"Yeah! You should totally do it!"
This was why the long day. This was why he rushed to go outside. To stay outside.
Okay. Fine. Running away from this after school by actually running away didn't help the problem.
Made it worse. Made her more certain.
All it did was extend the time before Edi could swoop in on him, eyes bright, promising a talk with people to wave on the open enrollment rules for him.
But at the table, everyone gathered for food, there was no escape.
At least Matt had agreed when Danny fiercely commanded him to not bring it up at all when Danny had realized Matt was the kid going out to help with milking that night.
Right now, the kid remained silent, offering a helpless shrug before taking another bite of his spaghetti.
Elizabeth did much the same, eyes on her plate.
Jon's eyes were lit up in vested interest, glancing between Danny and his brother.
And Katie...
"Do it, Danny! I bet you're really fast! Because you're taller and gots longer legs than Matt. You should totally do it!"
Danny sighed, fighting the groan.
Across the table, Dale nodded. "It's good to be involved and doing something. You should at least think about it and not disregard it so quickly."
Catching the man's quick glance to his wife, Danny's shoulders slumped and dragged his fork across his spaghetti. "I'll think about it." He mumbled.
Hard not to.
"Excellent!"
Well, Edi sounded pleased and hopefully won't press Danny much about it. Good luck to him tomorrow at school. Danny slumped over his plate even more, head hanging.
Matt. His buddies.
The speed of anything traveling at this school.
Elizabeth. And all her alarming logic to it being the least team oriented group at the school. Logic that Danny couldn't really truely agrue against. It made sense and worked, but there was no way.
Jesse Klien, Adam Schultz, Jordan West, Cole Franzen. Jonah and Mitch and Brian. There'd been Austin and Ryan. Excited and looking forward to how good of a runner he was.
Danny counted after school on the bus ride back. Nine. Nine guys. The entire team.
And others coming up in excited clusters throughout the afternoon.
Secret agent and ninja jokes were all about his speed.
Most politest and effective peer pressure Danny had ever come across. Which he was, historically, naturally weak against. He was horrible with it. In desperate want of normal.
But normal went out the window a while ago. And therefore, Danny had improved with that. At least he thought so. And he needed to be. Had to be.
There'd even been a couple teachers adding on too, politely asking him about being a runner.
Now Edi and Dale on top of that. With Katie's brimming excitement.
Feeling the weight pressing on his side, Danny held firm and shoveled in the spaghetti, ears focused on Jon getting called out about not doing his nightly reading.
Don't look at Katie's face, don't do it, don't do it.
More and more lately, I'm realizing. This is growing and has grown into a possible actual perhaps real story? Outside of the farm life/small town and school bits I wanted to do as a simple silly stupid thing of my amusement. And...what? HOW?! How'd this happen? Nope. Small bits and bobs. That's all. Yeeep. (Deniaaaal) Shut up voice in my head!