23 - Catch

23- CATCH

I’ve always felt left out, like the odd one out in a pair of socks. Something that is here but really shouldn’t be. In school, being an outsider isn’t the best thing to decide to be and it’s not as if you have a choice. You just roll up on your first day acting just the way you are and before you know it you have been sorted into a category.

Painting on your own on lunch break doesn’t really fit the mould that the other children have sculped. It’s not my fault if I enjoyed time to myself reflecting in the school yard noting down the way people move, I found it interesting, much more fascinating than kicking a ball around a field, watching people move while kicking the football, that was my kind of fun.

Lunch. I would sit in a corner tucked away from the eyes of others and begin to sketch the everyday goings on of people. It is said that Leonardo Di Vinci would walk around the streets of Italy drawing the way different people would walk and act in everyday life, in a way, I resembled him... but who was I kidding, I was never that much of a genius.

I had an excellent view of the football pitch where they would run around in the mud chasing a even dirtier ball around the grass. I thought I was concealed, hiding under a large willow tree sketch book in hand.

I started to draw, watching the legs as they ran, the shorts and how messy they got in so little time. I would always forget what time it was and when the hour was over, I would always jump out of my skin, not realising how long I’d been focusing.

I felt something itch against my ankle. I was so focused and uninterested probably guessing it was grass rubbing against me I ignored it.

A few moments past when my paper turned dark, a shadow cast over the top, pulling my eyes away from the book I looked up to see a large, beefy young lad towering over me. I recognised his face walking around from lesson to lesson but I couldn’t put a name to him.

“Hello?” I asked a little too demandingly cupping my hand over my forehead as the sun was blinding.

“We asked you to throw the ball over three times.”

“What do you -“I felt where the itch of my ankle was. There, gazing against my leg was the muddy football.

“Sorry, I was miles away.”

“Yeah, I guessed...”

I reached forward to grab the ball. “Here, I’ll get it - “

“Humph. Doesn’t matter now.” The lad bent down and took the ball from the grass, slightly touching my ankle.

He ran off in the direction of the match and I was left deflated.

Maths. The lesson I dreaded as I was more a creative person. Either way, I got on with the task of the day until I felt a tap behind me that made me spin around.

“What?” I whispered, grinding my teeth together.

“You’re such a loser.” One of the boys who thought he was more manly than he was replied.

“And? What’s new?”

“More than usual, my brother told me you didn’t even notice a football that came your way? You really are that oblivious, aren’t you?”

I knew one of the boys in my classes had brothers who played football at lunch but I didn’t know who, to be honest, telling me ‘I was obvious’ or away with the fairies wasn’t much of an insult as it was the truth.

“I don’t care.” I turned back in my seat and continued pressing numbers into the calculator.

The next day, the boy came up to me in the crowded hallway.

“I think you’re obsessed with me.” I joked.

“Catch this!” There was no warning. A tennis ball flew into the air and hit me on the head causing me to fall.

The entire crowd of students stopped in shock, while one of the teachers scooped me from the floor and took me to the nurse’s room. I caught a glimpse of him smirking as I left.

He made me so irately angry and I know it shouldn’t have gotten to me like it did. The slimy face as I left him was ingrained inside my brain.

The nurse checked me out. No wounds or head injuries but they told me to sit in the office for a few more hours during that time I did what I was best at, drawing, but this time I began rapidly sketching the smirky lad, his features burnt inside me.

I drew a large ball, like that of Indiana Jones chasing after him, with a cartoon version of myself in the distance crying

“CATCH!”

I laughed to myself closing the book up and took a moment to rest, right until the nurse burst in sweating and shaking. A bed used in emergency situations lay an unconscious boy. That boy.

An older boy, that looked like those who played football joined him in the room.

“I - I don’t understand? How could he end up like this if he was in English class?”

“He flew from his chair, nobody was behind.”

The lad’s eyes started flickering as he turned to face me who was perched on a high stool in the corner of you room.

“You told me to catch.”