I’d like to start this report by mentioning that it seemed
noticeably quieter today with our Grade Eight friends away on their trip. Their absence was probably most notable for
my classmates and me, but when about eight percent of your entire school
population is gone; everyone notices.
That didn’t keep any of us from enjoying an absolutely
beautiful, hot spring day, and for me, that started with Tai Chi by the river
with Mom and Dad. We had a standard
weekday morning breakfast, and then I met up with Rowen for the walk to
school. If she was coordinating anything
with Michael, she did that before I got to her house, but whatever the reason;
he just happened to be leaving his house and crossing the road exactly on time
to meet up with us; and we walked the rest of the way to school together.
Considering the stories on the school grapevine this
morning, it would have been better for him if he hadn’t; since showing up there
in the company of both of the girls being talked about in those news flashes
certainly had the guys razzing him right from the moment he moved on to hang
out with Tim and the rest of their usual gang.
Rowen and I got teased a bit too, but she didn’t try defending herself
by using ‘the kiss’ story; and that news hadn’t made the rounds yet – at least
as of the end of last class yesterday.
Since I’m sure Miranda probably heard about it from Mom or Aunt Leanne
by this morning, it’ll definitely be something that some of the kids and teens
hear about from their parents or neighbors by sometime tonight.
That’s just the way it is in small towns, and though it can
sometimes be a pain; I wouldn’t trade that little inconvenience for anything if
it meant changing anything else about Witch Falls.
The great weather meant that we got to have Phys-Ed class
outdoors, and soccer was the name of the game.
There weren’t any team picking games today, but Rowen and I were on the
winning team, and we rounded out the top three scorers with Michael; which gave
our friends some more ammunition to tease us with. I mostly managed to avoid any tween issues
during lunchtime, and while Rowen and I had lunch with some of the other girls;
we spent the rest of the break just wandering around and not doing much of
anything except enjoying the sunshine.
The walk to school this morning might have been a
coincidence, but the after school snack, study, and biking with Michael and Tim
couldn’t have been unless Mom just happened to have extra, fresh-today Olde
Bakery treats; the fridge in my lounge miraculously filled itself with the
boys’ favorite drinks; and some comedian tuned my television to one of the
music stations that mostly just has soft ballads on its playlist so that was
the first thing we heard when I turned it on for some background music vids. Tim teased me about the music for a while,
and there was nothing I could do, since explaining my matchmaking conspiracy
theory would have only given him something worse than my taste in music to
tease me – and Michael – about.
Getting our homework out of the way didn’t take too long,
but adding Tim to the group did add a little extra time to our study session
too. Though he’s not at the top of our
class, at least academically, Tim is really smart – he’s just an indifferent
student; and can coast along without trying very hard. That’s why it didn’t take a lot longer to get
our homework done – Tim was trying to keep up with the rest of us for speed,
but not necessarily accuracy or thoroughness.
He does get straight A’s too; but only in the subjects he actually
likes.
I’d pretty much ignored it this weekend, though I’d included
it in my usual nightly news, sports, and entertainment checks, but Michael and
Tim needed to talk about the NFL draft. Tim
was surprised that Rowen and I could actually contribute to that conversation,
but he shouldn’t have been – it’s not as if we haven’t talked football with
them before. Let’s not go into the
details – if you’re interested in the results from this year, I’m sure you can
find them on the web somewhere. Maybe
this will be the last I hear about football until the season starts in August,
but I won’t hold my breath on that.
Michael and Tim are already getting fired up about our school team’s
chances for Kyle’s senior year.
After getting our homework finished, we went biking at the
park. That was one of the reasons why
Tim wasn’t hanging out with Nora after school – he wanted to bike the trails in
the woods; and she didn’t want to get muddy, dirty, or hurt trying to do that
with him. Tim likes to show off at everything
he’s good at doing almost as much as he likes to ‘talk trash’ about his amazing
abilities. I don’t do any of that
bragging, but I’m sure you can guess that I do get fired up and competitive. Michael and Rowen are a lot alike for things
like this. They’re just as competitive,
but if you’re not paying attention, you might not even notice that they were
keeping up with Tim as easily as I was; and doing the jumps and tricks as well
or better than we were.
There were a lot of kids and teens at the park, and the
trails were very popular with the guys, but there weren’t very many girls out
there. We had to deal with a few
line-ups for the favorite trails, and a few of them you only ride one at a time
in case there is a fall or accident, since those problems usually happen in
places where a following rider would not be able to stop. The fact that Rowen and I never had a problem
with any of the jumps earned us some notice and points; but not in the way
Rowen would like at least one guy in particular to notice her.
This is a good time to mention that we had a pair of shadows
again today. Patrick and Scott were
almost always nearby. They like riding
the trails as much as any of the guys, but I don’t need to guess that
witnessing the little kiss I gave Michael last night is the main reason for why
Patrick felt the need to keep an eye on us today; with the ‘us’ being Michael
and me. I doubt there will be anything I
can do to help him, but eventually, whenever I do cross over; Patrick will be
crushed to find out that I am not going to be the girl for him. That won’t be fun for him, but then it won’t
be fun for Rowen and I to have him and Scott trailing around after us
everywhere we go either, so I hope this doesn’t become a habit with them.
When it was time to head home again, we had a little stop at
Michael’s house before splitting up; and I stayed for a little chat with
Miranda and Jacob while Rowen and Tim moved on to meet up with their parents at
the shop and computer store. Rowen was
grinning at me when they left, but my decision to stay for a little visit was
entirely because I knew Miranda was going to need to tease me about kissing her
son last night; and it was a lot easier to deal with that in the relative
privacy of their home than it would have been if I’d waited until the next time
I saw her at the Inn or church.
She’d pretty much finished her joke repertoire by the time
Jake and Stephanie got home from whatever they’d been doing after school, and I
took that opportunity to escape and head home too. I did at least get the last laugh after
Miranda tried the “What, no goodbye kisses?” line; and I gave Jacob and hug and
kiss on my way out.
That didn’t end up being the last time I spent time with
Michael and his parents today. After
having a barbeque dinner on the back porch and cleaning up, Ethan and Ehlana
wanted to go to the park to play; and though Dad had some work to get done, he
and Mom both decided to come and play with us for a while too. We added Jacob, Miranda, and Michael to our
group after Ethan and Ehlana needed to stop in for a front porch visit; and a
“come too” and some twin hugs and kisses were all my brother and sister needed
to get three more playmates.
Mom has her family business work with Miranda, and they
still do regular breaks together at least once a week, but we don’t seem to
find much time to just hang out together with both families. I think we should do that more often, but
don’t take that the wrong way – we have fun whenever we do get together; and I
really love spending time with our friends.
The playground was our first stop, and we played there for a half hour
or so; went for a walk around the park on the trail; and wrapped up with
another twenty minutes of mostly swing and slide action before heading home
again.
Jake and Stephanie had been home, but hadn’t wanted to go to
the park with us for some reason. I’ll
just pretend that I don’t know why they were smiling so brightly after getting
nearly two hours of alone time. Miranda
invited us to stay with them for a snack and drinks, so we did that out on
their back porch, but then Dad needed to get home to his work; and Mom and I
kept busy doing Magi lessons and getting Ethan and Ehlana ready for bed while
he was busy with that.
If you’re wondering about why there weren’t any ‘Michael and
me’ moments included in that part of the recap; it’s because there weren’t any
– or at least there weren’t any like everyone else seems to think there should
be. Ethan and Ehlana tried to instigate
a few of those moments, but they didn’t succeed, and I’m glad that we all had
fun together without any tween drama.
The evening play time and snack break changed up my usual
nightly routine, and so did my need for another visit with my Jacuzzi after all
of the biking and play time. I was able
to multi-task while doing that, but it’s still past two now; and I didn’t quite
get everything finished that I wanted to work on tonight. There isn’t anything exciting to report from
my studies, but I got to have a short chat with Rebecca and Jenny after they
were in their hotel room for the night.
It sounds like they’re having fun on their trip, but Jenny and Shane –
and some of the other Grade Eight couples – might be having a bit too much
fun. Hopefully Rebecca won’t need to
find somewhere else to hang out for the rest of the week every time Jenny and
Shane want to be in there making out.
That isn’t a train of thought I want to be following when I
go to sleep, so let’s move along. The
actual education parts of their trip will include all of the usual tours; and
they went to the Washington monument and the Smithsonian American History
Museum today. I hope they learned something on those tours,
but I have no idea whether they did from our chat, since Jenny mostly just
wanted to talk about the cute boys they saw or met today – her interest in the
strictly for her best friend’s benefit; since she already has a boyfriend.
That didn’t exactly end up changing the subject, but I need
to get some sleep, so I’ll wrap this up now and try to do that.
Until next time, this is Magi Master Cassie Proctor; logging
out!
