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lxngdon
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•༶ kyneton high school ༶•
•༶♛ bradley lettinger ♛༶•
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Spring. It hailed the return of grass and flowers, the embellishment of the deciduous trees, and for the senior students of Kyneton High School, it meant that graduation was looming over the horizon. Well, it was two months away. But when one's graduation is consistently portrayed, throughout their entire school career, as one of the most important moments of a person's life, Bradley Lettinger had been conditioned to anticipate that day with a mixture of excitement and fear. He was excited to leave this small town and see what the rest of the world had to offer. But there was something bittersweet about that excitement, because he was also on the verge of leaving behind everything he had ever known.
When some of the previous year's seniors had returned to Kyneton High to give the current graduation class a pep talk on exams, Bradley had been able to catch up with some of his older ex-football teammates. It was there that Bradley had learned of the coming-of-age tradition that the class of 1984 wished to leave in their wake. He had already presented the idea to his sort-of girlfriend, Nicole, but now, he was trying to convince Nicole's friend, Joanna, to come along too. He did not want Nicole to be bored, and if he was being completely honest, he would feel safer in the haunted mansion on the outskirts of town with a larger group of people.
"Oh, come on, it will be fun, I promise," he pleaded with Joanna. The three were seated in the back of the cafeteria, with the large glass windows behind them. Outside, the sun was baking the dirt that peeked through the grass on the quad. The world was still recovering from winter, and it was chilly as a result. But there was something about the Nebraskan countryside that seemed like home to Bradley -- he would miss it when he left for college.
Joanna quirked an eyebrow in disbelief. "Really? Because you're making it sound as horrible as you can."
"Hey, I am not! It's not actually haunted, Joanna, that's just a myth. The most there'll be is some spiders or dust or something like that."
"First of all," said Joanna indignantly, "spiders and dust aren't exactly positive things in my mind either. But regardless of that, I just don't know why you'd want to spend a night in a haunted house."
ﾟ*♡ joanna bradshaw ♡*ﾟ
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Joanna was pretty sure that every single senior in the class of 1985 was looking forward to graduation, but she was certain that no other student was as desperate to leave this town as she was. To Joanna, graduation did not only mean closing a chapter of her life and moving onto the bigger and better things the world had to offer her, but it was also an opportunity for her to finally escape the hellish torture chamber that was her parents' house. Joanna was working hard to cement the best grades she could possibly acquire, in order to increase her chances of receiving a scholarship for college. She had been saving every penny she could scrape for years, but a scholarship would help her indefinitely in her quest to settle somewhere else.
But the prospect of leaving her parents in a few months was not enough to shake the years of conditioning that had trained her to be on her best behaviour. Truly, she could not understand why Bradley wanted to spend the night in that cursed old mansion. She had heard the rumours and the folk tales about it, just like everyone else who had spent more than twenty minutes in Kyneton. And that was exactly why she wanted to stay away. Her parents would crucify her if they even had an inkling that she had been anywhere near that house.
"Because it's a coming of age thing! It's meant to represent the closing chapter of our high school years, the putting away of childish fears -- or something like that." Joanna knew Bradley did not understand the true symbolism behind the proposed expedition -- he was a sweet boy, but symbolism was often lost on him. "I swear to you, nothing will happen, and you'll have fun."
Joanna shook her head stubbornly. She did not like breaking rules and she certainly did not like engaging in silly activities that would earn her a week of scrubbing the floors in exchange for only a few hours of mild fun. Bradley sighed, seeming truly disparaged that Joanna was not interested in his proposed idea. He turned to Nicole, puppy-dog eyes pleading. "Nic, can you please try to convince your friend to come? Seriously, she'll be missing out if she doesn't."
° 𐐪𐑂 ♡ april armytage ♡ 𐐪𐑂 °
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"Bradley from the football team is going to the mansion near the race track, because the seniors last year did. We should all go as well."
It was not uncommon for such a strange, seemingly random sentence to leave the mouth of April Armytage -- even when the previous topic of conversation had been the English final that was coming up in a few weeks. Honestly, April was such a strange person that she seldom surprised the people who knew her anymore. To experience random comments and seemingly mysterious actions was part of the territory that came with being her friend.
April often ate lunch on the edge of the football field. It was quiet out there during the break, and it allowed her to sit on her favourite log at the edge of the woods and to look up at the sky while she ate her food. Today, her lunch consisted of a container of diced watermelon and mango, drizzled in honey and sprinkled with crushed walnuts. But she was not eating at that moment -- instead, she was tiptoeing along the white line that marked the boundary of the football field, placing her feet with such precision, and swaying so beautifully to an imaginary tune, that she looked like a ballerina.
She was in the company of her friends, Michael and Jonathan, whom she cared for very dearly and whom she would love to experience the haunted house with. "I can bring marshmallows, we can toast them over a candle. I used to do that with my parents when we got them in the shipment up in Iceland."
April began to teeter, but she leaned forward and directed her body through a perfectly executed cartwheel that left her crimped ponytail covering her small face. She giggled and reached up to push her hair out of the way, and was greeted with the sight of her friends when she did so. "So when should I pick you up? I can borrow my dad's car."
CODING BY LXNGDON
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