Old Story - The Stampede

Just a read-for-fun-- has nothing to do with FFXI!

Wooo~

Wrote this last year for Junior Honors English!
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The Stampede

The eighth grade is one of the two years you are on top of the school food chain - well, there is the fifth grade too, but when you're that small nobody cares what grade you're in. I was sitting and twittling my thumbs in Miss Fryckman's Honors English class, watching the clock with more and more anticipation with each passing second. The class was seeming to drag on more slowly than usual that day, or maybe I was a bit jittery, who knows? The seconds filed away, and when the bell, that beautiful sound of freedom, rang, my moment of joy was interrupted by Fryckman's command to sit back down. Damn woman. I breathed out a hopeless sigh to myself while she went over what was due, the classes' attitude, or something. It really didn't matter, because I didn't care, I just wanted to leave. I was free for a whole thirty minutes and I was going to get to it.
When she finally released us from the dark hole of boredom that was her classroom, I strolled aside happily, found a few friends, and headed to the south lunch room, because we had decided as a group that we liked it more. When we arrived, apparently there was pictures for the sixth graders or some other event going on. I sure found it funny that we didn't notice anything taking place in the north lunch room, but yeah, we were all a bit "blonde," as I liked to say. Anyway, somebody told us we could sit outside - for the first time since the first trimester of the sixth grade. It was amazing. Outside? What?! I grinned to myself with a childish happiness.
But a dilemma arose - ! Oh where, where were we to sit? It's a shame there really was no dilemma, but it was fun to make it seem like one. So we decided to sit right in the middle of one of the pathways connecting the two block things; I really don't remember what they were called. And we were cool. We were six kids: Alex, Cindy, Greg, Cody, myself, and Ricky, the Asian. Even in our odd place of dining, which highly amused us, we continued lunch as normal.
Chatter as usual commenced, and Greg interrupted everyone else's conversations with a blonde joke. It always had to be a blonde joke. Everyone liked them. Everyone.
I sighed as I knew my doom was coming and would take me with it, like Death himself.
"So there was this brunette standing in the middle of some railroad tracks, and she was swingin' her arms and saying "24!" over and over again."
Greg smirked at his own joke.
"Then this blonde comes up, and asks the brunette what she was doing. She explains, and asks the blonde if she would join her."
The smirk widened.
"The blonde jumps happily on the railroad tracks and starts chanting 24 with the brunette. Then a train comes."
Greg couldn't contain his laughter much longer.
"So the brunette gets off the track, but the blonde doesn't. She gets ran over, and the brunette gets back on the track and starts chanting "25!"
Laughter arose, and after it settled, I cocked my head to one side and stated blankly, "I don't get it."
Laughter roared this time, I got slapped, and Alex was bored.
Alex was always bored. The kid was weird, and still is today. It sure took a good amount of "freakness" to keep him entertained - and it still does. So, by some evocation of an odd corner of his mind, Alex suggested with a stupid smile on his face, "Lets sing."
I looked at him with an eye full of curiosity and wonder; to this day, I still wonder. He grinned retardedly, which could be better said as boyishly, either way the kid had a crazy look on his face. It would make anyone giggle. He opened his mouth and at first breathed out a small, "Koombaya, my lord, koombaya." He repeated with more zeal. Now see, I was quite an odd kid myself in the eighth grade, so I took a deep breath, looked at Cody and Cindy for approval, but not Greg, because he never approved of my personal oddness and just mooched sodas off of Alex. I received answers of one lit up face, and a head shake, but it was all the approval I needed to join Alex, who was now blurting out his song, or whatever you'd call that racket. I started "singing" along, and soon after everyone was singing happily, even party pooper Greg. We looked a bit crazy, but whatever, we were much happier than the uptight people that thought we were crazy.
A few more of our friends who wore the name of FREAKS NOT GEEKS proudly on their personalities walked right on over to us, and stared, dumbfounded, for a bit. All it took was a small amount of encouragement from Alex and I to get them to join us, and they did near instantly.
By then, though, we had finished our food, and we were not ones to stay still. Being weird without trouble was how we rolled. We were the FnG. Everyone stumbled up, and we started walking aimlessly around the campus, continuing our song. Then, of course, Alex had another bright idea. I sure felt bad for the girl that passed by us, Kristen Huges, because as "silly" as Alex was, we followed him and his ridiculous idea.
The group of kids, the FnGers, now at least ten strong, circled our victim, and subjected her to our awful performance of Koombaya. I could barley sing, I was laughing so hard. I believe that Kristen was weirded out, but I also think she enjoyed it all the same.
For about the next five minutes or so, we found more victims, let them "enjoy the show," and continued on our way. It was something to do.
But then - we found our target. We didn't even know we were looking for him, but there he was. His bald head was glistening in the bright sun.
Spivak. We had found Spivak.
There is no other way to describe what happened next but simply, "all hell broke loose." A swarm of hyper kids, already excited by previous performances of the day, exploded. We were a horde of buffalo, and our wonderful dinner was waiting for us. Insanity and eighth graders fused, and the blob that was created rushed madly across campus. It was quite surprising that we didn't hit the oh-so-precious grass, which was to be kept nice for our graduation, even if we didn't care. This was Sparta. We rampaged, we charged, we put the Crusaders to shame.
Then - Mr. Smith put us to shame. The horde of buffalo had met Buffalo Bill, and he was waiting for us with a massive, and loaded, shot gun. It's really quite funny how a dozen kids can stop immediately in the presence of a rather cranky-looking Vice Principal. He shook his head at us, and gave us the look of shame. I think it was supposed to make us feel bad, or something or the sort. We all rolled our eyes, probably in time, and nodded to the VP, in anything but agreement. He asked us to sit down on a convieniently placed - and large bench. We complied, even in total defiance, and sighed to ourselves as our target entered a restricted area. He smirked at us, he had a cocky smile, he thought he had won. No Spivak was to get past the FnG though, it was just not the way life worked. Silly teachers.
A bright idea poped into my head, it was one of the few good ideas I had all year, well, besides the classroom. It came to me that we should stalk our prey; wait for him. Among all of us, we decided that he had to come out of the office eventually, since Greg and Alex had him for algebra after lunch.
We waited and waited, and the impending doom of the bell concluding lunch crept up on us silently. It was a killer. But, as soon as the mere thought of him not returning to his classroom until the bell rang scurried across our minds, he emerged. He emerged from the rabbit hole, and twelve Elmer Fudds were waiting with a loaded arsenal of assorted firearms.
We let our prey observe his fate, we let him creep wairly into our trap. As he approached us, we formed a line, a barrier of insane eighth graders joined by the love of fun. We would win. Our voices would be heard, literally.
Spivak broke out into a run, which I would of found hilarious usually, but I was trying to gather my strength, I was concentrating on our mission. The rabbit was taking its chance, its only chance. This rather large man, the one with no hair, the Spivak, plummeted into our line of crazy. We lunged, we bent, and we almost broke, but we were strong. Everyone, the FnG, surrounded our final victim, and let our voices soar with the beauty of the absolute most disgusting vulture's wings.
It was horrid, but oh-so-amazing.
Spivak was struggling, he was putting more effort forth to break free. The man had an idea. He threw a quarter at us, and yelled gallantly, "Use that to buy singing lessons!"
Now, a quarter was not a whole lot of money, and never will be, but it was super yummy chocolate milk for me, and it must of been something for everyone in the group, because we all lunged for it. What was already a jumbled mess turned into an incomprehensible tangle of noise and limbs. In the midst of all the chaos, Spivak saw his chance again, and that rabbit took it. Instead of attempting to penetrate our barrier, he succeeded. As soon as he broke free, we realized our mistake. But, we decided, we had accomplished our mission, and we got a quarter out of it. Spivak getting away before we had planned was just a minor casualty. All was well, we were happy, and Alex was entertained.
The next bell, our real doom, rung clearly through the sunlit sky, and as I finished my hysterical laughter and hi-fives among the group, I smiled to myself. This was what life was all about. Fun. We were different. I basked in the glimmer of friendship and I made my way to Lemon's class chanting, "Hell no! We won't go!" Life was good.