Back in the US of A, Rachel was leading her friends in the Time Warp, down the gravel path through the woods, beer cans fleeing before them! The ultimate game of hide-and-seek-when-you're-supposed-to-be-in-class was underway.
"Not it!" shouted Emily.
"Not it! Not it!" cried Kathleen and Laura.
"Put your hands on your hips and… whoaaaa! Not it!" called Rachel.
"Not it," cackled Julianna evilly, pointing to Paula, who stood transfixed, staring at one of the beer cans that had been carelessly left behind by the public high school partygoers.
"Ooh, shiny!" said Paula.
"Hey, hey… Paula! Wanna hear a song?" asked Rachel.
Paula, still staring at the trash, didn't answer. Rachel continued anyway. "This is a song! About a girl named Paulaaaa! She had to be 'it' because she was stupid! The end!" Everyone applauded except Paula.
"Damn you all!" she yelled. "Gooooo, hide then! Ooh, ooh, let's all trick Paula! Oh yeah? Well you're all going to Hell!"
"I thought we had escaped from Hell by cutting Lit class…" smirked Emily as everyone else walked away laughing at Paula's misfortune.
Such was the spirit of camaraderie amongst the five girls that weren't "it" that they all ended up hiding relatively near each other behind trees that blocked off a ravine separating Holy Hell from one of those ugly vinyl-sided housing development. Naturally, this was stupid, because the very spirit that prompted them to hide in a cluster also kept them talking, and it wasn't very long before Paula had found them. Just about to make a mass sprint towards base, the discovered hiders suddenly let out a yell.
"Oh no! They found us!" Julianna yelped.
"Paula! Look out! Behind you!" Kathleen warned frantically.
"Ha ha. Very funny, guys," Paula said, making a point not to turn. "Now you'll all run back to base when I turn around to stare fixedly at…" She suddenly decided to turn. "…Mrs. Tocci?! SHIT!!!"
It was Mrs. Tocci, the evil World Lit teacher who was teaching them Wuthering Heights and who demanded two hours on each homework assignment… each question was an essay… if they didn't quote the entire book or if they said anything bad about Heathcliff, who obviously turned her on, they failed. And now she'd caught them all cutting her class.
What were they supposed to do?
They were sophomores.
One of the most excellent teachers in a school devoid of any word for itself other than "excellent" (when, really, vindictive, frightening, and maniacal would have done the job much better) had caught them, surrounded by beer cans, cutting class… her class.
They had been playing hide-and-seek.
They panicked, and after some foolish person screamed, "JUMP!", all six girls, closely followed by Mrs. Tocci, leapt into the ravine.
They started falling, and they did not stop…
(Vive le Disclaimer!: I don't own hide-and-seek, but damn that would be a good thing to invest in! You could make some pretty good money off little kids!)
