Author's note: I know that certain fans of my uncompleted serials will be disappointed that I've posted this story instead of posting additional chapters for those stories, but completion of this story was important because it removes a distraction from my pile of incomplete works. I actually outlined this story during February of 2002 and had written most of it by April of that same year, but when I neared completion, the ending didn't work as well as I would have liked. The story languished in my incomplete pile because I couldn't construct an ending that I felt comfortable with. I finally made up my mind to complete this story in the Fall of 2004 and this posting is the result. The revised ending actually added about seventy pages to the story. I believe that fans of Texas Gal and I Can't Go Home Like This will enjoy it because it shares many of the same themes.

 

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

by C. Sprite

 

Prologue

 

Doing his best to ignore the unrestrained and boisterous commotion taking place immediately behind him, the driver eased the long yellow school bus slowly away from the curb in front of the high school, and deftly merged the vehicle into the light, afternoon traffic. A seasoned veteran among the ranks of elementary school and high-school bus drivers, he seemed oblivious to the near pandemonium occurring inside the bus. Kids, some hanging out the windows, screamed to those walking on the sidewalks, the mandated seat-belts having been removed the minute the bus was away from the school grounds, while others carried on loud, often animated, conversations inside the bus. It was almost always like this on the ride home, as everyone, impatient to get home and begin whatever far more interesting things awaited him or her, jubilantly celebrated the end of the school day. Unlike most of the other students on the bus, I didn't join in the revelry of the late afternoon, preferring instead to sit quietly and stare morosely out the window, not fully cognizant of anything that was happening around me. It was only the first day of the new school term, but I was already dreading tomorrow with what, to me, seemed like the trepidation that a condemned person must feel.

Oh, I know what you're saying to yourself as you read this; you think I'm, to put it politely, exaggerating. Well, I guess I am, but only slightly, because I do actually have a full week to complete the homework assignment from Mrs. Baldwin, my eleventh grade English teacher. And the assignment does sound rather innocuous and straightforward on the surface because all we need do is compose a simple, five hundred word essay on how we spent our summer vacation; and be prepared to read our paper in front of the class. It seemed to me that these types of assignments are usually reserved for elementary school students, not high school juniors, but there's no hard and fast rule about it. When several students groaned as the assignment was given, Mrs. Baldwin mentioned that she had received such an assignment while a senior in college. Even the class clown had been sensible enough not to make any cracks about how things had changed during the past century. The assignment could very easily have been turned into a thousand-word essay.

So what's so difficult about writing a simple essay for a public school eleventh grade English class, you ask? I mean, some of the students in my class are barely literate, so what would anyone possibly expect from me? My problem is not with the preparation of an essay, but with the topic assigned. You see, I can never reveal, not to anyone, the things that really happened to me during the past several months. If I do, I can't hope to ever again enjoy a normal life in this town, or at least what passes for normal in my now confused existence. And since the truth can't be told, I'll have to fabricate something and pray that I'm not caught in the big lie. Certain people already have enough information, or at least enough suspicion, to begin raising embarrassing questions that could uncover the truth. If you have some time now I'll tell you the real story, but I'll have to take you back three months and start at the beginning. And you must promise not to repeat this to anyone.

(continued)

  

  

  

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