Leviticus: Return back home

Ch.20: The assignment

《JAY'S POV》

As soon as Jay entered the room he spotted his boyfriend sitting at a table, next to Matt. Alex wasn't with them.
"What the hell?" He said, while slamming his bag down on the table.

Normally he would be glad to see his boyfriend, since that meant they could spend some time together, but this occasion didn't feel as joyous.
"Wait, you and Riven? Why us four?" Matt asked.

Jay shrugged. "You being here doesn't surprise me. But Levi being here does."
"I'm more confused as to why Nick, Alex and Felix aren't here." Riven said, while sitting down next to Matt.

Levi smiled. "It might be a good thing. Maybe we did really well at a test or something?"
"I love your blind optimism, Levi. But I doubt that's the case." Matt shook his head. "No, look at Mr. Bailey's face. That isn't a you're-about-to-get-praised face. That is a you're-definitely-in-trouble face."

They all looked to the teacher who was standing in front of the room, his arms crossed in front of his chest.
"That's not good." Jay said.
"Everyone's here, I see?" Mr. Bailey asked, as if they knew who was supposed to be here.

"Oh!" Suddenly Jay remembered something and he raised his hand.
"Yes, Jay?" Mr. Bailey sounded exhausted already.
"Charley Reyes isn't here, sir."

The teacher nodded. "Yes, I heard he was called in sick today. Alright, class. As you probably already saw, all of you went on the trip last week."
Jay had not noticed that yet, but looking around he realized that was right.

"Do any of you have any idea why you're here?"
The silence was deafening, because nobody wanted to risk saying something that wasn't known to the teachers at all.

Jay tried to come up with why they were called here. Maybe because he didn't sleep in his own room? But Riven slept in his own room every night, so why was he here? Or because they sneaked out?

"On the second day of the trip," Mr. Bailey continued. "You went to a church. In this church, you had some assignments you needed to do. Does that ring any bells?"

It did in fact, ring some bells for Jay.
The realization dawned on him, that he had gotten an answer sheet from that guy, Archibald or something, and when he looked to his left he saw he was also here. Oh, god.

"Now all of you finished the assignment, which is great. What is less great, is that all of you had the exact same, very wrong answers."
A simultaneous groan went through the room, as everyone realized what had happened.

"I see all of you have refreshed your memories, huh? Cheating is a form of stealing. You are stealing from your classmates, stealing from us as teachers, who trust you and most importantly, you are robbing yourself of the knowledge you could have acquired if you had just done the work."

"Tragic." Matt mumbled.
"So, since all of you enjoy the art of stealing, we will provide you with another art to replace it with. Writing!"

Matt buried his face in his arms.
"All of you are going to write an essay on stealing. I want pros, I especially want cons and I want pages, pages full of words which tell me exactly why people steal, what stealing is and why it is wrong."

"Isn't he overreacting a bit?" Jay whispered, feeling this was a bit unjustified.
"That seems to be a thing nowadays." Riven sighed.

"We will assign you into duos to do this essay with. Firstly, Archibald McKinley and Roy Jones..."
Matt rolled his eyes. "This is just great."

"Jay Kim and Levi Anderson." The teacher continued, unaware of Matt's displeasure with the situation.
"Oh. My. God." Levi said. "This really is great."