FRESH FROM SUMMER BREAK

Jason Peters opened his eyes slowly; he was beginning to come out of his extremely droopy state finally. His eyelids fluttered as though they were in the making of a slow motion video. All these were the after effects of staying up the whole night playing video games and at the same time hiding from his mom to avoid any of her reprimands for his"unethical behaviour". He was allowed to be up till at least 9pm during holidays, but he stayed awake till a whooping 2am the next morning.

His eyes were now finally wide opened. He looked around at the state of his room. Looking straight ahead of him was his reading table which made direct contact with the green coloured wall of his room . It was filled with books which were scattered all over. The reading lamp on the table was at the edge of the table, almost at the verge of falling off and breaking its glass. His aunt, Maggie, had given it to him on his fifteenth birthday. His laptop was on top of the scattered books, slightly tilting to the left. It would have been a goner if it had not been for the large science encyclopedia that it sat on.

His eyes scanned the left side of his room; that was where his wardrobe was situated. The wooden doors of the wardrobe was flung widely open with clothes hanging on them and some on the floor too. His favourite winter coat was sprawled on a heap of clothes on the floor. He was totally awake now trying to get a hang of the situation in the room. He turned to the right and breathed a huge sigh of relief; that part of the room was tidy. That was were his life sized mirror stood with a little dressing table beside it.

"Phewww!" He sighed deeply in total relief. He made effort to get up but found his body getting restricted by the bedsheet.

Oh man! He must have rolled and rolled so much while sleeping. He looked down at his body and saw that from his torso down to his feet was thoroughly wrapped just like the way he had seen Egyptian mummies been wrapped up on TV.

"Arggghh!" He grunted and began to unwrap himself. He struggled a bit with the sheets before he was finally freed of them. He sat up on the bed facing the window and rubbed his eyes vigorously. Day was beginning to exert its presence on the earth. He turned abruptly to the alarm clock on his bedside table; he had forgotten to set his alarm to the usual time for school preparations every morning. It was 7:01am that morning, and it was the first day of school after the summer break. No way he was going to be late on the first day of school. He had just one hour to get ready for school.

He dashed out from the bed and rushed to the adjoining bathroom. He picked up his toothpaste with his right hand and smeared a little on the toothbrush in his left hand and began to brush as fast as he could. He was left-handed. As he brushed, he scampered around the room, putting things in place. He packed up his school bag and grabbed his towel from where it laid on the floor, flinged it twice and headed to the bathroom with his toothbrush still in his mouth.

While in the bathroom, he could hear his mother's loud footsteps downstairs. She must be in the kitchen, he thought as he scrubbed his body with a sponge, the soap lather splattering on the tiled walls of the bathroom. There was a sound of the rush of water from the kitchen's sink tap. She was probably doing the dishes.

"Good morning Jason honey!" She called out sweetly. "Are you still asleep? It is the first day of school, you do not want to be late, now do you? She asked with concern in her voice.

"I am coming, mom!" He replied loudly from the bathroom, rubbing his body hurriedly with the towel.

"Okay honey. Your breakfast is set already. Hurry up!" Her voice rang out again.

***

It was a pleasant September day, bright and shiny with fresh summer beauty. The leaves were still fresh and green from the tall trees. The lawn still exuded a natural kind of green that told stories of nature's lovely touch. He stood in front of Darkota High School's building and thanked his lucky stars that he was on time. He walked in to meet a crowd of students all over. A few were chattering excitedly in different sides of the large hall. He was headed straight to his classroom when he heard his name.

"Hey Jason!" He turned and saw his best friend running towards him. He let out a broad smile.

"Hey Chris! What's up man?" They shook hands as gees would and continued heading towards the classroom. They talked excitedly as they went.

"Oh man! My dad took us on a fishing trip one time. It was so fun..." Chris recounted, giving Jason almost no chance to talk about his experiences too.

Inside the classroom, they split ways. Chris joined a group of students in front scrambling for front seat while he walked to the middle row and flung his bag on one of the desks there.

"Hey lefty!" A deep voice called out. "Get your stuff off that chair and go find somewhere else to keep your dirty bag! That was Jones Hardy, a tall bulky bully that terrorised students smaller than him. Jason Peters was obviously no match for him. Jason immediately turned to look at him.

"Why are you looking at me? Did you not hear what I said or do you want me to repeat myself?" Jones said, advancing menacingly towards him.

"Oh no! Not again!" Jason mumbled under his breath as he took his bag out and went to another desk behind.