It’s week two, and I’m feeling myself, as predicted, beginning to drag a bit.
I’m writing a YA story…it was meant to be YA “chicklit”, but I’m not entirely certain that’s where it’s going to end up.
Anyway, I’m doing a variation on one of the exercises in “No Plot? No Problem!” and I’m asking for your help.
My main characters are high school students, so I’d like to invite you all to share with me a memorable high school moment, positive or negative. Tell me about that unrequited crush, that nasty girl you just hated, your first kiss…whatever.
If you’d prefer not to leave a comment, e-mail me at eringoblog [at] gmail [dot] com.
And if anyone’s interested in delving a little bit deeper, let me know!
In the 11th grade, I dyed my hair Nice’n’Easy “Natural Blue Black.” There was nothing natural about it. Think Elvira with DARKER hair.
Hmmm..where to start?
HP and her friends pretty much forgot I existed, so I got to listen in on their conversations during German.
HP, who was dating my unrequited, AK, mentioned she was going to stay with AK until homecoming, but when the exchange students arrived, she was going to dump him for the very cute guy she’d stayed with in Germany.
You know AK and I were friends, and one night on the phone, I worked up the guts to tell him…wasn’t easy.
He was quiet, but then thanked me.
he did go to homecoming with her, but promptly dumped HER sorry ass after. she seemed shocked.
I giggled.
During my senior year I gave my girl fiend a hickey
on her boob. While she was dressing after her gym class
a younger girl saw the hickey. My girl friend said that she got right in the younger girls face and said she would beat the girl up if she told anyone.
Let’s start by saying I was not what you’d call popular in high school. I was a geek, a nerd, too smart, too Jewish, too “out” to ever be “in.”
The week leading up to homecoming is called Spirit Week, and there’s all sorts of fun stuff – decorate the hallways, dress up in costume one day, etc. One day is “Spirit Games” — which includes a spelling bee that pits the classes against each other. Junior year, I was in the spelling bee and it came down to me and a senior guy. I was up, and the teacher gave me a word I’d never heard of before. I stopped, gave her a puzzled look, and asked her to repeat it. She did, and I thought for a moment. The whole senior class started chanting, “Choke! Choke! Choke!” And I’m trying to concentrate, trying to figure out how to spell the word. So without thinking at ALL, I turned toward the senior class and said, loudly, “Shut UP!”
And they did.
There was a moment of stunned silence. Then my entire class leapt to its feet and started cheering.
Then I spelled the word correctly.
Then my class kept cheering.
Then the senior guy got his next word right, and I got the next one wrong; he got it right, and I lost the spelling bee. But I think I’m the only one who remembers that in the end, I lost. The rest of my class just remembers that I got the seniors to shut up. And I remember that it was the only time I had the support of my entire class.
So many to choose from…..
Easy: Our high school literature class went on a 2-day overnight stay to a little rural town (Ashland, Oregon) to watch Shakespeare plays. We had a fabulous time. The night came and we were all pretty much responsible for ourselves. Myself and a friend, a male, followed some of the jocks out into the night as a laugh. So we’re sneaking around behind them, dodging into bushes and hiding (badly) behind trees, etc. The jocks go to the store, then return to the hotel. We “staked” out the joint by standing across from the hotel in the underhang of an old JC Penny’s store. (They used to have inset fronts and actual patio-type entrances once upon a million years ago. This town still had it.) We see the jocks and their women leaning out the windows, smoking, drinking, etc. Nobody is paying us any mind whatsoever, we’re just that good at hiding.
We’re paying no attention to the GROUND. From NOWHERE comes a cop, running across the deserted, empty main road toward us. He’s pounding toward us. I freak! I turn to bolt and from the other direction is another cop, pounding toward us. Trapped, we simply stand and wait for our fate. They start questioning us, and I look up…..
To see everyone….every single person….staring out the windows down at us.
They weren’t laughing or anything, THEN, which was a mercy, but they were certainly interesting in what was going on.
Our teacher sorted out the trouble – curfew, which he hadn’t known about at all, and my friend and I went back in the building behind him. Well, everyone had to know what that was all about, and what WAS I doing in the dark, HIDING, with that BOY, and vice versa. It was very messy.
I’ll never forget that sea of faces staring down at me. EVER. I can still see them. *shiver*
I’ll email you the bit where I was a stalker. LOL (Randy? You there? Super Stud? Hello?)