School Hard (part 1)

School Hard
Edwin Jones


         “I’m sorry but I can’t let you borrow that”

         “Why the fuck not! Just let me have it”

         These were the words that woke me from my lunchtime nap. I lifted my head off the desk, my cheek peeling off of the Psychology textbook I was meant to be reading but was instead using as a pillow. I adjusted my eyes to see what exactly was going down in the school library, see what woke me.

         The culprit was a short skinny redfaced library monitor who went by the moniker “Harry high pants”, an alias given to him due to his tendency to wear his pants waistband  above his belly button. This accompanied a very creepy slicked down comb-over, his fashion sense gave him a geek-slash-future-pedophile look, not quite in at the moment but I guess he though it would make an eventual comeback.

         Anyway Harry wasn’t the real culprit for waking me up, not so much as the giant motherfucker that was bearing down on him across the desk. Funnily enough I think “Giant Motherfucker” was the nickname that he went by, GMF for short.

         GMF was leaning over the desk that Harry cowered behind in an office chair, reclined as far as possible so as to stay out of his clobbering range I guess. The disagreement appeared to be over a book that GMF was trying to borrow. A meathead like GMF borrowing a book was already a sign of the apocalypse, what made it fourteen times as crazy was Harry using his powers as library monitor to stop him. A crowd had already put down their books to watch the spectacle.

         “You already have another book overdue; I can’t let you borrow another”

         “I don’t give a fuck!”

         Harry made an intelligent point and GMF offered a concise rebuttal. Harry remained unconvinced and would still not scan the book for him.

         The only reason I could think of for why GMF was holding back from pummeling Harry right out of his swivel chair was that GMF was only one more black spot away from being expelled.

         But logical reasoning wasn’t going to restrain this beast back for long. I looked around the library for the teacher who was supposed to step in and diffuse this situation. I found none, they were probably somewhere out of sight watching the spectacle while sipping their coffees. Harry really wasn’t very popular.

         So then I looked around for the person who was gonna step in and break this up who wasn’t me. Yet again it was to no avail, it wasn’t that everyone in the library wasn’t concerned, nor where they licking their lips in anticipation of the beating (well, some were). No , it was simply a case of the diffusion of responsibility, everyone thinks that someone else will step in and do something and convince themselves it’s not their problem; the Bystander effect.

Jesus Christ, I must have been sleeping on that Psychology text book for too long and absorbed a few theories by osmosis. While I was here hypothesizing Harry was about to have his colon analyzed… with a fist… Wait, did that make sense?

         Focus Damn it!

Okay GMF appeared to be cooling off somewhat, coming to his senses as long as Harry picked his words carefully.

         “What would your mother think?”

You stupid mother fucker Harry!
         
         Now he had done it, he should have known to never try and pull the family card on a psychopath like GMF. Now I had to do something, before GMF grabbed Harry by the collar and this turned into a full blown assault.

         I steeled myself for my moment of heroism and stood up out of my chair in a dramatic gesture…

         Perhaps too dramatic, my chair fell backward and hit a poor Asian girl sitting behind me in the face. I apologized profusely to her as she held her nose and seethed at me in mandarin, it had been years since I’d studied Chinese but from what I could make out I think she may have put a curse on my first born child.

         My sweeping entrance had turned into more of a retarded stumble but it wasn’t all bad, I managed to get the attention of the Giant Motherfucker. I stepped casually away from the wounded Asian girl like an action hero walking nonchalantly from a fiery explosion.

         I had my audience’s attention, now it was time to deliver a witty one-liner, smart but not over thought.

         “Hey… like…Um... Don’t do that”

         Bruce Willis eat your heart out

         “Why don’t you mind your own fucking business Anthony?”

         Hey he knew my name, I was flattered, but flattered was going to make way for flattened without some quick talking.

         “Look, it’s not his fault he’s socially retarded, the only friends he has are ones off of runescape”

         GMF seemed unconvinced. I tried again.

         “I mean when you’re best friend is a level 68 elf mage from Korea you tend to lose your grip of common courtesy”

         GMF let out a grunt that seemed to be laughter or possibly gastric reflux, either way the situation was slightly defused.

“Ok well you seem very intent on picking up your copy of-”

         I read the spine of the volume he was clutching

         “-Babysitter diaries #12… So I think we can make a compromise today, don’t you agree Harry?”

         Harry nodded and finally scanned the book for GMF. GMF snatched it back and stormed out of the library, probably to go have a smoko behind the sports sheds, or to read some babysitter stories. Sighs filled the library as people returned to their previous tasks, let down for not having seen any blood.

         Harry Highpants looked at me now, completely unimpressed.

         “What’s with you making fun of me” He said

         “I just saved you from a vicious beating”

         “I could have taken him”

         “Harry the last fight you were in you lost and that was to Stephanie”

         Stephanie was a 5 foot 3 library monitor who was stacking shelves over to our right. She smiled at the mention of this story. Harry saw the smile and wasn’t very happy about it.

         “Oh yeah, you wanna go me then?”

         Harry stood up out of his swivel chair and pushed me in the shoulder, trying to seem imposing, I would have considered Stephanie to be more threatening.

         “You wanna go me”

         “Just sit back down Harry”
         
         “Oh you’re scared now huh?”

         “No it’s just-“

         “Yeah that’s what I thought”

         He jabbed me again

         “Why should I sit down”

         “Because you’ve wet yourself Harry”

         Harry froze and looked down to realize that his high-pants were drenched, he sat back down as quick as he could, I left him to stew in his own juices.

         I got my Psych books off of my desk and began to head out of the library before I saw her. She was my dreamgirl, Melissa, I felt my temperature spike a few degrees when I realized she had been here the whole time. Her silky black hair framed her cute round face, she wore her reading glasses which only rendered her even more pretty. She smiled at me and said

         “Well look at you Mr Hero”

         “Oh yeah, you know me, too manly for my own good”

         “Oh yeah definitely, like that bit were your voice cracked and you shrieked a bit when you said “don’t do that”, I got goosebumps”

We laughed.

         “Why thank you Mel, so what are you doing in the library? We don’t have any colouring books you know”

         She smiled. This is how it usually was with each other, always willing to take each other down a peg, I loved her for that. I serioused up though.

         “No really, what’s up, I’ve never seen you in here, you’re usually out in the quad. With them”

         “I dunno sometimes I just need to get away from that crowd, you know… them”

         She paused and looked meditatively at the floor, I used the opportunity to stare at her for a moment.

         Fuck I’m a tool

She didn’t catch me staring at her though; just as she turned back I pretended to notice something really interesting on my forearm. We’d occasionally dance with the thought of being more than friends. Ok I’ll rephrase that; I’d always dance with the thought of us being more than friends. I couldn’t really speak on the behalf of her thoughts, I just liked to think that she thought about me that way and not as just another member of her colossal friend zone. She looked me in the eye.

“Anthony…?” She had a note of seriousness in her voice that I hadn’t heard before.

This was it, she was about to confess her undying love for me…

“What do you think of Tom?”

Fuck. Me. In. The. Eye. She was asking me for boyfriend advice, she couldn’t make herself any more clear if she wrote “Friend Zone” on a sheet of paper and stapled it to my face.

“Anthony…?

I had trailed off somewhat.

“What?”

“Tom”

“Oh yeah, uh he’s terrible in bed but always knew how to hold me on those dark cold nights”

“No seriously”

What did she expect me to say?

“Uh he’s a nice guy I guess”

Tom was a fucking twat.

“Cool” she said and went back to looking at the floor.

Thank god coz if she asked me to ask him out for her I would have gone Bruce Lee on her.

“Hey Anthony…?”

Oh no you don’t

“Do you think you could…”

Where’d I put my nunchuks?

“Ask Tom out for me”

HIYA!!

“Yeah. Sure. No problem”

“Thanks, that’d be great” She didn’t seem overwhelmed. Perhaps I heard a hint of guilt in her voice for her having just enlisted me as her man-pimp, or perhaps I just heard what I wanted to hear.

The moment of awkwardness afterwards was broken by the chirping of her cell phone, a moving rendition on “Fergalicious” I believe it was. She pulled the cell phone out of her pocket, the screens overwhelming light bathing her face an electric blue. It was a message; I could guess its contents were something along the lines of “WER R U LOLZ”. She got up to leave.

“So I’ll cya later Anthony” She said and left. Left me for them, her friends, her clique, the people I wasn’t cool enough or good looking enough to be around.
And then she was gone.

So here I was: defender of the geeky, repeller of the Giant Motherfucker and now, matchmaker.


*    *    *


         I was angry; not at Melissa though, it was hard to get angry when I thought of that face, her eyes. No, instead I became angry at myself, for looking the way I do, being the dumbass I am, for dancing with this idea that I had a chance with her. I had danced too close to the flame and now I was stuck in a level of hyper self consciousness, sweating as I walked down the hallway.

         Maybe if I started putting product in my hair, maybe then-

         I tripped while walking up the stairs; I was so stuck in this head trap that I was getting clumsy. I felt like everyone was staring at me as I peeled myself up off the steps, even though there was hardly anyone around I felt the burn of a hundred eyes burning through me. Pitying me. I got up and tried to laugh it off but I just ended up looking like an even bigger dick to the very few people around.

         Christ this was bad, I was one pair of skinny jeans and one bottle of eyeliner away from being a complete cliché. While fretting over my stair tumble as I walked down the hall I became distracted enough to make another fumble, this time tripping over a rubbish bin. I was on a roll here, my mind was tired and torn, things were falling apart and the pieces were only crumbling further as I tried to pick them up.

         It was while thinking of this cookie-like metaphor for my life that I made another mistake. I walked into the door of an open locker, the door swung and hit its owner square in the face sending them to the ground. I went over to check on my victim who clutched their forehead in pain, I recognized it as the poor Asian girl I had hit with the chair in the library.

         She clutched her head in pain, eyes clenched shut like she was having a very bad migraine. She was unhappy, needless to say. I decided to do the smart thing. Run off before she saw me, I don’t think I earned any karma points for that one but at least she didn’t have the chance to curse my second born child.

         I was walking around in limbo, I had a free period now but I still had a 6th period class to attend after so I couldn’t go home. I had 42 minutes of nothing to do and I wasn’t gonna spend it in the library watching Harry Highpants lose another arm wrestle to Stephanie again. As fun as that always was to watch I needed some solitude right now, I needed to sleep.

         Lately I had been having trouble sleeping, at night at least. Not until my alarm went off in the early morning did my body decide it wanted sleep. So I came to school feeling like an absolute zombie, and not the running type of zombie that was usually the life of the party. I was practically comatose, Romero style.

         And then a familiar voice came from behind me

         “Anthony, wait up”

         The zombie stirred from its lumbering state.

         “Melissa, I didn’t think you had a free now”

         “I don’t, I’m just late”

         “OK I won’t hold you up then”
         
         “Walk me to class”

         “OK” I tried to sound nonchalant.

         “Sorry about bailing on you in the library today”

         “No it’s alright you didn’t bail”

         She did a bit.

         “It’s just that Carrie had another breakdown today, she’s been pretty torn since Elizabeth went missing”

         “Yeah, I heard they even started putting her face on milk cartons now”

         “Really”

         “Yeah, that’s what I heard”

         “I guess her parents could afford that sort of thing though”

         Elizabeth was one of the queen bees in Melissa’s social circles, School Representative Council, formal committee all that bullshit. No one had seen or heard from her for three days, somewhere between the train station and her home she went missing and no one saw a thing.

          In her absence all the girls were clawing for her throne so to speak, some occasionally took a break to mourn the possible death of their beloved friend. Melissa wasn’t clawing for Elizabeth’s spot, her role was more like grief counselor I guess, trying to keep morale up, keep hope alive. Her socializing wasn’t predatory like the rest of them.

         “Did you know Elizabeth” asked Melissa

         “No, not really”

         Elizabeth had a reputation as a fucking cow but I could barely even recall what she looked like. Probably because any time I might have seen her she was probably wearing stupid oversized “retro” glasses while yapping into a cell phone, not my type.

         I did soften my opinion though when I realized Melissa said “did you know” referring to her in past tense. I guess that’s a bad sign, then again so is 72 hours without a ransom call or anything.

         “Anthony?”

         “Yeah?”

         “You don’t have to ask Tom out for me”

         Thank fucking god.

         “OK”

We walked on in silence for a moment. Melanie broke it.

         “Do you like anyone?” she asked

         “Of course I like people, just because I’m always in the library at lunch and don’t hang out much. I don’t hate people I’m not like a hermit or anything like-“

         “No, no I mean as in like”

         “Oh as in like like?”

         There’s my contribution to the English Language.
         
         “Yeah”

         “Ummm…”

         I like you.

         “mmm…”

         I like you. I like you. I like you!

         I stopped walking.

         “What is it?”

         I gestured up ahead to the door of her Math’s class. I figured she probably didn’t want to be seen walking with me by her classmates, I was so low on the social scale I didn’t want to drag her down with me.

         “Oh” She didn’t seem to fully understand.

         “OK I’ll cya later Anth”

         “Cya”

         And she was gone.

         God I’m a pussy, and now I was tired again. I walked back the way I came and tried not to look guilty when I walked pass the girl who I had hit in the face twice today, she held two icepacks to her head.

         I decided to go for a walk through the old buildings of the school, the classrooms her were mostly empty because all the juniors were away on camp. I came upon an open door, room 21, the classroom was empty, chairs and desks on their sides, paint peeling off the walls, chipboard squares missing from the roof. I stepped into the dilapidated room, I don’t think they had many classes in here, but for me it was good, it was peaceful. Inside I found another door which was also ajar leading into some sort of dark storage closet.

         I stepped into the dark room, found no working light switch but grey overcast glow filtered through the security bars of a small window up high. It provided enough light to show the weird shit that was kept here. Two or three shelves filled the room, all were stacked with the corpses of rats and all other biological matter submersed in formaldehyde. This was an old science storage room I could guess.

         I sat down on the floor putting my back against the wall, across from me I looked into the eyes of a giant rat. It floated in its yellowy brown translucent liquid, its right side sliced off to create a cross section of his insides. It looked directly at me, its face a twisted toothy mess, its body contorted into the shape of the jar.

         “I know how you feel” I told him.

         Well that was nice and morbid.

         I closed my eyes, curled up my legs and rested my head on my knees, 25 minutes to history class; I might as well take a little nap. I thought back to my conversation with Melissa.

         “Do you like anyone” she said

         Was that an opening?

         “Do you like anyone?”

         Was that my chance, right there? I curled up tighter.

         “Do you like anyone Anthony?”

         “Do you like me Anthony?”

         “Do you like me…?”


*    *    *


I woke up in that dark room, the rat didn’t seem to be staring at me so hard anymore, it was actually too dark to tell now. I could remember snippets of my dream, there was a girl screaming off in the distance and I didn’t know what to do, that and something about a magical badger.

The window that had been above my head was barely giving any light now, I had to use the light function on my watch.

20:35

I guess I had missed my class…

Wait a fucking second…

20:35

Eight thirty five, I had missed a fuckload more than more my history lesson, I’d missed the bell to go home, my bus, the “Simpsons” and probably dinner. How the hell was I still at school? Why didn’t anyone call to see where I was? I took my cell out of my pocket.

A blank fucking screen.

That’s why. I meant to chuck it on the charger when I got home, but I didn’t get home. I pressed the little orange button to turn it on; it took its time to flicker into life, it was a fucking brick, ancient. I had received 12 missed calls while I was out, 6 from home, the other 6 from Melanie. The brick went dead again before I got the chance to call either back.`

......Sorry Guys this is as much as I have typed thus far, drop me a line and I might hurry up and drop part 2.......