Tropical Popsicle's

For a country that never really had summers, today produce a blister-inducing heat. Luckily it was Card day. Eager kids with parental money swarmed to the office in the early blistering hours to exchange money for food coupons. Only to even more eagerly swarm to the bench of food at lunchtime to pick the best of the popsicle flavours. I probably should have chosen a soda; because the popsicle was already half melted and neither I nor my friends had yet to sit down at our cold spot under the evergreen.

At the moment I collapsed in our cold spot, I saw that Mr Wilson; who had swooped in last minute and snatched the last tropical pineapple like a gull, had passed on the popsicle to Tonya.

Giving up on my crying popsicle I turned to my friends and uttered annoyingly that Tonya was a pathetic teacher’s pet. And while sitting at our cold spot under the evergreen, with my friends still attempting to eat a crying food, they agreed and arranged that we wouldn’t play with her ever again.

 *Line Break*

For a summer day, it streamed down with drops and it would have been perfectly warm if it had not been asthmatically humid. Because of all this, Card day was inside, so we had to fly through the steaming rain and huddle inside the assembly hall.

So many of us were stuck inside that small hall that we huddled like penguins to create more room for the poor souls stuck lining up outside. Finally, at the front I could see that there was one tropical pineapple left, excitement could not describe what I felt because swooping in an old wrinkly hand grabbed it. Leather skinned lips turned upright and Mr Wilson disappeared. At least there was purple grape and at least the popsicles weren’t as melted and last weeks.

But while stuck inside an even more constricting cube and while trying to eat my crying popsicle that had fallen to the billowing heat of the heater. I saw, under the outside stairs that grew like vines up the flank of the assembly hall, Tonya and Mr Wilson standing close together. I could only make out lips whispering but could witness Mr Wilson gripping the popsicle stick while Tonya wrapped her teachers' pet lips around it. Her eyes seemed annoyed because when she violently pulled away the popsicle followed, and Mr Wilson shocked by the violent move gave up the firm grip he had. His leather-skinned lips turned upright and he walked away, Tonya confused but too dumb to think it weird just walked off licking the popsicle tears.

That certainly was weird, but she was a teacher’s pet and I don’t like her. So, while finishing my popsicle I turned away, spearing the stick at some poor sobs face and taking his deck of cards demanded the student-teacher play with me instead.

Choosing to forget all that occurred.

Still.

That was certainly weird.

*Line break*

This time summer was over, holidays were done, and we were back at school with glistening ice coating the ground like sheep’s wool. With the first Card day of winter came the delicious warmed mothers’ cookies, double chocolate chip. The useable energy was pulsing and humming through the air. Multiple eyes flicked to the clock and tongues slicked lips; we were all ready. Finally, like wasps swarming a dead fish we headed towards the permanently inside the assembly hall Card day area. Lots of words but that’s what it was in winter, it was that that was plastered on the new posters for parents to glance at once leaving the grounds; because after the years only now did they decide that waiting outside in a frozen world was bad for us kids.

The air was smothered with melting chocolate and perfectly baked cookie dough. I had gotten there before anyone else so there was no chance that the cookies would be all gone.

Not a chance.

There was one left, alone in the tray, brothers and sisters gone. That stupid leather hand came in and as quickly as Mr Wilson had appeared and turned his leather lips upright, he was gone.

I whipped my head around and saw the trim of his winter coat flap against the exit door. Storming through the dawdling kids and once free outside I shook my head around and spotted Tonya on the first bark square. The closest one to me, the one that grew my friends evergreen tree that below sat a cold spot. There she was walking around eating my cookie, climbing the low bearing evergreen tree branches, and shuffling the bark beneath her shoes.

Stomping across the basketball courts I flew above the bark barrier, I was so close to her.

Like a shadow, Mr Wilson appeared next to her and gave her another cookie and I stalled. She had finished her first one when he appeared like a mystery and as she grasped the second cookie, his leather lips turned upright and he walked around her flank. Like a shadow, his hand grazed her behind, my stalling became a frozen walk and her face looked, well, it looked like something I couldn’t explain.

Like disappointment, fear, sadness?

She was the teacher’s pet, not so smart but always did her work. Always went above and beyond. Never talked back and always was nice to any teacher. There she was. Just disappointed and disgusted because her hand limply dropped the cookie on the ground and her head hung down. She seemed to slink into the ground and turn invisible all at once. Tonya twisted on the spot, but Mr Wilson was long gone, she twirled back slowly and saw me.

“I don’t know what that was about,” she uttered pathetically.

With giggling undertones, I spewed.

“I don’t know ya know, ya know he is old he just doesn’t understand our time,”

*Line break*

On the next Card day, it was a strangely hot day for winter. Finally, for once, I got the tropical popsicle and for once it was not half melted. And under our cold spot under the evergreen tree, I saw Mr Wilson looking for Tonya. Only all the kids knew that over the week she started hiding in the innermost secret corners of the library.

“You guys know Tonya,”

My friends under the evergreen swiveled their eyes towards me, food stuffed in their mouths.

“She’s such a teacher’s pet she let Mr Wilson touch her bum to get a cookie,”

Giggles erupted, someone chocked on their food, and hushed whispers spread amongst my friends. Some swung on the branches, leaning their head down, face breaking in an evil smile asking with viper words.

“Is it true.”

“Why do you think she hangs in the library with no friends.”

“We should confront her, how gross, she’s fat already.”

“Yeah defiantly, but after I finish my popsicle though, Miss Mackenzie will kill us if we show up with food.”

And finally, weightlessly falling onto the trunk of the evergreen, beneath which our cold spot laid, on this strangely warm winter day. I watched as Mr Wilson sulked back to the teacher’s office, I witnessed a car pull tightly to the school parking and Tonya’s mum walk out with a slam to the door. While they didn’t see me watching, they saw each other and spoke an unspeakable conversation a silent conversation that only the passage of time and adulthood could teach.

Soon after we had the last Card day, Mr Wilson disappeared like a shadow in the light and Tonya always stayed in the hidden corner of the library only to hear poisoned giggles from her peers. And the cold spot, under the evergreen tree, forever felt colder.