Walt Darling and the Rollercoaster of Oops

the saga of smooching continues

< Introduction | The Almost First Kiss | The New Game | The Rollercoaster of Oops |

In addition to the danger of tossed coins leading to kind-of fights during the after lunch break, frequent actual fights vortexed the students in the hallways of my Junior High. Almost daily I witnessed curses and fists flying at each other until a teacher or principal could break through the human wall encircling the fighters and separate them, dispersing the disappointed crowd of brawl spectators. In the midst of this chaos, the advanced classes - full of over-achievers and parent pleasers - offered an oasis of calm.

In advanced math, two girls I had a crush on, Dawn and Jessie, sat behind me. They spoke in code. Arlington is home to the first Six Flags theme park, so these girls used the names of roller coasters to compare the boys they liked.

“Shock Wave” is kind of cute, plus he’s funny,” Dawn said, enthused.

“I don’t think “The Texas Giant” can add without a calculator, but I bet he’s a good kisser,” Jessie said, sighing.

“The Bobsled” is such a whore, but I like him. I’d let him touch me on the loop-de-loop.” Dawn said, giggling. 

Once, annoyed and jealous and distracted from my algebra, I turned around and snapped, “Can you please shut up about your dumb roller coasters, no one cares.” 

Wide-eyed and open mouthed, Dawn and Jessie drew back and gasped.

“Shock Wave isn’t funny anymore,” Dawn said, huffing.

“Yeah, I thought Shock Wave was cute, but I’ve changed my mind,” Jessie said, shaking her head.

I wrote out the lyrics to Nirvana’s All Apologies and slipped a note to them both, but Dawn and Jessie never whispered about Shock Wave again. 

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I’m writing each chapter of the Walt Darling saga to stand alone, meaning my hope is you don’t need to read them all or read them in order to enjoy any individual chapter. But, if you liked this, you might the previous entries in this series:

< Introduction | The Almost First Kiss | The New Game | The Rollercoaster of Oops | The Talk >