That Day

"Alright Liam, you're next," Mrs. G said, her name is really Mrs. Gancayco but nobody can say that. Mrs. G is the 4th-grade teacher. Today we are presenting our projects. We each studied a country and are presenting out studies.

"The country I got is Indonesia. It's the number one place for Muslims, 12.7% live there." He showed us his project on the cardboard tri-fold. He looked at the class. "Any questions?" Nobody raised their hands

"Your turn, Natalia," Mrs. G said. I got up.

"I got Burkina Faso. The capital of that country is Ouagadougou." Everyone laughed.

"Here are some snacks they eat. It's called Kan Kan Kan. It's the spice blend blended together including peanut powder, chili powder, allspice, and Maggi bouillon cubes. Then you sprinkle it on pieces of lamb." Everyone loved it. "Any questions?" I asked. Everyone raised their hand. 

"Well," Mrs. G smiled. "Ya'll can ask Natalia after class. It's recess time." Everyone streamed out of the colorful classroom into the playground full of children on swings, slides, and monkey bars. 

I joined my friends near the swings. 

"Hi!" Sophia Carson waved me over.

"Hello." I smiled then sat down in front of her. 

"I really liked your presentation in class today. I loved the Kan Kan Kan flavor." Madelyn Ronnie told me.

"Thanks," I replied.

Kynsleigh Jensen piped in with some news. "Guys, guess what!?" she didn't give us time to answer. "My mom told me that there's gonna be a new kid next week." Kynsleigh's mom is the president of the PTA so she knows these things. 

"Really?" I said. "Cool! Is it a girl?" 

"I don't know," Kynsleigh told us. "I'm just gonna call him a he because his name is Jordan which is a boy's and girl's name."

The rest of the week, Jordan was the talk of the grade. We didn't have anything more interesting to talk about, anyway. The day came, finally, when Jordan came.

"Good Morning class. This is Jordan," Mrs. G introduced Jordan, who was a boy. 

"Darn it," I whispered to Madelyn.

She giggled.

"Jordan tell us a little about yourself," she encouraged.

"H-hi," he said. "I-I'm Jordan... Oh, I guess you already know that." He blushed. 

"Wow, he's shy," Sophia commented to Kynsleigh and me. She shut up when Mrs. G gave us the hairy eyeball.

"I'm from South Spillsworth," he paused as the students made comments.

"South Spillsworth!?"

"What's that?" 

"Isn't that where Brianna was born?"

"Brianna is the best pop star ever!"

"Everyone! Be quiet!!!" Mrs. G barked. "Please." Then she looked at Jordan, "Continue."

"Well, I love Captain Jack," he pointed at his blue shirt with Captain Jack on it. He blushed, then said he was finished.

"Thank you!" Mrs. G cried. "Your seat is right there!" She pointed to the seat next to mine. 

I rolled my eyes and muttered, "Great." I could tell Jordan heard, but I didn't care. 

"Hello," he said, timidly. 

"Hey, ugly." Kynsleigh laughed. 

He looked down, defeated. 

I almost felt bad for him. Not. Ha.

Recess time. My friends and I rushed out while Jordan stayed behind.

Mrs. G stopped me, but let my friends go. They looked sorry for me as they made their way to the playground. 

"Hello Natalia." she narrowed her eyes. 'Uh-oh,' I thought.

"I saw that you were teasing Jordan and you know that's not acceptable," she said. She paused, then continued. "So, I decided that for a week, you are going to show him around the school and play with him. And. Be. Nice."

I narrowed my eyes until she said, "Sorry, fourth-graders don't "play" they "hang out." She walked away to take care of Erin and Goerge. They were fighting, again.

I walked back to the classroom and saw Jordan crying.

'Great.' I thought. 'Why do I have to babysit? Why me?' 

I coughed and he turned around. He widened his eyes and stopped crying. 

"H-hullo.." he stammered. I helped him get up and said,

"Dude, you can't be crying, or be shy because you're gonna get eaten alive here if you do," I said.

Suddenly there was a voice over the intercom,

"Students of San Baientian Elementary School, please go into lock down. This is not a drill. Go into lock down. Lock the doors and windows."

Jordan and I did as we were told.

"Turn off any light and computers."

We jumped into action.

"AND HIDE. THIS IS NOT A DRILL."

The message ended. Jordan and I looked at each other with wide eyes. 

We then hid in the closet behind Mrs. G's coat and bag. We stayed silent for a while.

Then I heard a banging on the door and I held my breath. Jordan looked like he was about to cry. Soon enough, the banging stopped and I let my breath out. Jordan pulled a phone out of his pocket and tried calling someone but it went straight to voicemail. I widened my eyes. 

"Holy Cow," I whispered. No one in the whole school had a phone, the city banned it unless you paid $10,000, not including the cost of the phone and line. Jordan must be rich!

He laughed. "I'm not rich," he said reading my thoughts. "In Spillsworth phones are allowed, so I didn't have to pay $10,000."

"Oh." I felt dumb because I knew that. An alert when off on his phone and it made a loud DING! 

Someone outside the classroom heard us because they started banging the door again. 

Jordan looked around and said, "Knock on wood. That helps me calm down." I gave him a confused look but he shrugged.

I knocked on the back of the closet and frowned. Wait, that sounded hollow. I felt around for a break and found a knob, I opened it just as the person barged in. I opened the tiny door and let Jordan squeeze in. I stuffed myself quickly and closed the door just as the closet door opened. It closed again, obviously indicated that the intruder didn't know we were here. 

I felt myself slide down on a slide and stop in a ball pit, on top of Jordan. 

"Ooof," 

"Sorry, Jordan," I said, getting off of him. 

I looked around. There was a huge TV on the wall in front of a couch with cupholders. On the next wall, there were about 100 boxes built into the wall with different types candy. Next to that there was a soft-serve machine with toppings. 

"WOW! THIS IS SO COOL!" Jordan shrieked.

"Keep it down!" I whispered but Jordan just pointed to a sign that said: SOUNDPROOF. 

"Oh," I said.

Then groaned as Jordan dug into the candy. 

For every child, this is their dream, well, every child except me. This is my worst nightmare. I'm not allowed to have candy or gluten because it gives me rashes and I get hyper. So hyper that I hurt myself and I'm rude to other people. Judging from this, I decided to watch TV. I passed the candy and... I just had to take some. I took a handful of sour patch kids and three Oreos, sat down and watched some Screenflix. It never occurred to Jordan or me that this was weird. After a while I fell asleep next to Jordan, TV on.

I woke up on the library's couch with Jordan beside me.  

"Jordan wake up!" I shook him awake. 

"Where are we?" he sat up.

"In the library. I think we need to get up." I helped him get up and we walked home, never speaking of that day. We just assumed it was some really weird dream. To this day I still get a little freaked out, but at least it made me a friend.