Facade fiction story...

I don't exactly remember what facade means in reference to fiction stories, but since when is college about learning things...



What a day! What a freaking day! I warned my parents it would be like this, but did they listen? Nooooo. “You’ll be just fine,” they said. “You’ll make new friends just like that,” they said. Yeah, thanks Mom and Dad! I sure have made friends – friends that like to express their fondness for me by punching me in the chest or tripping me as I walk down the stairs with my arms full of books.
Both of the aforementioned events had already occurred, and it wasn’t even 10 a.m. yet. At least I don’t think. I couldn’t exactly see real well inside my locker. Don’t get me wrong there was light. Three thin lines that come through the ventilation slits at the top. Sometimes I pretended I was a secret agent, locked into a torture device, and the light beams were little lasers, burning into my skin.
Anyway, back to my locker. It was number 110 in the south hall. If you ever walked by it, odds are that you heard someone reciting Shakespeare or the Latin alphabet. On occasion, Edgar the janitor would happen to be walking by and would let me out. All I usually had to do in return was listen to a story about schools in “his day,” – interesting stuff, but he never spoke much of their science labs or anything.
I soon found that “locker time” as Joey Rangler called it, was actually a great time to think. Joey, or “Ram” as his teammates called him, was the fullback for the football team there at Lincoln High, and had made it his personal mission to make my life a living hell. My right elbow was colored and swollen like the ripest plum in the produce aisle, thanks to Ram.
While walking down the east stairwell that morning, Ram saw a perfect opportunity to continue my initiation to the Lincon High halls. While descending the stairs, I had noticed a people staring at me. Granted, I was used to a few stares. Such things happen when you chair the both the Dungeons and Dragons Guild and the Hobbits Horde as a freshman. On this particular trek down the stairs, an abnormal number of peers seemed to be watching, though. I processed this information on my personal hard drive, or my brain in normal-speak, and calculated that my face would soon be red with embarrassment.
No sooner could I think that thought, I found myself feeling almost weightless… well for a second or so, anyway. The weight of my full 120 lbs. was soon bearing down on my elbow, and then my face. Regaining my bearings, I lifted my head from the yellow and black hallway tile to see Joey, his buzz haircut showing off a number of scars on his head, and his gap-toothed grin resembling a fatter, uglier Dave Letterman.
“Later, PSF,” he said, stepping on my Chewbacca collector’s pen as he went. “PSF” was short for private school freshman, stemming from my attending Oakville Heights Middle School the previous year. If Lincon was my hell, Oakville Heights was my heaven. A school where higher GPAs meant more friends, and more friends meant more people to analyze the director’s commentary of Star Trek IV with.
You can understand why I was disappointed when my parents decided I would attend Lincon High, a school known more for being state-runner-ups in football two years before than for anything that involved academics. I mean, many students thought the school was named after Abraham LINCOLN, never noticing the difference in spelling. They failed to do the proper research and find out that Lincon was actually named after Chester Lincon, who had sold the school to land to build on, with the only provision being they name it after him.
I know my parents weren’t trying to punish me. Oakville Heights High School and gone under the previous year because of some under-the-table deals that had gone on to get certain kids admitted to the school. Because of this, my parents became soured on private schools and decided I’d become better prepared for the “real world” going the public route.
I’d tried and tried to get people there to see things my way – wearing Jedi robes to school, offering nearly-free lessons in Elvish, even bringing cupcakes for Gene Roddenberry’s birthday. Seriously, that stuff was way more important than some pep rally or football scrimmage that I’ve been invited to. Like I wanted that stuff forced upon me. What makes them think they have a right to try to influence me like that?
Why did people insist on trying to instill their interests on others? I’d often wondered that during locker time.