Club Z

Leo

I see my dad; he's standing in front of me in a dark alley somewhere. I can see his face, his smile, the way his eyes shine brightly as he looks at me. He's wearing the same leather jacket he always wears, behind him I see Sally. Wait that can't be right, Sally's in the garage right now; halfway fixed. I return my attention back to him. He hands me a motorcycle helmet, his motorcycle helmet, and he walks closer and whispers to my ear, "wake up son..."

"Mr. Wulf, wake up!" I raised my head, and I immediately backed up; falling to the floor. In front of me is Mr. Dixon wearing that creepy mask again. The whole class started laughing. He took the mask off and said, "Okay class this little demonstration is the way most wars are won. Most of the victors use the element of surprise, take the attack of the Japanese in the early stages of the Second World War They, without warning, started bombing..." I seriously stopped listening after that.

"Okay, class dismissed. Remember we have a quiz next week on the loser’s side of wars; study what they did that made them fail. And Mr. Wulf, I'd like to have a word with you in private please."

What now? I went up to the desk, and he smiled and asked me to sit in the first row. He then stood up and wrote something on the board, "Mr. Wulf I am not pleased by the way your grades are dropping this grading, however there is something you can do about that", he then points at the board where the words "Culture Fare" is written. He then continues, "This week we will be having our annual cultural fare, we've had different fares in the past. As we know, we tackle historical figures of different cultures and we immerse our students with these events. Now this year the board decided to have a certain character from English folklore. His name is Robert Fitzooth popularly known as Robin Hood." I interrupted him, "Please tell me you’re not thinking what I'm thinking?"

He replied, "Well it is a good use of your skills in archery which you are so famous in this school for. You will just have to- "Dress up like Robin Hood?", "Well yes, that and to teach some of the students the basics in archery. You’ll be heading a booth in the fare along with other students who volunteered for other characters. If you do this you'll earn three perfect quizzes, yes perfect, enough to pass my subject; perhaps I could even give you a grade above average if you do well."

He gave me until Wednesday and he let me out of the room. Great, I have two choices. A refuse the offer and mom will murder me when the cards come in and B remove every bit of dignity that I have and put on some tights so that people can laugh at me. Then again, I guess I don’t have much of a reputation to destroy...

Wednesday came and I arrived to school, off course Mr. Dixon was my last subject. The day went by and here I face Mr. Dixon to give my decision. “Mr. Dixon, I’m afraid I’ll have to accept your offer.” He smiled and said, “Great! The fare is on Friday, you can practice on what you’ll offer tomorrow, and you can use some props from the theatre department. Good luck!” I went home after our short discussion.

At my room I pushed my mattress and pulled something out from under the bed. I held it in my hands and un-wrapped the cloth covering it. My bow; I haven’t been using it for a while now. I picked up some arrows from a drawer across the room and I looked for the bowstring. After finding the string, I hooked it up to the bow and pulled it to feel its strength once more. After that I cleaned the bow and the arrows thoroughly.

Thursday morning came; I climbed out of my bed and went downstairs to eat breakfast. I then brushed my teeth, took a bath, and then went to my room to fix my things. I put the bow to its bag and strapped it top my back.

Last year when I was in the archery club, I was famous; people got used to me always bringing my bow around and they respected me. However, now things had changed after I quit; it took three weeks for people to stop asking questions, and soon enough the school found new athletes to brag about. Now only a few students and some old teachers remember my accomplishments from last year, so it feels kind of new to bring my bow to school again. New students stared at it in class, some of the new teachers asked about it and the old ones just smiled at me.