So it all started near the end of senior year. I, oblivious to my grades, thought everything was perfectly fine nearing finals and all I could think of was the warm summer air hitting my face with the knowledge of being on my way to college radiating off of me. At least until I received a letter that I was failing all of my classes except gym.

The letter stated that I, Quentin, would be attending summer school for 5 weeks or else I would not get the chance to graduate. If I were late to any of my classes during the summer courses, I would be forced to repeat my senior year. This also meant I would not get the chance to advance on my full scholarship to North Carolina to play basketball for the great Roy Williams. Devastated; I urged on through the so-called “last” day of high school, thinking that this was the worst day of my life. I was sadly mistaken.

I had one week of vacation that I savored every minute of, until that dreadful night before I started school again rolled around. I went through my typical school night routine of preparing my back pack, getting clothes ready for the next day, brushing my teeth...as I thought to myself, “Am I forgetting anything?” After a minute of deliberation, I decided I had considered every possibility and proceeded to go to sleep.

I woke up the next morning to a starting engine and slamming car door. At first I ignored the sound because it was just my mom heading off to work. Then thoughts started racing through my head at 10000 miles per hour. “What time is it? How late am I?” I jumped out of bed and looked at the clock. My face went pale. The clock said 6:58, just 17 minutes before I had to be at the high school for classes. For most Fox Chapel students, this would allow plenty of time to get ready and go to school, but I live in the township of Indianola; about a 15 minute drive from the high school. Forgetting everything else, I grabbed my back pack and ran outside to get into my car to find that my sister had taken it to a friend’s house and it was hailing with winds around 55 miles per hour. I thought of calling my sister for the car, but I had no time and she would still be sleeping anyway. I had only one option left, and that was to run to school.

As I was pelted with basketball sized hail and a down pour of rain that was falling so hard it hurt, I started sprinting towards the high school. Even being in the good shape I’m in, there was no chance I would get there in time. My only hope would be the teacher’s sympathy towards my morning. About 10 minutes and two and a half miles into my run, I noticed a large funnel forming in the sky above me. “No it can’t be. A tornado in Pittsburgh, no definitely not, right?” I said to myself after analyzing the funnel while sprinting. While distracted by the growing cloud, I managed to fall and cut my right arm open on a sharp rock. But within a few minutes, the funnel lengthened towards the ground, winds picked up greatly and debris was swirling. Before I knew it there was an F5 tornado just 400 yards from where I was sprinting. I dodged car after car, roof after roof that were being tossed around like paper by the mile-wide tornado.

Tornado and all, I had only one thought on my mind and that was to get to school. After another 10 minutes of running the tornado had caught up to me. It proceeded to pick me up and toss me around like a rag doll within its massive vortex. Then after banging off a Mercedes, I was thrown out of the tornado. I must have been 500 feet in the air when I could see the high school out of the corner of my eye while I rotated uncontrollably. As I neared the ground and the high school, I found a spot to aim for that would cause the least damage. My trajectory seemed to be a trampoline in the back yard of a local house. As I hurtled towards it, I tried to position my body so I would not hurt anything to seriously when I bounced off. Sadly enough I didn’t bounce at all and fell straight through the trampoline. It was enough to break fall so I escaped with nothing but a sore tailbone and some other various bruises. The tornado turned to another path of destruction, so I stood and limped for the auditorium doors.

There was only one lonely car in the parking lot, but I figured the teachers had just used a separate entrance. As I approached the door I noticed there were no lights on, but yet again I thought the reason was due to the tornado and it was only a power outage. But the doors were locked. I circled the school frantically looking for an entrance, but I found nothing. It was when I stopped to think that I felt a small vibration in my pocket. I pulled out my phone to see an incoming call from my mom.

“Brian, where are you? I just got back from my hair appointment and you were gone.” She said sounding somewhat confused.

Of all people I thought my mom would remember I had summer school, so of course I questioned “I didn’t set my alarm so I had to run through all this weather to get to summer school!”

“Summer school? Honey it’s Sunday.”