Stratford Academy-muke

1

The school was in the middle of fucking nowhere. The nearest restaurant was 40 minutes away, while the nearest mall was an hour away. The only thing surrounding the school was pure forest, some random cows, and a few tiny faculty houses where the teachers lived.

Michael stood in front of a white house behind the entrance gate. Dana opened the door, and Michael walked in. It was cozy, that was for sure. There was a soft red rug on the floor with two leather couches.

"What's this place?" Michael asked as he dropped his backpack onto one of the couches. Dana smiled once more (his smile was starting to piss Michael off. How could someone be this happy living in the middle of nowhere? And working at a school?)

"This is 'the head house,' as we call it." Michael let out a snort at the word 'head.' Luckily, Dana didn't seem to notice.

"In this room over here is the principal. The other two rooms are my office and Mrs Cranford's; she's our assistant." Michael nodded, acting like he was paying attention to Dana's words.

Dana opened the closest door to him. Inside sat a lady with a blonde bob. She seemed to be in her late 50s or early 60s. "Ah!" she happily clapped her hands together. She stood up out of her chair and walked over to Dana.

"Come in! Come in!" She smiled. Dana walked into the room with Michael awkwardly shuffling in behind him.

"You must be Michael, correct?" she said, clasping her hands together. Michael nodded.

"Yeah..." the lady smiled. "Well, I'm Mrs. Wynn, the principal." she held her hand out for Michael to shake.

Michael awkwardly smiled and shook her hand. "Please, take a seat!" she gestured to two leather chairs before a grand desk.

Michael sat in the far right chair while Dana sat on the left. Mrs. Wynn sat down behind her desk and wrote something down on a piece of paper. "So, you're from Australia, that's quite a long flight!"

Michael awkwardly laughed. "Yeah, not a fun trip." Mrs. Wynn gave the red-haired boy a sympathetic smile. 

"Well, I might as well tell you the rules," she said. She pulled out two pieces of paper. She handed one over to Michael and kept the other for herself. Michael looked down at the paper.

STRATFORD ACADEMY RULES

Stratford, huh? So that's what this hellhole is called.

"Okay, Mr. Clifford, I recommend carefully following these rules.

#1: stay in dress code. The dress code consists of a collared shirt and khaki pants. Any other article of clothing will grant you a dress code violation and detention.

#2: lights out at 10 pm. Any later, and you will be granted a detention.

#3: no phones during academic hours. If we see you on your phone once, it gets taken away. A second time will get it taken away for a week. A third time will get it sent home.

#4: no smoking or drinking. Being caught doing these will grant you a suspension. Getting caught twice will lead to expulsion.

Do you understand?"

Everything seemed to go into one of Michael's ears and out the other. He slowly nodded, acting like he gave a shit about the rules.

"Lovely!" Mrs. Wynn smiled. "Once a month, we have community dinners that will be mandatory. Weekend breakfasts are mandatory as well." Mrs. Wynn droned on about other rules that weren't as important.

When she finished, she gave Michael another smile. Why does everyone smile so much here? "Do all of those make sense to you?" Michael nodded once more.