A/N:
To Anon: You got it right! X3
Currently in History, we're talking about that time period (late 50s, early 60s) and we've watched a few films about this time, and I figured to have a little fun and try to write something similar. I've also read a few articles and some light novels to try and get the feel of the style of writing and I couldn't wait to try it out. This is about 1-2 days early, but I guess that's better for the readers, isn't it? X3
As for the stereotypes, absolutely intentional. They'll come back every now and then, of course.
The next morning Gumi stumbled her way to school. It was only three blocks from her door to the entrance of Port Terra Kane High School, but it seemed like an eight-mile death march with one thousand five hundred oppressed fellow-pubescent prisoners. All the kids just plodded along both sides of the street. Occasionally a teacher's car would go by. She recognized Mrs. Hatsune, who taught English—the only English teacher she had ever heard of who had a doctorate in Shakespearean studies and was so brilliant nobody ever knew what she was talking about. Then she glimpsed the Spanish teacher, who thought he was a flamenco dancer and the answer to every girl's dream. And of course, there was Mrs. Megurine, whom she had absolutely adored when she had taken a biology course with her. She had never forgotten about the time Mrs. Megurine told her she had found a baby chipmunk that would have frozen to death if she hadn't kept it warm by nestling it down the front of her dress. The class was stunned when Mrs. Megurine confided in them that one time the postman had rung the bell to deliver a package, and she opened the door forgetting about the chipmunk; and as the postman was talking to her the chipmunk climbed up out of her bosom.
Actually, on the whole, Port Terra Kane had some terrific teachers, really down-to-earth. And Gumi imagined quite a few of them were old maids who were probably as lonely as she was. Nowadays she knew you didn't have to be a woman to end up as an old maid, and some of the single teachers seemed to really like living alone. "Independent," they called it. Maybe someday that would sound good to her, but now in her life she wanted a boy.
She had physics first period with Mr. Hiirone, a very sweet young man who often inspired her. But it was much too early today to be inspired.
"Magnetism," Mr. Hiirone was telling the class of thirty-eight kids,"has been known about for centuries. There were early legends concerning its discovery. One of those, found in a Greek manuscript written before the birth of Christ, tells about the wonders performed by a roving band of iron workers called Cabiri. One of their astounding feats was to cause an iron-like stone, now known as lodestone, to attract and hold several iron rings. . ."
That is about all she could remember hearing before she was aware of the laughter. The class was laughing, Mr. Hiirone was staring at her. She knew she had dozed off. She so hoped she hadn't snored.
"What's going on?" Mr. Hiirone wanted to know. "I realize I'm boring, but you don't usually fall asleep, Megumi. Are you stoned?"
She sighed and rubbed her eyes. "No, Mr. Hiirone, I swear."
He nodded his head and turned his back to the class. "Now then, looking past that, one thing you do know is that the lodestone of the Cabiri was a natural magnet," Mr. Hiirone went on,"which magnetized the rings and thus held them together by an invisible force. . ."
She was grateful the class had returned to the boredom of magnetism. After physics there was math, and then gym with the tough Miss Matsuda, who acted as if though she could play for the Pittsburgh Steelers; and lunch supervised by the sweet Miss Tone, whom kids used to always throw pennies and M&Ms at; and then came a few of the electives.
There was a boy who sat next to her named Ren Ikune in Miss Darling's music class. He used to make animal noises while Miss Darling would talk about the beauty of Chopin. Sometimes he'd work the whole class up into such a wild frenzy, Miss Darling, who was about 173 years old, would snatch off her eyeglasses and begin to suck on the frame. When she felt everything was really going bananas, she'd rush to the piano and begin to play "Dry Bones" in jazz tempo. She was obviously as mad as a hatter, but banging out "Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones" seemed to quiet down the pack of teenage coyotes she used to get for every class.
The rest of the day would become just little images for her diary: some boy walking down the hall with a pompom; another boy with long blonde hair wearing stripes like he had just gotten out of reform school. She walked by the principal's office and there was another boy in there who looked like he was bout to be sent to the electric chair. And there was a despondent couple in one stairwell who looked like they were falling out of love.
Finally in art she got a chance to really get into her new book. She felt as though the writer was writing directly on her heart: When it gets right down to basics, the book said, onto the bust steps an incredible-looking boy, a delectable-looking boy. He looks warm, sweet, special. His pants are sexy yet tasteful. His deep, dark eyes are soulful, his lips sensuous. Immediately you have visions of intimate encounters, wines by candlelight, hugging and making love. You want to call over to him. You want to say,"Here boy, sit right here next to me." Well, this book is going to tell you how to get that boy not only sit next to you but to smother you with love and tender kisses.
Gumi felt her entire body sigh. She sighed all the way home from school. She sighed sloshing the way home from school. She sighed sloshing back with her tool kit and delivering the lamp she had fixed for Mr. Isamune, and the Plexiglass picture frame she had glued for Mrs. Momone. And she sighed, especially, when sitting down for dinner with her mother and Al.
Mrs. Megpoid scooped string beans onto Al's plate as though she had selected each one personally and painted it with butter. There was no question that she was a rather pretty woman for forty-eight. Admirable, Gumi often thought. She thought her mother had very admirable features, well tousled long blonde locks and bangs that lazily fell in front of her face to give her a more youthful appearance. Only one dangerous feature—her large ears. When it came to nose, mouth and eyes, her mother was as pretty as anybody she'd ever seen. Oh, it really wasn't surprising to her that her sweet father had once married her, and that now many men were still interested in her.
Al had another shiny shirt. His forehead had gotten bigger; his hair was slicked back now and he had turned out to be a used-car salesman. He said he was one of the top dynamic influences at Casa de Volvo, but Gumi seriously doubted that.
"How was school today, Gumi?" Mrs. Megpoid asked.
Gumi was chewing a mouthful of veal parmigiana and wasn't about to start chatting.
"I loved school," Al offered. "Of course I didn't have as many science classes as you have. I never met a girl who had so many science courses."
Gumi wanted to burp. She decided she'd better not. She forced herself to look at this used-car salesman with the mozzarella getting entwined in his teeth. Now it seemed like her mother and Al weren't going to stop staring at her until she made some sort of sound, but she wouldn't.
Her mother finally said,"Mrs. Momone called about the picture frame. Said you did a marvelous job on it—that you had it in some kind of clamp."
"I had it in a vise."
"There you go, correcting me again," Mrs. Megpoid pointed out. "I just think you're so weird, Gumi. Don't you feel weird with all those galvanometers and pliers? I never knew a girl who went from dolls straight to pliers. You should be getting involved in more social activities. Boys! Don't you ever think about boys?"
"Your mother's right, Gumi," Al said. "If you saw my son Oliver you'd start wearing a dress. I tell you, by your age, we were really doing some hot stuff and—"
Mrs. Megpoid glanced at Al, shooting him a look that made his words freeze in his throat. Gumi always enjoyed watching her mother control her men. In fact one of the ground rules of her mother's having a man in the house was that it had to be someone she could run like a puppet. Someone totally unlike Gumi's father. Gumi's dad was his own man, that was one thing for sure!
Gumi just went about the business of eating and let her mother and Al talk about a variety of subjects, from the truly destructive qualities of the music to the retail value of used Volvos. Gumi thanked God there was a newspaper lying on the table near the glass lily-shaped case with phony dogwood hanging out of it. The newspaper was open to the sports page. Al must like sports, like a real man, she thought. Just loves to sit on his ass and cheery while other people are really getting out and doing things. Her eye caught headlines that did not fascinate her, like "Yanks Win—Stay Half Game Ahead" or "Now Big Louie Can Concentrate on Batting Average". And a more daring peg: "One Coach's Purgatory." Really, what an exaggeration. If somebody wanted to know about hell, they could just ask her.
She started reading the ads for the health clubs where men and woman were supposed to frolic together using Nautilus weight-lifting equipment. And there were horrible items about guns and the latest shooting techniques. How to make a fishing fly to catch wide pike. She was about to let out another big sigh she she spotted a picture of a couple of young boys standing next to a little race car. The headline was "Midget Raceway Opens in Nora's Harbor."
Nora's Harbor was right next to Port Terra Kane, so she'd seen the huge field when they were paving it and putting in the twisting cement roadway and building the little grandstand. At first she'd thought it was going to be a water slide. Now in the picture it had opened, a and there were all these kids going there to lay down their cash so they could get into these midget race cars and make believe they were in the Indianapolis 500. But what caught her attention was one face in particular.
The caption didn't say anything about him. He looked like a mechanic, somebody who was in charge of the cars. He had an incredible, lop-sided smile, a bright-eyed innocence, as though it was the first time his picture was ever taken. And there was something about his thin legs and long arms, and the way the words "Nora's Midgets" hung down his chest. He looked like fun. He was handsome, had brown hair—maybe it was supposed to be blonde, but it looked pretty dark in the newspaper reproduction. He looked friendly, special. He was better than any movie star she had ever seen. Yes, his eyes are soulful, his lips sensuous. He looked like he was a boy of the world, and he couldn't be more than eighteen. He looked like he knew all about law, and medicine, and photography, and the theater. He looked like someone who was really going places, maybe a doctor-to-be or a journalist. But it didn't matter; there was something about this boy that was leaping out of the newspaper, machine gunning Megumi Megpoid from the sports page of the Hake Island Advance. A machine gun screaming,"I am fun and romance."
"What's the matter, Gumi?" She heard her mother say.
"Oh nothing," Gumi said. She was fighting a distinct desire to lift the sports page up to her lips and start kissing the photo of this unknown mechanic. She wanted to dive into the newspaper. She wanted to cut the picture out, tear it out, and wear it on her heart. Nora's Midgets became a poem.
"Excuse me, Mother," Gumi said. "I have a little indigestion. I'm going to need an Alka-Seltzer."
Al said something to her, but she ignored him and left the table. Before she turned away, she looked back at Al and showed him the paper. "Are you finished with the newspaper?" she asked.
"Oh, sure," he answered.
"Thank you." Gumi picked the paper from him as if though it was a priceless Dead Sea Scroll. She tried not to appear excited as she moved out of the dining room and started up the stairs. As she neared her room she picked up speed. She flung the door open, slammed it shut and leaped across the bed, and spread the picture out again. She ripped her diary off the bookcase and she began to write frantically and passionately,"Dear Diary, On this day, I have found the boy."
A/N:
How many of you can guess I'm having loads of fun writing this already? 8D
