Thursday, October 15, 2009

Chapter 4*

The days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. Suzannah was right. I soon found myself caught in the fast-paced movement of the popular crowd. Suzannah and her friends were the enemies of practically every popular girl. It seemed to be that while all the other girls tried to butter up with the popular ones, Suzannah and her group weren't afriad to criticize them. Amazingly, enough, I remained friends with Suzannah. The popular guys thought that Suzannah herself was OK.

A few times at first, Scott tried to get me to be friends with him. But Suzannah was always there, ready to scream, "Oink, oink!" at him if he even got near me. I was greatful to get away from him. As the month led into October, however, he began to leave me along and I began to help Suzannah torture him. We sat together on the bus and every morning Suzannah found new ways to stick out her foot so he would trip every time.

On a frosty weekend in mid-October, I met Rachel for the first time. It was a Saturday and Mom sent me over to the Rawlings to borrow an egg for the cake she was baking. When I rang the doorbell, Suzannah answered. Behind her stoof a tall girl with dark brown curly hair.

"John!" Suzannah exclaimed with delight. "This is Rachel. Rachel, this is John. He's the one I've been telling you about. You know, the one who moved into Catherine's house?"

Rachel nodded and said hi. Me? I was thunderstruck by her. I smiled and said hi and got to the point of why I was there.

Suzannah gave me an egg and told me to come back after I delivered the egg to Mom. I had every intention of coming back, but I just coolly nodded and said "Sure."

Rachel, it turned out, was just as great as Suzannah had said she was. They were a lot a like. Suzannah and Rachel both had the same "demented" sense of humor, as Suzannah called it. I spent the whole afternoon at the Rawlings' house. Rachel was sleeping over and Suzannah teasingly asked me if I wanted to, too. It would up that I stayed for dinner and my mom forced me to come home at 8:00. But I didn't leave empty handed, I had Rachel's phone number.

That Monday was the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur and we went to temple with the Rawlings, and Rachel's family. I never enjoyed services before, but Suzannah and Rachel made it tolerable, even fun. That night, as the day's fast ended, we celebrated life at the Rawlings. It was the best Yom Kippur ever. I began to even look forward to the holiday's that we went to temple on.

School went on, and I was sure Suzannah had fallen for Arnold. I hoped not, because I didn't think Arnold liked her as more than a friend. I decided to ask her about it, but when I did, Suzannah laughed it off and changed the subject.

"John, you know that Rachel likes you a lot?"

That caught my attention. Suzannah smiled slyly and went on.

"Well, why don't you ask her out?"

The idea has gone through my head several times, but I had dismissed it. Rachel was a few months older than Suzannah and therefore was a freshman in high school.

"Are you sure she'd say yes?" I asked.

Suzannah sighed. "If I wasn't 100% positive, I wouldn't have brought the subject up." She sounded vaguely annoyed.

We had that discussion at the bus stop that morning and all day I thought about it. Later, on the way home from school, I told Suzannah I'd go for it.

She slapper me on the back in an over exagerated congratulation and said, "all right!"

That night I was really nervous. I could barely eat dinner and several times mom asked if I was feeling all right. At 7:30 I went into my bedroom and locked the door. I sat down on my bed, and slowly I picked up the phone and dialed Rachel's number. Her mom answered.

"Hello, is Rachel there?" I asked.

"Just a minute," she replied and in the background I could hear her call Rachel and tell her that someone was on the phone for her.

In a few seconds, Rachel was on the line.

"Rachel, this is John." I said. I felt my face turn red.

"Oh! Hi!" she seemed glad to hear from me.

For a few minutes we talked and then I dropped the bomb.

"Uh, Rachel, tomorrow's Saturday, right?" I didn't wait for an answer. I swallowed hard. "Do you wanna got out?" There! I'd done it.

There was a squeal of delight from the other side of the phone. "That's be great! Do you want to see a movie?"

We agreed on a comedy playing at the local theatre. After coming to agreement, we talked for a half hour until my mom yelled at me to get off the phone. I knew the very next thing Rachel would do was call Suzannah. Later, I found out I guessed right.

*Author/transcriber's note: The original text includes two chapter fours, so I will here as well.

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Oh, the hilarity!