Tuesday, August 15, 2006

High School Days


HIGH SCHOOL DAYS
by Matthew Sanborn Smith

Everyone that knew them said that Zeke and Allison had chemistry, and it was true. Seventh period in Mr. Hodung's room. What everyone didn't know was that they were sweet on each other as well. For their one day anniversary, Zeke snuck the graviton collator out of the supply closet (yes, you're saying this sounds more like physics than chemistry and I'm sure it would have been called that when you were in school) and accumulated enough to mold a little kitty cat for Allison out of gravity.

It so happened that the gravitons he collected came mostly from beneath Ms. Thadeau. She floated to the gymnasium rafters during the pep rally. Everyone thought it was part of the show and agreed it was the best pep rally ever. Ms. Thadeau found some balloons and played with them until she was fished down by the Bat-Snarers club which met in the gym the following Wednesday. Their treasurer, Demetrius, gave her his pickle sandwich. She'd been famished even before she floated away. That night, the two of them made sweet, sweet love in her bungalow while they listened to Jethro Tull. The guys in the band felt terribly uncomfortable about the whole thing but they really needed the gig.

It was about this time that Allison's gravity cat tore through the wall during its five day binge of space-warping destruction. Not only did the little scamp destroy half of Ms. Thadeau's Avon decanter collection, but when it leapt through the lovers' adjacent abdomens, it prematurely pulled one of Ms. T's ova right down a fallopian tube.

The next month, right there in Calculus, Ms. Thadeau demanded that Zeke marry her and take responsibility for the child, as the whole thing had essentially been his fault. She also made him conjugate the verb currere (to traverse) thirty thousand times (Yes, sounds more like Latin than Calculus, but, again, that was in your day). Zeke, being a gentleman, agreed to everything, but his hand went useless after about fifty-seven hundred conjugations and he lived out his days playing piano pieces for the left hand. It was a pity that he hated the piano, but that's what he thought one was supposed to do in such circumstances.

Allison was heartbroken when Zeke left her. She demanded restitution for the destruction of her future marriage. The judge awarded her thirty broken Batmobile decanters of Avon shampoo and marriage to a very old, but still quite nimble Ian Anderson. No one came out of the whole business extremely happy (save for Ian), but hey, this is life, how many people do?

Besides Ian?

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