Senior Prank (9781620957295) Read Free

him. Things seem to be just waiting for the next Pearl Harbor or atomic bomb.

Senior Prank/ Chapter Two
    Jose Hernandez arrived first and took his usual seat on the concrete wall near the school’s flagpole. He wasn’t fortunate enough to own a car so he had to ride the school bus. It usually dropped him off at the school at 7:10 a.m.
    Lamont Sheen was next. He came at 7:13 a.m. after being dropped off by his mother on her way to work. She left everyday at 7:05, and usually Lamont had to bust his hump to catch the ride. He got up at 6:45, showered quickly, grabbed a pop tart or donut and met his mom in the garage. If he wasn’t in the car at the precise time, she left him. Then he would have to make a 20 minute walk to school, which usually put him at school around the time of the 7:30 bell to start school.
    At 7:15, Elvis strolled up to his usual place near the others. Elvis was lucky enough to own a car, although it was a 12 year-old Jeep seemingly held together by rubber bands and duct tape. He lived the opposite direction of the other two so he could not offer them a ride to school.
    Once the trio convened, their discussion usually revolved around the females they noticed. Also, they discussed their schoolwork. On this day, Sheen took the conversation in a different direction.
    â€œWhat would you guys think if I told you I’m thinking about going out for Potts’ track team?” Sheen asked. “I think it might be my ticket to college. Remember I was a pretty fast runner a few years ago.”
    â€œThat was three years ago,” said Hernandez. “That means nothing today. Besides you’d have to put up with Potts. That’s not worth it.”
    â€œBut I gotta do something,” countered Sheen. “After all, we’ll be out of this place in less than eight months.”
    In the past few weeks, there seemed to be more emphasis around the school for the seniors to start thinking about their futures. College recruiter visits were a daily occurrence. Guidance counselors scheduled meetings with seniors. Fellow seniors constantly talked about college and career choices.
    For Jose, there wasn’t much to discuss. His parents had emigrated from Mexico a few years before he was born. His family had assimilated well into the American lifestyle, although Spanish was the primary home language. The family diet consisted of a combination of America and Mexican foods. His dad started as a laborer and worked his way up to become a union bricklayer. Mom was a homemaker.
    For the past 10 years that profession had provided a comfortable living for his family, which consisted of a younger sister, Maria, who was in middle school. The family never mentioned college. It was assumed Jose would learn the bricklaying profession. In fact his father sometimes took him to work assignments on the weekend, and the cash earned seemed to be a motivating factor for Jose’s future. School was just a step in that direction. As long as he got C’s both were happy. Extra work and achievement weren’t in the student’s vocabulary. Fun was.
    Sheen came from a working class family that tried to get him to take life more seriously. He was an average student, although he possessed the intelligence to achieve more. However, his older brother, Marcus, now a senior at the University of Houston, stayed on Lamont, but without much success.
    Marcus’s goal was to be a policeman. He was majoring in criminal justice and had a large majority of his college expenses paid by a program sponsored by the Houston police that recruited blacks and Hispanics for the department.
    This decision probably came from their father’s military career. Daniel Sheen was a 25 year veteran of the Air Force. He has been a no nonsense type of father but over the last few years has mellowed out and now seemed more interested in golf, gambling and casinos. He works part time at a local golf course so he can play the course