Time seems to move much faster in the classes I like more than the boring ones. Especially in the office, where I work for Mrs. Cusick, who works all day in the front desk of the main office. I get to work for her an hour every day as an IWE (Inside Work Experience). It is one of the two classes where I don't have to raise my hand to talk to the teacher.
Around ten o'clock, the phone rang. It was barely heard over the noise of the printer making copies, a few teachers complaining about their paychecks which had arrived earlier, and an aged man with graying hair going in and out of the office, carrying in three boxes every time her returned.
"Can you get that, hun?" Mrs. Cusick was talking to a man who was opening one of the boxes which were filled with envelopes for the annual magazine drive.
"Good morning, Montera Junior High School. Yes, she's right here. Please hold." I covered the receiver and called Ms. Nishiyama. "Ms. Nishiyama! A call on line two!"
"Thanks. I'll get it over there." I hung up the phone as she went on humming a tune she probably made up and disappeared into the telephone booth down the hall. "What line did you say it was on?"
"Line two," I answered, stretching a rubber band to the point if felt like it was going to snap on me.
"There's no one on that line. There's no one on any line."
"I looked at the phone, seeing no black arrows, suddenly remembering I didn't push the "hold" button before hanging up. "I think I hung up on them," I announced timidly.
"Good for you," Mrs. Cusick laughed. "Don't worry. They'll call back if it's important."
"If they call back, I'll be in here," Ms. Nishiyama pointed to the copy room and disappeared from my sight. I was afraid to answer the phone after that and let Jessica answer the rest. I don't think the person ever called back.
"That would be a great picture for the yearbook," Erin, who wasn't dressed for PE that day, said, pointing to a ring of seventh graders neatly lined up side to side in a circular pattern on the grass field. They were doing synchronized jumping jacks, every single arm in unison to the others. It looked like a jelly fish, the top half white, the bottom half black. Now, they were running in a circle like a merry-go-round. Gradually, one person broke off, leading the rest to uncoil like a snake, eventually forming a straight line heading towards the baseball diamond.
"I wish I had my camera," Ja Ney said, passing the ball to me. "They all have on black shorts and a white t-shirt."
I remember when I was in seventh grade, envying the eighth and ninth graders who were just lying around while a fellow classmate took role. Everyone in my class had on gym shorts and a clean white t-shirt, not wanting to know what would happen if they didn't.
I always loathed Thursdays, because it was the day Mr. Miller, one of the seventh grade gym teachers, called "Run Day". It's self-explanatory. We would spend the whole hour running. I was always in the tens for role call because we are lined up in alphabetical order, and my last name starts with an F. All my other friends would be towards the end. As Mr. Miller would call up ten people at a time to start running, I would run alone, no one to talk to to make the time go by faster. Well, the advantage was that I would finish earlier than lots of people so I would get to sit in the shade and watch, exhausted, as my friends had one more lap to go. I never liked running. I was never the fastest in my class in elementary school, and I was very glad and satisfied I passed the mile run under the time limit, only seconds away from not making it. But on the other hand, I was never the slowest, either.
I couldn't believe that I used to be one of the seventh graders that were laughed at by the older kids, now that I am the older kid. I feel sorry, but I know I'll be sorry for being sorry once I get to high school. Even though I will be a freshman in high school, I will be younger than the others ahead of me. In life, once you've gotten to the top, you're back down again.