Parker (standard:non fiction, 1612 words)
Author: SciFi Fan	Added: Jun 14 2006	Views/Reads: 3051/2054	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
a revised version of the original--Open fly, Canadian Accent, and Animal Crackers

Fifteen-year-olds generally don't speak words of wisdom.  No, people
only expect such things to come from wrinkled old women in rocking 
chairs or talking trees.  As a sophomore in high school, little moral 
value is expected of me.  However, I'm certain of one piece of wisdom, 
though I'm not a wrinkled old lady or a talking tree. 

I got my first life lesson from a boy named Parker.  He was teased and
made fun of at his previous lunch table.  I remember when he came up to 
me on the second day of public speaking class and asked if he could sit 
at my lunch table to escape the trauma.  He seemed harmless enough.  I 
was only human.  I told him yes.  After all, there was room for him at 
my table, and I felt bad for him. 

That was the start.  Show Parker a little attention, and he sticks to
you like glue.  I suppose it was because no girl had ever actually 
spoken to him without telling him to back off, bucko.  I quickly found 
that he was also in my Spanish class during the block after public 
speaking.  I was going to be with Parker for lunch, Spanish, and public 
speaking.  That was more than half the day.  Great. 

It started out okay.  At lunch, my friends and I were faced with a few
odd comments from Parker.  One day I happened to bring a muffin to 
lunch.  When he saw it, he screamed, practically at the top of his 
lungs, “A muffin!”  It wasn't anything particularly annoying or bad.  
It was just a little odd how he said it, a little loud.  People two 
tables away from us were turning their heads to look at my muffin.  
That “Parker Moment” wasn't so terrible.  I've just never seen someone 
scream the word muffin before. 

Public speaking wasn't so bad at first either.  A few times I'd be
chatting with Tyler and turn around to find Parker's face two inches 
from mine.  Again, not so terrible, just a little weird.  More than 
once I was tempted to offer him a TicTac to get my point across. 
Sometimes when I talked to Tyler, Parker would sudden blurt out “Yeah!” 
from across the room in response to whatever I was saying.  I never 
said anything to him about moments like that, just turned and looked at 
him for a second with a freaked out expression on my face.  I hoped 
he'd get the message.  I didn't appreciate someone listening in on what 
I thought were private conversations, but I was doing my best not to be 
mean to a person who clearly lacked social skills. 

For a while, Parker picked up a Canadian accent.  Every time I'd have to
work with him in Spanish, he'd say, “Let's get started, eh?”  After 
lunch:  “We should take up the trash, eh?”  During public speaking:  “I 
sounded good up there, eh?”  This stage really got to me, for whatever 
reason.  Luckily, he dropped the Canadian accent when he started 
speaking French instead. 

Parker got worse once we made our first speeches in that class.  They
were informative speeches, and Parker had selected the topic of Pearl 
Harbor.  His speech was, well, in one word, passionate.  He practically 
screamed the events of Pearl Harbor to the somewhat scared class.  
Awkwardness at Parker's speech quickly turned laughter, though, when 
one girl observed that Parker's fly was open – flapping in the wind.  
The news spread infectiously around the room.  Soon the whole class was 
about to burst with laughter.  Poor Parker.    He did his whole first 
speech with his fly open.  He found out the reason for everyone's 
smirking faces not long after his speech was over.  He was scarred for 
life.  Ever since, he's checked on his fly at least six times in one 
block, not a very attractive habit. 

After that, he clung to anyone who showed him the least bit of kindness.
 He started following me around at the beginning of track practice.  
One day he grabbed me as I was headed into the trainer's room and asked 
if he could talk with me privately.  I complied, awkwardly, and he 
quietly told me about his secret crush.  It was a girl named Amber.  
She was a very nice girl, but one who had a deep-seated hatred toward 
Parker.  Apparently, she had been forced to sit next to him for an 
entire semester during her freshman year and had lost all patience with 
him.  Parker knew this full well, even told me about this problem 
during our little talk.  He asked me if I could teach him how to act 
like a person so that Amber might come to like him.  I uncomfortably 
told him that there was nothing I could really “teach” him. 

When I asked him why he wanted to go out with a girl who clearly hated


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