Friday and the Science fair

Friday spent too much time with Thursday night at the local Weekday Tavern and by the time morning arrived, Friday was already pretty wrecked and Thursday was nowhere to be found. Friday ended up stumbling along the sidewalk in front of his old high school and he was possessed with an urge to see how the old Alma Mater was. It was lucky that it was as early in the morning as there was no one around to see Friday shimmy his way through the lower pane of one of the gymnasium windows. He figured he could drop down lightly onto the bleachers and no one would be the wiser.

He dropped to the floor and landed with a thunderous thud. He groaned on the floor and held his left elbow, which seemed to take the brunt of his weight. He rubbed his elbow and started laughing at his foolishness. He had forgotten that they don’t pull the bleachers out unless a game is going on. He managed to pull himself up off the floor and squint into the darkness of the old gym.

He noticed something wasn’t right, there were lunch tables spread out all through the gym. Friday looked up over his shoulder at the long yellow banner suspended over the gym entrance. In bold blue letters it read, “Freshmen & Sophomore Science Week”.

Friday had landed smack in the middle of the annual science fair.

Friday wandered around each table looking at the various exhibits and found himself pretty impressed. There was your usual Solar System exhibit but it looked nearly museum quality. And some bright kid had made his own little wind tunnel out of Plexiglas and you could see the ribbons of white smoke flowing over a little fuselage. Friday staggered over to a large papier-mâché volcano that occupied a large corner of the gym. He had seen other science fairs and other little volcanos but this one, this one was a world unto itself. It was well painted and had model trees and grasses around its base. There were even little villages out toward what looked like a real sand beach.

This papier-mâché giant was sleeping for now, but it looked like you could plug it in and it would spew some sort of lava and there were speakers hidden in it that would probably simulate the noise. Friday started to feel jealous. He remembered his science fair project. It was hastily prepared and was resoundly mocked. He just wanted to grow some plants with some milk and see what happened. He wasn’t a damn researcher with all kinds of science degree things and crap.  He was just a kid.

As he stood there, weaving back and forth on his drunk toes, the room started to spin. He started to not feel so well. Maybe the fall from the window was worse than he thought. He felt something gurgling in his stomach and before he could move he felt the vomit rushing up to his mouth. Damn Thursday and his insistence they do one more shot before the ditch.  Friday felt the vomit swell up his mouth and his cheeks filled with all sorts of vileness. He started to panic and began frantically looking for a place to eject this putridness. He had no choice and he turned to the volcano and had his own eruption down into it. It was a mighty release but Friday almost immediately felt better.

Friday had enough of his old school. He wasn’t sure why he even broke in in the first place. He had hated high school, even though he was really popular. Friday went to the emergency exit and pushed on the whammy bar. There was a brief alarm but he didn’t care. He knew it’d go off once the door closed again. Which it did. Friday then stumbled off into the early morning hoping he’d feel better by lunchtime.

                                                            -----

Davey Andrews got up early and was dressed for school earlier than any time in his young life. He was at the bus stop and ready to get there. He had hardly been able to sleep he was so excited. It was science fair awards day and he knew he had it in the bag. He and his dad had spent two weekends building Mount Krakatau and today was the day it would come to life and really knock the judges socks off.