This is an installment of Suzette Andujar’s weekly column “As I Was Saying.”
When some students decide to play hooky, they go all out. One kid told me that she went to the beach; another girl told me that she took a bus for two hours and went to New York City! I never, ever thought of playing hooky; however, I remember actually doing so in the ninth grade.
I recall feeling overwhelmed at the start of high school. There were rumors about hidden swimming pools and teenage boys were walking around with fully grown beards. It was quite an interesting environment. I needed a break and my best friend Maria agreed, so we decided to do something completely out of character… We were going to leave school early and have our own wild and crazy adventure.
Now this must be understood; Maria and I were straight A students and never did anything wrong. We had just went through the ordeal of middle school, where there were bullies and talent shows, and looked forward to a fresh start in high school. So, there was no reason to do anything crazy but when you’re 14, you’re not exactly thinking like a scientist. So the plan was set in motion.
In this high school, they let students leave the premises during lunch. That’s the time we chose to leave, and not come back. We justified it because we were only missing electives (Like, electives aren’t just as important!) and there were only two hours left in the school day. We met in the school parking lot, backpacks strapped on and started walking. Even though students were known to go home and come back, we still felt wrong for walking away and hid behind random trees in case truancy officers asked us any questions. We soon realized that we didn’t know what to do until we came up with the ultimate, craziest idea: we would hang out at my house.
Yep! That was our grand idea for playing hooky. But hey, my room was pretty cool. I think I mentioned before that I had a haunted attic in my closet. Who wouldn’t want to miss school to hang out with imaginary ghosts? When we got there, we admired my dozens of Leonardo DiCaprio posters. Well, it was mostly me admiring and Maria poking fun at me.
But my love for Leo was deep, however, so I decided that the next “wild” thing to do was turn on my copy of the movie “Titanic.” I fast forwarded to Leo’s parts and Maria laughed at me for running to the TV and giving it a big hug whenever he had a close-up.
Before we knew it, it was 3 p.m. and the school day was over. Maria went home and I was already there, so, no big traveling. We never played hooky again and kept that funny memory between us through our remaining years of high school. (Sorry if you’re finding out about this now mom and dad!) Besides, there was room for more “wild” and “crazy” adventures with my best friend.
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