Max stepped out of his truck and stared at the campus from the visitor parking area. Cedarbluff was beautiful. The main building had been built around 1850, and the red bricks were larger than standard bricks. It was four stories high and, other than the front entrance, consisted of four perfect rows of narrow windows creating a domino appearance. Along with the main building, there were two others that had been built at the same time, and all three were almost completely covered in ivy. There were three other newer buildings as was evident by the standard-sized brick construction and lack of foliage. The campus grounds were meticulously well-groomed and, along with the tall evergreens spread out everywhere to the green line of the woods in the background, it gave the appearance of a Robert Frost poem brought to life.

  After a brief sign-in and welcome, Max found himself sitting outside the Dean of Students office, waiting with several other soon-to-be freshmen of Cedarbluff. Suddenly, a beautiful young lady walked into the room carrying a folder. Her black dress was snug in every area from her shoulders to where it ended just above her knees. As she walked, the dress seemed to glide over every contour as the light reflected off the fabric to create an almost hypnotic effect. Every eye of every guy in the room was transfixed on her, including Max’s. He couldn’t believe there could be that much difference in high school and college but here was proof. He couldn’t help but hope that this was his guide.

  “Johnny,” she called out.

  His heart skipped a beat.

  “Johnny Thomas,” she said as she peeked inside the folder for verification.

  “That’s me,” a young guy said as he jumped up and followed her out of the room.

  Max was disappointed and relieved at the same time. He could only imagine how big a dork he would have made himself look in front of a girl like that.

  Several minutes passed and he began to wonder if the rest of them had been stood up. Another student entered the room, but was carrying no folder, so Max assumed he wasn’t a guide. He was very short, about five-feet-six, and very heavy. His shoulders and arms were as massive as the rest of him. He looked like a guy who spent as much time in the gym as he did at the dinner table. Max guessed him to be over three hundred pounds. He had very curly, sandy-brown hair, a double chin, and his feet pointed outward, so his walk looked more like a penguin than a person. He wore a Cedarbluff sweatshirt, his matching sweatpants were pulled up over his waist, and you could see his stomach protruding below the belt line, or string line in this case. His movements reminded Max of a tank or bulldozer; not just the bulky size, but the short, quick motions they make running on tracks. But there was an undeniable rhythm to his overall appearance as well, much like the grace a sumo wrestler might display that makes observers stare in awe. The only thing more noticeable than the guy’s physique was his apparent cockiness. He seemed to strut more than walk as if he was proudly displaying a champion figure.

  He stopped in the middle of the room where the high school kids were seated and almost yelled, “I’m looking for a moron named Johnny Maxwell.”

  Max didn’t move or say anything as if he was deciding if he heard correctly.

  “Come on,” the big guy shouted with his arms in the air on each side of him. “I ain’t gonna eat ya.”

  “I’m Johnny,” Max said as he stood up.

  “Well, let’s get going. We’re burning daylight.” The big guy turned and started toward the door without even making sure Max was following.

  Max caught up to him and walked alongside. He was amazed at how fast the guy could walk with such short legs.

  “So, what do you go by? John? John Boy? JoJo? What?”

  “I go by Max.”

  The big guy stopped and stared up at Max. “Good call, dude. You ever hear of Laurel & Hardy? No wait. I mean Abbott & Costello. Anyway, that’s what we look like together. Maybe we should start a comedy team. What do you think?”

  “Uh,” Max muttered, trying to think of an answer that wouldn’t commit him to anything but not offend either.

  “I’m messing with you, dude,” he said as he laughed at Max’s gullibility. “That’s lesson number one. In college, you gotta lighten up. By the way, my name’s Rollo. Oddly enough, it’s a shortened version of my last name also. Benjamin Rollings to be exact. I’m telling you, Rollo & Max, comedy duet. We’d be awesome.”

  Rollo continued to show Max around campus, and it seemed like he knew everyone there. Almost everyone they passed greeted him in a friendly way, and Rollo always took a second to introduce Max, usually as the next Romeo to woo the ladies or other such embarrassing titles. Rollo was loud, obnoxious, cocky, arrogant, and entirely self-centered. And there was one thing Max could tell for certain about him right away―he was a genuinely likeable guy.

  “Let me take you over to the most important building of all,” Rollo said with a smile then cut across the grass of the campus grounds.

  “Let me guess,” Max said, “the cafeteria?”

  “You da man!” Rollo shouted and offered up a high-five. “I’m not just going to teach you where it’s at; I’m gonna show you how it’s done.”

  As they walked, Max took in the scenery. He loved how the neatly curved and angled sidewalks contrasted the green grass of the campus. As they neared the cafeteria, Max heard loud yells coming from an adjacent building and could see a crowd of students inside the windows. “What’s going on in there?” Max asked.

  Rollo looked in the windows. “Oh man, we gotta check this out. That’s Professor Stoner’s class. He’s the coolest teacher on campus. Every year, he gives his students an almost impossible task for extra bonus points.”

  Max followed Rollo as he went into the building and squeezed through bodies to get to the front. He was a little hesitant about Rollo cutting in front of people, but the big guy just pushed forward saying, “Excuse me, coming through.” No one seemed to mind and several patted Rollo on the back as he pushed through.

  Finally, they found themselves on the side of the campus swimming pool, which was crowded all around. Max knew that all these students couldn’t be in the professor’s class and assumed that most were there as spectators just like he and Rollo were. The sunlight coming through the windows reflected off the water and produced dancing, illuminated spectrums all around the room. The atmosphere was so charged with positive energy that Max could feel it like an invisible force actually hitting him in the face and making his lips curl upward into a smile.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “Okay, everyone, listen up,” said a man holding a clipboard. He stood on the opposite side of the pool from them, and Max concluded quickly that it must be Professor Stoner.

  He was a young professor, early thirties, about five-feet-ten, with dark hair, dark eyes, and a severely receded hairline. Even though his hair was thinning, he still wore it very short, almost a shadow, which made every thin area more distinct, and Max could, in fact, see his entire head clearly. He wore a mustache which actually turned down past each side of his lips, although it was trimmed neatly. If he had long hair, he might have fit right in with the 70s. He wore a shirt and tie with no jacket and was very athletic.

  The professor looked at his clipboard. “Next up to take on the challenge of walking on water is Kevin Kowalski.”

  The student made his way to the edge of the pool alongside the professor and raised his hands in the air for moral support. The crowd obliged with vigorous applause and whooping noises. He brought out his invention, which looked like a pogo stick, but instead of foot pegs and springs, the bottom consisted of a very large inflatable half-ball. The circumference was about five feet across; the top part was flat to stand on and the sphere part was on the bottom.

  “All right,” the professor said as he acknowledged the student and his invention. “Kevin came prepared. Now have you tested this ridiculous contraption?”

  “I have, your greatness,” answered Kevin. This brought laughs from the crowd.

  “And have you had a successful test of eighty-two feet, the distance required to pass this test?”

  “Close,” Kevin replied.

  “Then the pool is yours.” Professor Stoner offered by holding his arms outward as he stepped back.

  Kevin maneuvered his device to the pool’s edge, positioned one foot on the thing, jumped up with the second foot and bounced off the edge into the pool. The crowd was cheering his name, and even Max was so intrigued that he found himself screaming the name “Kevin” for a person he didn’t even know. The pogo ball hit the water and Kevin pulled up hard and it actually worked. The ball stayed on top of the water on the initial plunge and Kevin was able to use his strength to make the ball go airborne again. As the ball bounced off the water, the crowd yelled louder. The second bounce off the water was harder as the ball had sunken lower this time, but Kevin still managed to get it airborne a second time, albeit a lot lower than the first. The third plunge was the killer, though, as the ball sank deep into the water, and Kevin’s attempt to bounce it a third time failed, so he went down with his ship, or stick, as was the case.

  The crowd was still cheering. Professor Stoner had put down his clipboard and was clapping and cheering with the crowd.

  As Kevin climbed out of the water with assistance from other students, he raised his hands once again as if he had succeeded. And, once again, the crowd responded. He looked to the professor for a ruling.

  “Not bad,” the professor said. “Not bad at all. You came up way short, but you did it with style. I’m going to give you twenty-five bonus points for ingenuity.”

  Kevin seemed happy with that as he strutted around with his arms high in the air.

  Rollo was ready to go eat now, but he seemed to notice how engrossed Max was with the challenge, so he said nothing. Max had the look of a child during his first visit to the circus. It was the look of wonderment as if no one had ever explained that such things existed in the world. They stayed for another forty-five minutes as two more students tried and failed the assignment. Finally, the crowd started to disburse, and Rollo was able to steal back Max’s attention and lead him to the cafeteria.

  As they grabbed a tray and started loading up different foods, Rollo asked, “You got a kick out of that, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” Max replied. “That was awesome.”

  They took their trays and sat across from one another at a table and Rollo began to eat.

  “Did you have Professor Stoner?”

  “Yep,” said Rollo as he sipped his soda. “I had him last year.”

  “What was your near-impossible assignment?”

  Rollo could tell that Max was definitely taken with the whole near-impossible bonus concept. “We had to propel a sheet of paper one hundred yards. You could wad it up or make it into a plane or whatever, but nothing but the paper could travel.”

  “Did you do it?” asked Max.

  “Shoot no. But I tried it because he gives people some points for trying.”

  “Did anyone succeed?” Max was asking so many questions that he hadn’t yet taken the first bite of his lunch.

  “One guy came close. He had made it into a ball and kept soaking it in water and forming it until he had it almost a perfect sphere. Then he stuck a tee in the ground and placed the paper ball on it and then brought out a metal driver. I was thinking, genius. So, he swings the club and gives the ball a good whack with the driver, and it took off pretty well. He came the closest. If he hadn’t hit a slice, he might have made it.”

  Max was staring off into the distance as if he could actually see the events unfold, his mouth opened with the corners curved into a slight smile.

  “Another guy might have succeeded,” Rollo continued as he squeezed the contents of a ketchup pack onto his food, “but the professor wouldn’t let him do it.”

  Max looked confused. “Why not?”

  Rollo explained. “It was this rich jerk, so it’s no big deal. He had a gunsmith or ammo guy or somebody make the sheet of paper into a bullet and he brought a high-powered rifle to shoot the bullet at a target. But the professor wouldn’t let him fire it and pointed out that one of the rules says that it cannot be anything dangerous. The guy complained like crazy, and I think even threatened to sue the school. I told you; he’s a jerk.”

  Max finally started to eat, and Rollo added, “You probably know the guy or at least his dad. His dad is Arthur Clavin.” Seeing the blank look on Max’s face, he continued. “You know, the famous preacher of that mega-church in New York? What’s it called? Faith for You Ministries, I think.”

  Max had no clue, and his expression conveyed it.

  Rollo stared at him as if he couldn’t believe it. “Come on, dude. He’s written like a hundred books including several Bibles and has a TV and radio show. He’s got like twenty million followers worldwide.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Max said. That was all he could think to say.

  “Forget it.” Rollo returned his attention to his lunch.

  Max searched his memory for some evidence of this preacher but couldn’t find any. He felt bad that he didn’t know him because it seemed to deprive Rollo of some satisfaction from telling his story. Changing the angle of the story, he asked, “What did you do for the assignment and how did it turn out?”

  Rollo chuckled so suddenly that he almost lost the food from his mouth. “I looked online to see if I could come up with an airplane design. I found one that supposedly had been flown two hundred feet from ground level. I followed the directions pretty accurately, I thought, but when I threw it that day, it started out flying straight then slowly began to turn.” Rollo used his right hand to add the visual. He started out moving it straight ahead with his palm face down and then slowly made it bank left and tilt upward until his palm was facing Max. “It ended up landing about twenty feet behind me. Everyone was laughing so hard. The professor gave me twenty points, one point for every foot that it landed behind the line. He called them ‘pity points’.”

  They finished their meal, and the rest of the day went well, and Max enjoyed having Rollo as his guide. Rollo walked him to his truck as Max was getting ready to drive home.

  “Thanks for the tour and everything,” Max said as he stood by his truck with his hand extended.

  “No problem-o, Max. I was worried that I would get stuck with some lame nerd and, boy, was I right.”

  Max laughed.

  “Seriously, dude, when you get here in the fall, look me up. I stay at Whitman’s dorm.”

  “You live on campus? Okay, cool. I will be living at home since I only live thirty miles from here.”

  “Awesome, dude,” Rollo said with a big grin. “Now I got someplace to go on the weekends for free food.”

  “That’ll be fine,” Max said with a smile.

  “Yeah, right. Can you imagine the look of horror in your parents’ eyes when you walk in with me and ask, ‘Where’s dinner?’”

  Max enjoyed Rollo’s sense of humor and was amazed how he could joke about his weight and didn’t even mind when others did. He started up his truck and put it into reverse to back out of the parking spot when Rollo tapped the glass. Max rolled down the window.

  “One more thing,” Rollo said with a serious expression. “The first registration is two weeks away, so if you want to get into Professor Stoner’s class, you better get there early because they fill up fast.”

  Max nodded his appreciation and drove away.