Snow Days

Have you ever been the new kid at a new school with no friends or any familiar faces around? Welcome to my life. Hi, I’m Jason Lockheart, but my family and friends that I used to have called me Jay. I’m fourteen and a freshman. As if being a completely new freshman wasn’t bad enough; it’s also at this boarding school far away from home. My parents put me in it to be completely prepared for college. So in other words I have been left for dead with no help. What a life. What I didn’t realize at the time is that it would drastically get better.
I go to Rauchester High. It’s a boarding high school. The only way it’s similar to college is that you have to live in a dorm. That’s it. Though the school has one thing in particular that sets it apart from any other school: The dorms are right by ski and snowboard resort, and all students have a 24/7 pass to use it. I know, it’s pretty amazing, especially if you take the high school part out of it, but of course you can’t. Well the school isn’t all bad. Maybe I can say that because I got so lucky on the first day of school. Instead of me awkwardly being a party of one for the whole day I met a guy.

Yeah, I met this guy named Josh. You know how, when you first meet someone, you always notice at least one thing? You usually notice their eyes, their smile, their hair, or, for some people, a person’s ears, even though that’s pretty ridiculous. Well, the first thing I had noticed about Josh was his height. He was hitting nearly six foot, five inches. He’s really cool and it seems like everyone, including me, likes him!
Josh also came with a little bit of a perk on my behalf. He introduced me to what first seemed to be a short term friendship but turned into one of the best friendships I would ever have. Josh introduced me to Tess. I don’t want to be all cliché or anything but, Tess was an angel. Tess was about five feet, six inches and had medium length jet black hair which was styled in a “puffy” kind of way. She and Josh made my first year at Rauchester a great one!
One of the things that made Rauchester even greater to me was the ski and snowboard resort. I had never thought I would be able to try snowboarding before. I always lived in parts of the world where skateboarding or surfing were the dominate sports. This was an opportunity for me! The fact that Tess and Josh were already great snowboarders and skiers helped sway me to trying the sports. At that moment I had no idea what was about to happen to me. My first day out on the slopes and I overhear a group of friends say some things about a course at the resort.
“Have you been on Eel’s Reef yet? I hear it made even James wipeout!”
After hearing this I was shocked. I didn’t know who this James was at the time but I just assumed he was a great snowboarder. I went to Tess and Josh and asked them what Shark’s Reef was.
“Have you ever felt a eel Jay?” asked Josh.
I replied with a hasty “No” and asked what he meant by that.
“Well, it’s slippery. You’ll honestly have a higher chance of finding grip on a newly waxed floor than on a eel’s skin,” replied Tess.
They immediately saw that I was thinking about making an attempt on the slope. They also knew that, no matter how much discouraging that they did, they couldn’t keep me from skiing on Eel’s Reef.
So I tried it.
The next thing I remembered was waking up to the sight of the hospital ceiling. I begged Josh and Tess to tell me what exactly happened. As soon as I was cleared from the hospital, Josh and Tess took me to a booth near the end of Eel’s Reef.
Turns out that this booth is used to record traffic on the slope. We asked the booth operator for a recording of my wipeout and, well, he laughed hysterically. He then handed us the CD with the recording on it and said, “Have fun,” with a smile on his face.
Sure enough I know why he was laughing as hard as he did. At first I took the slope almost like a professional! But then the ice hit. Then I understood why they named the slope Eel’s Reef. The uneven ice mixed with poor carving on my part end with me barrel rolling down a half-mile slope.
Josh and Tess wouldn’t let me live that down at all. As a matter of fact they gave me a hard time about that first run on the slopes for about a year. Had I known that I would have been teased so much, I wouldn’t have been so stubborn?
Hardly a month after the accident on Eel’s Reef, Josh, Tess, and I were all at the resort’s food court. The day had been uneventful. The three of us had only walked around the resort and gone out to eat. Roughly an hour after we started eating, a mulatto girl, standing at about five feet, three inches, approached Josh as he was refilling our drinks at the fountains. They talked for what Tess and I felt like was an eternity. When Josh turned around with a smile reaching from one ear lobe to the other, Tess and I knew immediately what had happened. Josh had a date lined up for him.
Josh returned yelling, “Tess! Jay! Guys, listen! Okay, great news. That cute, light skinned girl, Angel is her name, just gave me her number!”
I remember thinking, “Okay, Josh. That’s cool and all but honestly, what’s the real news?” I ended up saying however, “That’s great Josh! I’m really proud of you!”
Josh then surprised both Tess and me. Josh had actually promised to go on a double date with Angel. What Josh failed to mention was that Tess and me were the other couple.
“You two have got to be kidding me. Jay, you’ve been here for a full semester. You and Tess have been inseparable since the day I introduced you two. Tess, you call me at three A.M. in the morning rambling about how ‘amazing’ Jay is. Jay, you know for sure that you can’t get your mind off of Tess. How can you two possibly be in each others’ presence by now without being in a relationship with each other?”
Tess was mad. I was surprised. Josh didn’t seem to know what he did wrong.
The next two weeks were different for us all. Tess ignored me. Josh and Angel were really “kicking off”. I spent all the time that I weren’t using for school, sleeping or eating, on the slopes.
At the close of the third week however, what I thought was the unexpected happened. Tess and I ended up together. I can still say now that I did not expect that to happen. I know now that I’m still shocked that we’re together.
Josh and Angel took it slow for roughly half the year. At the end of the second semester, Josh took Angel to the freshman-sophomore prom and later that night they made everything official.
My first freshman year at Rauchester high wasn’t at all like a typical year of high school. Most high school students wouldn’t suffer a near death experience like barrel rolling down a mountain. Most don’t get to spend time with their best friends like I did. But above all else, most don’t end the school year looking forward to the next.