Congratulations




Tracie Gaynor, the Class Treasurer, finished leading the Pledge then scurried off her Home Room.

I started reading the announcements. I got to the one I’d circled when they gave me the list. I turned the mic over to Electra.

I HAD wanted to use a slide whistle right then. A descending note, indicating that we were going ‘down’ to her scale for her announcement, then use the rising note to come back up to mine.

She had protested, “That would set up horrible feedback over the loudspeakers.”

“And… What’s your point?” I had asked.

Mom had been kinda listening in. “If you’re trying to attract this Chip’s attention, you don’t want to offend ninety percent of the school at the same time.”

“Ninety?” Electra asked.

“I assume ten percent will have Conrad’s sense of humor and think it a hoot,” Mom said.

“Hey, THIRTY people complimented me on the firecracker!” I protested. “That’s three times as many as ten.”

“Ten PERCENT,” Electra enunciated. “We have a class of three hundred, so thirty people would be…”

“Thirty percent,” I guessed.

Electra stared. “I can never tell if you’re really this stupid or teasing me.”

“He can do both,” Mom said. Feel the love. She looked me right in the eye. “No slide whis- No. No whistles at all.” No wiggle room there.

“Yes, ma’am,” I’d said.

So now I had no segue, no introduction. I just cranked the volume and held the folded paper. Electra read the announcement, that the something-or-other group had chosen their recipient of that year’s scholarship, and named Chip Obrien.

Then she closed with an unauthorized ‘Congratulations, Chip,’ ad lib.

I smoothly took the mic back and read the menu. Then secured the board and picked up my pet.

“I wanted to do it to his face,” she protested once more.

“I almost guarantee you will,” I said. “But this way, HE seeks US out.” No clique, no gauntlet to run…

Sure enough, Chip was at my locker between first and second period. “Hey, Loudon, is Jennifer with you today?”

“I’ll see if she’s in,” I said. I tugged at my shirt pocket, looking down into it. “Miss Electra, there’s a Mr. Obrien here to see you. He doesn’t have an appointment, so it’s up to you.”

It was, of course, the wrong pocket. She popped up on the other side of my shirt. “I’ll see him on the patio, Conrad,” she said happily. I nodded and leaned back just a bit.

“Hi, Chip. I saw your name in the paper. Congratulations.”

“Thanks, yeah, it, uh, it’s the scholarship you told me to apply for.”

Kids came and went around us, slamming their lockers and staring. I tried to be invisible.

“I know,” she replied. Of course she knew, I wanted to say. Sylphing didn’t take memories away. Unless you sylphed while putting bowling balls on a shelf over your head and got a concussion, like that guy over in Buhl.

His memory was about as long as his sylphed dick. If he slept and woke up, he didn’t remember anything from the day before.

I tried to remember who’d ended up finding him. We’d thought it was so funny the day we heard about it.

While I was concentrating on One-Day-Tony, Electra and Chip were talking about almost nothing of consequence. The application he’d filled out, the phone call interview, the dinner where they awarded him the scholarship (“I had the chicken,” Chip reported.).

Finally, we were alone in the hallway. It was very close to time for the bell. Chip looked around like his spidey sense was going off. “I, uh, have to get to Bio,” he finally said.

“Yeah,” Electra agreed.

“I, uh, I miss you, Jennifer.”

“I miss you, too, Chip,” she replied.

Then the bell did ring. Chip turned and ran. I had a passenger, so I only walked, though I walked quickly.

“Thanks for waiting,” Electra told me.

“You’re welcome,” I said. “And… And thanks for doing it this way,” she went on.

“More private than the lunch table,” I said. She agreed.

Then burst into tears.

I walked into Government a full three minutes late. Mr. Gorn (not his real name, but he had a LOT in common with the Star Trek antagonist) turned his cold eyes on me.

“Mr. Loudon! So good of you to join us!” he hissed.

“Yes, sir, sorry, sir.” I took my seat.

“And why are you late, Mr. Loudon?”

I glanced down into my pocket. Electra was balled up at the bottom, bawling without stop.

I’d ducked into the bathroom to get a piece of toilet paper as a handkerchief. She held that to her face like an entire roll of paper towels.

“I think we’re having a nervous breakdown,” I said.



-----
Index

9. Chip

11. Tears