The Child Within

Chapter 4

The petite hand lingers in front of Max, waiting for his paper to be passed. After a few brief moments the wrist begins to twirl in a clockwise motion, indicating impatience. Finally, a head whips around and gives an agitated stare at Max. "Are you deaf? Pass your homework forward," demands the female student in an annoyed tone.

"Uh, I didn't really do it, so I can't turn it in," Max replies in a disappointing tone, followed by a slight roll of his eyes.

With a slight amount of embarrassment building up, Max is quite perturbed at his younger self for not completing the assignment. He had really just wanted to make it through the day staying as low key as possible to not look like he was losing his mind. His sisters and friend Martin have already noticed something off with him on this day, and Max is still feeling like a fish out of water.

The papers reach the front desks and are collected by the teacher. "Has everyone turned in their homework?" the teacher calls out.

Max remains still and looks straight ahead, trying to figure out what to do. He questions whether to tell the teacher he forgot to do the homework, or to do nothing and claim he turned it. When Mr. Browning asks, Max figures he can claim it must have gotten lost, in which case he would be more than happy to redo the assignment. Hell, it worked on his boss once so why not give it a try. It's only a brief moment before the situation resolves itself for him.

The girl's hand in front of Max pops up, and she's already talking as it rises. "Mr. Browning, Max didn't do his homework," she shouts out in a gleeful tone. The whole class immediately turns and stares, with several students loudly snickering in Max's direction.

The tattletale's name is Emily "something". Max doesn't remember her last name, and doesn't much care. They were never friends, but just simply knew one another, as was a common situation for Max in school. He didn't particularly like her, but had nothing against her either. That had just changed.

"So you didn't feel it was important to do the work for my class today huh Max?"

"Um, I just forgot to do it last night, sorry," Max replies in a somewhat embarrassed tone.

"Well that is indeed a problem Mr. Kipson, it looks like I'll need to see you after class."

As Mr. Browning heads back to his desk after collecting the papers, the rest of the class goes back to facing forward, and more importantly, taking their eyes off Max. Emily "something" leers back a moment longer, clearly content with her small shaming. With a villainous smirk she slowly turns back around herself, reminiscent of a movie villain. Not wanting to cause a scene, Max lets it be.

"Dude what's wrong with you? Why didn't you do the homework?" Martin murmurs with a shoulder shrug. "It's like a ten minute thing, heck it only took me like a half hour," he continues in a half joking manner.

"I don't know man, it just slipped my mind I guess."

The rest of the class goes smoothly, and Max does what he's supposed to. He takes notes as the teacher talks and tries to look like he's paying attention even though his mind is mulling over larger questions. Keeping to himself as much as possible is the plan for the rest of the day. He even finds time during the period to look over some of the papers in his trapper keeper and figure out his class schedule. Homework is handed out near the end with the teacher informing that it would be due Monday, adding that everyone would need to do it, not just the students who feel like it.

With a mildly sore buttocks from sitting on the hard wood seat for over 45 minutes, the bell rings and it's time to move on with the day. Grabbing his book and trapper, Max pops to his feet and heads for the door.