This is the story that started collective mess that is my writing. This is definitely not my greatest piece of work, but it is the most important to me.
It was a cold winter day. I walked up to the school building after a ten minute car ride. As I entered the school, I gazed upon a shocking scene. The floors of the school were completely iced over. They had become completely frozen overnight. I had no idea what happened there. Did some lowlife run the faucets to flood the place again? Did the janitor mop the floors a little bit too well? There were many scenarios that were running through my head, but I decided not to pay much attention to them. I made my way down the hallway and turned into Boardman’s room. This may as well be my morning ritual. So often I do it that I should make it a ritual. I looked at the desks, but they were all empty. My heart fell a little. I always love hearing the laughter of my friends in the morning. I shifted my head to see the back room. There, I saw Boardman repacking everything into his bag.
“What’s going on?” I asked him.
“Oh, didn’t you hear?” he replied. “They closed school not too long ago.”
“No, I didn’t hear that,” I stated. “So why are you here?”
“For the same reason you are,” he quickly replied.
“Then how come you were able to tell me that school way cancelled?”
“I was told…”
“You were told by whom?” I interjected. “There’s nobody else here!”
“Fine, I just figured it out when I walked in and there was nobody here!”
“The icy floors didn’t give it away?” I asked him.
“Go home, Derek!” he whined.
I groaned softly in disappointment. Not only did I not get to see my friends, but now I would have to walk all the way back home! I started to walk out of the back room, when all of a sudden I ran back and stole Boardman’s only hat. I also grabbed the copy of my least favorite book that he had, “The Last American Man,” from his bookshelf. I looked back and noticed that he had started to give chase to me. With that knowledge fresh in my head, I moved from a careful step into a hurried running frenzy. I did not want to get caught by him. Looking back on the things Boardman had done to me when catching me in this kind of situation, I shivered a little. Of course, I could not tell whether the shivers came from recalling the painful experiences of being strangled and thrown against bookshelves, or if it was from the extremely low temperatures.
By this time, I had reached the area outside the main office. I flew through the first set of doors. I was now starting to think of the many ways I could dispose of the loathed book that was clenched between my fingers. Perhaps I would set it on fire? Or would I drown it in the pond at my house? Regardless of how it was going to be destroyed, I was enjoying every moment of thinking about it. A couple small droplets of drool began to run down my lip. I wiped it off with the sleeve of my second coat before it froze to my face, or wherever it may have ended up. I grew ever closer to the second and final doorway that would lead me to my freedom. But all of a sudden, I lost my footing on the icy floor and fell right to the ground. I landed on my spine and began to slide toward the doorway. It burst open as I hit it with the intense force propelling me from behind. I slid a few more feet from the outside of the doorway. I laid flat on my back, with Boardman’s hat in one hand and the book in the other. Boardman burst outside and stopped right near my head, as he pointed and laughed at me. The laughter in my ears was like a cat roaring when it gets dunked into a tub of water. He bent down and grabbed his hat from my hand. He put it back on his bald head, which, by now, had small beads of ice on it from the sweat he created while chasing me. He placed his boot-clad foot onto the palm of my gloved hand and pressed down on it before he went back inside. I rose to my feet and brushed myself off. I looked to my other hand and noticed that the book was still there. Perhaps this day would have a silver lining in it after all.