Chp. Two: Which is Really Chapter One The Real Version
I jumped in my chair and looked up, a real shiver of terror running down my spine. The TOC for english was standing over my desk, her eyes fixed on the map of the school I had so carelessly left sitting on top of my binder. Not only was she looking at it, she was reading it. Shit.
(By now, I hope you realize that I was writing all of that stuff down in my journal… Not a good thing to do when you’re in the class that you’re dissing. So, to catch up to the present, everything in that journal was from last year. This is this year. The present. Grade Twelve. Commentated and explained in full by yours truly as it happens. Yippee. Now quick, let’s flash back to the present.)
“WHAT IS THIS?” she repeated, snatching up the graffitti’d piece of paper and shaking it in front of my face. I opened my mouth to reply, moving my lips soundlessly like a gaping goldfish. Her eyes dropped to where my hand had frozen hovering over my much abused notepad.
“And this?!” her shrill voice cried, jacking my notebook and running her gaze over it. I squirmed in my seat, glancing around at the utterly silent class around me as she read in the tense silence. Vesper frowned, mouthing a question. Christmas looked worried. Moneypenny gave me a quizzical expression from across the room. The silence stretched on which could only mean… she’s reading more. Shit, shit, shit. Someone please save me. God, if you exist, smite me now.
I managed a daring glance up at the TOC’s face. She was a TOC, which is why I had been writing that little comedic piece of literature in the first place; I was only ahdering to the rules of TOC-run classes: not paying attention and being utterly disrespectful. Crap. That doesn’t sound good at all.
Her eyebrows continued to smush together as she flipped a taped together page from my notebook. She inhaled sharply. Then she smacked the book closed and glowered down at me.
“Up.”
“Ex-excuse me?”
“You heard me,” she growled, “up.”
I stood up hesitantly, unsure whether the law against corporal punishment applied to TOC’s or not.
“The rest of you continue reading,” she said before taking me by the elbow and roughly escorting me from the classroom, which was, incidentally, The Cauldron. She snarled and fumed like a dragon as we marched down the hall towards the stairs. I gulped, glancing yearningly into the peaceful class of El Salvador. Why didn’t I take Spanish again?
“No respect,” the TOC muttered under her foul breath, “absolutely no respect. Probably a failing student as well, smoking weed and all those bad things kids do nowadays.”
“I resent that,” I said as we descended the stairs, “I’m a straight A student.”
I received another viscious glare for that comment. I winced as her fingers tightened around my elbow. Better to shut up, Auggie, take it silently.
We reached Dumbledore’s lair promptly, just as the man himself was walking out of his office. The TOC dropped her death hold on my arm.
“Mr… look at what this young girl has written! It’s atrocious!”
I scowled. Atrocious. As if. My writing was eloquent. Truthful maybe, crude is a stretch—a long one—but atrocious? Never.
Dumbledore took my notebook and the map hesitantly as the TOC bombarded him with compalints about my ‘rude and horrid’ behaviour. He glanced at me, having known me since my very early years of education and never having to discipline me in his office ever. Well, once upon a time I cheated on an AR test, SO THEY SAID. It wasn’t ACTUALLY cheating, Vesper and I were just having a good laugh over some really STUPID questions on this how-to-ride-horses book. Honestly, a troll could figure out that a bridle was for STEERING A HORSE, not HOLDING IT’S HEAD ONTO IT’S NECK—that’s what crazy glue is for, just kidding. Oh, and a couple of times when I had some issues with bullying but I was the victim I tell you, the victim. Actually, I was pretty much just whining but whatever.
“Auggie, I’ll see you in the office.”
The TOC turned, a smug smirk on her face. I stared her down as she skirted around me and disappeared on her way back to The Cauldron. I turned and followed Dumbledore back to his office, taking a seat in one of the chairs that faced his desk. He sat down, his eyes already fixed on the scribbles that I had written during the last block. I waited in anxious silence as he read.
I’d like to think I saw a hint of a smile tug at his mouth, or some ‘ha-ha’ sparkle in his eyes. Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. Either way, in the end, it didn’t matter. I had violated some sacred code. What happens in ASS stays in ASS, especially the embarrassing events, underground rules, societies, and not-so-hot teachers.
He cleared his throat and looked up at me, his blue eyes carefully squinted with discipline. “Well, Auggie, I don’t think I have to tell you that this entire thing is extremely rude, mean-spirited, and entirely inappropriate.”
“But it’s well written, right?” I asked, attempting a humourous smile.
No luck.
He coughed before fixing me with a stare.
“All right,” I said, shifting in my chair, “I know it’s horrible and mean but really, it was all in jest. I didn’t mean to hurt anybody’s feelings. It wasn’t meant to be read. It was just…funny. I’m sorry.”
He watched me for another dreadful minute, sizing up how sincere I was.
Finally he said, “I know you’re a good kid, Auggie. I do. You’re a very imaginative and funny person but this is not the way to express that-“
I nodded enthusiastically.
“And since this is the first time you’ve landed yourself in here, I’ll be lenient. Destroy this,” he shook the map, “and rip out these pages,” he stabbed a finger at my notebook, the cover so lovingly doodled upon, “and we’ll settle for one day of in-school suspension.”
I opened my mouth to protest. Suspension! For what? Some dumb jokes? A stupid map? Then I closed my mouth. One day. Just one day sacrificed for a pretty good batch of writing. Alright, I could deal with that. Especially since I’d now get to say that I actually have been suspended. Hardcore. Oh yeah.
“You’ll come to the office tomorrow and Mrs. X will get you set up with some jobs.”
I nodded again. “I’m sorry, Mr… I won’t do it again.”
“I hope so.”
“Are you going to call my parents?”
He raised his eyebrows. “A suspension warrants a phone call.”
I looked down. “Yeah, I guess.” It didn’t really matter. My mom might just shrug it off, she knew me. My step dad would ask how I could be so stupid to get caught with it. It was my dad I was worried about. Sometimes he didn’t exactly ‘get’ my humour.
“May I go back to class then?”
Dumbledore smiled. “Yes you may, take these and take this note to your TOC in case she thinks I just let you slide.”
“I wish,” I grumbled under my breath.
He gave me a look as his pen sprawled across a Sticky note. Then he ripped it off the pad and passed the litle yellow square to me which I immediately stuck to my forehead.
“Just in case I lose it,” I explained.
He laughed as I turned around and headed out the door.
I’ll say one thing about the rest of the day: the TOC talked. She MUST have spilt my ‘creative genius’ and shared it in Nazi Headquarters. I received multiple death glares and my GPA probably went down by 2.3 points. Whatever. They’ll get over it. Right?
I rode the bus home that day with a fairly optimistic view for tomorrow, watching out the window as we started out from the school.
“Hey, Auggie,” Jonesy said from the seat beside me.
I looked at him. “Yeah?”
Kite sat beside him, both looking at me with eager looks. They held three bottles and some string. And in Kite’s hand was a half-eaten wrap.
“Watch this.”
They opened their window, sliding it down and glancing down the school driveway for the prime target. They grinned at eachother as a convertible came into view, its top conveniently lowered and a very… clean cut looking man sitting in the driver’s seat as he waited for our bus to turn onto the road.
Kite glanced at me with a hungry look, raising the wrap towards the window, ceasar dressing running down the tortilla and onto his skin. Then he flicked it out, perfectly aimed, at the balding man with the gold shirt wrapped around his shoulders, sitting in his convertible.
I gasped, kneeling up in my seat and leaning over the aisle to watch the wrap splatter over the man’s white and pink tennis outfit, spreading onto the leather interior of his car.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
“Oh SHIT!” Jonesy laughed, lowering down in his seat and peeking through the window.
“DRIVE, VERN, DRIVE!” Kite shouted at our driver.
“He’s getting out of his car, “ somone shouted a couple seats down.
“LOOK AT HIS FACE!” someone else laughed.
“He looks constipated!”
“What a ham!”
“I hope you ATE THAT WRAP, DUDE!”
“And he’s out of the car—“
“Oh frick,” Jonesy said as the man stomped across the road.
Suddenly our bus lurched forward and pealed down the road, our driver unaware of the ceasar-wrap-covered-tennis-playing-convertible-driving-man having a hissy fit in the middle of the road.
I leaned back in my seat, laughing.
“There’s more,” Jonesy said as he and Kite tied the bottles onto the string. Then they smirked, slipping the contraption out the window and watching the bottles fly alongside the bus Napoleon Dynamite style.
And so was the bus ride home.

Marissa

March 16, 2011 at 7:08 PM PDT

awesome! those were some good times

Emadev

January 24, 2011 at 10:51 PM PST

This is brilliant work. I can imagine the scenes in my mind as I read. Yes, and funny too. Like it!

Reader

January 24, 2011 at 7:27 PM PST

Incredibly funny! Almost too real to be fiction! I sounds like you have experienced some this in your real high school!? Anyway, could you upload the pictures in the illustration section of the website?

clara

January 23, 2011 at 9:11 PM PST

THIS IS GENIUS.
Brilliant.
And accurate.