When I was going to school, the end of the year would send me daydreaming about the freedom of summer vacation coming up. I have to be honest, I was a mediocre student, only going to school and getting through the days because it was expected. I remember getting straight As once – in seventh grade when I was truly at my nerdiest, but even that didn’t help when it came to wanting to be away from what seemed like institutionalized hallways and rooms. I wanted to be gone from there, and I much preferred sitting at home and reading.
The thoughts of lazy summer days where I could sleep later, get up when I wanted, and then do what I wanted couldn’t come fast enough. While I contemplated not having to catch a bus, not struggling with math, not doing homework, it didn’t matter that I was still expected to help my mother with the usual chores. This meant hanging out the laundry, folding clothes, and ironing some things. I had to help clean off the table from our meals, and wipe the dishes she washed. Sometimes I cooked. There were other things I had to do too, but because school wasn’t part of it, my days seemed nothing but idyllic.
Memories of those carefree summers are easily conjured up. All I have to do is walk outside and spend a few minutes soaking up the sun and paying attention to my other senses. The cicadas with their topsy-turvy whirring up in the trees, the heaviness of the air (hello humidity), and the crisp scent of cut grass give the sense of an easier, more relaxed time of year. I recollect the creak of a rope swing, water splashing, and laughter as my brother and I dropped neatly into a creek. It was a common evening pastime to sit on the back porch steps eating watermelon and spitting seeds as far as we could, a contest of sorts.
For Sonny Creech and her brothers, getting out of school for the summer means similar experiences, a time when they can relinquish the strictness of a classroom, and settle into a more relaxed routine. Meanwhile, the heat and humidity won’t be about trying to stay cool, it will soon create a different problem.
Chapter 10
School was over and we poured into the hallways, then out into the stifling air.
I like the contrast between pouring out into the hallways and expecting freedom, but breathing in stifling air instead. What a great description and foreshadowing of something about to happen!
Thank you so much Carol! Hope your writing is coming along. I’m headed to Jackson County where The Road to Bittersweet takes place, and plant to take LOTS of pictures of the Tuckasegee River and other key points in the story. 😉
It is a very good setup for the chapter. I still can’t quite get there because I live in Florida and went to public school long ago.
I was never in an air conditioned school until I got to college. I didn’t even notice it until my second year because first year college was three hundred people in an auditorium for every class. A/C doesn’t do much under such conditions.
By the time summer break was close, nothing sweltered quite like a classroom. It was a relief to run out into the stifling air.