The Memorial Dance Incident - Part 1

 The Memorial Dance Incident

It was an ordinary day at Lawndale High School. Brittany Taylor was bored. Just painting what one saw wasn’t interesting. She preferred it if it was more interesting. She looked at Jane Lane’s picture. “Why are the people covered in blood?” she asked Jane.

 

“Because that’s my interpretation,” Jane explained.

 

“Wait…” Brittany said. “Didn’t Ms. Defoe say to copy what we saw?”

 

“No, she just said to look around and paint what you see here, in the classroom,” Jane explained.

 

“But there’s no blood in the classroom,” Brittany said. “I mean, there is, but no one’s bleeding.”

 

“Well, the people are bleeding,” Jane said.

 

“Blood?” Kevin Thompson asked. “Cool! Hey, Jane, paint something with blood on my canvas. And maggots!”

 

“The problem is… This canvas is too small,” Jane said.

 

“Too small?” Kevin asked.

 

“I see what you mean,” Brittany said. She twirled a pigtail as she contemplated this, but something then distracted her.

 

“Good morning, students,” Principal Angela Li aid. “Where is your instructor?”

 

“She went to the ladies room,” Brittany answered.

 

 

Li took that information in and took out a tape recorder. “10:25, Defoe leaves post without clearance for personal business. Initiate investigation.” She then turned to the students. “Anyway, I just dropped in to caution you that the school dance is in two weeks, and security is going to be especially tight. So, if anyone is thinking of rigging a bucket of pig's blood to the rafters, well, they can just forget it.”

 

 

“Interesting,” Brittany commented.

 

“It’s just a dance,” Jane commented.

 

“Just a dance?” Brittany asked. “It’s a school dance. An opportunity for seeing a side of others we don’t usually see in school or in sports.”

 

“Which I’d rather not see,” Jane said as she added a stroke to her painting.

 

Brittany sighed.

 

 

“The Dance is going to be cool!” Kevin said as he left the class.

 

“Is it?” his girlfriend Angie Zammit asked.

 

“Yes!”

 

“Remember that last dance?” Angie asked.

 

“Um, no?”

 

“When I caught you attempting to make out with Quinn?”

 

“Um. It was the other way around?” Kevin deflected.

 

“Not the way I saw it! You came on to her!”

 

“No I didn’t. She said that she appreciated me!”

 

“It was just a complement!” Angie said. “Do you appreciate me?”

 

Kevin looked dumbfounded (which Angie thought might be a tautology). “Um… Of course I do!” he said after a short delay.

 

“We’re through!” Angie said as she turned away. She then stormed down the corridor to her next class in a huff.

 

 

“Do you think they’re through?” Brittany asked Jane.

 

“Maybe. But then they might reconcile someway,” Jane responded. “They always do.”

 

“It seems more final this time,” Brittany said.

 

“Probably,” Jane said in a distracted tone.

 

“You’re thinking about the painting aren’t you?”

 

“You know me too well,” Jane groused.

 

Brittany didn’t really have anything to say to that, so she waved to Jane as she too went in the direction of her next class.

 

 

Through the day the various students talked about the upcoming dance. At lunch, Jane emerged onto the school roof. She was tired of hearing about that dance! Though she was thankful that Brittany apologised after the second time. She looked around the expanse of rooftop. Then inspiration hit. Maybe she could do up the hall for the dance for her next project! “Eureka!”

 

“What do you have?” came a question from the far end of the roof.

 

“Something to do with the dance,” Jane said after jogging over.

 

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it?” Brittany asked.

 

“That was earlier.”

 

“So, you just got some inspiration?”

 

“Yes,” Jane answered.

 

“That’s great!”

 

“It will provide a large canvass.”

 

“Of course,” Brittany said with a laugh. “But what are you going to paint?”

 

“I’m not sure yet. But I’m sure inspiration will hit.”

 

Brittany smiled at that.

 

 

However, that wasn’t all that was happening. Angie was still fuming about Kevin. He had finally gone too far. “Angie?”

 

Angie turned and saw that it was her friend Nikki. “That Kevin!”

 

“What is it now?” Nikki asked.

 

“He isn’t going to stop cheating!”

 

“I’m not going to say ‘I told you so’, but…” Nikki started.

 

“Quite helpful you are!” Angie said with slight sarcasm.

 

“So, you’ve had it?”

 

“Yes!”

 

Nikki looked at Angie more closely. “I told you so!”

 

“Agh!”

 

“Now. What to do about it?”

 

“Make sure no one else goes to the dance with him!” Angie said.

 

“I doubt we’d be able to stop anyone from going with him.”

 

“But the others in the squad?”

 

“Good idea,” Nikki said. “I’ll go and round them up.”

 

 

Brittany and Jane came down off the roof. The former could tell that the latter was still in thought about what to do for her big project.

 

“You are going to tell me, right?” Brittany asked.

 

“Yes,” Jane answered.

 

“Cool. Then I can help.”