Forest City Book 1

Chapter 8

Mr. Lupin was not what I expected, yet everything I did expect. He was tall and slender just like Cobalt, but Mr. Lupin's fur was a slight gray-blue color while Cobalt was a more saturated blue. They had the same eyebrows and same snout shape, but Mr. Lupin's ears were shorter than Cobalt's ears, plus he didn't have the giant tear that Cobalt had in his ear. Cobalt never mentioned what happened to his ear, but I think I have a feeling of how it happend, I assumed that he tore his ear when he was younger, but Monty said it happened last year and to not worry about it.

Mr Lupin started, "Good afternoon class, my name is Mr. Lupin, I am your English101 or Advanced English teacher." He wrote his name on the chalkboard and continued, "I want all of you to remain on your best behavior and one rule," he wrote: no phones on the chalkboard, "I expect all of you to follow this rule, even if you are passing my class or it is important or you have all of your work done."

I watched as Midge placed her phone on her desk and whispered, "Typical." She was practically glued onto her phone while Mr. Lupin was out of the classroom and hadn't been paying that much attention when he entered the classroom.

"For today, I have an assignment." Mr. Lupin continued, I watched as my classmates pathetically groaned in a depressing sigh, "Each week, we will have a free write where you will write whatever you like, I will have a prompt listed every Monday and I expect you to turn your writings in on Friday. You can choose whether you want to write in a notebook or digitally, I just need something from you on Friday."

Man, what to write about? I thought while placing my hand on my chin, maybe I can write down prompt ideas or write a novel... no that's stupid.

"I would like you all to tell me what you are going to write about or if you will do the writing prompt," Mr. Lupin said. His voice was monotone and clear, I wondered if he even enjoyed his job or not. He didn't seem to be happy after coming into the class... maybe he was in the office with Cobalt.

I raised my hand and blurted out, "I have an idea!"

Mr. Lupin raised an eyebrow at me and calmly replied, "Yes..." he glanced at his seating chart, "Macadamia?"

I stuttered, now realizing that the whole class was staring at me, "Well, y-you see, I want to write a story about a fox."

"And what does the fox do in this story," Mr. Lupin said with a hint of unenthusiasm.

"Well the fox befriends a chicken and they go to school," I continued, "they have... many misadventures and there is a lot of relationship drama with another chicken."

"Alright, you make it happen, maybe you can draw this story like Clove did," Mr. Lupin replied while sitting down in his desk chair.

He knows Clove!? I thought she mentioned that she had a very boring teacher in her notebook. Clove always wanted to be a comic book creator and maybe even go on to make cartoons or whatever, but slowly that dream died when she moved out of the house and into Aunt Hazel's apartment.

"If your story changes, please notify me, I don't appreciate sudden changes in schedules," Mr. Lupin said, "Now for the rest of class, you can read a book, either check one out from my personal library or from the school library or bring your own book, just make sure that it is your reading level. If you want, start your free write."

Every English teacher I have ever had has had a personal library, you can really tell a lot about a person based on the books they read. In Monty's case he reads a lot of books on aliens and the unknown void of space, but for Cobalt... I'm not sure if he actually reads any books, he seems to just be the kind of person who doesn't enjoy reading at all, even though he's passed all of his English classes, well except for one...

"Mr Lupin," Midge spoke up, "I have one question for you."

"Are you able to answer it yourself," Mr. Lupin sounded slightly annoyed, "You seem to like asking questions that have obvious answers or personal questions."

"Well, I was wondering where you were before class?" Midge asked.

"That's none of your business!" Mr. Lupin snapped.

Midge snorted in laughter then typed something on her phone. Mr. Lupin sat back down in his chair and rubbed his forehead, he grabbed some glasses out of a drawer in his desk and put them on, he began to start filling out what I assume to be an attendance form on his computer.

I grabbed another notebook out of my backpack, it was a great thing that our school let us wear backpacks in school. Back at my old school, we weren't allowed to have backpacks out and most kids came to class late because they had to stop by their lockers which were all the way across the school. I began to write down some notes for the characters I was going to write about, making little doodles of the characters. I'm not the greatest artist in the world, I mostly drew what Clove drew in her sketchbooks, I'm not surprised that Mr. Lupin knew Clove, they were neighbors, after all, and Clove was in Mr. Lupin's class...I think. I finished doodling a little fox and wrote a few notes about the character.

-Her name is Jessie.

-She is 16 years old.

-She is a fox...

Surprisingly, the bell rang, time flies when you aren't paying attention...and writing, I only got a few things down about my characters, I'll write more tonight. I glanced at my phone, Cobalt had texted me.

Cobalt: 2:32 "Dad's in here with me in detention, not happy."

Cobalt: 2:46 "Dad left, he is going to be very upset, fair warning, he gets mean when he's upset."

Cobalt: 3:28 "You there Mac, I'm bored and in detention? Wait shit, he doesn't allow phones."

I began to walk and text to my locker. Aunt Hazel told me that the bus leaves at 3:40.

-Macadamia has joined the conversation-

Mac: 3:30 "Yeah, do you have to stay after school."

Cobalt: 3:30 "Oh good you're still here, yeah, I have to stay after, unless my dad can convince the principal that I'm innocent but if you've seen the video..."

Mac: 3:31 "Well, I never got to see the fight so I don't know anything."

Cobalt: 3:33 -sent a video- "As you can see, he punched first."

Mac: 3:33 "Dude how's your eyglk-"

Who would have known that I would be the one to walk into a door the first day. I glanced over at the main office, the principal's door was open and I watched as Mr. Lupin stepped into the office and closed the door. Tora sat in the main part of the office, he was huge and muscular, I'm surprised Cobalt even managed to punch him in the face. I winced at the idea of this huge tiger shoving me against a locker and punching my face repeatedly.

I pushed the door outside to see a mess of students rushing to get on the buses. I continued to walk to my bus, number 8, and I texted Cobalt one last thing when I got into that madhouse

Mac: 3:35 "See you when I get home."