Solstice - Of The Heart Read Online Free Page A

red
pen had been used.
    This guy
is a neat freak .
    I felt a bit weak and more
than a little nervous at prying into Aaron’s private things, but
somehow (give me a break here) I could not resist. What does a
gorgeous boy like him have to hide? I turned the pages of his
notebook. From his outlines I could tell he took school serious.
Everything was so organized. Tabs indicated his classes, English,
Math, Science, etc. Under one heading, I found Schedule.
    Here we go. He has to be in at least
one of my classes.
    The chart said no.
    Bummer.
    He had biology class seventh period;
my science class was first period. The wheels in my head turned. It
might be possible to get my history class switched with my science
class. Certainly after my breach with the contract, Mr.
Whittinghill, our counselor, would concur I could use a bit more
stimulus in the late afternoon. What better stimuli then to attend
class with the mysterious Aaron Delmon? I closed the note book and
put it back with a plan in mind.
    Only then did I notice the décor on
the interior walls of Aaron’s locker.
    As I cleaned the lockers there was no
doubt which ones belonged to the boys. For one, strange looking
growths seemed to thrive on male lockers whereas the girl
lockers—generally—smelled of perfume and were kept tidy. Nearly
every boy’s locker contained some kind of pinup of a girl, the more
skin (within school guidelines, of course) showing, the
better.
    Aaron’s locker didn’t include any
pinups of girls, which, in one way, came as a relief to me, knowing
he had not settled on a girlfriend and, another way, disturbing.
The question, is he gay? ran through the back of my head. It would
explain the neatness and why the derelicts shied away from messing
with his locker. But it wouldn’t explain his fascination with Mount
Shasta. He had wallpapered the interior of his locker with pictures
of the same mountain shadowing our high school.
    I could tell Aaron had spent a good
deal of time picking and choosing the pictures of Mount Shasta,
probably the same way the boys did in choosing their pin-up girls.
I saw pictures of Mount Shasta from all angles and in all seasons.
One had even been taken by a pilot flying a 747. (said it on the
picture) They were all pretty amazing pictures of what was
becoming, in my mind, a pretty remarkable piece of rock.
    A few of the pictures included cloud
formations draped over Shasta. One in particular stood out. Shasta,
as large as it is, in this image looked small in comparison to the
bank of cirrus clouds fanned out over the mountain. I leaned my
head into Aaron’s locker for a closer look and read the inscription
on the picture entitled Abraham’s Tree.
     
    Mount Shasta attracts a
large following of New Agers. Some of Shasta’s special clouds and
atmospheric phenomenon have helped convince believers of
supernatural essences that Mount Shasta is, indeed, one of Earth's
major power centers.
    Abraham is considered the
patriarch of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The appearance of
Abraham's Tree above Mount Shasta is, no doubt, seen as a sign of
Mount Shasta's sacredness to some people.
     
    The sound of the musical keys and
footsteps approaching down the main hall caused me to pull back
from Aaron’s locker. I closed it and the other two I had bypassed.
I turned back to spraying and wiping down the lockers.
    Bernard came into view. “Close it up.
We’re done.”
    I checked my watch. An hour had
elapsed.
    Bernard shoed me away from the locker
I pretended to be working on and closed it.
    “What about those,” I said acting as
though I really cared about a bunch of lockers being left open.
Come to think of it, one of them was mine, so...yes I did have
concern. Not that I had anything to hide, just that I didn’t like
peering eyes.
    And I should speak!
    “I’ll take care of it,” Bernard said
as he led me down the hall and opened the front door. “See you
Monday morning.”
    Sleet and rain fell as I walked home.
I pulled