tLoud Trucks and Beautiful Eighteen

Chapter One

School was only in session for two weeks and it was already dull. I found myself utterly bored with it as I felt drowsy in my first period math class. As I sat there, ignoring the lecture my teacher was giving us my thoughts turned to Dan and our daily adventures of high school. Like this morning, we arrived at the same time, only for me to discover that he had taken the exhaust off of his truck overnight, just to make it louder. Laughing at the amount of noise it was making and stupidity it took to do a stunt like that we walked around the parking lot with our friends, cracking jokes, doing stupid stuff and not giving a damn what anybody said or thought. After that we caused some problems with the local gang, egging them on and getting the administration involved. After that we went into the auto shop, where I spent most of my days anyways and we proceeded to turn on and off that beautiful 1970 Ford Explorer (which was, as I started before, exhaustless and louder than ever) and show it off to all of our buddies, mostly Cody, whose Dodge Ram was without a hood, bumpers, license plates or a floor in the interior of the cab. In high school slang, Cody’s dodge was a POS, and Dan and I had no problems showing off our work of art, our summer project. The explorer.

“Ok ya’ll.” Mr. Saunders, the Auto shop teacher said walking into the shop. “Its time for me to take roll.”

“Roll?” I asked climbing out of the bed of the truck.

“Yes Mrs. Norton,” Mr. Saunders said.

“Future Mrs. Norton!” Cody called out from the drivers seat of his Dodge.

“But class hasn’t started yet!” I protested. Everyone started to laugh.

“You weren’t sluffing?” Mr. Saunders asked.

“No.” I said looking to Dan, whose only response was a shrug.

“Ummm…ok.” Mr. Saunders said looking to me and starting to laugh. “Class started twenty minutes ago.”

“Are you serious?” I asked grabbing my backpack and jumping to my feet. “Shit, I have a math test today.” I said standing up and running to my class.

“Dan!” Mr. Saunders called. “Go excuse the soon to be Mrs. Norton!” He hollered.

“Yes sir!” He said hopping out of his truck. “Andie! Wait!” He hollered after me.

“No time!” I hollered back, continuing to nearly run down the hallway.

“You make my life difficult!” He yelled up to me.

“And you make me late for class!” I yelled back to him.

“I still love you!” He yelled down the hall to me.

“I still love you too!” I yelled back, then headed down the stairs and ran to my classroom, where I very bluntly interrupted my classmates and stumbled into my seat.

“Ahhh, Miss Roberts.” My teacher said with a small smile on his face. “Nice to have you in class today.” He said.

“Finally someone who knows my last name.” I said. “Sorry I was in the auto shop and the bell doesn’t work in there and-”

“And Mr. Saunders went to take roll and you realized how late you were.” My teacher finished for me.

“Yeah.” I said laughing. “So can we just…like not mark me tardy please?”

“Only if you pass your test.” My teacher said.

“Deal.” I said and then sat down in my seat and then looked to the white board and started on the quiz. This school year was going to be really nice.

Senior year. I sighed and shook my head. Two years had already passed me by and I was amazed at how fast it all had gone. And now it was the final year of torture of grief. All I had to do was pass.

That’s it…right?