A short little end to a short little fic. I invented some fun for everyone based on things I've seen people do here and there. My thought especially is that is that if ever there would be a father who helped out at school, it'd be Phoebe's dad so we'll see him again briefly, as well as in the previous chapter.
One thing Providence did not feel comfortable with was sports. All of them. And so, when she arrived at P.S. 118 to see a banners of triangular, multicolored, festive flags hung across the front entrance, she grimaced before entering the school's twin doors. Cautiously, she walked past boys throwing beanie bags at one another and into Mr. Simmon's classroom. As yet, all of the older, more established classroom residents were there, like Arnold, Gerald, Helga, Phoebe, Harold, and Rhonda. Even Lila was giggling with Sheena instead of paying attention to her. So she sat demurely in the one open, vacant seat near the back and rested her math book on her lap with a subtle, mildly anxious frown. But to her happiness, Lorenzo turned towards her with an expression of welcome from her left, and Eugene a right smile on her right. Her uneasy look evaporated.
"Okay, class!" Sid said, wearing a fake mustache on his lower lip as he pointed to the board with chalk. "Today's questions are one and three! Forget all the other ones!" The bell rang and Mr. Simmons pressed through the open door.
"Ha,ha, Sid!" the teacher said taking the chalkboard eraser from the chagrined boy. "That's enough of that! Please take your seat! Ahem. Now class. We will have our regular lessons until lunchtime. After that, you should all report to the school auditorium. The instructors will explain to you all our very exciting, 'School Sports Week!' And any of you who thinks they can just sneak away home, forget about it. Participation is mandatory."
The students all bent their heads down to their tasks with purpose. Grammar quizzes would not fill themselves in. Math homework could not file itself. And so they shuffled with office-work like precision.
"Hm, at least the boys seem more motivated than usual today," Helga observed as she and Arnold scribbled on a piece of paper with a pencil. It seemed that Arnold had not heard. But once the boy was finished inscribing a sentence, Arnold found an old, recently graded and returned test paper to show to Helga. A tiny paper approximation of a chocolate bar hung in the top right corner beside the 92/100 score.
"I think that's because Mr. Simmons has started using scratch and sniff stickers for all scores over eighty," Arnold explained. He looked at his fake, chocolate-scented picture of a candy bar. And yet, the boy's approval of reward sticker was flat and mild. "It's kind of nice," Arnold said as one might when receiving boring socks at Christmas. But Harold, overhearing, was much more enthusiastic about his 80/100 paper.
"Yeah! Smells like chocolate!" Harold said biting off the corner of the page with the sticker and chewing it. Arnold watched Harold chew and swallow his own homework with quiet dismay.
"Ah, here's the lunch bell now!" Mr. Simmons declared, looking up at the clock as the familiar dismissal rang out. "And remember class, after lunch period, we will all meet up at the auditorium, not the classroom!" Mr. Simmons said cheerfully.
At the end of lunch, Helga sucked the last few drops out of apple juice box and hoop shot it into a trash can. She strolled alongside Phoebe toward the auditorium. Down the hall, Gerald and Arnold did exactly the same thing, speaking "boy speak" among themselves. The four, and many other of their classmates, walked straight into the auditorium. But at the nearby exit doors to the school, teachers intercepted students who, like Iggy, tried in vain to sneak out the doors instead of going to the auditorium. Curly, lain flat against the floor, managed to creep by Principal Wartz as the portly man caught Iggy, only to sneak back in again for no apparent reason, all while wearing a wild grin. And yet despite the teacher's efforts, a few girls got away with this flagrant hookey.
But such actions would not be gotten away with in the long run, for as Arnold and his classmates arrived at the auditorium, Mr. Simmons flagged them down and handed them all out folders with a checklist of activities to do.
"Here! Your passport to fun!" the man said proudly. "You can attend each event at your leisure, but you must have the instructor for each activity sign the sheet for your participation. There is plenty of room to record your scores, too, if you wish to! Before the end of the week you must participate in a total of ten activities total!" Mr. Simmons said holding up his hands to give visual demonstration to that number. "If you participate in two per afternoon, you will be done in no time!"
"What if we're done early?" Lila Sawyer asked politely, as she, too, had arrived. Helga tilted her head sideways to listen to her answer.
"Well, then, you can always participate in an activity again for fun!"
"Um-herr," was Helga's comment of neutrality as she cracked up her folder full of white paper sheets to read them.
Helga and even Lila probably would be fine with all these things. But Providence was not. She walked through the auditorium door reluctantly, was handed a folder and sat down in a chair just as the auditorium lights were switched off. All she might do now was listen as Principal Wartz explained all that Mr. Simmons had in more detail.
Rhonda was incredibly good at hula hoop. So she walked into a chalk-lined square on the playground blacktop and finished that event under the school nurse's direction. The school nurse signed her paper with a slender smile and Rhonda looked down at the sheet with victory.
"Just nine more events to go!" Rhonda declared before she and Nadine rushed off to the next station.
Arnold and Sid warmed up to try their attempts at a long jump. Stinky Peterson easily bested them. Phoebe and Gerald helped the teachers by passing out paper cups full of cold water to all of the kids, regardless of whether or not they splashed themselves on themselves or one another instead of drinking them. Baseball throwing practice, disk throws, and soccer drill challenges were all underway elsewhere, and yet Providence quivered on the sidelines. Mr. Simmons noticed the girl quaking on the sidelines.
"Providence?" he asked of the new student. "Are you okay? Do you need a drink? Do you need to sit down? How many events have you participated in today?"
"None," was the girl's surprising answer.
"None?"
"None at all," was Providence's shamed reply. Returning from one of the sports activities, Eugene overheard this. He hurried forward to arrive more swiftly by Providence's side.
"Oh, I'm certain we can make up for lost time, soon!" said Eugene. As a mollified Mr. Simmons walked away, he spoke to his new friend.
"Look, Providence!" Eugene encouraged her. "Let's both go over to the four-square ball court for a rousing game! Whattaya say?"
"I don't know…" the girl said uncertainly. But she followed Eugene to the area. She and Eugene stood opposite a team of scruffy boys. But when the boy bounced a ball in her direction, she dodged instead of hitting it back.
"Uh, Providence," Eugene said uncertainly. "You're supposed to bounced it back. Like this, see?" He demonstrated. Providence fidgeted.
"Let's try another game, she said walking off. So they walked over to hula hoops. Providence picked of the hoops up and dangled it off her finger. Again, Eugene demonstrated.
"You whirl it around your waist like this, see?" Eugene said. But Providence decided in her mind that the hula hoop was akin to a noose. She set it back down on the ground.
"Let's try something else," she said. So they walked over to the baseball field. Providence put on a glove and picked up a ball.
"Atta girl, Providence!" Eugene sang her praises. Providence lobbed the ball and it veered far left to fall within two feet.
"Aw, maybe I'm just not cut out for sports," Providence frowned at herself. She shuffled off to sit on a bench with her knees drawn up. Phoebe and Gerald, still manning the water table, noticed her.
"Is something wrong?" Phoebe asked, coming over to observe her new classmate. Providence looked down at her feet.
"I dunno," said the girl. "I've never done most of these things before. I don't think I'd be good at them." Phoebe and Gerald looked at one another.
"The point of all this is to have fun," said Gerald. "No one is going to judge you for your results."
"Well, if you're really sure," said Providence.
"Hm," said Eugene thinking. "Let's go over to the hurdles they've set up! I can't wait to try those!" So the girl followed after Eugene. Mr Simmons was here holding a enormous flag to start races with.
"Are you ready to go?" the teacher asked as Eugene crouched at a starting position. Providence mimicked him, crouching on her hands at the start of another running lane.
"Okay! When I wave the flag, go!" their instructor commanded. He swung the flag and Eugene sprinted. Eugene leapt over a hurdle without injury. But Providence got up to the first hurdle and stopped.
"Hop over it! Hop over it!" Mr. Simmons coaxed. Providence tried to, but she overbalanced as she landed and fell in the dust. A few of the mean kids pointed and laughed at her for falling over.
"Eeeie!" Providence exclaimed before scurrying to hide under some of the playground equipment.
"Ah, Providence?" Gerald, Eugene, and Phoebe found her. "Are you alright?"
"No!" Providence sulked. "I'm not good at any of these things! I don't know how! And besides, they can be scary!"
"Scary? Scary how?"
"Well, I might have sprained my ankle! Or torn my clothes! A lot of bad things MIGHT have happened."
"To Eugene maybe," Gerald spoke soundly. "But you're a lucky kid. I have trouble imagining too much ill luck happening to you. But even if it did, you could always get some new threads!"
"Oh, don't worry about those kids laughing!" spoke Phoebe. "Although they bother me, too! I've learned to at least try to ignore them. Otherwise, you won't have fun!"
"Sports are fun?" asked Providence, twiddling her fingers.
"Well, what things are fun to you?" asked Phoebe.
"Well, puzzle games. And video games. And cross word puzzles. Things like that."
"Well, let's make this easier for you! Let's just start you off with something simple. Here, Phoebe and I will show you how to jump rope. You'll like that." Soon, Providence was skipping at a very leisurely pace.
"Like this?" she asked.
"Yes! You're doing great!" exclaimed Gerald, trying to promote her confidence. But then Rhonda and Nadine came along.
"Oh, great! Jump rope! Just what we needed… one last activity to fill our quota. Let's do it Nadine!" Rhonda declared. She and Nadine clapped their hands, crouched low as they skipped, and genuinely showed off. As they left, Providence looked down at her feet.
"I knew I wasn't good at any of these things!" she declared sadly.
"Oh, don't get discouraged when you're up against a master!" advised Gerald trying to bring her back again. "Let's try to just get you through the assignment, fun or not. Let's try hula hoops!" He and Phoebe led her away to try them.
Over the next few days Providence tried and failed at most of the games they tried to play. But a creeping something began to occur. A little something called improvement. Instead of missing all her shots at basketball she sunk one. At bobbing apples, she caught one, and when playing four-square ball she surprised everyone by batting the ball past Gerald no less.
"There you go!" Gerald smiled. "I think you're getting a hang of this now."
"Yes, you're right Gerald!" the girl said with a bright smile. "I wasn't sure at first, but… I am learning new things. And I don't know but… maybe they might even be fun!"
"Well, you never know what you'll get until you try!" Gerald said spinning the playground ball they had been using on the tip of his finger before tossing it forward to catch it. "And there's only a few more things you need to do to finish your assignment for the week! Only two more activities to go!" Gerald said holding up two digits. Providence fished her eyes around, thinking.
"Well, you know. Maybe we can play four-square ball again, sometime. After the school sports week is over."
"A righteous idea, my sister!" beamed Gerald. Phoebe and Gerald smiled at one another. They had made a convert after all.
Back at the auditorium, Helga handed her folder full of stamped and signed papers over to one of the instructors to receive an approving nod and a ribbon for participation from Phoebe's father. So did all the other kids in the line, like Arnold, Stinky, and Harold. Providence was last to turn her folder in, but when she did so, she stopped to gaze upon her ribbon in awe as she dangled it in front of her nose.
"Wow!" she smiled brightly. "I did it! I really did it!"
"Yes, you did, young lady!" Principal Wartz agreed with her. "Which just goes to show we have the finest of students here at P.S. 118! And the most exemplary principal!" Mr. Wartz said, posturing with pride.
But it didn't really matter if Principal Wartz was being lofty again. The students all had ribbons to celebrate the occasion with and some of them went back to play their favorite games one more time before the final school bell of the week. The end.