Learn to Fly

Chapter 5: Mean Girls and Monsters

The pic is Eric.

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Tuesday, November 27th.

Thanksgiving break came and went. As always, nothing eventful happened. We were planning to go up to my grandparents' house for dinner, but Mom's been sick the entire week. There's been a stomach bug going around at her job and she was unfortunate enough to catch it. Now I have to keep my fingers crossed that she doesn't pass the virus onto Dad and I. Since none of us had the time or energy to cook a proper meal, the three of us spent Thanksgiving at our house with pizza, root beer and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade to keep me and Dad company while Mom rested in bed. I was secretly relieved that we had to stay home. I know I would've been bombarded with a million questions by my aunts, uncles and older cousins the moment they saw me, and I know I would've been unable to answer any of them in my current state.

Being back to school after having almost an entire week off is rough. Mr. Lewis and Mrs. Lucas both gave us essays to write over the break, and unsurprisingly, almost nobody bothered to do them. Mr. Lewis's assignment was a research paper about Ancient Egypt. I started it during class the day it was assigned and actually managed to get about halfway done with it over break, then I rushed the rest of it the day before we came back. I put effort into the majority of it, I'm not too worried about getting a bad grade on it. Mrs. Lucas, on the other hand, made us write a literary analysis on our current assigned reading, Lord of the Flies. I completely forgot about that assignment, and also rushed it the day before we went back. Unlike the history assignment, I put very little effort into this paper. I won't be surprised if I fail that one.

It should be illegal for teachers to give us work to do over holiday breaks. I wonder which person at the school board thought it would be a good idea, when they should know damn well that we won't have any motivation to do it.

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Monday, December 3rd.

We're almost finished with Lord of the Flies. It's been pretty boring. The stuff we read last year was so much more interesting. Of Mice and Men, The Catcher in the Rye, The Outsiders (I actually bought my own copy of that one because of how much I liked it), those were all great books. We're supposed to be reading To Kill a Mockingbird next, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it'll be a bit more interesting.

Mrs. Lucas has been fixated on the symbolism of the book lately. Our current assignment is to try and find out what the main characters and certain items symbolize. Is there really a point in trying to analyze it? I'm not a literature nerd or anything, but I like reading. If I like a book enough, maybe I'd be interested in trying to find some hidden meanings in it. But I've flipped through Lord of the Flies several times and there certainly aren't any secrets in the words. None that I can see anyway.

We only have a few minutes left of class, and Mrs. Lucas is rambling to an uninterested audience of sleep-deprived sophomores. The room is completely silent. A locker slams shut somewhere down the hall.

"Now, I asked you all to find the symbolic value of our protagonists. Who would like to share what they came up with?" Mrs. Lucas questions. No response at first.

Riley groans loudly. "Who cares what they symbolize? How could you possibly know what the guy meant to say? For all I care, you could be making all of this up. I mean, is there anyone that really thinks this guy just decided to sit down one day and stick some hidden meanings onto paper? It's just a dumb story."

"Oh, lighten up. This is Lord of the Flies, it's famous for its symbolism. William Golding did nothing by accident. Everything was intentional, he's a genius!"

Riley scoffs and rolls her eyes. "What, I'm not allowed to have an opinion? I'm just saying, it's not a good story, it's so boring. I think you're making all the symbolism stuff up, you're just trying to make this more difficult for us."