Take a Walk

“Hastings!” came a thunderous voice from down the hall. Jeremy cringed; what could possibly be so urgent? Slowly, he stood up and began the walk from where he sat at the back of Señor Hernandez’s class to Dean Connors’ office. He felt eyes on him as he walked out, but kept his gold tinted eyes down, as they caused him much ridicule, blushing furiously. Feeling the blood rising to his cheeks, he attempted to regain some of his pride and tried on a cocky smile as he left, only succeeding in causing himself to trip over Stephanie’s backpack. Having lost faith in all forms of his confidence, he resigned to the stumbling gait that haunted his awkward young body.

Once free from the choking of the classroom, Jeremy Hastings leaned against the wall, eyes closed in relief. Why didn’t Connors just send a messenger like every other employee at Ginger High?

“Hurry up, Hastings!” came the roaring voice again. Pushing off the wall with his long-fingered hands hurriedly, Jeremy turned to his right and reached the final stretch between Point A, where he was, and Point B, where he needed to be.

Brushing away a thick lock of his strawberry blonde hair and pushing his glasses farther up his nose for the fifteenth time, he began walking. His shoes made little sound normally, but in the empty hall, he felt as if they nearly sang to announce his presence.

Sadly, he reached the office all too quickly and entered, pulling his tucked-in shirt down a little more, not neglecting his tie. On a second thought, he mussed up his hair and loosened the bothersome, constricting tie.

“There you are, Hastings; sit down.” Dean Connors sat in his chair, skeletal but fleshy, his skin white from an almost complete lack of sun. Jeremy did as he was told in a hurry.

Then he began the glorious façade, one he enjoyed more than most things in life.

His glasses, once framing nervous and unsure eyes, were now aid to a Class A Smartass. Jeremy’s worried frown became an insufferable smirk, one thin blonde eyebrow raised, as well as the corner of his mouth. He sat with his arms cradling the chairs beside him as if he were putting those same arms around two girls’ shoulders.

“Well, Hastings, it seems as if I finally have you this time,” Connors grinned triumphantly, running a hand through his balding hair, as if to confirm that yes, those sad rows of nearly nonexistent follicles known as hair did indeed remain.

“And why would this be, Mr. Connors?” Jeremy asked as he cleaned his glasses with his shirt nonchalantly. After placing the glasses back on his gently curving nose, he added with a quirk of the eyebrow. “And please don’t call me ‘Hastings;’ you know I hate it.”

“Shut up, Hastings, and listen,” Connors replied with a snap. He stood up and limped over to a filing cabinet—the limp being provided by Jeremy himself during an unfortunate fast food incident. “I figured it out—” at this point he cleared his throat, “—‘The more you take, the more you leave behind.’ The answer is a smile.” Connors sat back proudly, a smug grin on his pasty face.

At Jeremy’s lingering silence, however, he began to falter. His confident attitude shrank quickly, before it diminished completely. The student waited until the only sound either of them could hear was the whirring of the dean’s computer.

“Dean Connors…” The silence was broken at long last, “you are incorrect,” Jeremy finally said, his words damning. He looked up at the skinny man with a wicked grin, one that spoke volumes. “I suppose if you don’t ever figure it out, I won’t be able to give you what you so desperately need…” he motioned to the black toupee in his pocket discreetly.

“Oh, come on, Hastings! You know I haven’t thought of anything all day—”

“Trust me, sir, I do realize this.”

“—And all I want is to have it back,” Connors hushed his voice. “Please; I won’t be able to attend the meeting after school like this.”

Jeremy smiled again, this one quite a bit more pleasant than the last few, yet no more comforting. “Certainly.” Connors grinned and held out his hand expectantly. The blonde continued. “All you have to do is answer my riddle.” With that, he stood up and walked out, ignoring Connors’s pleas of frustration. As he left, the boy pulled the fairly expensive toupee from his pocket. He stared at it, amused, before calling back to the Dean, “Take a walk and think on it, Connors!”

Upon returning to his classroom, Jeremy slunk into his seat, the shy and timid nerd once more. But the remainder of the day, he was hard-pressed to stop the twitching of his mouth that was a smile.

“What’s up with you?” Audrey Michaels asked him at one point. The cheerleader had never seen this kid smile before, and wondered what poor girl he had fallen in lust with and set his heart on.

“The more you take, the more you leave behind—footsteps,” he said, surprising her. When she looked at him with a bemused and lost expression, he smiled, allowing a ghost of his earlier smirks to creep up. “Take a walk and think on it,” he told her. With that, he stood up. The bell rang and he hurried from his seat as fast as he could to the conference room.

There was a meeting about to take place that he felt he was obligated to attend.