Running Scared by Beverley Terrell-Deutsch

Author:Beverley Terrell-Deutsch [Terrell-Deutsch, Beverley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bullying – Juvenile fiction., Teenagers and death – Juvenile fiction., Parents – Death – Juvenile fiction.
Publisher: Red Deer Press
Published: 2012-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

Save Our School

It had rained all morning, but a watery sun finally peeked through at noon. Gregory and Matt were heading out to the playground. Teisha hurried down the hall toward them.

“Where are you going, Gregory? Aren’t you coming to the campaign meeting?”

“No, ma’am!” Mrs. Checklee’s voice boomed out. “He’s coming with me today, again, aren’t you, Gregory? Didn’t forget your detention, did you? Come on. Don’t look so disappointed. There will be other soccer games, but right now Room 7 and all its glory awaits you.”

With Mrs. Checklee marking papers at her desk and six other students sitting looking bored, Gregory roughed out some sample pictures of what he thought would be good campaign posters. The trouble was, he never could draw. His attempt to draw the schoolhouse with “Save Me” written across the front of it looked like a box of cereal. He sighed and pushed it away.

He stared at the clock. Just another fourteen minutes and fourteen seconds and they would be released. Looking at the clock, he began to think about time. He thought how time is all around us, like air, and yet we can’t see it, hear it, or feel it. The only way to experience time is to pass through it. And you can only go forward, never backwards or sideways.

What exactly is time? thought Gregory, and he felt that familiar, slightly dizzy feeling he always got when his brain suddenly went catapulting somewhere deep and new. Can we only measure it as we move through it, with seconds and minutes and days, or are there other ways to measure it, other parts of it we don’t know about yet? Then a very strange thought occurred to him. Does time have speed? We move along in time, but is time itself moving along some other kind of track? If it is, how fast is it going? What would happen if it went faster? If it went slower?

Somehow he knew that all the answers linked up with mathematics. Mathematics was at the root of everything.

“Gregory …” Mrs. Checklee was looking at him, a puzzled smile on her face. The room was empty except for the two of them.

“Yes, Mrs. Checklee?”

“You can go now, Gregory. The detention is over. Didn’t you hear me? Go get your jacket on and run outside for some fresh air before the bell rings.”

During the few minutes of hubbub as the class settled down after lunch recess, Teisha came over to Gregory’s desk. Her face was glowing.

“You missed a really great meeting,” she said. “We got thirty more signs painted. We’re going to do 90 or even 100 more. The Grade 8’s nailed on the stakes, and we put a whole bunch of them along the sidewalk right at the front of the school. Isn’t that great?”

“But it’s going to rain tonight, isn’t it? Won’t that ruin them? Didn’t you say you were getting plastic signs printed? When will those be ready?”

“It might not rain,” said Teisha. “The plastic ones are supposed to arrive tomorrow morning.

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