Story: Owen and Clark

There was one week left to prepare for Ithaca South High School’s prom. Owen, a senior who attends ISHS also had two weeks to figure out how to ask the girl of his dreams to prom. Claire was a senior who sat right in front of Owen in their world history class. He was constantly distracted hoping not to embarrass himself in front of her or say something stupid. She was shy, intuitive, caring, and always gentle with her words but remained firm with her knowledge. Claire’s eyes were brown with a mixture of yellow that seemed piercing yet captivating. The glow of her eyes radiated off of her ghostly white skin while her dark wavy hair fell in front of her face leaving gaps for her eyes to see through. Owen always watched his every move around her-mind you he has had a crush on her since the ninth grade. He was smart and strong, but underestimated when questioning his abilities. This week was crucial to Owen, however, he still doubted himself because of his underdog perception.

The bell rang releasing the students to head to their fourth period. For Owen, this was lunch for him and his friends. As they all met up in the courtyard they began to eat their lunch and tell their stories about previous events that happened that day, who they were going to go to prom with, an episode of Bob’s Burgers that was watched the night before, etc. Owen couldn’t hold in the ideas he had on how to ask Claire to prom so he spilled the beans to his best friend Allen. Once Owen figured out how to ask Claire to the prom without any hesitation Owen relayed the information to Allen. His excitement outpoured along with the details of his plan. At the same moment, a school bully named Clark and his two buddies from the lacrosse team walked up and took his lunch out of his hands and threw it on the ground. They proceeded to make fun of Owen and his crush on Claire. As they started shoving him into the brick wall Owen immediately shouted, “I don’t want any trouble. We were just having lunch and hanging out here. Clark, there is no reason to start a fight.” Clark and his buddies began to laugh while corning Owen and his friends. Clark lunged toward Owen to attack and before Owen could realize it he dodged out of the way and was able to punch Clark square in the face knocking him to the ground. Owen and his friends were able to snatch their things and run back into the building. The bell rang for fifth period-Owen and his friends were late for class but luckily they were able to lose Clark and his friends.

Owen ran into his world history class and immediately made eye contact with Claire. Miss. Opus stopped her introduction for today’s agenda and stopped to recognize Owen’s tardiness. “You are late Owen…O-Owen are you bleeding?” Owen began to check himself out from his feet and up. As his chin met his chest he saw a drop of blood fall on his shirt. He quickly touched his fingers to his lips and realized that his bottom lip was bleeding. Owen responded, “I must have accidentally bitten it at lunch, Miss. Opus. I am sorry I’m late. I lost track of time in the courtyard.” Miss. Opus just nodded and continued on with her agenda while Owen found his seat behind Claire. Owen pulled out his history book and before he could turn another page Claire smoothly passed a folded up notebook piece of paper to him. He opened it and it read: “What really happened to you dork?” He silently giggled and wrote back, “You should see the other guy! Haha”. As he passed it back the class was interrupted by an office aide coming in with a small yellow slip and handed it to Miss. Opus. Each color meant something different. A green slip meant that the front office needed you for some lousy reason (lost and found, parking related issues, parents left something for you, etc.). A blue one was for matters that you can deal with after you leave the class you are in. Lastly, the red slip. The red slip was more serious. It was coming directly from the principal and normally is dealt with immediate response. “Owen, grab your things and head to the office. Principal Wagner needs to see you.” Immediately, his stomach dropped. Owen packed up his things, grabbed the slip, and turned around to see Claire looking at him with confusion as he left the room.

Owen walked into Principal Wagner’s office and found Clark leaving with a pack of ice covering a black eye along with a bruised face. “Sit down Owen,” Principal Wagner said sternly. He began to bring up the information that Clark brought to him. Obviously, it was all a complete lie insinuating that Owen started the fight. Once Principal Wagner finished his whole spiel he followed up with a detention slip for today and told him that he could no longer attend prom. Owen got enraged and with all that anger explained what really happened. Knowing Owen and his record Principal Wagner had a strong feeling that Owen (a good student) was telling the truth. Principal Wagner concluded with, “just to be sure, Owen, I am going to look into today’s camera footage from the courtyard and get down to the bottom of this. For now, you are to be assigned to in school suspension (ISS).”

Seventh period was starting and Owen was being sent to ISS. He was devastated that we wouldn’t be able to ask Claire to the prom like he planned after school. For the rest of seventh period and half of eighth period Owen waited in silence hoping that the principal would find the footage to prove his innocence. With twenty minutes to spare Principal Wagner came in concurred with what Owen said earlier that day. Owen was released and quickly ran to Claire’s last class to already find her waiting there for him. “I heard what happened to you today,” Claire said softly. Owen replied, “Yeah, it wasn’t too bad other than the fact that Clark tried to frame me for a fight he tried to start.” They began to chuckle and before Owen knew what was happening Claire was kissing him. She backed away and said, “I would love to go to prom with you.” Owen couldn’t help but hold back a smile that then turned into confusion. He asked, “How did you know-” Claire quickly interrupted, “Allen told me.” They both couldn’t help but smile and start laughing. Claire exhaled and said with exhaustion, “Ahhhh, it has been a long day.” Owen recalled his whole day and replied by saying, “You have no idea.” 

Author's Note: Yes, I know this is long but I think I had a hard time making sure to keep in the relative details from Homer's Odyssey and my story. I ended up never using the group of popular girls that were going to be portrayed as the Sirens. I realized that it would've made my story even longer so I ended up just ignoring that idea. I kept my focus on the fight between Owen and Clark that was originally inspired from the characters Odysseus and the Cyclops. The fight itself wasn't identical but if you caught on near the end when Owen saw Clark again in the front office the cruise on his faced should resemble something of a black eye (damage to the eye via cyclops' injury). In my opinion, I think I twisted the story immensely because of how unexpectedly long it was becoming. The ending of the story did, however, tie in showing that the Cyclops never slowed Odysseus down or deterred his efforts of making it back home and Owen never backed down to him and never stopped trying to get Claire's acceptance.

Bibliography: Homer's The Odyssey. Link to online reading 

Black eye resembling Clark's bruise

link to picture