Return of the Titans

CHAPTER SEVEN

I thought that Jay was inconsistent on an empty stomach, but it was worse when he was eating.

The boy ate like the last meal he had was during the Great Depression, and that probably explained his short stature. It was amazing watching him shove plate after plate of food into his mouth, and since I refused to cut anything for him, he had to do it by hand. He was a beast shoveling eggs and cheesy grits down his throat. Somehow he squeezed it through his gullet.

Jay stopped only to catch his breath. A loose bit of syrupy hash brown hung on his lip. I fought the urge to grab a napkin and wipe it off, but then I wondered if he even brought napkins. The walls were slick with meat grease that flew from his chomping.

Jay wiped his mouth with his jacket's sleeve. The stains that streaked it made me cringe. "So, where d'ya want me to start?"

I spread my palms. "The beginning, I guess. What is this place?"

Jay tore a piece of pancake and dipped it into a bowel of syrup. "Prison Grove Prepatory," he said, popping the soggy piece into his mouth. "I know, pretty grim, right?"

"It has 'prison' in the name," I said. "You could say that."

"It wasn't always like that. Two summers ago, we were renovating the place to accommodate more students, when the old headmaster stepped down. He was nice; always gave out candy and strangely smelled like weed."

So, the run-of-the-mill perv, okay. I motioned for Jay to continue.

He did after gulping down two pints of orange juice, straight from the bottle. "Anyway, he was replaced with some random guy. And by random, I mean really. Nobody knew who he was or where he came from. It was just one morning, Headmaster Gravis. The next, this guy." Jay leaned in like he was about to reveal a secret. "Personally, I think he came from the ponds out back. They always creep me out."

"Mhm." Jay really needed his meds. He was coo-coo for cocoa puffs without them.

"The guy took over, literally. This used to be a private school, where we had the chance to 'express ourselves' and eat McDonalds if we decided to bring a bag in. It was awesome. Now, we wear these stupid uniforms, wake up precisely when the sun's butt crack peeks over our heads, and actually learn something. I have Dyscalculia -- do you know how hard it is to learn Algebra?"

"I only know the simple stuff," I said, shrugging.

Jay nodded. "Exactly. Precisely. But no, this is the school for us. We're now a prep school without the title and our parents?" He laughed shortly. "I dream of when my dad can see the headmaster the way we do."

Jay looked at me as he spooned grits and sausage bits into his mouth. "Where're your parents, Youngblood? Must be terrible if they sent you here."

"Yeah, uh, about that..." I didn't want to tell him that I pretty much didn't have parents. I never knew my father and my mother...

Well, I didn't have parents. Not the way that he did.

I decided to change the subject. Hopefully, Jay wouldn't notice. "You said that I was a special case?"

"We don't call new kids newbies or stuff like that," Jay said. "It's either 'recruits' or 'special cases'. But it's always been recruits and they've always been the same for the past year or so: snobby, brass, and willing to pay their way through classes than study and fail like the rest of us."

"So because I'm not like that, I'm a special case," I concluded.

Jay nodded. "Yes." He paused. "Well, sort of. See, before you're accepted, you have to take this diagnostic test. Your parents give the school all of your previous work, but they also want to see what you can do right then and there. You get graded depending on how well you scored. That grade, no matter how long you're here or what you do, follows you throughout the entire semester. It's practically your name."