“Oh my god, Alina I love your pen!” Neha said, in a voice that busted my eardrums, as it was louder than Godzilla’s roar against his fight against Tokyo. It was playing on a tv while many classmates sanded their projects. I rubbed my thumb up and down my pen, relishing the smoothness of the wood, while Mr. Moustakas talked to Neha with a disapproving glare. My pen is lovely. I had gotten one of the woods that wasn’t super dark or super yellow. It had a spade shaped tip, making it look more like a chess piece than a tip of a pen. The pen also had half circles around the back and front with bands that surrounded them. What a nice color that would make when I finished oiling it, I thought to myself, out loud.
“Yeah it would look really pretty with the oil and wax.” Alicia said, as she came over for a one hundred grit sandpaper.
“I would think so too, but what about some woodburns?” I asked, as I handed her the sandpaper, with a curious look that made me wonder: should I? Woodburning was a design, sort of. It just makes rings that are darker than your wood, making it pretty.
“I’m sure it would look great, Alina” Alicia said, casually moving her fingers over the sandpaper, as she left, in search of a place to sit. I went the opposite way, looking for Mr. Moustakas, for his approval for woodburns.
“Mr. Moustakas, am I allowed to start woodburning?” I asked looking around at the projects he was grading. A wooden turtle, a painted frog, and a pen that I knew that was Holly’s.
“Yes you can start woodburning” he said as he handed my pen back. I grabbed one of the woodburners from the back and went to go find a lathe to start working. I found a blue lathe that someone had recently started their pen from, as I winced when I turned it on and all the shavings fell onto my shoes and my jeans. I had figured out where I wanted to burn the wood. I would burn it near every band and once near the tip and three times in the back. I went to work, putting the wire and pulling back till it smoked. I had gone to the second to last band, where it was just a little bit thinner than the rest.
“ALINA, YOU SHOULDN’T BE WOODBURN--” Alicia had yelled from where she had sat, watching me woodburn.
“CRACK”
My pen had split into two. I stood there as I watched my pen bounce on the floor. Once, then twice as it stopped and rolled back and forth on the grey floor before I stooped down and picked it up to inspected the damage.
“You shouldn’t have been woodburning in such a small and thin area, Alina. You aren’t hurt are you?” as Alicia came over and eyed warily as she didn’t believe what I had done. I looked at my hands. I could see some parts of the wood that had splintered from where I had pulled too hard on the wire. I looked at the place that had split. I was aware that Alicia was looking at my pen too, even though I wanted to yell at her to stop.
“Clean through” Alicia whispered
I let out a laugh, trying to hide the disappointment and sadness that started to take over. Tears are not necessary, they aren’t necessary, not necessary, I repeated to myself as I looked. Woodshop, Period 5. The class that I wanted to be an A. The class that was suppose to be an easy A. The pen that took 2 weeks to make and putting in all my effort to make it look better than any others.
The wire had went straight through the wood. I knew that I would have to start over. There was no way Mr. Moustakas could fix it. No way.