barbed wire and how it changed my life .. a research paper by savanna jones

The day was January 18, 2013. That day would go down in history as the best day of my life.
But for this story to make sense we need to first throw it back to the day before.

My January 17th started at 4:30 a.m. when I awoke for an early morning softball practice. I crawled into the car at 5 on the dot and picked up Miss Chantay from her home. We arrived at the school at 5:15, just like we were instructed to by the coach. There was a suspicious number of lights off in the school that made me feel like no other souls were there. We hopped out of the car and ran to the front doors as fast as our little legs could carry us. [Keep in mind that we are wearing shorts and t-shirts and the temperature was about -9 degrees]. We furiously yanked on all four of the doors, but to no avail, they were all locked tight. We ran back to the car and drove around to the side of the school and tried those doors effectively slipping on the ice and hitting myself in the eye with my bat. Good thing no one else was there to see it.

At exactly 5:23 28 cars showed up. I am not even joking. The entire baseball team and the entire softball team all showed up within a minute of each other. It was a little terrifying.

Flash it forward to 7:30 that same morning. I went into Birrell's class room to switch my reasearch paper topic. I was in the back talking to Woolsey trying to figure out what topic I wanted when Woolsey said, "Savanna! You should talk about barbed wire. It is so fascinating."

"....... uh ..."

"Birrell! Tell Savanna how great of a topic barbed wire is!"

"Well, my class can tell you that."

At this point Woolsey was looking for someone to call on to enlighten me about the wonders of barbed wire when my dear friend Mika started whispering, "Cooper, Cooper, Cooper, Cooper."

I was trying my best to play it cool while also silencing him by going, "Mika shhhhh, Mika shhhh."

Woolsey then called out, "Cooper! Tell us about barbed wire."

My heart stopped beating. And I think his might have to, because he looked really put on the spot.

He turned around and starting moving his hands around trying to emphasis the words he wasn't saying. Then when Woolsey said, "Go on ... "

He says, "Ask Nat, Nat knows."

The entire class then responded, "We know Nat knows." It was pretty adorable.

"We want to know what Cooper knows," Says Woolsey.

He then went on talking about barbed wire and its importance and I had a really hard time keeping it cool and not turning the color of a fire truck while I could feel Mika's eyes boring into the side of my head and I could see him red in the face, shaking with silent laughter.

After a lot of freaking out and crying a plan was hatched for me to talk to him.

Jump back to January 18, 2013. The time is 2:16. I was leaving physics and he was leaving his class. And before I knew it we were crossing paths and I reached out and touched his arm.

"Hey .. " I said.

"Hello," he replied smiling a little bit.

"So, you were in Birrell's early morning AP US class yesterday morning and you were the kid that was talking about barbed wire, ya?"

[in an embarrassed tone] "Ohhh .. yeah that was me .."

"You seemed to know a little bit on the subject so I was wondering if you could tell me if you feel that it would be possible to write a 6 page research paper on it."

"Oh for sure! You could totally do it! If I were you I would talk about the effects it had in the west, but then really talk about how it affected the way wars were fought."

"Hey, thank you so much!"

"I'm glad I could help!"

[in my head] "I love you."