Goodbye, Middle School Days

        In precisely 4 hours, 32 minutes, and 18 seconds, she would no longer be a middle school student. The halls were crowded with frantic students clutching their yearbooks, asking each other, “Can you sign my yearbook?” in a hurried frenzy. The girl stared at the blank inside cover of her own yearbook and decided that it was probably for the best that it stayed that way.

        Closing the cover, she made her way down the hall to her next class, making sure to step around a pair of inconsiderate students who were talking in the middle of the hallway. The girl glanced at her watch again. Only 4 hours, 30 minutes, and 53 more seconds to go. She couldn’t wait to leave middle school. After all, a nice and relaxing summer vacation was just what she needed right now. That, and because middle school was just so… boring. 

        Turning around a corner, the girl bumped into a tall figure, causing her to drop her pencil case.

        “Sorry,” she mumbled, bending down to pick up the scattered pencils on the floor. To her surprise, the boy that she had run into picked up her yearbook and opened the cover. 

        “Hey!” she exclaimed. The girl stood up, stuffing the last of her pencils into her pencil case. “That’s my yearbook.” 

        The boy paused at the sight of the blank page before looking at her. “Can I sign your yearbook?” he asked hopefully.

        “What?” she replied, taken aback. It took her a few moments to answer. “But… I barely even know you.” 

        “So?” the boy responded. He grinned. “I’ll sign yours, and you can sign mine! That way, we’re even.” Pulling out a pen, he wrote a short message on the top of the page. 

        “There,” he said after he finished. “Here, you sign mine.” 

        The boy handed his yearbook to the girl. She opened the cover, astonished to find that there were no signatures on the inside.

        “What should I write?” she asked, looking back at the boy. 

        “Anything you want!” he answered. “Don’t think too hard about it!” 

        She turned back to the yearbook, her mind still as blank as the page in front of her. Scribbling down her name, she closed the yearbook and handed it back to the boy, who readily gave her back her own. 

        “Thanks!” he said, already leaving to go to his next class. “Have a great summer!” The boy waved before disappearing amongst the crowd of students. Still in a daze, the girl peeked into her yearbook to see what he wrote. In large letters, the message read, ‘See you in high school! Wear your seatbelt!’. She chuckled lightly- the boy hadn't even signed his name.

        Suddenly, the bell rang. The remaining students still in the hallway raced to get to class. The girl hadn’t noticed how much time had passed. How ironic- her first time being late to class was on the last day of school. She checked her watch once more. 4 hours, 27 minutes, and 31 seconds left until her middle school days were behind her. Clutching her yearbook, the girl smiled.

She still couldn’t wait for middle school to be over, but now for an entirely new reason.

• • •

Author’s Note: Thanks for reading! This was an old story of mine that I wrote after watching an anime called Assassination Classroom. The art above was created by me, Ray Chen. (Also, I’m a fan of TheOdd1sOut, if you haven’t noticed.) Have a nice day!