March 3rd, 2004
I was getting comfortably settled in my seat during 6th Grade English when my teacher, Mrs. Tryvell, called out names to see who was available.
“Chris”, I heard her say. “Here”, was what I said next. I didn't catch what she was about to say as I was busy trying to gather everything I needed for this day's activities. My pencils, my erasers, my journal, my textbook, the whole shebang. So, as soon as I had everything laid out in front of me, I then prepared to lend an ear to Mrs. Tryvell as she was about to catch us up on our reading assignments for Beowulf. Normally, we were expected to wait in reading this until we reached high school. But Tryvell was quite impressed with my and my class’ collective work on our assignments, so she saw fit to assign that book for us to read in advance. Where I was at this point, some of it was hard to understand, but once I dissected what some of its strange English terms meant, I slowly but surely followed along. We all had to start somewhere.
However, as prepared as I was to listen to her lessons on Beowulf – after all, we only got started on the first part or so of the story – I heard some clamor going on throughout the halls about some new student who just started the first day of school that day.
This was a bit of a welcome surprise to me. I always found it exciting to see what new students would've come about in our neck of the woods, and there's no telling exactly who this would’ve been this time. Could it have been some rich, cool guy from who knows where? Could it have been just a shy little girl who would’ve needed all the help she could get? I tried to think about who this new student was who came into town, and I tried as hard as I could have to steer clear away from thinking about the unruly, hazardous type of people who could’ve been nothing but thorns on everyone’s sides. The way I looked at it, it would always have paid to just hope for the best and not waste so much time over whatever bad stuff could’ve happened.
So, I did the best I could to pay attention to Mrs. Tryvell while also listening to all the talk going on out in the halls. As I looked closer at the activity going on outside of our classroom door, I noticed what looked like a crowd of students gathering around the new student as they walked down the hall.
However, there was one among the group that took me by surprise. I noticed some familiar strands of hair sticking out from among the crowd, something that I recognized, but not from around here in Philadelphia. Something about them, as well as the side of the face, left me in a pause for a moment. I had never seen those ever since my family and I moved away from our old hometown in Topeka, Kansas.
I remembered these familiar features from a young girl that I got to know during our recess periods. Her name was Andrea, and as we continually met up – and most of the time, it was by chance – we surprisingly had a lot in common. We talked a lot, and while we never shared the same classes together, she and I grew close and became best friends, the best we each could have hoped for. Once my parents told me we were going to move to Philadelphia, I was crushed. And when I told Andrea, so was she. As hard as it hurt, she and I shared our goodbyes before we parted ways before my family and I settled here in Philadelphia, as we have for six years. The next thing I knew, I heard the door close, and the noise pulled me back into reality.
“Sorry about this, guys,” she said as she walked back to her desk and went back to her lessons. “I didn't realize the door was open”.
Ah well. I figured, as soon as class was over, I could scurry wherever I could throughout Franklin Secondary School and see if I could track down what I believed I saw passing me by. The minute class let out, but not before I took notes of my next homework assignment, my chance was within reach. I quickly buzzed around the halls to find this new student that I believed I had seen. I looked everywhere, both in the upper hall and the lower hall. I looked in the cafeteria. I looked in the music halls. I kept my eyes peeled outside, but I had no such luck seeing the new girl anywhere. Or guy, if that's who the new student was.
It didn't matter, though. No matter where I looked, all I saw was what I already knew of my school, and not what I believed – hoped, perhaps – I had seen from many years ago. So, feeling down on my luck, I gave up and went back to my usual routine at school. I didn't believe I'd have had any luck retracing the new guy anywhere throughout the school, let alone near the school.
Or so I thought.
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It was not until after we were let out of school that I felt a stroke of luck catch me off-guard.
Usually, my friends and everyone else would have taken the buses home, but my family and I lived only a few blocks away from the school, so I could easily have walked to the school and back with no problem.
But just as everybody else went out and did their business, I was feeling confident, but mostly out of an innermost ease I felt with myself over having gotten the school day behind me. I shifted my eyes towards the roads ahead of me, the ones I usually took to head home, and all of them were scattered right beside a lush, green park beside me.
However, before I was about to set forth on these paths, I noticed to my right the strands of hair and the features on the face again, going in separate directions from the park. I had to catch up and see exactly who this new student was. Whether I could have held off for another day or not, that didn't matter to me. I had to know.
So, with a quick jolt I felt as my legs moved, I propelled myself towards this figure while having to work my way through all the flocking students who hustled and bustled for their trip back home, and I found myself getting closer to the new student with each step, no matter how outreaching each one was.
Once I reached the new student, my whole body froze for a moment, and from the looks of it, it seemed like hers did too. It could not have been possible, but there she was. The same cherry-like strands of red hair, the soft textures on her face, the pretty eyes.
Andrea, my best friend from Topeka, was right here, standing right in front of me, and here I was standing in front of her.
What spurred the moment? What convinced her and her parents to move here to Philadelphia? The only thing I remember Andrea telling me was that her parents were lawyers. Duty calls, I guess? But that didn't matter to me. As I studied her face and stared in awe of how beautiful she grew to be, she returned my perplexity and amazement.
“Chris”, she whispered. She said it again, this time out loud.
“Andrea”, was what came out of my lips in response. And as soon as our exchanges left us, we noticed ourselves wrap around each other in a tight embrace.
Never in my wildest dreams would I have expected to see one of my best friends from our elementary school days showing up out of the blue and slipping back into my life.
I'm very fond of my friends from here in Philadelphia, too, believe me, and I couldn't have felt more honored to have them around for good company. But having Andrea back into my life was something else. What would she have thought of the new friends I made here in Philadelphia? How about my friends with her?
Whatever would’ve happened next because of this, as long as I knew that we were in each other's company too, I was sure things would have gone more smoothly for us after that day than we would've imagined. I knew, at that moment, that school might’ve become a little better with her back in my life and me back into hers.
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