Page 1
From Create Your Own Story
Chapter One: Out of Time
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The first time it happened, you were nine years old. It was lunch hour at Nettleton Magnet Elementary School in Duluth Minnesota, and it was a sunny Spring day. This day wasn't much different than any other day, at least until it happened. Your name is Jensen Taskerhill, you are 3' 9", weigh 87 pounds, have light blond hair with hazel eyes, and you are a perfectly normal nine year old boy. You go to a perfectly normal school. You have a perfectly normal father who's a stock broker and is always away on business trips, but always gives you the time of day when he is home. You have a perfectly normal stay-at-home-mother that paints beautifully, drinks too much on Saturdays, and makes you peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. You run around, scrape your knees, play with your friends, read books, watch television, and do all of the perfectly normal things that a perfectly normal nine year old boy should do. Only, you're not perfectly normal. Not after today.
Maybe it's because you're not perfectly normal that Ricky Timmins picked you to be his center of attention for the day. Maybe he can somehow sense it. Though, you doubt if he could sense it that he would be able to make any sense of the sensation, as you doubt his IQ could be that much higher than a frog's. Nevertheless, he's the big honcho of third grade bullies, and when you're twice as big as any other kid in your grade, your IQ doesn't really count for much. You were minding your own business with a couple of buddies by the jungle gym when this particularly daft individual was overpowered by the irresistible urge to push you to the ground. As you gather yourself up from the dirt you realise all your friends have disappeared.
Turning to face your assailant, you comfort yourself in the knowledge that Ricky is only as big and scary as he is because he failed a grade. Had he not, he'd be just a normal fourth grader with an attitude problem, but in grade three he might as well be Bigfoot. When you factor in growth spurts, even just a year can be a big difference in size. You contemplate reminding Rick of this, but your precarious situation convinces you to rethink that idea.
"What's for lunch dickwad?" he asked, as he raided my Buck Rogers lunch box. "Peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches? Again? You know I don't like these."
"My mom makes my lunches," you reply, sheepishly. A number of other things you'd rather say come to mind, but you decide that saying them prior to having secured a good escape plan is probably for the best. You begin to scan your surroundings, looking for a way out of this predicament.
"Well, tell the wench to take some cooking lessons or something because this is crap," he says as he drops your lunch into the dirt and then proceeds to step on it. "Dickwad, don't you know it's bad to litter? Pick up that sandwich and eat it."
You've had just about as much as you can take of Ricky Timmins. You carefully kneel to pick up the sandwich, eyeing Ricky the entire time, so as not to be kicked while you're down or befall some similar cowardly tactic. As you do, you grab a handful of dirt along with it, and slowly stand up. You glance at your watch. 12:41. Lunch is almost over. Soon the bell will ring and you will be home free. All you have to do is last that long. But Ricky also takes the time remaining into account, as he grows even more impatient with the impending humiliation you are about to receive.
"What are you waiting for? Eat it already!" His demands sound more like threats. You begin to comply, slowly moving the sandwich and pile of dirt to your mouth, but then you stop.
"You know Ricky, I'm really not hungry today. Why don't you have it?" Before he has time to respond, you throw the sandwich and dirt in his face. He yells out angrily, blinded by the dirt and peanut-butter jelly combination. You don't wait for him to come to his senses, and before he knows what's going on, you're running across the school yard.
"I'm gonna kill him!" you hear crying out from behind you. Soon he will be barrelling after you, and his legs are bigger then yours. It's only a matter of time before you have to face his wrath, and with that in mind, you begin looking for a place to hide. Taking notice of a tube-slide, you decide this is probably the best place to avoid notice, and make your way towards it.
- Dart inside the tube-slide on Page 2...
