviewed them.
I walked up to Ms. Whales, "Who is my partner for tonight?" I shook my head, hoping that she did not catch how wrong that sounded. "I mean, who is going to be with me at the meeting tonight?" There we go.
"I was thinking about you being paired with Nick," she told me.
"The senior or sophomore?" I asked her. There was no way I wanted to work with a sophomore who just entered newspaper and will be asking questions every five minutes like a puppy outside for the first time. Sophomores barely get to travel off campus adding to the caffeine-ness. Seniors are more composed, well, the serious ones are more composed.
She clicked her tongue and checked her roll sheet, "The senior, Nick. The sophomore Nick is going to interview the football coaches and have a story up by lunch tomorrow; so, he is staying here for the day. Are you going to ride the bus or are you going to drive by yourself?"
I need to pick up Oliver from day-care, both mom and dad are staying out late tonight. "I think I am going to drive myself," I took out my phone, "Where is it exactly?"
"Um," she typed on her computer, "Plano West... it is about forty minutes from here. You have two hours until the meet starts. Let me call Nick and tell him the plan. Have you worked with Nick before?"
"I've been in the same room as him, but not paired with him," I explained to him.
She nodded while grabbing her phone and started to type in Nick's phone number in it. "Hello, Nick," she started out, "Are you still on campus?" "Okay, well, your partnered with Autumn for the Cross Country meet. She is going to drive herself there." "If you need a ride, the bus should be-" She paused and refreshed the computer page. "Nope, we just lost our bus. Do you need a ride?" She put the phone on her shoulder, "Can you give Nick a ride?"
I sighed and nodded, he will have to deal with a little boy in the car, but hopefully he likes children.
"Autumn can drive you to the Cross Country meet and back," she offered. "That works for you?" "Great, well, start to head over here and she can take you." "See you when you get here." She hung up on Nick and jumped out of her chair and hugged me quickly. "Thank you! Thank you!" She pulled away, "Now, I just need to talk to the other people and see if they can get a ride by themselves or ride with the runners." Her eyes widened, "But what if the coaches do not want the newspaper students on the bus?"
I put my hands on her shoulders and told her to calm down, "I'm sure that the coaches would not mind. Buses get cancelled all the time. They will probably understand."
Ms. Whales took a deep breath and nodded. "I'm going to talk to the coaches and you are going to go finish with the volley ball pictures."
I turned to go back to my computer but stopped and asked the question that was on my mind when I was talking the pictures, "What is the point of having these pictures?"
"Oh, we are going to add them to the volley ball tab, just for fun for the newspaper. The tab will still be there until basketball season starts. It just needed an update," Ms. Whales explained to me.
I nodded and went back to my computer and picked ten of the best pictures, wanting to go and pick up Oliver already.
I glanced up at the clock on the computer. Oliver was going to get out of school in five minutes and if I was not there, he would be stuck in the school, wondering where I am. Mom and dad told him that was going to pick him up and I am pretty sure that he was been waiting all day for me to pick him up.
Where are you Nick?
I saved the pictures onto the desktop under the file VOLLEYBALL NEW PICS, shocked that I still had room on the desktop for another folder. It probably had two free spots left on.
I am going to have to clean it up during Lunch tomorrow.
Being done with my chore, I glanced around at my screen and looked around the folders. I just needed something to do while I waited on Nick. I found the folder that had been on my lap top since I got my own computer labeled RANDOM. I have not touched the folder since I finished putting it together at the end of my first year on Newspaper but I always added stuff to it that never seemed to belong anywhere else.
I told myself that I would not open it and not look through it until the end of my Senior year.
Which was coming up soon.
I hovered my mouse over it, seeing if I could break a promise to myself but I did not have the guts to actually click on it.
"Autumn?" I jumped in my chair, holding my hand to my chest, shocked that someone was standing that close to me. Nick put his hand on my shoulder and chuckled at my response, "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. Are you ready to go?" He glanced at the computer. "Or do you want to uncover the Random file?"
I logged off of my computer and turned around in my chair and looked at him.
Nick gave me a smug look, tilting his head to the side. "I like to be early to these kinds of things. To interview the coaches and runners early, before anyone else can."
I rose my eyebrow at him and grabbed my messenger bag and camera bag, "I thought we had two other groups going with us?"
"We do, but they all have to get their own rides there," he explained.
"Or the coaches are going to allow us to get on the bus with the actual team," I told him.
His brown eyes widened, "How come we are not on the bus?"
"I have to pick up my little brother-" I looked at the clock, "Right now and you said that you would ride with me, so lets go before he starts to think that I forgot about him when I am actually late." I grabbed his wrist and pulled him out the door, looking to make sure that he had his backpack and his notepad, not wanting to have him forget about his stuff.
* * * * *
Oliver groaned in the back seat and kicked the air, angrily. "I do not want to go to a meet. There will be no food and no people that I know. And I am hungry," he folded his arms across his chest and pouted.
Can he just for once act cool?
"Ollie," I sighed out and offered an apologetic smile towards Nick, "there will be good there but we have to work before we can go the food. And if you behave I might consider stopping by Braums and buy you a shake."
He made a growling noise in the back of his throat like a dog but agreed to the shake.
Nick ran his hands over the sides of his neck, nervously, "How far away are we from the meet?"
"Five minutes," I droned out, annoyed that I had two boys to look after now. "Oliver, this is the person that I am paired with for the night, Nick. Nick is also a senior and is on the Newspaper staff."
Oliver seemed to calm down a little, happy to talk about something else that was not food. "Do you also take pictures?"
He laughed and shook his head, his nervousness disappeared a little. "I actually write the stories. I hope to be a famous journalist one day."
Oliver giggled at his response, "Well, my sister is already famous. Her photos have been on actual newspapers and the news and the TV. Every time they pop up, Autumn's name is on it."
"I did not know that you pay attention to my pictures, Ollie," I told him, truly astonished that he noticed that my work has been on TV.
He shrugged his shoulders, "You have newspapers on her wall that have your pictures. You are starting to lose room so they are on the frig." He crossed his arms again, "And they are covering up my artwork that we do at the day care. And we always watch the news when you tell us that your picture is going to be up there."
Besides me, Nick chuckled again. "My parents watch the news just to see your pictures ever since I told them that you go to my school. They admire your work a lot and will not shut up about you at the dinner table afterwards," he commented. "Everyone on the Newspaper staff is jealous of you."
My cheeks were starting to turn undoubtedly bright red. "I'm sure you get your work printed off or online."
Nick shook his head. "People around this town love your photography. They probably have no idea that you are a high schooler but you are going places, Autumn. A famous photographer, photojournalist, or filmographer. And people will give you money to travel to other places and just take pictures and right about the experiences that you had there. Your life has basically already started."
I shook my head, trying to cool my face down. "I would rather stay home and take pictures here. Or go with my dad to his work when he travels."
Oliver giggled and immediately tried to cover it up with his hand over his mouth.
"What is so funny, Ollie?" I teased him.
"You sound so grown up and it made me laugh," he responded. "I cannot wait to grow up."
Nick furrowed his eyebrows, "Why, little one?"
"Well first off," he sat up a little straighter in his car seat, "You get to stay up late. Drive. Have friends over, even though Autumn only has two friends that we see."
"Oliver."
"Watch PG-13 movies. Money. Get to leave the hosue whenever you want. And you get to stay up late," he explained to us.
"You already said the late one, buddy," Nick pointed out.
Oliver rolled his eyes, "Yeah, because that is a big part of being a grown up. The fun stuff happens at night. Sleep is boring," he groaned out.
Nick laughed at his response, "When we get to be our age, Oliver, you start to miss sleep and you do not get a social life when it comes to school. I barely have any friends because I am focused on getting straight As. And when I do have friends over, it is for a study group or it is the end of the semester or someone's birthday. PG-13 movies are not that great as they seem, they just basically repeat the same plot over and over again.
"The classics like Goonies and Back to the Future are the ones that you should start off with. Start off with the ones that we will still be talking about in twenty years, hoping that they do not make a remake, ruining the movie.
"And I am pretty sure when I say this, everyone will agree with me, when I stay up late, it is to finish homework and to pull all-nighters.
"During the summer, we only stay up for Netflix," Nick explained.
The car was silent for the next couple of minutes, letting his words sink in. He was right and Oliver kind of needed to know how the world worked and how it is like when you grow up. But let him enjoy his innocence for a little while longer.
No one talked again until I pulled up into the parking lot of the school where the meet was being held.
Oliver unbuckled his seat belt and waited for the two of us to do the same. I took mine off first, then watched Nick as he took off his.
When he reached to open his door, I put out and rested it on his forearm. He turned and looked at me, "I think you just found your first great article: The Facts of Growing up, the Good and the Bad."
He gave me a sad little laugh, "You know what Autumn, I think that you are right. Maybe one of your pictures could be on the front page of it."
* * * * *
Fifteen minutes into the meet, the meet had not started yet and we had interviewed the coaches. Nick asked the questions and I just took pictures of the teams stretching and jogging from one side of the track to the other, warming up. Both boys and girls were here, intermingling, talking about who they thought was going to get first.
Evan's name was brought up multiple times.
Oliver was sitting next to me on the track, picking at the turf. "It smells fake," he simply stated.
"That is because it is fake," I told him. "It is so no one has to take care of the field."
He slumped down onto his back. "I'm hungry."
"Nope, you are just bored," I said glancing at him. I put the camera in my lap, angled it so his entire body was in the shot and took one picture after another. When I was done, I looked over at Nick and saw him walking towards us with Evan jogging to catch up behind him. "Are you going to run now, Evan?"
He shook his head, "I run in twenty minutes, the mile people are going first. Nick wanted some pictures of me warming up and to ask me questions." He turned away and started to run up and down the football field.
Not moving from my spot, I held the camera in front of my space and followed him, enjoying the sound of the shutter closing and opening. When I got tired of the profile, I moved down to his feet and focused on how he jogged heel to toe, heel to toe.
"Evan, can you sprint real quick? Twenty yards?" I asked him, not looking up from behind the camera.
Before I knew it, his feet were in view then the next they were gone. Quickly finding his feet again, I managed to gain ten more pictures of his track shoes on the field.
"Done?" Nick asked me. I nodded and put my camera in my lap. "Evan, I have some questions for you."
Evan jogged over to us and started the interview process with Nick.
This is the part where I tune them out.
Oliver got off the ground, brushed the black turf dots off his shorts and walked over to me; I was still sitting on the ground. "I need to go to the bathroom," he states.
I opened my mouth to tell him that I have no idea where the bathroom is, but Evan beats me to it. "Come with me, Olive, I'll take you to the bathroom," he tells him.
Fixing the mistake he made, I tell him that his name is Oliver.
He leans down after staring at me for a couple of moments and starts his own little conversation with Oliver. They are talking in low voices so I cannot hear them, but Oliver seems entertained because he keeps trying to hold back a giggle. Once Oliver nods, Evan grabs his hand and takes him to the bathroom.
Nick sits down next to me, "Your little brother seems to be attracting a lot of attention. First me then Evan, it is like you have your own little boy-magnet. Usually when a boy has a little sibling he is a chick-magnet."
I rolled my eyes, "He enjoys having the attention on him, plus you two just want to cheer him up and entertain him because he is bored." I sighed, "And I am too."
"Don't worry, after the girls run, the boys run then we can go home. Evan will win and we update the newspaper tomorrow during Lunch."
I shook my head, "Ms. Whales might change it to Saturday at lunch so it has both updated Football and Cross Country on there. Just wait and see, she changes the deadline from time to time."
"I know, I have been on the Newspaper about as much as you have."
"I have been on it for four years," I explain to him.
"Me too; I took journalism at my private school in eighth grade so I could be Newspaper in high school," he told me. "We were the only freshmen in Newspaper, ever."
We sit in silence and wait until Evan and Oliver come back, when they do, Oliver has a plate full of nachos in his hand.
"Evan!" I exclaim when they reach us. "You did not have to get him food. I do not have any cash on me to pay you back at the moment." My wallet was in the car, I had planned to get it while Nick was interviewing people but I forgot it.
He waved it off, "The only debt that you owe me is allowing me to give you a nickname. One and both Oliver and I agree on, but he still promises to call you Autumn."
I crossed my arms over my chest, "What is it?"
"Fall."
"Isn't that cheesy?" I tell him as Nick snorts at the nick name.
Oliver frowns, "My nachos are cheesy."
"No, Oliver, I different kind of cheesy," I explain to him. "Cliche."
He still frowned, "I don't get it."
So school has started back up again, and I am already counting down the days until summer. And I am done with school. But I am proud that I updated this weekend, and I will try to keep up updating once a week but if I do not then I am sorry but I am trying to keep up a schedule.
Do not forget to check out the song of the chapter.
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Until next time...