Melinda’s Story
When Walter and I went to lunch Sunday afternoon, the dining hall was vacant. There was only one other student in the servery. His eyes lit up when he saw us.
“Hey. Company.” He cocked his head towards the main entrance. “Feel free to come sit with me.”
I glanced at Walter. When he shrugged, I followed our new friend to the senior section. He smiled at us, his deep voice with a thick Southern accent echoing slightly in the empty hall.
“Name’s James.”
I smiled. “Melinda.” Since Walter had already shoved an entire slice of toast into his mouth, I pointed to him. “That’s Walter. His table manners leave a lot to be desired.”
James laughed. “So, were y’all orphaned yesterday, too?”
I shook my head. “My parents came for the day, but they’re traveling this weekend. It was either stay here and be bored or go home and be bored. I chose here.”
James nodded. “Good choice. My parents are visiting a game preserve in Africa. I didn’t see the point in flying to Louisiana for the long weekend to stay home alone.” He nodded towards Walter. “You?”
Walter shrugged. “Parents came yesterday. Except, I managed to convince them to shadow my brother and not visit my teachers.”
James gave Walter a fist bump across the table. “Nice. How’d yuh manage that?”
Pat shook his head as he and Frank joined us. “Because they were busy following me around.”
James nodded. “Ah, the third formuh yuh mentioned in Latin.”
While Walter glared at his brother, I looked around. “Um, I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but I think we’re the only five students left on campus. Is anyone else worried about getting really bored really fast?”
James smiled, shaking his head with a sigh. “Third formuhs. After a coupla years, y’all’ll get used to it. Besdies, I happen tuh know there are more people on campus. Not many more, but more. Prob’ly just sleepin’ in. It is a Sunduh morning’. And no one had to get up for detention today.”
I shrugged. “I guess. But, since I’m not about to do any homework until at least tomorrow, and there’s no shuttle to the mall, I have no idea how I’m going to amuse myself.”
“Well, I’m heading out soon.” Frank took a bite of his egg.
Walter raised his eyebrows. “Really?”
“Yeah. We’re heading up to Boston for the weekend to tour colleges in the area.”
“We who?”
“My folks.”
Walter pointed at him with his fork. “Wait. They’re still here?”
“Yeah. I wanted to hang out with Pat last night, so my parents spent the night in the hotel.”
“You had the option of getting off campus for the night, and you chose to stay here and play that stupid game?”
Frank grinned. “Better than fighting my parents for the television in a hotel room.”
Walter shook his head as he shoved a spoonful of oatmeal into his mouth. I turned back to James.
“So, it sounds like you’ve stayed for breaks before. What do you do?”
“Watch television in the MAC. Or on my computer. Catch up on some homework. Just the reading fuh English and stuff. Not actual written work, o’ course. Mostly, though, I like tuh just sit ’n’ write.”
“Write? Like homework?”
“Nah. Plays. I wanna write screenplays, but fuh now, I work wit stage plays. We perform ’em durin’ the winnuh studen’ productions.”
“That’s pretty cool.”
James shrugged. “It’s a gorgeous day. I’m no’ sure we’re gonna have many more. I’m gonna get me some outside time. See y’all at dinner!”
“I better run, too.” Frank bussed his tray with James.
As the two of them headed to the dishroom, I turned to Walter. “So, what should we do this afternoon?”
I watched Walter exchange glances with his brother. They broke into grins as they responded in unison.
“Weddas!”
“Vexillum is NOT a word!” I narrowed my eyes as Pat placed the little squares on the table, adding to the vex I had proudly placed on my last turn.
Pat flashed me that famous smile of his. “It is too a word.”
Walter pursed his lips. “What does it mean?”
“It’s the flag that ancient Roman calvary carried.”
Walter shook his head. “That’s a standard.”
“It’s also called a vexillum. I’m in Latin IV. I know these things.”
I had no clue if they were correct, but I didn’t really care. I had a bigger concern. “Wait, so it’s a Latin word? I thought we only played English words.”
Pat gestured to the board. “Look it up. It’s in the dictionary. The English dictionary.”
I was ready to take his word for it. Why would he lie about a stupid word? But, Walter was pretty competitive. He searched for the word on his phone, passing it to me and making a face at his brother before writing the score. I glanced at the phone. Pat had been correct.
I returned the phone as Walter took his turn. After forming the word milk from the m in vexillum, he turned to me. “So, you never answered my question last night. How was your date?”
I shook my head. “I did answer you. I said you were there.”
“Not for all of it.”
“So, you missed like, five minutes at the beginning where I gave him a tour of the MAC and pointed out a bunch of buildings while we waited for the game to start. That’s about when you walked in.”
“And after you guys left? It’s your turn.” He gestured to the tray holding my letter tiles.
“Huh?” I baffled me how Walter—and Pat, for that matter—were able to have a conversation while playing this game. Maybe it was because their parents had invented it and they had been playing it most of their lives. Or maybe it was just because they had amazing vocabularies.
I, on the other hand, had just learned to play a few weeks ago and still needed to concentrate to make words. Forget about trying to find longer words to get a higher score. After we had each placed two words, I gave up trying to beat Walter and Pat. Their vocabularies were out of my league.
I stared at my tiles. If I used Walter’s k, I could make the work ink. Pat dangled the bag of tiles in front of my face after I placed the word.
I hoped I had taken long enough on my turn that Walter would stop interrogating me. But, as Pat studied his tiles, Walter smiled at me.
“Where’d you guys go after you left?”
Why did it even matter? I sighed. “You know I don’t actually have to tell you anything. Or I could just make something up.”
“No you can’t and yes you do. See, first of all—Don’t you know any shorter words?”
I glanced at the board. With a sly smile, Pat was placing the final letters on the word oxidize, using an x that had already been on the board.
Walter grumbled, pointing at the tiles with his pen as he calculated Pat’s score. He examined his tiles in silence.
Walter has a horrible poker face. I knew he had a good word as soon as the grin broke across his face. He added tiles around Pat’s z. “Grazes. I’m catching up.”
I wasn’t sure he really was. I glanced at the page where he was keeping score. Sure, he was ahead of me. But, he still had a ways to go to catch up to Pat.
I didn’t call him out on it, though. I glanced at my letters. I had nothing. The best I could do was use the s I had just gotten. I put it at the end of ink.
Walter immediately started badgering me again. “You do need to tell me, see, because Sarah’s not here and you need someone to talk to. And you can’t make something up because, well, you just can’t. It’s not you.”
I sighed. “Don’t you ever get sick of being right all the time?”
While we were talking, Pat quietly added two letters to the board, a q and a t, forming the words qi, qat, and te at the same time.
I pointed to the board. “That can’t be right!”
Walter narrowed his eyes at his brother. “I think you should lose points for qat. You use it literally every game.”
Pat sent me that famous smile. “It’s an awesome word because you don’t need a u. You’re just jealous because I use it before you do.”
I was confused. “What’s a quat?”
“It’s pronounced cat and it’s a type of evergreen tree in Africa and—I want to say Arabia, but you would have to look it up.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Cat? Really? Okay. What’s quee?”
Walter was eyeing the board with a frown. “I’m not sure. It looks familiar.” He turned to his brother, who shrugged.
“Look it up. There’s no rule saying I have to tell you what the word means.”
I used my dictionary app to look it up. “It’s pronounced chee and it basically means life force. Like, you’re messing up my qi. I’ve heard of it. I just always thought it was spelled with a C-H.”
Walter nodded. “Oh, okay. Yeah, I can see that. And te?”
Pat shrugged. “It’s the chemical symbol for—” He swore. “I can’t pronounce it.”
Walter grabbed his phone with a frown. I shook my head at Pat. “Abbreviations don’t count.”
“They do if they’re in the dictionary and don’t require punctuation. Like tv or md.”
Walter shoved the phone in my face as he calculated Pat’s score. Te was the symbol for tellurium, not that I knew what that was.
Pat’s seven points had just greatly increased his lead, so Walter studied the table silently before taking his turn. Again, he broke into that huge grin and I knew he was going to earn a bunch of points.
He placed a t between the o in oxidize and the e in vexillum. I could see Pat ready to object, but Walter wasn’t done. He put an s at the top of his word and an m at the bottom, forming stem, to, and mi.
I sighed. The best I could come up with was imp off the i in milk. I shook my head as I placed my letters. “I will never be able to do that. Make more than one word at a time.”
Pat shrugged. “It comes from practice.”
Walter looked at me. “Are you ever going to answer my question?”
I sent him a quizzical look. “I forgot the question.”
Pat rearranged some tiles on his tray. “He wants to know if you kissed your boyfriend.”
Walter’s neck turned crimson. “I never said that!”
Pat looked at his brother. “No, but it’s what you were trying to ask without asking it.” He turned to me. “So, can you just answer him so he’ll stop bugging you?”
While the boys played with their tiles, I considered my answer. If it were just me and Walter, I probably wouldn’t have been so shy. But, he was asking me a very personal question and we weren’t alone.
I was playing this weird vocabulary game with a movie star I hardly knew. But, there was something about Pat. I was as comfortable around him as I was around Larry.
As Pat began placing letters on the table, I sighed. “Yes, he kissed me.”
Walter was examining his tiles studiously. “And?”
“And what?”
Pat wiggled his eyebrows in my direction. “How was it?”
“I’m not sure I’m comfortable sharing this information with you two.”
“Think of it this way. Would you like it if he did it again?”
Thinking about last night’s goodbye kiss, I couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah. I don’t think I’d object.”
“There you go!”
I glanced at Walter. Was he responding me me or his brother? With a wicked grin, he removed all the tiles from his tray, placing them under the r in grazes. “Rambling. Eight letters. Plus ate. That’s three more. Plus ten points for using all my tiles. That should . . .” Walter paused as he calculated the score. “Yup. I’m winning!”
Pat snatched the score paper. “By two points! I can easily catch up.”
I just shook my head, placing my word on the board. If Walter was going to interrogate me about my boyfriend, I could ask him the question I wanted to ask last night but thought was inappropriate in front of Eliot.
“So, how’re things with Ava? It sounded like you’ve been avoiding her lately.”
Walter sighed, keeping his eyes on his tray. “Okay. She was annoyed I didn’t go out with her family Friday night. She sent me some angry texts during study hours. I didn’t even see them until after break. I made the mistake of telling her because I was studying with you.”
Pat and I both winced. “Ouch.”
“She wanted to know why I didn’t invite her to study with me.”
I smiled. “Did you tell her your parents were chaperoning?”
“Almost. But, I realized she’d be upset I introduced you to them and not her. I’m not stupid. She tried to corner me after math. Introduce me to her parents. I told her I had to get to English. She didn’t seem happy. That was the last I saw her. She texted me after soccer, but I was still at my game. By the time I finished getting changed, she had left campus. So, maybe I took an extra long shower, but I swear I was avoiding my parents, not her.”
Pat pointed at him. “Mom and Dad said they’re gonna kidnap you. They’re annoyed you avoided them all weekend. It’s your turn, by the way. Oh, and they like you.” He nodded in my direction as he flashed me his famous smile.
After the game, I joined the boys for dinner in the dining hall. We ate with a few of the other students who had remained on campus. There were a lot more people on campus than I thought this morning, but it still wasn’t a lot.
By the end of the meal, I could no longer remember the names of anyone at the table. But, none of them were third formers. And Pat seemed to know all of them.
I asked him about it as we headed to the MAC to find a movie. “How is it you seem to know everyone on campus?”
Walter sent me an incredulous look. “Um, hello? Famous movie star?”
I rolled my eyes. “No, that’s how everyone knows him, dummy. But, he knows everyone by name.”
Pat gave a small laugh. “Well, I wouldn’t say that. But, I do know a lot of people. A lot of my classes have mixed forms, so I meet a lot of people that way. I’ve also played a different sport every term. I don’t always remember everyone by name, but I remember faces well. It helps in show business to remember people. Not, like, other actors. But, you know, crew and stuff.”
I shook my head mournfully. “I can’t even remember the names of all the people in my math class.”
Pat winked at me. “You will. By the end of the year, you’ll know most of your form. Probably some upper formers, too. You already know me.”
I tried not to roll my eyes as he held open the door.
Melinda’s Journal
Friday, October 20
(Author note: I am not sure what this journal entry should be about. Any suggestions? Leave a comment below.)
Pat’s Story
Sunday morning, Frank and I slept in, heading to the dining hall around lunchtime. I was surprised to see Walter and Melinda sitting in the senior section with James from my Latin class, although they were the only students in the entire room. We grabbed some food and joined them in time to hear James ask, in his thick Southern accent, why Walter was still on campus.
Walter shrugged. “Parents came yesterday. Except, I managed to convince them to shadow my brother and not visit my teachers.”
James showed his pride with a fist bump. “Nice. How’d yuh manage that?”
I shook my head as I placed my tray between James and Melinda. “Because they were busy following me around.”
James nodded. “Ah, the third formuh yuh mentioned in Latin.”
Walter glared at me. It wasn’t my fault he didn’t want anyone to know he was my brother. If he was going to sit with my friends and classmates, I wasn’t going to pretend I didn’t know him.
Melinda eased the tension by changing the subject. “I think we’re the only five students left on campus.” She sounded so timid, I found it absolutely adorable. “Is anyone else worried about getting really bored really fast?”
James explained how most people were probably sleeping in, but I could tell Melinda was unconvinced. Frank told us about his plans to travel to Boston with his parents and James told Melinda about how he was planning to work on his play for the winter student productions. As they left, Melinda asked Walter what they should do today. He turned to me and I knew what he was thinking. We said it in unison.
“Weddas!”
My family loves board games so much that my parents invented their own game before I was born. Using resin letter tiles from one game and tile trays from other, Weddas involves making words in a type of crossword puzzle on the table. It was one of my favorite games.
Walter loved it, too, and had taught it to his friend last month. Although Melinda was still learning, it was fun to have her join us.
As Walter placed some letters on the table, he nodded towards his friend. “So, you never answered my question last night. How as your date?”
I stared at the board, planning my next word as Walter teased his friend.
“I did answer you. I said you were there.”
“Not for all of it.”
“So, you missed like five minutes at the beginning, where I gave him a tour of the MAC and pointed out a bunch of buildings while we waited for the game to start. That’s about when you walked in.”
“And after you guys left?” Walter’s voice was almost sing-songy. “It’s your turn.”
“Huh?”
Her bafflement was adorable. She was silent as she studied the board and placed a few letter tiles. She had only been making three- and four-letter words for most of the game. I wasn’t sure if it was because it was still new to her or if her vocabulary was really as abysmal as Walter had implied. Either way, I was enjoying playing with her. I smiled as I dangled the velvet bag in front of her and she replaced the tiles in her tray.
I looked back at my tray. I had forgotten the move I wanted to make. I blamed Walter’s persistence.
He was still at it. “Where’d you guys go after you left?”
Oxidize, I remembered as Melinda again tried to change the subject. “You know I don’t actually have to tell you anything. Or I could just make something up.”
“No, you can’t, and yes you do. See, first of all—Don’t you know any shorter words?”
Walter begrudgingly wrote down my score and took his turn. He waited until Melinda had put down her own tiles before continuing to badger her, explaining why she had to tell him about her date. Although she was cute, he was starting to annoy me.
I wordlessly placed a q and t on the board to simultaneously form the words qi, qat, and te.
Melinda pointed at the board. “That can’t be right!”
Walter glared at me. “I think you should lose points for qat. You use it literally every game.”
He was right, but only because no one else ever thought to use it first. “It’s an awesome word because you don’t need u. You’re just jealous because I use it before you do.”
“What’s a quat?” Melinda asked.
I smiled at her. “It’s pronounced cat, and it’s a type of evergreen tree in Africa and—I want to say Arabia, but you would have to look it up.”
Melinda seemed unconvinced. “Cat? Really? Okay. What’s quee?”
I couldn’t stop smiling at this girl. I wanted to tell her the answer, but Walter was trying to figure it out, too. “I’m not sure. It looks familiar.”
He looked at me. I couldn’t make it that easy for him. “Look it up. There’s no rule saying I have to tell you what the word means.”
Melinda picked up her phone with a slight scowl. I hadn’t intended to offend her. I felt a little guilty, but she explained the word to Walter. “It’s pronounced chee and basically means life force. Like, you’re messing up my qi. I’ve heard of it. I just always thought it was spelled with a C-H.”
My brother nodded. “Oh, okay. I can see that. And te?”
I shrugged. “It’s the chemical symbol for—” I swore. I couldn’t remember. I could even picture it on the periodic table I had memorized in chemistry last year. “I can’t pronounce it.”
While Walter looked it up, Melinda frowned at me. “Abbreviations don’t count.”
“They do if they’re in the dictionary and don’t require punctuation. Like tv or md.”
I guess Walter hadn’t taught her that rule yet. He passed the phone to Melinda and wrote my score. A few turns later, he resumed his interrogation of his friend.
“Are you ever going to answer my question?”
“I forgot the question.”
This was getting out of hand. I stared at my tiles, trying to keep my voice as uninterested as possible. “He wants to know if you kissed your boyfriend.” I wanted to know, too, but I didn’t know her well enough to ask myself.
Walter turned red. “I never said that!”
I looked at him. “No, but it’s what you were trying to ask without asking it.” I faced Melinda. “So, can you just answer him so he’ll stop bugging you?” I looked back at my tiles, trying to determine my next move while Melinda seemed to be considering her answer.
“Yes, he kissed me,” she told us as I placed my letters.
“And?” asked Walter.
“And what?”
“How was it?” I smiled. I was dying to know about this mysterious feeling everyone seemed to have.
“I’m not sure I’m comfortable sharing this information with you two.”
“Think of it this way. Would you like it if he did it again?”
Melinda smiled. Yeah, she had felt something. I was sure of it. I just wish I knew what it was. “Yeah, I don’t think I’d object.”
As Walter used all the tiles in his rack to place his next word, scoring enough points to beat me and end this conversation, I began to wonder if I would ever find someone with whom I could experience this mysterious.
Melinda got her revenge on Walter by asking about his girlfriend. It sounded to me like he was avoiding her. I may not have been an expert, but I wasn’t sure that sounded like a very healthy relationship.
The three of us hung out all day, and we got along so well that it felt more like I was hanging out with my brother and sister at home than my brother and his friend at school. After dinner, Melinda asked me an adorable question as we were heading to the MAC to watch another movie.
“How is it you seem to know everyone on campus?”
Walter raised his eyebrows. “Um, hello? Famous movie star?”
“No,” Melinda rolled her eyes in my direction. I think she was trying to tell me something, but I never understood eye rolls. I just thought girls did that to make themselves dizzy. “That’s how everyone knows him, dummy. But, he knows everyone by name.”
I smiled at her. “Well, I wouldn’t say that. But, I do know a lot of people. A lot of my classes have mixed forms, so I meet a lot of people that way. I’ve also played a different sport every term. I don’t always remember everyone by name, but I remember faces well. It helps in show business to remember people. Not, like, other actors. But, you know, crew and stuff.”
“I can’t even remember the names of all the people in my math class.”
“You will. By the end of the year, you’ll know most of your form. Probably some upper formers, too. You already know me.” I winked at her and she grinned.
Hartfield Chronicles 