Chapter 2

Chapter 2

 

“Good morning class,” Mr. Morrison stated, glancing around the room. He stared longer at the girls in the room than any of the guys. It was disgusting. “How was everybody’s weekend?”

His head shifted from each student in the room, but no one really answered the questioned. Everyone just sort of sputtered a “Fine” or groaned.

“Kara?” he asked, looking at her expectantly. She shoved the phone down by her crotch instantly and looked at him.

“Yes?”

“How was your weekend?” he asked, almost sensually. He had walked over to her, and placed his hand on her desk. Mr. Morrison had his favorites. Especially Kara. He was always hitting on her, and I found it rather repulsive. God, if I ever saw him outside of school, I’d clock him in the throat.

“Fine,” she said softly. Kara was obviously uncomfortable, as were most of the girls in Mr. Morrison’s classroom. I heard that there were complaints about him in the past, but the school board didn’t do much regarding looking into the accusations.

“Fine?” he asked, pushing her. “That’s it?” I watched her nod, as he licked his lips slowly. The way he did it nauseated me.

“What’d you do?” he asking, curiously.

“Nothing,” she said softly, making every attempt to avoid his questions.

“You must have done something?” he pushed even further.

“Leave her alone,” someone said in the back of the room. It was a kid sitting in the back of the room. Scott, I think his name was. Mr. Morrison blushed, and took the hint. As much as he wanted to keep toying with Kara, he wanted to keep his job more.

“Not so excited to be here on this fine Monday morning, are we?” he asked, scanning the faces of his lethargic students. Again, everyone merely groaned and ignored his question. “Tough crowd,” he said, standing up from his chair and picking up a pile of papers on his desk.

He meandered out from behind his desk and began passing out the papers to the kids in the first row, who proceeded to pass them back. “I hope you all didn’t forget about the quiz this morning,” he said, smiling. I glared at him. Mr. Morrison was a hard a*s for how small he was. He was the teacher always giving out quizzes and exams on Mondays or the day after a vacation.

“F**k,” I heard Valerie say under her breath. It was loud enough for me to hear, but quiet enough so that Mr. Morrison wouldn’t hear. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Something funny Mr. Parker?” he asked, glaring at me.

“No sir,” I responded, sarcastically. I heard a few snickers from my classmates.

“I wouldn’t be laughing if I were you,” he said, smirking. “Not after that last test grade of yours.” That shut me up. Not that I particularly cared for school, but I was barely scraping by in this class with a C, and if it got any lower than that, I’d be kicked off the football team. I was already on probation for the next week for the smoking incident, and I couldn’t afford another bad grade.

Mr. Morrison finished handing out the quizzes to everyone and sat back down at his desk. “You have exactly thirty minutes.” He paused and waited a few seconds. “Starting now,” he said clicking a stop watch. I watched him place the stopwatch down on his desk and pick up his book once more. His eyes narrowed as he read the lines as though he was deeply intrigued by whatever was written on that page. If I had to guess, it was probably some erotic novel. I bet he just swapped out the cover on the front of the book.

I glanced down at the piece of paper in front of me, and sighed. There were ten questions on the quiz, each followed by three or four lines where we were supposed to write our answers. Of course it would be short answer, I thought to myself.

I stared back up, looking at the walls for something that could help me on this exam, but there was nothing. It was a fairly large sized classroom with all of the desks lined up in the center. On the outside of the desk stood a row of five or six lab tables where we were supposed to do experiments. Although the closest thing we ever did to an experiment was watch water boil and check its temperature on a hot plate. How f*****g exciting, I thought.

“Will,” Valerie whispered from beside me. It was so quiet, I almost didn’t hear it. She was staring at me with an anxious look in her eyes. Valerie was smart, but she didn’t really apply herself. She didn’t really care about grades. Felt like it was all a scam. She even wrote a paper for English class last year persuading that schools should cut out the grading system and work on a pass/fail regiment. The school board didn’t like it very much, but it landed her an A in English class. It was about the only class she excelled at.

I shrugged my shoulders at her, not knowing what else to do. Of course, I wanted to help her, but I knew about as much on that paper as she did. I simply couldn’t help her.

I stared back at my own paper. If I failed this quiz, my grade would drop below a C and Coach Wilkens would definitely kick me off the team. He had wanted to kick me off after the smoking incident, but with a little persuasion, I had managed to get lucky with just a probation. This time though, there was no way he’d let me stay. I glanced back up at Mr. Morrison. He was still so captivated in his book, he wouldn’t notice a thing.

I glimpsed at the paper of the girl sitting next to me. Isabel or Isabella I think her name was. I didn’t really know much about her, but she had received an A on her last exam, so I figured she knew what she was doing. I glanced over at her paper slightly, making sure no one around me was looking.

I tried to be subtle, but she had to have known I was looking at her paper. Surprisingly, she didn’t say a thing as I began copying down her answers onto my own paper. She just pretended like she didn’t know it was happening. For a second, she even slid the paper closer towards my desk.

Her writing was small, so I had to lean in a little closer to read. God, if anyone was looking at me, I’d be dead in an instant. I had finished all of question one and just started question two when it happened.

“Mr. Morrison, Will’s cheating.” He glanced up from his book catching me red handed. My face turned red immediately. I was staring at the paper of the girl next to me who immediately placed her arm over the page to make it look like she had no idea what I was doing. But, she knew.

I wasn’t sure who said it at first. I turned around, looking at my classmates. All of their eyes were glued on me, but only one of them wore the smirk of a tattletale. It just so happened to be the girl in the brown skirt who I had called a b***h this morning. Go figure.

Mr. Morrison stood up from his desk immediately, a sour look on his face. “Mr. Parker, would you come to the front of the class please?” F**k, I’m screwed, I thought to myself as I stood up out of my desk and walked slowly to the front of the classroom.

I reached the front and stared at Mr. Morrison. His eyes were a lifeless grey. I couldn’t imagine he ever did anything exciting when he wasn’t here at school. He was a single man in his mid-thirties with nothing but a cat. How pathetic really.

 “Explain yourself,” he said staring back at me. Everyone’s eyes were on me, as I turned back towards the class. I looked at the girl with the brown skirt. She was still smirking, and I glared at her. What a b***h for calling me out like that. I swear I was going to call her out for this after class.

“Well?” Mr. Morrison said again waiting for an explanation. His arms were crossed in front of him and his eyebrows raised. I didn’t know what to say. I tried formulating some lie in my head. Some story to get me off the hook, but I knew there was nothing I could say that would make him believe me. I certainly didn’t want to get Isabel or Isabella or whatever her name is in trouble. She didn’t do anything to deserve that. If anything, I owed her a thanks for attempting to help me out. She didn’t even know me and she was letting me cheat off of her quiz.

“I was cheating,” I said, my eyes glancing towards the floor. I wanted to lie, but there was no use. Nothing I said would excuse my behavior. Mr. Morrison nodded and sighed. He pulled out a stack of passes from inside one of the drawers of his desk and began writing on one. Everyone’s eyes were still on me, and he noticed as he shouted, “Get back to work. Time’s ticking.” I looked around the room as heads started to drop back to their papers. I glared at the ones still looking at me with disgust.

“Take this to the principal’s office,” he said quietly, a flicker of disappointment in his voice. I rolled my eyes and snatched the pass from his grasp. I walked back to my desk, making eye contact with Valerie. Her eyes looked worried. She knew about the whole situation of me and the football team. She knew I got caught smoking pot in the bathroom. Hell, she was there when it happened. She knew I’d most likely be kicked off the team after this incident. I might’ve had a better chance if I had just failed the quiz, but with cheating, I was screwed.

I gave her a slight smile, telling her everything was going to be alright as I reached down and picked my backpack up off the floor. I flung the straps around my shoulders and stood back up. Many eyes were still on me. “You heard the man,” I said mocking Mr. Morrison. “Time’s a ticking.” Snickers were heard throughout the classroom. Even Valerie let out a soft giggle which made me smile.

“That’s enough,” he snapped, the veins popping out in his neck. “Get out of my classroom,” he said sternly. I obeyed, and headed out of the door.

Reviews

[Rebecca]

I'm confused...is the narrator Will or Mike? What is the quiz about? Why is he cheating? how old is he?
really good writing though

[Christopher Miller]

I enjoyed this part, it does take me back to the feeling of high school. That's not easy, since for the most part I don't remember it at all. For some reason I saw this taking place in my 9th grade homeroom, just set up differently. I do have a few notes for you on this one.
There's nothing unrealistic about a teacher creeping on a student, or even of being so blatant about it. That he's a loner living with a cat makes it even more plausible; he would likely be quite lacking in self awareness and social graces. The exchange didn't quite work for me. It's established that the kids grudgingly accept him as an authority figure, so the kid telling him to 'leave her alone' didn't seem real. Having him nervously make a sarcastic comment in the guise of a joke would have been more believable; 'why don't you just...' ask her for her number, ask her during your 'special study sessions'. You also say he takes the hint. 'Leave her alone' isn't a hint, but a comment/joke would be. Also, as the authority figure he would probably make at least a feeble attempt to try to control how he's perceived. Straightening up suddenly, trying to play it off as he likes to know how all of his students are doing. If he'd had complaints before, he would be extra desperate to try to make them all believe 'nothing is going on here.' When he's asking her the questions, I'd imagine him looking at her breasts the entire time, or asking her breasts how their weekend was.
Even though he only mentioned it briefly the first time, it felt like he told his probation story twice. And in my experience, kicking kids off a team is the last thing a coach usually wants to do; they are usually the barrier to get over. Teachers or a principal wanting him off is more likely. Unless he's a bad player and coach is looking for an excuse. And he says Val was there when he got caught smoking pot in the bathroom? Was she in the boys' bathroom? If not, make that clearer. If she was, make it clear and run with it! There's potential there.
As a science major, I couldn't help thinking that boiling water is more of a chemistry or physics "experiment" than a biology one. I try to think of something asinine they would use the tables for, and I see them moving there to color, cut out, and paste paper organs onto a drawing of a human or cat. They don't dissect a real one due to budget cuts, or the teacher pocketing the lab fee. I had to stop at "On the outside of the desk stood a row" because it didn't make sense, I'm sure you mean desks but I had to pause and figure it out.
"I gave her a slight smile, telling her everything was going to be alright" - if he didn't say it out loud, it should read 'to tell her'.
The expression is 'the clock is ticking'. I had teachers who would get common expressions wrong, and it was very frustrating when you know something your teacher doesn't. That does make it pretty funny when he mimics Mr. Morrison, but that should be elucidated. He's bringing up what everyone's thinking, and they all laugh about it.
I'm still seeing him as an anti-hero. On top of the constant thoughts of cheating on his girlfriend, he calls another girl a b***h for no discernible reason and cheats on tests. But, it could also be that you're setting him up learn some valuable life lessons.

[Sarah]

These comments are great. I struggled writing this chapter for some reason. I just felt like nothing flowed. I might even just rewrite the entire thing using what I've already thought of and your comments. Thank you so much for the review!