Niall's Surprise

Three

days before the end of the term, Freestone was getting 47% in English. His magical thinking had led him to believe that his homework could get done without him doing it. I freaked out. I told him he couldn't do the ballet summer intensive that he got a full scholarship for if he had to do summer school for English. That got him in gear. He pulled out his calculator and figured out exactly how little he could get by with doing to pass. On the way to ballet, I helped him get started on a short story. It's hard for me to help Freestone on this because he operates slower than I do. His writing is terrible, too. I'm not saying I'm Ernest Hemingway, but I could easily write an eight grade short story without too much thought. I tried not to interfere with Freestone's glacial writing process, and he came up with a great idea. Turns out, he had been mulling over a story idea for in the event that he had to actually do the assignment. That night, after he got home at 10, I sat down at the computer to type this thing. He dictated what he wanted to say, and I typed. The story needed symbolism, and as the take unfolded, we had a eureka moment to use the storm as symbolic for his inner turmoil. For someone who resists all things language, Freestone wrote an awesome story! He had funny lines and deep insights. Granted, it's not going to win a Pulitzer, but it did get him from a low F to...Wait for it...a B in English! I just burst out laughing when I saw that. See what happens when you do your homework?

Freestone Dopp
Period 1
Surprise!

Niall was in his fifth period class, the first class of the day, but all he could think about was what he would do at ballet that night He knew that something exciting was going to happen, but his ballet teacher, Mr. Jeff, wouldn’t tell him. What was it? He couldn’t focus on what his English teacher, Mr. Summers, was teaching. Something about hyper bullies. There were way too many gigantic, gargantuan thoughts whizzing through his mind to think about bullies, hyper or otherwise. He glanced out the window to see if it was still raining. He saw that it had gotten even worse. There were stormy clouds filling the entire horizon, and every once in awhile, there would be a crack of lightning. This was going to be a long day. After what seemed like ages, the bell finally rang. Niall literally jumped out of his seat and ran towards the door. He didn’t make it out the door before he realized that it had only been the five minute warning bell. He walked shamefully and slowly back to his seat, weary of the five minutes that awaited him. When the bell finally rang, the real bell, he left the classroom, this time getting up slowly from his seat and walking in a dignified manner out of the classroom.
Niall was meeting Bella to walk to his next class.  He always spotted her from all the way down the hall. It was her long, blonde hair that made her stand out from the crowd. It glowed, or it seemed to, from the inside. Seeing her made him almost burst into dance. It was hard not to do a series of tour jetes to reach Bella faster, but Niall played it cool. As cool as a gangly, sweaty 8th grade boy can.  If he was awkward, Bella didn’t seem to notice. He had known her since they were little, and Niall was starting to think that there were a lot of things about him that Bella didn’t notice. Sometime when he wasn’t thinking about ballet, and what Mr. Jeff’s surprise could be, he would think about how to get Bella to notice him more. But not now. He was too restless.
“Niall! What’s up?” Bella’s smile was like the Sugarplum Fairy on a good day.
“Hi Bella. I’m just trying to get through this school day before I die of anticipation.”
“What’s going on? Don’t you just have ballet after school, like, all night?”
“Yeah, but Mr. Jeff has a surprise for us and he won’t tell us what it is.”
“That’s cool. You have to text me later and tell me what it is.”
Niall wanted to talk more about what the surprise might be, but the two of them had reached their classroom and the bell was about to ring. They spent the next 90 minutes working on a poster for science. As anxious as Niall was, he found it easy to concentrate on the poster. Science was his easiest subject. That and math. Anything that didn’t involve too much writing. Imagination wasn’t the problem. It was organization. After science, Bella confronted Niall. “You seemed a lot more distracted than normal today, and that’s saying something.”
“It’s the dang surprise. I can’t stop thinking about it,” Niall explained.
Bella thought for a minute. “You need to chill.”
Walking away, Niall knew Bella was right. The surprise was probably not a very big deal, and it was interfering with his whole life. The rest of the school day somehow ended in this century, and Niall walked home. He always walked home now, ever since his mom got too busy to pick him up. She was always forgetting he existed. Or at least forgetting to pick him up from school, now that she was working at her new music store all the time. It was hard to feel bad about the whole thing, because the music store was pretty cool. He actually didn’t mind walking. It was good conditioning for ballet. But today he ran all the way home because of the storm. He felt like the clouds were collapsing in on him.
When Niall got home, he was soaked.  He quickly got ready for ballet. He had a specific black shirt he had to wear to indicate that he was in the Advanced class. That shirt was always having to be washed, along with a whole bunch of tights and socks that he wore over his tights. His mom usually did that, but these days, he was learning how to wash the ballet clothes solo and hang them over the couch to dry, just like his mom used to do before the big music store. He was glad the clothes were dry, unlike his hair. Hearing the front door open, Niall was anxious to see his mom and get on the road.
“Hi Kid! Go get in the car! I just have to grab a snack. You want anything?”
Niall’s mom looked scary, with her big eyeballs and red lipstick, but she was pretty friendly. She socialized with anyone and everyone. People who knew her always liked her, and Niall could see why. The truth was, he liked hanging out with his mom. She loved to laugh, and Niall always had funny things to say, or to show her. It worked.
“Sure, Mom. Grab me a toaster strudel. Thanks,” Niall called as he ran to the car with his dance bag over his shoulder. Rain was pouring down. Niall tried to remember if he got all of his shoes and supplies in the bag. Waiting in the car for his mom, Niall’s mind wandered to the surprise. He thought maybe the surprise could be that he was going to be advanced to the next level. He quickly discarded that notion, remembering that he had only recently been put in the level he was in now. Plus, it was a surprise for the whole class. What could it be? A surprise visitor? A guest teacher? A new studio pianist? The current studio pianist was really good, Niall thought, but he did play the same pieces every time, despite the piles of sheet music near the piano. It would be good to have a new pianist for a change.
Niall wanted to talk to his mom about the surprise so they could analyze all the possibilities, but he was too nervous. He just wanted to get to class. All the way to the studio, Niall and his mom just listened to NPR. There was a story about lightening and a guy who got struck by it three separate times. Niall thought it was a weird coincidence that there was a story about lightning on the radio, since there was so much lightning outside. Stepping out of the car, Niall’s foot splashed into a puddle. There were so many delays. He felt like he would never get to class.

Finally being in class, Niall was more anxious than ever about the surprise. It was so close, yet so far away. There was still an hour of barre to think about the possibilities. Mr. Jeff was acting like it was just a normal day. It troubled Niall that Mr. Jeff wasn’t even slightly concerned about the surprise. His orange hair was perfectly combed, just like always, and gave him a fiery look that convinced Niall and the others not to ask about the surprise. Niall, to distract himself, wondered if the storm was still raging. He thought he could hear thunder, but that could just be the class above them jumping. After the longest hour of his life, Mr. Jeff decided to spill the beans. He clapped his hands to gather the students.
“OK, class. I told you I had a surprise for you, and I bet you’re going to love this. The surprise is that we have been chosen, as a class, to take part in a Disney movie that’s being filmed in the spring.”
Niall felt excited and scared all at once, but he didn’t have time to think about his feelings before all his classmates started throwing questions at Mr. Jeff about the movie. In time, Mr. Jeff revealed that the movie was called The Lantern and that the dancers would be in a party scene for the ending credits. It was almost too much to take in.
After class, the students thanked Mr. Jeff and the pianist (the same one as always), and practically ran straight outside. Niall immediately told his mom the good news as soon as he jumped in the car. It was only after they had been driving for a couple of minutes that Niall realized that the storm had cleared. It was not raining anymore and there were rays of sunshine gleaming through the clouds. He felt more relaxed than he had for the past week, since Mr. Jeff mentioned the surprise. Niall knew that he was going to have a great rest of the year.