“Thanks a lot.” Grace McDonald sneered at the two snickering boys who had been the culprits.
Our school was a short and sprawling single-story building. This wasn’t the first time a ball had gotten stuck up on that low roof. In fact, there were probably ten other balls up in the same region where our purple ball had landed.
“When are the duty teachers gonna get our balls down from there?” Chloe Gibson was practically pouting as she stared up at the sea of trapped spheres.
“They’re too busy being evil,” Grace said with authority. “They just like to stand around and blow their whistles at us.”
“And report us to Mr. Garcia,” Chloe added. Mr. Garcia was the school principal.
The group of rowdy boys seemed to forget about the incident almost immediately and were back to playing their game. They hadn’t lost their ball, after all. But I noticed River amidst the group. He wasn’t talking and laughing with the other boys. He wasn’t watching their game. He still had his eyes on the roof, on the many unreachable balls that had collected up there over the school year.
I felt like I could read his mind in that moment. I felt my guts tighten when River did what he did next.
Just a few yards down from us were some monkey bars, which sat closer to the school building than the brick walls did. River ran over to the bars and climbed onto them so that he was precariously perched on top.
There was a breezeway maybe six feet away from the monkey bars. The school roof was a little lower right there, and the breezeway connected the cafeteria to the library. It was on top of the library where all the un-fetched balls resided. I watched as River managed to raise his lanky body up on the monkey bars so that he was fully standing, now even more precarious than he’d been seconds earlier.
By this point, all the kids at the brick walls became aware of what he was up to. The boys stopped playing their game. They, along with Grace, Chloe and I, stood there, gawking at him.
“What is he doing?” Grace beheld the scene with a skeptical look.
“River!” One of the boys shouted, but River ignored him.
In a surprisingly graceful manner, like a deer, River leapt from the monkey bars to the roof of the breezeway. Chloe and Grace let out little screams. A mix of exclamations resounded from the group of boys. River landed directly on the roof of the breezeway and paused only a brief moment before continuing on toward the roof of the library.
I glanced around the playground, wondering how the duty teachers weren’t seeing this. Chloe and Grace were right about those women; they were evil and loved sending kids to Mr. Garcia’s office with red slips of paper. But I saw that the two duty teachers were absorbed in conversation, talking to each other at the far corner of the cafeteria, completely oblivious to this dangerous episode.
When River made his way to all those balls on the roof, he began throwing them down to us one by one. The kids all started cheering and clapping, causing more of our peers to notice what was happening and join us at the brick walls. Greater and louder cheering and applause ensued.
“What’s going on over here?”
The duty teachers, finally perceiving that something was amiss, had approached the scene, sauntering over toward our noisy congregation.
“Oh, God. How did he get up there?” The duty teacher with shorter hair was the first one to spot River.
“Who is that?” The other lady said in an incredulous tone, as though it mattered exactly which child was on top of the school roof, seriously endangering himself. “I’ll get the janitor. He can get us a ladder.” She rushed off as she pulled out her walkie-talkie.
“You stay put up there—do not move, young man! You’re getting yourself into some big trouble.” The short-haired duty teacher barked threats at River, yet she could only stand there and watch, powerless for the time being.
All of the students hooted and laughed as River continued to victoriously toss the balls down for us. Finally, there was just one more ball that remained. It was the purple one that Chloe, Grace, and I had just lost. River grabbed it in both hands, but he didn’t throw it down right away like he had done with the other ones. He took the time to search through the mass of kids below until he found my eyes. Then he threw the ball straight at me, and I caught it.
Before the longer-haired duty teacher had arrived with a ladder, River casually returned to the roof of the breezeway. He positioned himself so that he hung from the roof by his hands, and then he let go and landed on the ground, in one piece.
Sounds of delight and excitement continued to issue from the other kids as they dispersed with their rescued balls. Now that River was back on the ground, the short-haired duty teacher was making a move on him. Before she could catch him, River jogged over to me.
“Got you your ball back,” he said. He was smiling and breathing hard.
“Thanks.” I still had the purple ball in my hands. I hadn’t moved an inch since I caught it.
“Maybe we can play two-square or something tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
We couldn’t. River got suspended for three days.
But when he returned to school on Friday, he found me during recess and whisked me away from Chloe Gibson and Grace McDonald.
River and I chose from the many balls that were now in the playground bin, and we played.
Chapter 4
Our last day of high school came and went like a hasty rainstorm. There was an intense energy within the senior class that day. You could feel it like humidity in the air. For the first time from my perspective, every class period flew by at top speed. Some teachers tried to give us one last educational lesson or impart upon us one final bit of wisdom. But most of the teachers didn’t bother, and some even served us cupcakes.
And then the day was done. You’d think after twelve years of mandatory schooling, students would be bursting out of that place as soon as the ultimate bell resounded through the halls. That wasn’t the case, though. All the students lingered in the hallways, leisurely clearing out their lockers, trading yearbooks around, and chatting with other students they had barely spoken to in all our years together.
Personally, I’d cleared out my locker speedily and did not request anyone else to sign my yearbook. I was walking down the hall toward the doors, about to make my final exit, but then I saw something that made my chest tighten up and my pace slow down. I saw someone. It was Aaron Ingram, on the other side of the hall, surrounded by an assorted group of seniors. I told myself to look away, but it was too late. We made eye contact.
At first, Aaron held an uncertain expression in his face. It looked like he was considering running up to me to say something, but he didn’t. He stayed put, and then he simply smiled. I smiled back. His grin still gave me the same jittery feeling it had over all those years I’d had a crush on him. Maybe that meant a small part of the crush remained inside me, but here we were, done with high school, and I knew it was time to move on.
I was almost to the doors when I heard someone calling from behind me.
“Hey, Drew!”
When I turned around, I saw Chloe Gibson approaching me, a butter-yellow dress covering her tan skin, and a yearbook in hand.
“Hey,” I said. “What’s up?”
“You haven’t signed my yearbook yet.”
Chloe Gibson, my former elementary school friend, seemed to be exuding a bright hopefulness as she held out her yearbook and a pen toward me. I couldn’t remember the last time Chloe and I had engaged in a conversation. She’d never acted cruel or cold toward me since we parted ways, but she was almost always glued to the hip with Grace, sucked up within her own popular world.