Well, the first story I posted got some pretty good responses, so I guess I'll post some more of mine.
This next one is actually one of my least popular. But, it's always been on my personal favorites. It's very simple, and also very short (about eight times as short as "The Girl of My Dreams"
). It's somewhat realistic, albeit unbelievable. So...nothing special, but I've always thought it was neat...hopefully you guys will too.
"My Crazy Initiation"
I couldn’t believe it! After ten awesome years of living in the best neighborhood in the world, my parents decided it was time for us to move. I had to leave all the friends that I had made as well as all the cool places that I had gotten used to. Now I was left in a completely strange new town and didn’t have anybody to talk to or anything to do.
At least it we moved at the beginning of the summer, so I didn’t have to worry about going to a new school yet. The problem was that now I was bored out of my mind. I had spent the first week of the summer locked up inside our house, slowly passing the time by watching TV, playing video games or reading on my own. But after that, my mom got sick of it, and she told me “Blake, it’s time for you to stop staying holed up in this house all day! Go outside, it’s a beautiful day! Maybe you’ll meet some other boys you can play with. You might even meet a girl…”
“Mom!” I responded indignantly. “Fine, ok, ok…”
It’s not that I didn’t want to make new friends…I wasn’t shy at all, and sometimes I was even on the cocky side. But it’s just so hard to start all over when everything you ever knew got wiped away one day. But given mom’s tone, it didn’t sound like I had any other choice, and I guess she was right.
So here I was walking down the sidewalk of our new street. It was a beautiful day out, with the warm sunshine beaming down onto my face and a light breeze blowing. It was a nice little neighborhood, with houses right next to each other with fences separating people’s yards. You could see small trees, lawn ornaments, and gardens in the yards of the small houses. All the lawns were well kept and the driveways and sidewalks were free of cracks or blemishes. The beautiful weather led me to close my eyes and fantasize about my old neighborhood. I pictured playing hours of soccer with my best friends out in the field, happy that I no longer had schoolwork to bother me. We would play and play, and then go over to one of our houses and play some Halo or watch some DragonballZ.
But to an outside person, I would just look like any other kid, a ten year old boy with his hands in his jeans pockets and enjoying the nice day. I must have looked happy with my blue eyes closed, the wind slightly blowing my short blond hair and smacking against my small nose, thin cheeks and blue shirt. They would have no idea how lonely I was and how much I missed my old life.
I just kept on walking for a while…my parents felt confident that I’d be safe in this sweet little neighborhood, and besides, they had always let me go outside and play with my friends in our old neighborhood…we were about as responsible as you could ask for a group of boys. So I knew I could just keep on walking for as long as I wanted on this beautiful morning.
As I walked, I eventually came upon two boys playing a game in a driveway. One would throw a tennis ball against the garage door of the brick house they were next to, and the other would try to grab it after one bounce.
I took a better look at the two boys. One was a black kid who wore very baggy clothes and also wore glasses (he was playing really well considering his clothes didn’t seem to be well fit for this game) and the other boy was big (not fat, just really big considering he looked to be about my age), although he had a kinda chubby face and black hair.
The game didn’t look too hard to me, although the two boys were sweating and breathing a little hard…I guessed they had been playing for a while. Because of this I hoped that maybe I could join them and make a good first impression…I wasn’t shy at all and just wanted to meet someone…anyone.
“Hey, whatcha guys doin’?” I asked as I stepped onto the driveway.
“Who’re you?” asked the black boy as they stopped playing.
“I’m Blake…my parents just moved here last week.”
“Oh, a new kid in town,” said the bigger boy. “Well, I’m Tyler and this is Shawn. You wanna play, huh?”
“Yeah, I’d like to try.”
“Well, the rules are real easy even if the game is hard,” said Shawn. “All you gotta do catch the ball one bounce after it hits the wall. If you miss, you have to go stand against the wall and dodge the ball when someone else tries to throw it at you.”
“Alright, I got it,” I said as I approached the space where they were playing.
“Alright, here goes,” said Shawn.
He threw the ball real hard against the wall, and as soon as it bounced off I raced towards it and grabbed it easily.
“Ha ha!” I said. Shawn and Tyler looked at me with a slight hint of awe. Next, I threw the ball and Tyler had to catch it.
He did, and threw it. Shawn got it but just barely, and he threw it real soon, trying to catch me off guard. But I got it easily and was able to make Tyler miss.
He tried to dodge when I threw it at him when he was against the wall, but since he was so big, I nailed him.
After playing for a few minutes, it was clear that I was the best at the game. I was doing so well that I started to brag a little, letting out a laugh as I nailed Shawn with the ball.
It was probably because of this that Tyler said, “Oh, you think you’re good, huh? Well who cares, this game is stupid! We were just playing cuz we were bored!”
“Yeah,” said Shawn. “Our real game is KICKBALL. All the guys play it every afternoon. There are about twenty of us in all, even though not everybody shows up every day. We’re gonna play today at 1. You gonna play, ain’tcha hot shot?”
“Uh, sure,” I said.
“Good,” Tyler said. “Then we’ll see who the real winners are.”
With that, the two of them left. I felt like an idiot…it was obvious I had made them mad. I guess that’s one of my problems, sometimes I can’t control my cockiness. My old friends had never cared, and I had forgotten that these two guys didn’t know me.
But kickball was my game…my best one next to soccer. I knew that I’d be able to prove to them that I could hang this afternoon. And there’d be a bunch of kids there…twenty. ‘Must be a big neighborhood,’ I thought.
After I passed a few hours wandering around the town (I figured out where the kickball field was by doing this), I went to the field. As I walked onto it, I noticed that there were about fifteen kids besides Tyler and Shawn on the field. They were currently all circled around in the middle of the field.
“Alright, who ain’t here?” yelled one kid in the middle.
“Billy’s sick today,” said another kid.
“And Randy’s off with his mom and little brother,”
“And Stephen’s gone on vacation, remember?”
“Ok, that means we got seventeen today,” said the first kid. “One team’s gonna be short a man,”
“I don’t think so Jeff,” said Shawn. “We got a new bro in town.”
As all of the boys turned to look at me, Jeff spoke to me. I noticed that he had blonde hair and a lot of dirt on his face. But he also wore a look of confidence, and I could tell he was the leader of the group.
“What’s your name, kid?” he asked me.
“Blake,” I responded. “I just moved here,”
“Good, you’re just what we need,” said another kid. He wore a baseball cap backwards over his light brown hair, and he had a lot of freckles.
“Yeah, Sam’s right, you make eighteen,” said Jeff. “Shawn and Tyler’ll were tellin’ me that you can run real fast and you think you’re somethin’. Well, you better show us what you got today if you wanna keep playin’ with us.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” said another kid. This kid was also black and didn’t look like he was that nice. “If you start to suck, we gonna let Kelly or one of those other GIRLS over there take yo’ place.”
All of the boys laughed as the kid who had spoken pointed towards the fence. There was a group of girls on the edge of the dirt behind the dugouts, apparently eager to watch the game.
“And don’t cry like a little baby if you don’t do good,” said another kid. This one had longer hair but had torn jeans, and he had a way about him that made me think he could fight well.
“Hey, calm down,” said Jeff. “Don’t worry about Reggie and Chris. They’re just tryin’ to scare you. Just play good and you’re cool.”
With that, we divided into teams…I was picked last since I was the new guy.
Unfortunately, I didn’t play as well as I normally do. Maybe it was because I was nervous to be around all these kids I didn’t know. Maybe it was because of the words of Reggie and Chris before we started. Or maybe it was because of the girls who were watching us.
I played in the outfield. One time, I failed to catch the ball as it came to me. Another time I stopped it as it rolled towards me but I overthrew it. Each time I made a mistake, I could see by the looks on the faces of the other boys that they were irritated. Then they would whisper things to each other.
But as the game went on, I started to prove myself. Sam and Jeff were on my team, and for some reason they were supportive of me. When Reggie was pitching, I kicked it hard enough to get a double before racing around the first two bases. Later, I caught a ball in the outfield. Then I narrowly avoided an out while racing to third base.
Despite my efforts, our team was still down one with two outs in our last inning. Chris was pitching and I was up, and since we had a guy on second, we still had a chance. Even though most of my team still thought I would mess up, Sam and Jeff seemed to be cheering me on.
Chris rolled the ball perfectly toward me and I nailed it. I sent it flying between the fielders, and because I was so fast I was able to race home before they could get me out.
My team burst into cheers and congratulated me…even some of the kids on the other team did. As we celebrated, I looked over and noticed that Jeff, Sam and Shawn were huddled together and having a quiet conversation. As we finished cheering, the three walked over to join us.
I then looked over and noticed that one of the girls was smiling at me. I looked away out of embarrassment, and Sam noticed.
“Ha ha, that’s Kelly,” he said. “I think she likes you.”
As the other kids circled around, Jeff announced that they would play again later that week. When a couple of the kids asked why they wouldn’t the next day, Jeff just gave them a look and said, “You know why. The same reason as when we cancel kickball for a few days every now and then.”
Some of the kids still didn’t look like they knew what Jeff was talking about, but a small little kid said in a squeaky voice, “Yeah yeah! We gotta do the…”
“Shut up Aaron, you little punk!” said Reggie. “But Jeff, why we doin’ it now?”
“I’ll tell you later,” said Jeff. With that, everybody scattered, some going in groups. As the kids all separated, Jeff came up to speak with me.
“You were really good today, Blake.”
“Thanks!” I said. “Kickball’s one of my favorite sports.”
“Well, it’s our game, we play it all the time. I think you’ll fit in around here just fine. But there’s something else I wanna talk to you about.”
“What?” I asked.
“Well, normally I don’t do this with new kids, but I like you, Blake. I’ve talked to a couple of the guys, and we’ve decided to allow you to join ‘The Real Cool Guys’”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Well, Sam came up with the name, and even though it kinda sucks, it’s been that way from day one so we won’t change it. Pretty much, it’s our secret club. Yeah, most of the kids around here are ok, and they’re good for playing kickball and everything, but there are a group of us that are really good friends who started a club together. We meet every now and then in the treehouse in my backyard.”
“What do you guys do?” I asked.
“I can’t tell you anything about it unless you’re a member,” Jeff said. “But that’s where you’re lucky. We’re gonna give you the chance to join.”
“So what do I gotta do?” I asked.
“It’s real simple…tomorrow just show up at the treehouse around 1. I’ll show you where my house is right now. Before you can join, you have to go through the initiation.”
“What will I have to do?”
“I can’t tell you anything now,” Jeff said. “You gotta show up. If you chicken out at any time, we can’t let you join. So whadda ya say?”
“Alright, I’ll be there.”
“Good. This should be interesting.”