Hello, I Dislike You Intensely. Have a Nice Day.
Entry #9.
Die Deary (as the Germans might say),
Guess what? I ditched class. Not for some noble purpose, not for some secret mission. I ditched for the same reason all the ditchers ditch - I didn't want to go to class. No, really. I came to school and I thought to myself, I don't want to go to class today, Dani. Please don't make me go to class today, Dani. Ergo, I didn't. When the bell rang and everyone started going to class, I hid in the bathroom.
This would feel so much less lame if I weren't still hiding in the bathroom like a paranoid little kid; like the grossly inexperienced committer of scholastic misdemeanors that I am. Also if I hadn't just used the word 'class' five times in the last paragraph.
I think I'm going to take a look around now, actually. Don't go anywhere, Diary.
Well, of course you would jump up, run to your spaceship, and fly back to the Planet of the Diaries as soon as I turn my back.
--
Okay, here I am now writing from a tree. Before I justify my slightly unorthodox location, however, I would like to return to my earlier point on ditching and say that this has nothing to do with Alex. Or at least, a highly negligible amount of it. I will admit that our conversation yesterday was sort of weird and I would like to avoid something like that again. But it's not like I'm secretly madly in love with him, if that's what you were thinking. I bet you were totally thinking that, Diary. (So much for making up a new name every day.) And I bet you were thinking how charged our conversation was with sexual tension, too.
Get a grip. It's hard enough living with animate objects.
But I digress. So after I got out of the bathroom, I walked around a bit and marveled at how ridiculously, sublimely empty everything was. Nobody was outside. Well, no one except the potheads in their sad little pothole, who yelled unintellibly at me. It's obvious how jealous they are. Of me and my fantastical ability to be high without drugs, that is.
I walked along the fences, admiring the graffiti. I went over to the empty soccer fields, kicking around a deflated soccer ball left in the tall grass. Standing back, I kicked it through the goalposts - the first goal I've ever made. Monumental.
An orange runaway balloon stood out, a little freckle, against the denim-blue sky. A picture of a book came to me, a book we'd read in elementary school, about runaway balloons all floating to a planet of their own. Or had I simply had a dream like that once?
I circled around to the gate where all the cars went in and out. The monitor sat in her little watchhouse at the gate, reading a newspaper. The phone rang. After hanging up, she moved her chair outside the little house, sat down, and looked around keenly, supposedly for some kid ditching. Oh, shit, I'd thought. What if it's me? I slapped myself mentally. Dani Faetherit with not a scratch on her record? Straight - A Dani Faetherit? Quite likely!
The phone rang again. This time, the monitor cried, "Oh, Muriel! It's been so long!" elatedly into the other end of the phone. I was about to turn back around when the headline of the newspaper she'd set on the chair caught my eye. Girl's Death Baffles Doctors. I moved closer. Katherine Atfield, 16, died Friday when the school bus she was riding abruptly stopped, sending her and several other students ramming into seats in front of them, and causing Katherine's lungs to inadvertently collapse. No other students were harmed, so doctors believe this was caused by a pre-existing medical condition.
God, how fucked up. I mean, of all the things in this world you could trust, you'd think your own body would be a pretty solid character. But nooo. The world is always coming up with new and inventive ways to backstab us, and each time, it gets lower and lower to the ground.
I was brooding over the stupidity of it all, when the monitor spoke a few words that froze me in place - "I'd love to talk more, but - "
"Shit," I whispered, looking around frantically. There was no time for me to run down to the parking lot and hide behind a car. The nearest available hiding place was the tree behind the watchhouse, which, miraculously, had branches low enough to climb even in a backpack that weighed as much as a small child. I'd made my way about a third of the way up the tree when the monitor came back out. If Roger hadn't taught me to how to climb a tree, I would have died right then. Unfortunately, this meant I was stuck there. No way could I escape without drawing attention to myself.
...And I'm still in this blasted tree. My butt is starting to go numb from the quality of my superior accomodations, and I'm probably going to starve because I haven't got a crumb of food on me. Not even a measly stick of gum. All I need now is someone to come up, take a picture of me, and slap it on a poster captioned Don't ditch, kids! This could happen to you!
How splendid. How marvelous. How exactly like my life.
Guess what? I ditched class. Not for some noble purpose, not for some secret mission. I ditched for the same reason all the ditchers ditch - I didn't want to go to class. No, really. I came to school and I thought to myself, I don't want to go to class today, Dani. Please don't make me go to class today, Dani. Ergo, I didn't. When the bell rang and everyone started going to class, I hid in the bathroom.
This would feel so much less lame if I weren't still hiding in the bathroom like a paranoid little kid; like the grossly inexperienced committer of scholastic misdemeanors that I am. Also if I hadn't just used the word 'class' five times in the last paragraph.
I think I'm going to take a look around now, actually. Don't go anywhere, Diary.
Well, of course you would jump up, run to your spaceship, and fly back to the Planet of the Diaries as soon as I turn my back.
--
Okay, here I am now writing from a tree. Before I justify my slightly unorthodox location, however, I would like to return to my earlier point on ditching and say that this has nothing to do with Alex. Or at least, a highly negligible amount of it. I will admit that our conversation yesterday was sort of weird and I would like to avoid something like that again. But it's not like I'm secretly madly in love with him, if that's what you were thinking. I bet you were totally thinking that, Diary. (So much for making up a new name every day.) And I bet you were thinking how charged our conversation was with sexual tension, too.
Get a grip. It's hard enough living with animate objects.
But I digress. So after I got out of the bathroom, I walked around a bit and marveled at how ridiculously, sublimely empty everything was. Nobody was outside. Well, no one except the potheads in their sad little pothole, who yelled unintellibly at me. It's obvious how jealous they are. Of me and my fantastical ability to be high without drugs, that is.
I walked along the fences, admiring the graffiti. I went over to the empty soccer fields, kicking around a deflated soccer ball left in the tall grass. Standing back, I kicked it through the goalposts - the first goal I've ever made. Monumental.
An orange runaway balloon stood out, a little freckle, against the denim-blue sky. A picture of a book came to me, a book we'd read in elementary school, about runaway balloons all floating to a planet of their own. Or had I simply had a dream like that once?
I circled around to the gate where all the cars went in and out. The monitor sat in her little watchhouse at the gate, reading a newspaper. The phone rang. After hanging up, she moved her chair outside the little house, sat down, and looked around keenly, supposedly for some kid ditching. Oh, shit, I'd thought. What if it's me? I slapped myself mentally. Dani Faetherit with not a scratch on her record? Straight - A Dani Faetherit? Quite likely!
The phone rang again. This time, the monitor cried, "Oh, Muriel! It's been so long!" elatedly into the other end of the phone. I was about to turn back around when the headline of the newspaper she'd set on the chair caught my eye. Girl's Death Baffles Doctors. I moved closer. Katherine Atfield, 16, died Friday when the school bus she was riding abruptly stopped, sending her and several other students ramming into seats in front of them, and causing Katherine's lungs to inadvertently collapse. No other students were harmed, so doctors believe this was caused by a pre-existing medical condition.
God, how fucked up. I mean, of all the things in this world you could trust, you'd think your own body would be a pretty solid character. But nooo. The world is always coming up with new and inventive ways to backstab us, and each time, it gets lower and lower to the ground.
I was brooding over the stupidity of it all, when the monitor spoke a few words that froze me in place - "I'd love to talk more, but - "
"Shit," I whispered, looking around frantically. There was no time for me to run down to the parking lot and hide behind a car. The nearest available hiding place was the tree behind the watchhouse, which, miraculously, had branches low enough to climb even in a backpack that weighed as much as a small child. I'd made my way about a third of the way up the tree when the monitor came back out. If Roger hadn't taught me to how to climb a tree, I would have died right then. Unfortunately, this meant I was stuck there. No way could I escape without drawing attention to myself.
...And I'm still in this blasted tree. My butt is starting to go numb from the quality of my superior accomodations, and I'm probably going to starve because I haven't got a crumb of food on me. Not even a measly stick of gum. All I need now is someone to come up, take a picture of me, and slap it on a poster captioned Don't ditch, kids! This could happen to you!
How splendid. How marvelous. How exactly like my life.