It happened last Tuesday. Jenny K. from our wood shop class said she found a rubber band mixed in with her personal supplies when she went to grab her materials at the beginning of class. She slipped it on her wrist and forgot about it. Over the course of the next forty-five minutes, the duration of our wood shop class, she experienced a rapid decline in health. First, she felt a bit nauseous. Fifteen minutes later, she began to sweat profusely, all the while feeling cold. She grew very pale after thirty minutes, and five minutes later, she fled the room in search of the nurse’s office. She came back five minutes later, seemingly well again. Jenny had spent only five minutes lying down, but it was all she needed. She claimed upon her arrival that she hadn’t done anything differently today, but she did find a strange rubberband, and only after removing it did she feel better. But that didn’t make sense. How could a rubberband make someone sick? Regardless, the nurse told the teachers and students that the rubberband had disappeared from her trash can, so everyone was to be vigilant.
The next day, in the same wood shop class, Owen G. found the rubberband. Now, Owen isn’t the brightest bulb, and having forgotten the entire contents of the previous day, decided giving the rubberband to his equally thoughtless friend, Mark I., would be an excellent token of friendship. Mark immediately slipped the rubberband on his wrist. But just like Jenny, he felt nauseous, sweaty, grew pale, and managed to flee the room in just the right amount of time to throw up just outside the door.
Since then, we’ve all remained vigilant. We had thought the rubberband had perhaps disappeared. Mark claimed he couldn’t remember where he had disposed of it. The bad times seemed to be over. Two weeks passed since then, and our guards were let down.
This morning, upon entering the wood shop classroom, nestled amongst my materials in my desk, sat a rubberband.
