Ajani Issa

16

The sun rose and everything fell around us. We've been crouched in the same spot for an estimation of 10 hours. It was my best friends DQ and Marcus, captain of the high school debate team and the Dean's daughter Alex, the school mascot Ricky the rabbit and I, AJ, all hiding under a singular school desk. We were all cramped as I don't know what. My left foot was falling asleep and Alex had her elbow wedged in between my socket. We were all mad uncomfortable.
"How we end up like this?" DQ whispered quickly, but kind of loudly.
"Man shut up before they find us!" I responded. I was holding the bunny in my arms, petting it, trying to keep it staying calm. Then I thought to myself, How did we end up like this?
It all started one week ago, in the cafeteria. All four of us had the same lunch period but we all sat at our own separate tables. That's part of the fabric of high school, picking one table and never moving away from it for a whole 150 days of school times four. Well me and Marcus sat at the same table with our other friend DQ. That's the squad. DQ was the funny one, I was the inventive one and Marcus was the quiet one. As you may have noticed DQ wasn't with us under the table in the introduction paragraph, I'll tell you about what happened to him later.
The topic of discussion was the cafeteria entree of the day, Sloppy Joes. "This is so disgusting," I said, picking at the meat with a plastic fork and displaying the stank face one only puts on when either listening to a nasty beat or looking at some nasty food. It looked like freshly grazed cow manure and smelled like radioactive donkey milk.
"Completely uncalled for," DQ quietly agreed putting on a similar face to my own. DQ angrily slammed his hand on the lunch table and exclaimed, "I'm tired of this shit, fam!"
"Calm down," I said.
"Nah, I can't. I gotta express myself" He answered sharply. He continued, "Who was the genius who told the school lunch staff that feeding children this garbage is acceptable." He was making a scene but our lunch period was so used to it no one really noticed.
"Chill out, man" Marcus tried to calm him, unlike me he was being serious because he could tell DQ was heated.
DQ stood up "I don't need to chill out maybe y'all should chill on."
"Chill on? What does that mean?" I whispered under my breath.
He heard what I said though. He stood up and reached over the table and stuck his finger directly in my face, "Are you deaf?"
His finger smelled like a combination of vigorous masturbation and Old Spice body wash, I was starting to get mad. "Boy, if you don't get your nasty hand out my face today...." I told him seriously. He came to his senses and sat back down in his seat.
He was still talking though, "Yall need to take this more seriously." He continued his rant, "They probably told Martin Luther King to chill out. Do you think he did?"
" what this got to do with MLK?" I asked him.
"Absolutely nothing," he replied. "That's irrelevant to the situation at hand, my brothas. What is relevant is the fact that they feeding us, who knows what?" He picked up the sloppy joe from his tray, reached over the table and held it directly in my face. "Do you know what is contained within this sandwich?" he was waving it back and forth and the juices were splattering all over the table, I was wearing my astro foamposites and I swore to God if any of that sloppy Joe got on my shoes I would run the fade.
Just then the bell rang and prompted DQ to put the sandwich back on his tray and throw it in the nearby garbage can. He came back, wiping his hands with a napkin and said, "Let's go" We all got up and out of out of the cafeteria and on to our 5th period class. Everybody was standing in front of the door like they were waiting on something. I was getting impatient so I moved everybody at the door and aggressively pulled the door knob multiple times but to no avail.
"It's not working," Marcus pointed out.
"No shizzle, it's not working," I said, with an obviously annoyed tone. We've been tight for more than several years, I should've been used to my friend's predisposition to point out the obvious at any givejn moment, but I wasn't having it at that moment. "Where the hell is Mrs. Applebottom at?" I asked impatiently. "We been standing here for 15 minutes after bell rang, she just gonna have us waiting out here all damn day?" Mrs. Applebottom's classroom was located at the end of a desolate hallway with little lighting and no other nearby classrooms so none of the other teachers were around to hear our grievances.
As we were moaning and groaning, Alex came to the rescue. Let me tell you about Alex Vasquez. On paper, Alex was the perfect teenage girl. She was stunningly attractive like she was undescribably gorgeous and I don't even think that's an actual word. Whether "undescribably" is a word or not that is the word to I will use to tell you how beautiful she is. She is so beautiful there are not enough adjectives in the English language I can use to describe how beautiful she is. She is the prettiest person in Paul Newman High School and everyone with a conscience could admit that. I'm not trying to sound like I have a crush on her because I don't at all. I actually hate her with every fiber of my body. The same way her beauty is "undescribable" so is her "dislikeability." I do not know one person who has anything nice to say about Alex behind her back. Her squad doesn't even like her, they fear her more than anything. Turns out, the teacher gave her the key. She stared at the door and slowly turned the doorknob. . .