Memento Mori

Chapter Fourteen

As the author and narrator of this story, I would like to point out that this chapter and the following chapter may be read in any order. For example, you could begin with reading about Duncan's miserable time in Mr. Remora's class and then learn about Isadora's horrible time in Mrs. Bass' class, or vice versa. I would suggest that you don't do either.

Duncan smiled grimly at Isadora, who returned the gesture, and then wandered off down a corridor, trying to get to class. He had no idea how to get to Mr. Remora's classroom and had no friends in the same class to help him get there. He felt utterly lost.

At last, he found Vice Principal Nero, was was pacing around the corridor and muttering something about violins and famous classical music composers.

"Excuse me?" Duncan said shyly. He had learnt to be shy around Vice Principal Nero after his first meeting with them. He did not have to pretend to be shy - the man's threatening appearance already did that to him.

Vice Principal Nero let out a roar that was somewhere between surprise and annoyance. "You! How dare you! How dare you interrupt a genius when he is... when he is... is... lost in his thoughts!"

Duncan said nothing but stared at the Vice Principal as he went on in a rage.

"Yes! That's it! How dare you interrupt a genius when he is lost in his thoughts! Go to class! You are not Carmelita Spats! Therefore, you must go to class! Mr. Remora will be getting impatient! My, this isn't even the way to get to his classroom! You need to learn something, child! It's down the other corridor!"

Duncan nodded, scared, and rushed off. He passed Isadora on the way, who nodded at him and smiled.

Duncan finally found Mr. Remora's classroom five minutes late. The classroom was small with wooden desk. There were notebooks open on each table. The man standing at the front of the room was short with hardly any hair and a thick black moustache. He had a bunch of fresh bananas on his desk, and was chewing on one at that time. Duncan's stomach rumbled at the sight of fresh fruit.

"Good morning class." he said in a monotone voice. "Your notebooks are on your desks as always. They are not new notebooks. They are the notebooks you used yesterday. There is an apple in your desk as always. Please eat it if you wish."

Duncan was surprised to find that he was smiling. Even though this teacher was boring and seemingly obsessed with bananas, he had put an apple in their desks for them to eat. He began to feel hungry as he thought of the soggy cereal he had eaten for breakfast, and opened his desk. Inside was a single apple, large, bright red, and juicy. To most people outside of Prufrock Prep, that apple may have seemed like a simple snack, but to unfortunate Duncan, it looked like a whole meal.

He took a bite of the apple and the juice had a sharp effect on his tastebuds. For the first bite, it tasted a little bit like a blueberry, but on the second bite, he realised with disgust that this apple tasted exactly like horseradish.

I know this because I have eaten a Prufrock apple myself. It was not pleasant at all and I would not recommend one. I would probably have much preferred to have one of Mr. Remora's bananas.

He put the horseradish apple back in his desk in disgust. 

"Not a fan?" Mr. Remora said slowly. Duncan looked up and realised with a shock that his teacher was looking at him.

"N-no." he stuttered. "Not a fan."

"Class." Mr. Remora said loudly. "I would like you all to get attainted with our new student, Duncan Quagmire."

All of the students turned around to look at Duncan. He immediately went red and looked down at his blank notebook.

"How do we get attainted with him?" asked a student with curly ginger hair and bright brown eyes.

"Sorry. Aquatinted." said Mr. Remora through a mouthful of banana. "He is an orphan."

Immediately, almost in unison, all of the class turned away, looks of uncertainty on their faces. Duncan went red, wishing like anything that Mr. Remora hadn't announced that to the whole class.

"Now, everybody, what do we do in this lesson? Who can explain it to the new student?" Mr. Remora asked. Nobody put their hand up. "Daniel, what about you?"

The boy, who must have been Daniel, rolled his eyes. "We listen to your boring stories."

"They are not boring." argued Mr. Remora. "They are tales of my life."

Daniel scoffed and the rest of the class giggled - Duncan could tell that Mr. Remora wasn't a very popular teacher. He wondered how Isadora was getting on with Mrs. Bass.

"Then we keep notes about your stories and you ask us questions about them at the end of the lesson." Daniel continued.

"Yes." Mr. Remora nodded. "Pencils out. I took my white dog named Fluffball for a walk. He chased a squirrel. We returned home. The end."

Duncan picked up his pencil and wrote all of the information about the story down. White dog. Fluffball. Male. Walk. Chased squirrel. Returned home.

A female student spoke up. "You don't have a pet dog. You told us that at the beginning of the year."

"It's called a story, Margaret." sighed Mr. Remora. "It's made up."

"But that wouldn't make them tales of you-" began the student sat next to her, but Mr. Remora was already interrupting with a new story.

"Once I ate some soup. The soup had tomatoes and carrots in it. I spilt some, leaving a red stain on my blue shirt. The end."

Soup. Tomatoes and carrots. Spilt. Red stain. Blue shirt.

Duncan sighed. This lesson would be worse than he thought it would be.