• Peppermint and cleaning solution, that’s what the councilor’s office of St. George’s Private Catholic High School smelled like. This and the attendance office were the only school offices Mary Grayson had ever had need to visit. She wondered if all the offices in the school carried this refreshing and subtly annoying scent. Maybe it wasn’t even this school, maybe it was all schools. While that seemed possible it was also highly unlikely. Not all schools then, maybe just the private or other religious schools. If so then do all Catholic schools smell of peppermint? What if each individual faith had its own particular brand of perfume and one could choose their faith based on the aroma they liked the best? Wouldn’t that be fun! She wondered which religion would smell like rosemary, her mother’s favorite flower. Mary’s life might be quiet different if her parents had instead been Protestant or even Muslim or –God forbid, perhaps quite literally- Scientologist. Mary shuddered a little at the thought and returned to her book.

    The orange-yellow light from the single ceiling lamp overhead was a little to low for comfortable reading light but Mary’s eyes were healthy and young, 15 and in her freshman year of high school, so she was able to manage. The subtle but distinctive scent of the counseling office gave her a slight headache and caused her allergies to act up but she ignored them. Her councilor, Mrs. Lark, had excused herself a few minutes before to take care of something that was wrong with the fax machine and apparently only she had the “magic touch” that could fix it as she had several times before. Mary waited patiently; she was in no particular hurry to get back to Shop class. All they had been doing was cleaning up sawdust and helping to oil some of the older machines before a TA had arrived with a small piece of yellow paper summoning Mary to the counseling office. She wasn’t surprised to be summoned, only that is was so soon, as she had put the request to see her counselor in just that morning. Mrs. Lark must not be to terrible busy today, or perhaps she simply liked Mary. Either way it suited the freshman girl just fine.

    Mary sniffled lightly as she turned the page. She was almost done, only three more pages to go. Her hand shook slightly with anticipation, her eyes roaming eagerly across the pages. She had bought the book a few days ago during one of her weekly or so trips to the book store. Being a quick reader she found herself in frequent need of new material. Mary read whenever there was time to do so, in between classes, during lunch, on the bus, before dinner, before bed, and of course, if she had gotten her homework done reasonably early, she would turn on the TV, set the volume down low, and read some more. On weekends a 500 hundred or so page novel, like the one she was reading right now, would be over and done with in mere hours.

    Dark gray eyes reached the bottom of the last page and stopped. Pale fingers gently closed the back cover over the novel. Slowly, Mary sat back in the worn out arm chair with its blue and yellow floral pattern and sighed, placing her book in her lap. She sat silently in her seat, staring ahead at the cluttered message board on the opposite wall, still and contemplative. Her gaze slowly slid across the room, landing on the half full, plastic trash bin sitting beside the computer desk. Mary raised the book in one hand, taking one last look, and then promptly tossed it into the trash from where she sat.

    “Twilight sucks…” Mary stated firmly.

    + + +


    The story Cheap Shot and the characters and events introduced within this short story are all copyright to username Pumkinn (reddawwn@hotmail.com) and may not be published, copied, distributed, or archieved without the author's prior written consent. Cheap Shot published 1/20/09 01:54am.

    The characters, places and situations described in these stories are fictional unless otherwise stated in the story headings.

    (C) Pumkinn