I Wish It Would Rain (Intro)

Here in the little town of Tankerville, everyone knows everything about everybody. They all know who is seeing who, who does drugs, who drinks, who the goody-two shoes are, who works where, who your parents are. And if you really want to know, sometimes you can even find out what every house had for dinner. But that would be considered stalker-ish, so no one really does that.1

The town is so small that that when something big happens, no one really ever forgets what occurred. Like when I was in fourth grade, someone wrote “Nazi Power” on the town’s water tower. All of the old folks freaked, and thought that someone was trying to bring back the days of Hitler. The whole town was in chaos until it was revealed that a couple of seniors did it as the senior prank. 2

They ended up having detention for the rest of the year, along with having to clean up the water tower. Now the sheriff checks the water tower on his nightly runs to make sure that nothing else like that happens ever again.3

But that was a big thing. Everyone also remembers the time that Billy Jacobs fainted during our Christmas concert. Even the parents had been talking about that, and they still talk about it every time there is a concert, hoping that no one else will faint.4

Yet the one thing most of the town will never stop talking about is me. When we were in sixth grade taking the state tests, I farted and the whole room heard me. There were only like forty of us in the room, but that still didn’t keep it from getting to the whole town. It wasn’t my fault that I’m lactose intolerant and that morning for breakfast I had a cheese omelet. Now everywhere that I go, people joke about it and ask if I’ve taken my pills.5

As the years have passed, the jokes have only gotten worse. During class, some people would put whoopee cushions on my seat right before I sat down. Because of that, I didn’t even have a date for my Junior prom. Sure, I hung out with my friends, but every single one of them had dates, so I felt quite left out. Even when I tried to get people from other schools to come with me, they all declined because they didn’t want to be seen with me.6

It’s not that I’m ugly. I’m actually quite the opposite as I’ve been told. I stood about 5’ 7 feet tall, with light brown hair that comes down to my shoulders, baby blue eyes and a slim figure, I’m the envy of all the girls in the school, even though they’d never admit it. 7

This year is my Senior year, and all I want is for them to put that one time in their distant memories and move on. That was almost six years ago, and I deserve the right to live my life without humiliation. Only time will tell if that’ll happen or not. But if the way that this past county fair went, I don’t know if that’ll happen.8

I had my horse Smarty there, so I would be able to compete in the shows. Smarty is a bay gelding, standing at about 16.2 hands. For those of you who don’t know, one hand is equal to four inches. I was inside his stall cleaning when I heard it.9

“Geez, this barn smells. I never knew that horses stink so bad. Oh wait, never mind. It’s only Penelope and her farts,” snickered John Anderson.10

John Anderson was the wide receiver on the football team. That is, the football team that hasn’t won a single game in over five years, but for some reason the whole town supports them whole-heartedly. They are the town heroes, and everybody worships the ground they walk on.11

“What are you doing in the horse barns Anderson?” I asked as I came warily out of the stall to confront the group that was standing before me.12

“Don’t ask me,” John drawled as he held his hands up in defense. “Keith here was the one who suggested that we come down here,” he nudged Keith in the shoulders. “If it wasn’t for him, we would have stayed away from the stinky area.”13

With a raised eyebrow, I glanced over at Keith Bennett, the football team’s star quarterback. “Why did you want to come down here Keith?” I asked suspiciously.14

Blushing, Keith looked down at the ground and shuffled his feet. I was taken aback that Keith was blushing in my presence. “I just thought it would be cool to see all the animals, is all,” he shrugged, the blush now gone from his face as he looked at me.15

At that particular moment Smarty chose to stick his head over the stall door. He propped his ears forward and nickered at the group of guys standing in front of him, curious as to what was going on.16

“What’s his name?” Keith asked as he stepped forward to stroke Smarty’s head.17

“His name is Smarty,” I said, shocked that Keith was actually petting Smarty. Who knew that he had a soft side for animals?18

“The name suits him,” he smiled to himself. “Bays are my favorite colors. But not all of them end up looking great as Smarty here.”19

“How do you know that he’s a bay?” I questioned, trying to keep out the shock from my voice from him actually knowing something about horses.20

“My aunt is a big horse person. I spend about a couple weeks each summer helping out on her ranch,” he stopped petting Smarty to look at me. I blushed and looked away, getting a weird vibe from him.21

“Ahem,” coughed John. “I hate to interrupt, but we really need to get going. We have more important things to do,” he said sarcastically as he grabbed Keith by the shoulders and steered him away from me. “I can’t believe that you were actually talking to fart girl,” I heard him say as they got farther away. The other guys walking with them snickered at his remark.22

I glared at the back of John’s head as I heard his comment, but I stopped when Keith glanced over his shoulder. With a wink at me, he turned back around and kept walking. He said something back to John, but I couldn’t hear as he was too far away.23

“What was that all about?” asked Kathy Haskins, one of my friends that was in the same horse organization that I was in. “I don’t get the fart jokes.”24

Kathy went to a different school, so she didn’t know about my disaster in 6th grade. “It’s a long story about the fart thing that I really don’t want to get into right now,” I said as I casually flung my arm around her shoulder. “But I’m also wondering what that was about. I mean, Keith Bennett was actually nice to me,” I said in amazement.25

“That was Keith Bennett?” she asked looking down the aisle where Keith was at. I just nodded, and she let out a low whistle. I’ve told her about the guys at my school and how they all treat me. “That really is shocking,” she said to herself as she went back to her horse.26

Taking her cue, I went back to Smarty’s stall to finish the task I was working on before they stopped by. I just couldn’t get Keith’s blush or the wink he gave me as he walked away out of my mind. If this were any indication, this was going to be an interesting senior year.27