Rain Delay

It had been a dark day for the students of Langford High School. The sun was not shining that day, on account of the heavy, dark gray clouds outside. Thunder rumbled off in the distance and so power flickered on and off every half hour or so. But being so late in the school year, only a month left to go, they could not cancel school; there were no more make up days available. So with the humidity at 100%, and the temperature outside vacillating between 75 and 80 degrees, the student body found itself in a sweaty situation. The AC would come on and cool the halls, then shut off along with most of the lights, then return just in time to keep the air below 80 degrees. It was a horrible day to be in school.

Michael Magruder sat in the back of his history class, half asleep. He did not want to be there on a day like this, though the same could be said for just about any day of the year. His broad, football-player shoulders rested against the cement wall as his chair leaned back at a precarious angle. Both eyes were just barely open enough to satisfy the sympathetic teacher who believed the students shouldn't even be in the building on a day like this. As a result, Mr. Longbarrow had put on a bootleg copy of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a movie whose educational value was, to say the least, debatable. Yet despite the obvious onscreen hilarity, Michael continued to 'minimize his sensory input'. The heat was simply too stifling to think of , that is, except the long, shapely pair of legs extending from the miniskirt in the seat one row over and one seat up. Michael smiled; he always had time and energy to think about those.
"Hey, Mike." Michael's small smile faded away as he turned towards a voice with the slightest overtones of a muted trumpet. It was Andrew Diardalo, a tall and thin basketball player who seemed to aggravate Michael with his very presence.
"Yeah Andy?" If Diardalo wanted to call him by his rarely used nickname, so be it. Michael would simply return suit.
"What time's'it?" Michael nearly growled. This absurdly tall boy dared to interrupt his relaxation for a simple check of the time.
"I dunno, don't have a watch"
"Oh. Alright." The tall boy turned to the short boy by the window.

The short boy by the window was named Fred. He had a last name of much curiosity and interest, but due to its Polish ethnicity and abundance in length, no one much bothered to remember it. He had begun the class watching the movie, it was a favorite of his, but soon the overbearing heat took his attention away from the television and he found himself either staring at the window or into the pages of the notebook before him. From the third story classroom he could look out over the whole city with all its little streets and buildings, or look up at the curtain of darkness that hung overhead yet brought no rain. The clouds were nearly bulging with water to this diminutive boy's eyes, yet no sheets of precipitation came to cool the denizens of Walkersville, only thunder to disrupt the electricity. It was very frustrating to Fred, so he wrote a little song concerning it.
Oh Lord, please send the rain
We are burning up here Lord
Oh Lord, please end our pain
And let the waters softly fall
Oh Lord, can't you hear me right now?
I am calling out here God
Oh Lord, just do it somehow
Let your healing waters fall Well, he thought, they always say 'write what you know.' Quite satisfied with the results, he was slowly humming it when Andrew Diardalo called out.
"Hey, Fred, what time's'it?"

"1:45" came the reply and Andrew sat back and smiled. The day would end at 2:00 and he could leave this hell-hole and go home. Hopefully his house would have AC, or the tall athlete didn't know what he would do. Shrivel up and die most likely. He wondered what had possessed him to ask Michael first, they hated each other. It certainly wouldn't help to heal the mysterious schism between them, a schism neither of them could clearly explain beyond "I hate that guy". But Andrew's thoughts were cut short by all but the two emergency lights turning off, as well as the TV. A groan of disappointment eased out of the few that had actually been watching the movie anymore, but not from Andrew. He simply began to review his memories of a game months before, searching for some mistake that had led to their last second defeat at the hands of their rivals, Farport. His mind dwelt on this for several minutes, until the PA system crackled to life, banishing his play-by-play analysis forever.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, we're running on emergency power right now, so
I'm going to keep these afternoon announcements short." The principal's voice then trailed away into information about the spring sports banquet and Summer School. Andrew didn't care.

Tyson Longbarrow sat behind his desk, packing his papers up for the day, watching his students file out of the classroom with a speedy trudge. He saw his and their presence at school as a failure of the system, and would've had a nice rant about it to them if the heat hadn't drained so much out of him. So instead he had put his favorite movie on and half slept, much like Michael in the back row. He stood up and stared out the window, stared straight down at the exit to see who would be the first out the door. There were only three students so far this year who had made it out the door first thing after the bell, and Longbarrow and the two teachers on either side of him had a betting pool as to which it would be. The doors opened and the girl with the straw-blonde hair down to her shoulders came out first. Drat, he thought to himself, I thought the bad weather would have had an effect on her today. From Piler's room to his left came a small cheer, Longbarrow had just lost his lead on the score chart. A small sound began outside, then grew, and Longbarrow was even more surprised.

Lindsay Fletcher walked quickly down the hallway, her straw-blond hair slightly caught up in the movement. She wasn't about to let some gloomy clouds outside ruin her day. She was in love and that was all that mattered. The sooner she got outside, the sooner she would be with Andrew, her man, side by side on the bus ride home. He came out a different door because his last class was on the third floor. The only reasons she didn't run were because it was against the rules, and it would attract far too much attention. The heavy metal door swung open and she stepped outside into the gloomy atmosphere. Glancing to her left, she saw Andrew emerge from the school in the midst of a crowd, towering above the others. They both adjusted their paths to meet half way to the buses, and he soon had one arm around her shoulders. Then a drop of water hit her nose and she looked up in surprise. But his eyes did not meet hers; he too was staring upward at the clouds. Starting as a mere drizzle then quickly building into a downpour, the rain fell around the couple as they ran, laughing, for the bus. On their way they passed a short skinny kid, holding a notebook, who was simply staring upward and smiling as the water washed down his face in cooling waves. The day was ending with a sudden temperature drop and a rain storm that they had waited all day for. It wasn't such a bad time to be at school just then, everyone thought, as they left for their homes, to be cooped up inside all afternoon.