Jen-Ben | March Madness!!!! Day 504: 5 Minute Freewrite: Friday - Prompt: jittery + Saturday: Elder

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When life gives you elderberries, make wine.

The lesson of the elder tree is a difficult one.

Not only are you asked to accept the inevitability of your own death, but you are also asked the far more personal and potentially embarrassing question - how might you be fated to be remembered, both for good and ill, were you to die today? source: The Wisdom of Trees by Jane Gifford

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NOTE: I've been sick with Influenza A for the past four days. Yes, I had the flu shot last fall. Yes, I went on tamiflu (at ten dollars a pill!) within 48 hours of sudden onset of symptoms. No, I'm not better. Worst headache of my life, and Im gulping ibuprofren hoping I don't get rushed to E.R. after an overdose of that now-worthless pain killer.

Jen-Ben at Large - March Madness!!!! Day 7 - Prompt: snapshot now ends like this:

I couldn't read Shakespeare on the best of days, much less now, with Jen-Ben missing and Lexi-Bitch preying on Ethan. Leading him on and sure to dump him. If he fell for that, I’d have no sympathy for him.

Empathy was never my strong point, except with animals, but Ty Christy was someone I would go out on a limb for. His eyes and his cool demeanor made him seem old and wise and totally cool, but everyone was calling him Kermit, as in The Frog, and worse things, and not just behind his back. Nothing rattled his cage, not even “mutant” or “mulatto.” Still, I’d be in detention for life if I didn’t find a way to shut them all up--nonviolently.

How many Africans had freckles? That ginger afro was something else. He must be proud of it or he’d get a buzz cut, anything to make it less obvious. I had my laptop with me so I looked it up on the internet and found #AfricanGingers. it was a recessive gene, not a mutation. The MC1R1 gene.

source: Photographer Michelle Marshall | Instagram

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I walked into the hallway, checking out the posters Ethan had hung. Taped to the band room door, a snapshot of Jenny in Show Choir holding a trophy, standing between Ethan with his trombone and me with my violin. Huge words over our heads: FIND JEN-BEN!

My whole body went stone-cold. I had kept thoughts of Jenny at bay, somehow, or at a safe distance from my waking mind, but seeing her between Ethan and me, smiling that big smile, took me back to her senior year of high school, before the party that landed her in jail and blew her scholarship and made her a felon. One night, one mistake, and her life was ruined. She’d have been in less trouble if she’d just gotten pregnant instead.

Under the snapshot Ethan typed, “Can I ask all our friends to share this post?” He included a Facebook link. "Jenny Bennett needs to be found. Please everyone just take a minute to share. Somebody has to know something!"

Oh Ethan.

The poster blurred and it was like trying to see through a windshield in a downpour. Even if Jenny was alive and well right now, she was gone, and I didn’t know where she was or when I’d ever see her again, and I hated that.

I had to duck into the restroom and go through a few yards of toilet paper before I pulled myself together and headed off to get Mindy from her show choir practice.

Somebody had to know something, but nobody knew anything when the police asked questions.

I headed down the long, empty hallway.

One way or another, I will find you, Jenny.

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March Madness!!!! Day 504: 5 Minute Freewrite: Friday - Prompt: jittery

Ethan nudged me in the morning

with his usual “Hey, Ben-Butt,” and Lexi swooped in like a hawk spotting a rabbit in the pasture.

“Eeeeeeethan,” she crooned, batting her lashes at him.

I wanted to punch her face in.

He gave her a nod and looked back at me. As it should be. Ethan was too smart to fall for a perfect, perky little blonde mean girl whose favorite sport was finding ways to humiliate lesser mortals. Of course, she was the lesser mortal, but she was too stupid and shallow to realize that character, wit, and intelligence are the greater virtues.

"So. Lexi." Ethan sounded somewhat less awkward today. "Whassup?"

All my planning, plotting, and patience were jeopardized. Here was the thing about Ethan. The ideal guy is one that I find attractive while everyone else thinks he’s just a nerd. Suddenly Ethan Frasier the science geek was filling out with sinew and muscle and looking hot on the basketball court. What if Lexi wasn’t faking this? Ethan was hot. It was no longer a secret I held near and dear to my own guarded heart.

And he liked me. That was his well-guarded secret. He was awkward, and he liked weird science fiction movies that girls never liked unless they were as weird as me. Ethan would never let it slip that he secretly had a thing for me. In fact he over-compensated, teasing me mercilessly, but sometimes assuring me he did so only because he knew I could “take it like a man,” which to me was high tribute indeed.

After all those long bus rides to show choir competitions, freshman year, and all those science club projects, we had formed an alliance. A camaraderie that transcended whatever Lexi had with the guys. For her, Ethan would be just another conquest.

I had turned my back on him to fetch books from my locker. Iooked up again and found him gazing into Lexi’s baby-blue eyes.

Idiot. Oh Ethan. You idiot.

All this time, I’d been holding up all right. My sister vanished and not of her own free will, and this never ended well. Look at all the Missing Persons cases, and most of the missing were found dead, if their bodies were found at all. Yeah. “Not Knowing” if someone was live or dead was worse than “Knowing,” everyone agreed. Here I was, one foot in front of the other, going to school, carrying on, trusting that the police were going to find my sister or my sister was in God’s hands, but there was nothing I could do except take each day as it comes and hope for the best or trust that whatever happened was meant to be.

Until Lexi had to pull this shit.

It was the tipping point, the thing that upset my carefully orchestrated composure. I had no patience or forbearance left for anything else. Least of all for Ethan warming up to Lexi’s attentions.

Worse, all the Facebook comments were making me jittery, like too much coffee on an empty stomach, weirdly accompanied by a lead weight in my gut. I didn't trust that Mom, Dad, the police, or some invisible God was in charge, moving heaven and earth to find Jenny. I just saw posters and words that reminded me of everything I was trying not to think about. Passing the Spanish teacher's room, this one hit me in the face:

MISSING: Jenny “Jen-Ben” Bennett, 19.

Please continue to share her name and pictures. She has a family and friends that just need her to come home! If there is anyone out there with any information about her disappearance PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE come forward and contact the Sheriff's Department.

Then there was this on Facebook, which I sneaked a peek at between classes:

UPDATE: $25,000 CASH reward

for anyone who can personally lead us to Jenny.

I couldn’t wait to get home and ask Dad about that one. The day couldn't get much worse, right? Wrong.

March Madness!!!! Day 9 Prompt: elder

"So, your sister had a death wish."

The words turned me into a statue. I was minding my own business, walking to the bus, when Alicia Angel's voice stopped me. Angel. What misnomer. The bus was in sight. The door was open. All I had to do was keep moving, one foo in front of the other. But Lexi threw me off my game and where was Ethan? Not here calling me Ben-Butt. Not here where I needed him.

Alicia tossed her long curly hair over her shoulder and narrowed her eyes, moving in for the kill. "She was into Tarot cards. I saw it on Instagram."

"Quit referring to Jenny in the past tense."

Popping her bubble gum at me, Alicia held her ground. "Herbal Tarot. I mean, Tarot alone wasn't weird enough. Here, I got a screen shot of last week just to see if it was for real, and I didn't even think of it again until, well, you know."

Her phone was in my face. I couldn't help but look.

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"So what," I said. "Like you never played with a Ouija board? There's a psychic on Main Street who sells palm readings and bogus fortunes. So what if Jenny looked at a deck of Tarot cards?"

"So, look at the quote she posted."

I looked.

The lesson of the elder is a difficult one. Not only are you asked to accept the inevitability of your own death, but you are also asked the far more personal and potentially embarrassing question - how might you be fated to be remembered, both for good and ill, were you to die today?

It was just a quote. A meme with a link to some book. "The Wisdom of Trees" by Jane Gifford.

"I guess she was worried about being remembered as that show-choir girl who blew her college scholarship by going to jail for smoking weed," Alicia said in a sweet voice, batting her lashes with fake innocence.

My fist shot out from my shoulder and landed on the left side of her jawline. The ol' left hook. She dropped her phone and staggered back, crashing into the lockers.

Worse yet, the bus door closed, and off went my ride home.

How was it possible that when I hauled off and hit someone, every teacher on staff was immediately surrounding me, but when a bully said shit to me, nobody saw or heard a thing?

"Kristy Bennett. In Mr. Cook's office. NOW." Like I needed portly old Ms. Schlager to shove me in the right direction.

Anger came to the rescue, blotting out the tears that had sprung to my eyes. I marched toward my punishment.

Afterward, I could not recall a single thing Mr. Cook said to me.

Nothing.

This was the first time I ever was aware of some kind of blackout, and I was a little concerned, but Mom would get a phone call and tell me whatever it was I was supposed to remember from this lecture.

I remember him blocking me at the door, laying a hand on my shoulder--God I wanted to punch him for that!--and giving me this fake look of concern.

Then I saw the new kid. Ty Christy.

He held me in his gaze for like a whole minute.

My parents were quiet, stoic people, but Ty was like those massive stone heads on Easter Island. His face was a mask but I saw a spark of perception in his eyes, a watchful, wary look as well, but always, a sense that he was calm and in control. Whenever anyone laughed at his Afro-Ginger-Freckle-Face, he just gave this little shrug, with a little twinkle in his eye, as if he knew he was awesome but was trying to look humble. It was brilliant.

"Wanna hear something weird?" I said.

He nodded.

"I cannot tell you a single word that man just said to me."

Ty cleared his throat and adopted a condescending down-his-nose frown at me. "We know you're under pressure," he said in an uncanny rendition of Mr. Cook, "what with Jenny missing, so we'll go a little easier on you this time, but third strike, and you're out."

He cracked a smile, and that set me off. I laughed like an idiot. We both laughed until tears streamed from my eyes.

My phone buzzed. I clicked on it. Mom: "Can't pick you up for another hour. I'll see if Mindy can do your chores."

What a day. I shook my head and managed not to scream.

"Sorry, I could read that from here," Ty said. "You need a ride home, I'm free."

"You don't know how far away I live."

"So, show me." He quirked a smile. "You can add riding around with the Afro-Ginger-Mutant to your list of things that can go wrong in one day."

"Well, if you put it that way...."

We walked side by side down the hallway.

It was too sappy to say it, or too soon, but riding with the Mutant was the first thing to go right all day.

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