Morning all and happy Tuesday. I woke up with the firm belief that I slept through my alarm and was late. Oddly I believed I was late to school , high school that is. And I was also an hour earlier than my alarm usually goes off. Not sure what actual dream that might have been a part of but it was a strange way to wake up. Lets get into something more typical for my day with the morning prompt. Timers set and off we go.
I guess high school intruded. But something is going to happen to Larry and his intrepid band and only Dan will know where they went. Not sure what, but something.
Tuesday, February 4th: From here, it gets complicated.
“From here, it gets complicated,” Larry said. Dan tried not to roll his eyes.
‘Gets complicated?’ he thought. He resisted the urge to snort. The plan was the most complicated thing he had seen in a while. Larry came up with it of course. They were going to steal the victory flag from their rival school. They flew the flag when they won a game and because they so often won, they had also started marching out on the field with it at the beginning of every game.
And the flag wasn’t restricted to football any more. Every sport, every game, every match. This past week they even brought it to the debate team competition. Dan was on the team and he found its presence irritating. That and the fact that Larry more or less dragooned him into the mission was why he was participating at all.
However, Larry had also come up with the plan.
Dan thought Larry watched too many movies. Every step was overly complex. He seemed to think that the small group of annoyed students was the equivalent of a crack team of professional safe crackers.
‘Not that they keep the flag in a safe.’
“So what do you think?” Larry asked.
Dan thought the odds of them getting caught and failing were pretty high with the current plan.
“Just out of curiosity,” Dan asked before he could talk himself out of it. “Why don’t we just cross here where there are no lights to begin with instead of taking out their electrical system?”
He pointed to the map Larry had laid out. The others looked down. He could see relief on some faces and a scowl on Larry’s. He didn’t like to be questioned.
“Because we need to get here,” he pointed out. He tapped the map.
“But we only need to get there if we need to bypass the security alarm to shut the electrical down,” Danb said. “If we cross here, we don’t need to take on any of the security or electrical. We can stay out at the perimeter and then go into the locker room that way.”
“I like that,” Hank said. “My dad would kill me if we got arrested.”
“And I can’t risk my scholarship,” James added. Soon everyone was in for the simplified and midified plan. Larry scowled but then cleared his face and accepted the changes. They all agreed and Dan felt that they had a reasonable chance of pulling this off without ending up in jail. As they moved out Larry grabbed his arm. Dan looked at him.
“This is still my idea,” Larry said. He narrowed his eyes.
“Sure,” Dan said. “All yours. I had nothing to do with the plan, not really.”
“You’re right you didn’t and you know what, I don’t think you should come along. I think that you don’t need to be involved.”
Dan looked at Larry and nodded. “Whatever you say boss,” Dan replied.
Larry let go of his arm. “We’ll tell you how it went in the morning,” he said. Larry turned and walked off after the others. Dan shrugged. He hadn’t wanted to go in the first place. He knew Larry would want credit for victory and not want to share even a portion of the reflected glory. Dan was fine with that. He kicked in his two cents worth and hopefully made it a better plan.
‘As long as I don’t have to see that flag at the next debate team meeting then I am fine,’ he said. Dan headed home. As he walked, he found he was a little disappointed in being left out. He knew if Larry had to share in his victory he would be impossible to deal with, but he hoped the others remembered he contributed a little to their success.
He shook his head, surprised he was even a little disappointed in not participating.
Ten til Midnight 