I was in a strange school, some odd marriage between a high school and a college. I kept wandering around on the top floor of one building; all the English teachers' offices were there, and I expected to feel comfortable. However, I just felt out of place. I didn't want anyone to catch me up there. I saw lots of grad students going in and out of offices, getting help with their theses and dissertations. I wanted to be one of them, but I knew I was much younger and more inexperienced than they were. I pretended that I was only on the English teachers' floor to use the restroom.
Downstairs again, I ended up on the sidelines of a football game. I figured I would go to the game since I wasn't welcome in the academic part of the school. A bunch of people were wearing caps that said "GAP" on them. I guessed they were from the clothing store of the same name, but it turned out that our school was playing a school called Gap College. A lot of people went there just because of the name. And some people supported the team just because it meant they got to wear caps with "GAP" on them.
My boyfriend Adam was there with the other fans, waiting for me. We were at first in a room with a rubber floor, hanging out with other football fans. Then we went outside and watched the game from the sidelines. There weren't any seats, so all the fans were either on or near the field. A couple of them got in the way of the game. The field wasn't that great, either. One of the players threw the football too far, and it landed in a gully. There weren't any extra balls, so the game had to be put on hold for someone to fetch the ball.
Adam and I left early. He drove off in his Saturn, and I waved goodbye to him in the parking lot. Then I went back inside the school. I was in a large room with dim lighting and red carpet. I was looking through a brown dresser, flinging aside lots of my clothes and other belongings, when I saw my ex-friend Colette, her boyfriend, and a bunch of other people she was hanging out with.
"There's Laurie," Colette said. "I'm mad at her."
I wanted to yell at her, "Mad at ME? What did I ever do to you? You were the one who ditched me!" But then I wondered if she had just misused her words; maybe she had meant to say, "There's Laurie. I hate her."
Colette and her friends exited the red room through a dark doorway. A minute later, though, the boyfriend came back and handed me a framed painting of a dog. I've had that painting in my room since I was a baby.
"Colette wanted to give this to you, but she didn't want to have to say anything. She remembered that it was yours, though."
I didn't say anything. I figured the boyfriend thought I was stupid and naive, just like Colette did.
I wanted to see where Colette and her posse had gone. So I headed out the same dark doorway and found myself in a maze of concrete hallways. I got on a bicycle that was apparently mine and began riding through the hallways. I rode until the path became too narrow for my bike to get through. Also, there were spider webs stretched across the hall in one point. It was strange, because it looked as though all of these hallways had recently been built.
I got off the bike and started walking. I found a series of different rooms, all made out of stone and concrete. A girl popped out from behind a stone and said, "You're it!" Out of nowhere, a teacher came up to me and explained that this was "the part of the school for black people," and that they were playing hide and seek. I was going to say that I didn't think it was legal for schools to be segregated anymore, but I didn't want the teacher mad at me. I walked through the series of rooms, seeing kids hiding in each of them. Finally, I came to a clearing. I saw a replica of a pyramid, complete with hieroglyphics carved into it. I thought it was strange that I had gone to this school for some time but that I had missed all of this.
I came to a snack bar. Apparently it served the same food as the cafeteria, but all the food was on sale because no one was aware that the snack bar existed. I saw a girl ordering a sub sandwich and I began to get hungry.
Then I saw an odd structure off to the side of the snack bar. It turned out to be a junk heap. There were broken electronics stacked up a good twenty feet. I started climbing it. A bunch of guys I vaguely knew in high school eventually joined me. We turned on one of the broken TVs and began watching Headline News. I started talking to them about the TV show Junkyard Wars and forgot all about my quest to find Colette and her new friends.
