Chapter 3
“Straight!” the book slammed down hard against the desk, creating a thunderous thwack. Daniel bolted awake. A bright red oval appeared where his head had been resting on his forearm. “Stop sleeping in my class!” Mrs. Goots said, or rather spat, into his face. It wasn’t his fault he had fallen asleep, yet again, in her class; her boring, monotonous lectures seemed to make the small clock on the wall go torturously slow.
“Sorry, late night,” Daniel said. It was a lie, of course, but he couldn’t just say, “Sorry, I hate your class and your droning voice, so I decided that sleep was a better use of my time.”
“Do you have any idea what we’ve been talking about the past twenty minutes?” she sneered at him. Her bleak facial features seemed to amplify the irritation in her tone.
“Shakespeare’s influence on modern love?” he tried, bringing chuckles from the rest of the class.
“This is Biology, Daniel,” she sighed. “Talk to me after the bell.”
Luckily, there was only five minutes left in class. Steven, Daniels best friend, came and punched him in the shoulder.
“Did you see her eyes turn red when you thought this was English class?” Steven laughed. ”If you don’t come to next period, I’ll be sure to call the police!” Steven walked out the door. If given one word to describe Steven’s personality, Daniel would have used goof.
Daniel gently rubbed his shoulder, “yeah you do that,” He shouted at Steven through the door. Daniel took a deep breath and approached Mrs. Goots.
“I just don’t get it, Daniel, not in the least.” She said, shaking her head. “You’re a bright kid; you constantly get high scores on the tests. In fact, last month you got the top score on the mid-term finals.”
“Yeah, I think you gave me a soda,” Daniel said nonchalantly.
She continued without acknowledgement of his statement, “Yet, you just don’t put any effort into your school work.” She pulled out a model of a plant cell Daniel had made last week. The model itself was miraculously put together, but the labeling of the organelles was shoddy at best. Most of the labels were in wrong places, many of them misspelled, and some of the labels not even there. “It’s a beautiful model, but why couldn’t you have just glanced in the textbook for the correct labeling?”
“The Simpsons where on TV,” Daniel said, honestly answering her question. The phone started ringing, phew, saved by the bell.
Mrs. Goots gave him a “we’re not done” look and picked up the phone. Daniel tried to eavesdrop on the conversation, but he only got one side of it.
“Mrs. Goots room 204….yeah he is…oh no,“ She got really quite, “that’s terrible…is he checking out?...yeah I’ll send him down.” She gently hung up the phone, “Daniel, they want you down at the office, take your stuff.”
“Straight!” Erik stopped his conversation with the girl behind him to look up at his math teacher, Mr. Hardman. “I didn’t realize that I was interrupting you’re conversation with Ms. Jones. If you want, I can stop talking until you’re done telling her whatever was so important you decided to disrupt my class.”
“Ok, just a sec,” Erik turned back to the girl, “So anyways, when I punched that homeless guy…”
“STRAIGHT!” Mr. Hardman blasted at Erik, “I didn’t mean that literally.”
“Then why’d ya say it?” Erik retorted. He loved questioning the authority of the teachers…it made school so much more interesting.
Mr. Hardman grouched, “Honestly, Erik, you make me speechless sometimes. Just shut up when I’m talking, OK?”
Woah! A teacher used the S word! Erik thought to himself comically. He thought It best not to back talk for the time being, “yeah, ok.” He gave the teacher two enthusiastic thumbs up.
He got out a pad of paper and pretended to pay attention. Erik, as unlikely as it seemed, was actually pretty sharp. Tough concepts quickly clicked in his mind that took everyone else in his class a full week to understand. That’s pretty much the only thing he had in common with his brother; school just wasn’t very challenging. This is rough for a kid that has been tested for ADHD on multiple occasions and can’t sit still in his seat for any longer than it takes to do anything else, say pass a note to the pretty girl behind him.
“Out in the hall, Straight,” Mr. Hardman said, pointing out the door.
“Oh anything but the hall!” Erik over exaggerated, pretending like the hall was some sort of medieval torture device. “I shut up like you asked!”
“Out” Mr. Hardman said. ” I’ll be out to talk with you in a second.”
Erik made a “Call-me” gesture to the girl behind him and walked out the door. He got out a bouncy ball and started throwing it against the Hallway’s wall, but it bounced awkwardly off the brick and rolled out of sight down the hall. he sighed, mourning the loss of his twenty five cent play-thing. It seemed he had been sitting there several minutes when Mr. Hardman poked his head out the door.
“They need you at the office, Erik. Your brother is already down there.” Mr. Hardman said. He looked a little sadder than usual… that’s strange.
“I didn’t do it! I swear those rulers were broken before I got there.” Erik said with as much sincerity as he could muster.
“What broken rulers? Never mind, just go down to the office.” Mr. Hardman went into the classroom and shut the door behind him.
Crap, he hasn’t found the rulers yet. “Ok, Peace out Mr. H.” Erik walked down to the office, making sure to write his name in scuff marks along the way. When Erik walked through the office doors, Daniel stood up and rushed over to him.
“What did you do now?” Daniel jabbed at Erik, “They wouldn’t tell me anything until you got here.”
“Something I did? I’m an angel! What did you do?” Erik said, trying to look as serious as he could.
“Puh-leez” Daniel said, rolling his eyes. “I’ll find out soon enough, here comes the principal.” The principal and the school therapist came out of the principal’s office, both with troubled looks on their faces.
“Oh good, your both here,” the principal said, glancing at the school therapist. “It’s custom for your family to tell you this, but I’ve been informed that I should tell you, since no immediate family is... available. ” He took a deep breath.
“I don't know how to tell you this without just saying it, so here it goes. Boys, I just got off the phone with the police. Your father was found dead on the offskirts of town. Your mom can’t be found anywhere. You can’t imagine how terrible I feel. I’m sorry.”
