Excellence Excerpts

The Student, The Other Student

"I can't believe this, the audacity of that Johnathan!" Exclaimed a balding middle aged man, brow furrowed. He was furiously typing an email, beads of sweat dripping form his forehead. The teacher then stood up suddenly with the slam of his hands on his desk, and began pacing around the room angrily. "I mean, he's got a detention for being late to class... And he's late to detention!"

In the front row of desks, a student was sat absent mindedly doodling in their notebook. They held the side of their head with one hand, leaning into it, while the other meticulously shaded a drawing of a skull with headphones. In their sleeve was a wire leading to one singular hidden earphone, playing a Weezer song on low volume which was partially blocking out the sound of the teacher blabbering on about how year eights aren't in year seven anymore and should act more mature or something like that.

"Can you believe this, Anderson?" Asked the teacher with genuine disbelief.

"No, Mr Stevens." The student replied, rolling their eyes. "I can't believe it."

The teacher approached the student, preparing a lecture in his head."Back in my day, let me tell you!" He scoffed. "This would not fly, not in a million years! You know we had-"

"The cane, yeah, sounds awful." The student interrupted, trying to get him to stop talking and leave them alone to the  drawing. The older man leaned forward and put his hand over the students notebook, forcing them to stop drawing. The student looked up impatiently at the source of the inevitable scolding.

"Is that a hint of snark I detect in your voice, Anderson?" Mr Stevens said as he snatched the notebook from the surface of the desk and held it up, threatening to confiscate it.

"No, sir, sorry." Said the student. Happy with this answer, Mr Stevens surrendered the book and placed it back on the desk, but then suddenly snatched an earphone from the students hidden ear, yanked the plug out of the phone and put both in the drawer within his desk, which he locked. The student scowled at this, but didn't have room to retaliate before the teacher began to leave.  "Honestly, kids these days..." He sighed to himself  while he made his way to the door and held it open.

"I'm going to go find him." He said. "So behave, okay? I trust you to stay here and not cause any trouble, maybe you'll even be good influence on him if he ever decides to show up." He said before leaving. The wooden door to the history classroom slammed behind him, leaving the student alone with nothing but a sad, silent, weezer-less classroom.

Some time passed, and the student looked around the classroom for anything that would be more interesting to look at, finding absolutely nothing of value. Slowly, the shape of an angry face with it's tounge out formed on the pages of the student's sketchbook, unsubtly capturing the frustration of the situation.

Just then, the door slammed again, and in stomped the missing student, Jonathan, with a backpack slung over one of his shoulders lazily. The bag is falling apart, the other strap badly frayed and barely attached to the body of the bag. He blew a strand of his long brown hair out of his face before locking his confused eyes with the student.

"Oh shit, where's Stevens?" He asked them. "He not show up?" The student shook their head and continued drawing, trying to ignore him. Johnathan carelessly chucked his bag under the desk in front of the student and then sat down on the chair accompanying it. He tapped the desk with his fingers while the other student continued to sketch loudly. Jonathan made a loud noise between a sigh and a groan to break the quiet and turned around in his chair, his arms around the back of the seat as he leaned forward, hovering his face over the other student's desk. "Watcha drawing?" The other student shut their book defensively and glared at him.

"None of your business." The student replied bluntly.

"Aw c'mon what else am I meant to do, sit here till I die of boredom?" He whined.