Something So Cool

It was only a matter of time before Thomas had the confrontation. It made him think of the classic movie High Noon that he’d watched once with his father. But unlike Gary Cooper he wasn’t armed and wasn’t ready and if he could he’d take the first train out of here. But Friday morning before first period, Thomas realized that it was finally time and he needed to stand strong.

“Hi, Thomas,” Cass said to him as she walked up carrying a shopping bag in each hand. “Can I still give these to you?”

For the moment Thomas forgot what those bags were for. He forgot what was in them and why she was bringing them to him. For the moment he forgot pretty much everything except the golden-haired-cheerleader-babe who was finally coming up to him after the week he’d spent avoiding her since reading that letter.

“Or I can give them to someone else if your locker’s already completely full,” she said with an amused, confident look on her face.

“No, it’s fine, really,” Thomas said, opening his locker and then seeing an avalanche of stuff falling out of it.

With his ankles buried in clothes, blankets, a bag full of canned goods, a video game, another bag tied at the top, Kevin could feel his face warming to a nice red glow. He laughed as he tried to take the bags out of Cass’s hands.

“Here,” she said, setting the bags on the floor and stooping to help him pick up everything. “Is this everything you’ve gotten this week?”

He shook his head, back in reality. “This is everything I’ve gotten this morning.”

“Are you kidding?”

“No.” Kevin let out a nervous chuckle. “It’s been kinda crazy.”

“I think it’s kinda awesome.”

“Yeah, that too.”

“So where is everything going?”

“Leonard’s letting me store it in a closet.”

Cass had both arms full. “Who’s Leonard?”

“The janitor.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said.

For a moment he didn’t know whether to take the stuff from her or if she was going to put it back in the locker.

“Want to show me the magical closet?” Cass asked.

“Oh, yeah, sure, thanks.”

He was stammering. Surely she was going to figure out that this was not the guy she’d written that nice letter to. That guy was the new guy, the mystery guy, the guy full of intrigue. Standing before her was a dork named Thomas.

“Want to show me now?”

Thomas nodded, apologized, then felt his face turn red again. As he walked, wondering what she might be thinking as she followed him, he was surprised when she came out with the obvious.

“So did you get my letter?”

He would have loved to have some kind of clever comeback. But “Yeah” was the only thing he could think to say.

“Stupid, huh?”

Thomas shook his head, his hands loaded down.

“I just thought it might be nice—to show you that not all people around here are total morons. I didn’t have an e-mail or phone number.”