birds of a feather|| a dead poets society fanfic

06

Francesca, Felicity, and Gabby were all sitting at a table with all of the Saint Agatha's girls in their grade. Valerie was sitting with her brother's friends, waiting for Neil.

She was eating her lunch when Neil strolled in with a yearbook. "Hey, I found this senior annual in the library." He gave the yearbook to Cameron and the group laughed at the younger picture of Keating. "Listen to this, captain of the soccer team, editor of the school annual, Cambridge bound, Thigh man, and the Dead Poets Society."

Cameron read from the annual, "Man most likely to do anything."

"Thigh man. Mr. K was a hell-raiser." Charlie laughed.

"Gross." Valerie scoffed and Charlie winked at her.

"What's the Dead Poets Society?" Knox asked.

"I don't know." Neil responded.

"Is there a picture in the annual?" Meeks joined in.

"Nothing. No mention of it." Neil said.

Valerie was looking over at Gabby and the rest of the girls in their grade. She couldn't understand why Gabby wasn't talking to her. She understood that she pushed the limit with asking, but Gabby was never a person to keep a grudge from her friends for more than an hour. Neil looked over at her, waiting for commentary, when he realized that Gabby wasn't sitting with them.

Valerie saw that Francesca had gotten up and started to walk over to her. She sat down and started to eat again. "What's wrong?" Valerie asked.

"I'm sorry if I'm imposing. I just couldn't listen to Cici keep crying over Cameron." She sounded upset. That was also the first time that Valerie heard Francesca call her Cici the whole time they've been at Welton.

"Your not imposing." Valerie nudged her with her shoulder and smiled. Mr. Nolan had started to walk around the lunchroom. Cameron put the annual under the table and they continued to eat their food, mostly in silence.

–

"Can I come along?" Francesca asked the group when they got done eating.

Neil smiled at her. "Yeah. We would love to have you."

The group followed Mr. Keating outside, he was taking a stroll towards the lake. "Mr. Keating? Mr. Keating? Sir? Oh Captain, My Captain?" Neil called out to him.

Mr. Keating stopped and waited for the group of students to catch up to them. "Ladies. Gentleman." He nodded at the students, greeting them.

"We were just looking in your old annual." Neil spoke handing Keating the annual and Keating looked at his old pictures.

"Oh my God. No, that's not me. Stanley "The Tool" Wilson–" he bent down flipping through the yearbook.

Neil crouched down with him, "What was the Dead Poets Society?"

Keating laughed, "I doubt the current administration would look to favorably upon that."

Valerie and Neil asked their question at the same time, "Why? What was it?"

"Children, can you keep a secret?" Keating asked. The group shook their heads and squatted down next him. The girls got down on their knees because they both had skirts on.

"The Dead Poets were dedicated to sucking the marrow out of life. That's the phrase from Thoreau that we'd invoke at the beginning of each meeting," all of them listened attentively as Keating spoke, "You see we'd gather at the old Indian cave and take turns reading Thoreau, Whitman, Shelley; the biggies. Even some of our own verse. And in the enchantment of the moment we'd let poetry do it's magic."