Dead Poets Society By N.H. Kleinbaum

CHAPTER 4

The first day of class dawned bright and clear. The junior-class boys dashed in and out of the bathroom, dressing in record time.

"Those seventh graders look like they're going to make in their pants, they're so nervous," Neil laughed as he splashed his face with cold water.

"I feel the same way," Todd admitted.

"Don't worry, the first day is always rough," Neil said. "But we'll get through. Somehow we always do." The boys finished dressing and raced to the chemistry building. "Shouldn't have slept so late and missed breakfast," Neil said.

"My stomach's growling."

"Mine too," Todd said as they slid into the chem lab.

Knox, Charlie, Cameron, and Meeks were already in the class along with some other juniors. In the front of the room a balding, bespectacled teacher handed out huge textbooks.

"In addition to the assignments in the text," he said sternly, "you will each pick three lab experiments from the project list and report on one every five weeks. The first twenty problems at the end of Chapter One are due tomorrow."

Charlie Dalton's eyes popped as he stared at the text and listened to the teacher. He shot a disbelieving glance at Knox Overstreet, and both boys shook their heads in dismay. Todd was the only one among them who didn't seem fazed by either the book or the things the teacher was saying. The teacher's voice droned on, but the boys stopped listening somewhere around the words "the first twenty problems." Finally, the bell rang, and almost everyone from chemistry moved into Mr. McAllister's classroom. McAllister, probably the only Latin teacher in the history of contemporary education with a Scottish brogue, wasted no time in getting into the subject. He handed out the books and launched in.

"We'll begin by declining nouns," he said. "Agricola, agricolae, agricolae, agricolam, agricola ..." McAllister walked around the room, repeating the Latin words as the boys struggled to keep up with him.

After forty minutes of recitation, McAllister stopped and stood, facing the class.

"You will be tested on those nouns tomorrow, gentlemen. You have your work cut out for you." He turned and faced the blackboard as a collective groan rippled across the room. Before McAllister could begin round two, however, they were saved by the bell.

"That guy is nuts! I'll never learn all that by tomorrow," Charlie moaned.

"Don't worry," Meeks said. "I'll teach you guys the system. We'll study together tonight. Come on, we're late for math." Mathematical charts decorated the walls of Dr. Hager's classroom, and books were already waiting for them at their desks.

"Your study of trigonometry requires absolute precision," Dr. Hager instructed. "Anyone failing to turn in a homework assignment will be penalized one point off his final grade. Let me urge you now not to test me on this point. Who would like to begin by defining cosine?"

Richard Cameron stood and recited, "A cosine is the sine of the complement of an angle or arc. If we define an angle A, then ..." Dr. Hager bombarded the class with mathematical questions the entire period. Hands flew into the air, students stood up and sat down like robots, reeling off answers, staunchly taking harsh reprimands for mistakes. The bell rang, but not soon enough.

"Thank God," moaned Todd as he piled up his books. "I don't think I could have taken another minute of that."

"You'll get used to old Hager," Meeks consoled him.

"Once you get the pace of it, you'll do fine."

"I'm already six paces behind," Todd groaned as the boys walked together to their next class. He didn't say another word as they dragged themselves into the English room, dropped their books on their desks, and fell into the seats. The new English teacher, wearing a shirt and tie but no jacket, sat at the front of the room, staring out the window. The boys settled down and waited, grateful for a moment to relax and shed some of the pressure of the last few hours. Keating continued to stare out the window. The boys started to shuffle uncomfortably. Finally Keating stood, picked up a yardstick, and started strolling up and down the aisles. He stopped and stared into the face of one of the boys.