Fish sticks

It's ten thirty and Sally is looking into her math book. Actually, she wasn't really looking. The numbers just blur and focus again. She's tired and ready for lunch. She's bored so she leans over to Lucy to ask a question.

"Hey Lucy, what are you gonna play with at recess?" she asks.

"Umm. I don't know. Maybe the jump-rope," Lucy replies.

"Oh, okay.", says Sally. At that moment Sally decided she wanted to play with the jump-rope. She sat there at her wooden desk while the teacher was going on about subtracting oranges and apples. She was thinking about how wonderful it would be to play with that jump-rope. Yellow with blue stripes and pinkish handles. Pink rubber handles that fit perfectly in her little hands.

"Sally, can you please do number four on the board for us?", Mrs. Shoehorn asked.

Sally had good days and bad days with Mrs. Shoehorn. But today she had a goal- to get that jump-rope. She had to concoct a scheme to get it before Lucy did. So, she decided she would act sweet as pie so it would be easier to get it at recess.

"Of course, Mrs. Shoehorn," Sally said.

She scooted back her plastic chair and walked up to the blackboard, her shoes clicking on the way. She took the dusty chalk out of Mrs. Shoehorn's hand and turned to the board. The numbers on the board began to blur and dance. Sally felt dizzy and her face was becoming hot, like she was spinning sixty times in her backyard.

"Sally, do you even know how to do number four?", Mrs. Shoehorn asked. This sudden outburst ended Sally's vertigo, but started making her fussy.

"Yes. I know how to do it.", she replied. Since Mrs. Shoehorn seemed impatient, she didn't want to take up all of her time, so she placed a few of her favorite numbers on the board.

"Please sit down, Sally.", said Mrs. Shoehorn.

Sally knew she had answered it wrong just from the tone of her voice. But she didn't have time to think about math. She had to come up with a plan for that jump-rope. Now, since she had answered that question wrong, she was more worried than ever that Lucy with the lacy socks would get it. Sally saw images of Lucy playing around with the jump-rope. She would step on it and drag it in the mud. Lucy doesn't know how to take care of things like she does. Lucy would return the jump-rope at the end of recess all tattered with a rubber handle missing, Sally thought.

Brrrrring! It was time for lunch. Everyone put their books in the desks and ran to the back of the classroom. The kids who brought their lunch went to the cubby holes to get them. The other students went straight to the back to form a line, while touching their pockets, making sure they remembered their lunch money.

Sally was the caboose on the girl's side. Mrs. Shoehorn and the train behind her began to make their way to the cafeteria. Sally clutched her sack lunch tightly. Walking down the hall, there were squeaks and click- clacks of shoes. Sally saw her target ahead. As the succession of children went down the hall, Sally put her hand on a silver knob and slipped into a room near the restrooms.

Darkness swallowed her. She searched for a light, and found one on her left. And there she saw the big box. The big box was labeled 'balls' but there was more in there than just kick balls and basketballs. She peered into the box and saw it sitting on the top of the pile. Her jump- rope. Somehow, it looked even prettier in this yellow lighting. It had glints of sparkles that reminded her of the sugar on her cereal. Sally reached out her hand and grabbed a handle of the jump-rope. She slithered it out of the big box and coiled it up. Now she just had to make it back to the cafeteria. She decided to put it in her lunch sack for safe keeping. She came out of the closet and quickened her gait. As soon as she entered the cafeteria, the smell of fish-sticks hit her. She sat at a corner table by herself. Good, she thought. No one noticed her coming in late.

She sat at the table eating her carefully made sandwich, when a boy with an orange-striped shirt from class walked up.

"Hi Sally. Can I sit here?" he asked.

Sally merely nodded her head.

"There's no more room at the other tables. I just came from a dentist appointment. You know what they did there? He stuck this huge needle in my gums. I don't know why they call it gums. Maybe because we chew with our teeth and we chew gum with our teeth. Anyway so then."

Sally continued eating her lunch, only half listening to his story. Boy, he sure is a talker, she thought. The rest of lunch went by, Sally quietly eating, and the boy talking about minty fluoride.

Tweet! The teachers all blew their whistles and the kids began to stand up. Everyone was in a rush to get outside; it looked like a nice day.

Sally was excited too. This boy wasn't too bad, she thought. At least someone was talking to her for a change. All the students threw out their trash and lined up. Sally threw her trash away too, forgetting her jump rope was in the brown paper bag. Then the students walked in lines to go near the gym doors to the playground.

Sally spent the recess talking with this strange boy. They went to the swings and the jungle gym together. Most of the time he was telling her stories about his pet fish and how food got stuck in his teeth. He even shared some lemon heads with her.

The rest of the day went by quickly. Art and then English. Then the bell rang and the children put on their jackets and bookbags. On Sally's way to the back of the room, she almost tripped over the overhead cord, but quickly jumped over it.

"Oh, no," she said aloud.

As all the other students ran out the school front doors, Sally ran to cafeteria. She pushed down the trashcans and began looking inside of brown paper bags for her jump-rope. She was frantically searching, with tears streaming down her face by the time she got through with the third trashcan. Suddenly the little boy from lunch was skipping by.

"Umm. Sally, why are you digging in the trash?" he asked.

She wiped her tears with her sticky hands and looked up. In his hand he was holding two pink rubber handles.

"HEY! That's my jump-rope!", she exclaimed.

"No, it's not," he said. "I saw you throw it away at lunch."

Sally got up, off her knees, smiling now. She dusted the green beans off of her skirt and realized what she had to do.

She started to run after the boy.