Young, Poor and Crazy

Chapter 12

Mr. Smith was beyond angry, beyond furious. Those awful kids didn't know how to behave these days. It went from bad to worse. And now, they had detonated fireworks in his school. They had all gone too far and if he found out who was responsible-

Well, that's for a later time. The loud explosions seemed to have stopped, so it's back to his office. Maybe Taylor decided to do something stupid so he could at least punish him some more. With that promise to himself, mister Smith turned around and headed back to his office.

Luckily Roger wasn't a complete idiot and he had enough experience on sneaking out during detention to know it was probably about time to start clearing up the mess that the cupboard had become. John was more than happy to help, so together they mopped up the burning hell liquid and disposed of the towel in the most reasonable way they could think of:

They dumped it out of the window.

Just then Roger heard the unmistakable sound of Mister Smith's footsteps. He quickly turned towards his newest friend.

'John, please hide under the desk.'

John was about to argue, but after seeing the genuine fear in Roger's eyes, he didn't question anything and complied.

Roger gently helped John ease into his hiding spot. Then he kicked some stray shards of glass under the cupboard and ran to sit at his designated place. Just then mister Smith burst into the office. His eyes immediately shot to the chair at the desk. His eyes widened with genuine surprise upon seeing Roger actually sitting where he was supposed to sit.

Glancing at mister Smith with a level expression, Roger held out his assignment.

'I'm done sir.' He said with a monotone voice. Mister Smith approached the paper with the caution of a bomb disposal expert. With his forefinger and his thumb, he took the paper from Roger and sat down to read it.

Under the desk, John scooted as far away from Mister Smith as possible, his back ending up pressed against Roger's legs. He tried not to panic and to breathe as quietly as possible, taking shallow but long breaths and closing his eyes in an attempt to stay calm.

After a long time of nothing but silence, Mister Smith looked up from the assignment and directly at Roger.

'Who are you trying to fool here, Mister Taylor?' Mister Smith asked in a menacing voice.

'What do you mean, sir?' Roger asked, keeping his voice emotionless.

'This...' Mister Smith distractedly waved with the assignment. 'This is not your work, Mister Taylor.'

'I can assure you that it is, sir.' Roger maintained.

'Is that right?' Mister Smith smacked down the paper onto his desk. He stood up sharply and walked over to Roger's place at the desk. John immediately crawled back to the middle of the desk so the principal wouldn't see him.

With another loud smack, Mister Smith closed the book in front of Roger, taking it back to the shelf and carefully placing it in the right spot. Then, spinning around to face Roger again, he asked: 'How does one amplify sound with the use of electronics?'

Roger couldn't believe his luck. John and him had talked about that for quite awhile. John had explained how he had been able to build a decent amplifier out of some scraps he found. Not to his surprise, he was able to answer mister Smith's question perfectly and any other question that he threw at him. He felt really proud of himself. Mister Smith didn't seem so pleased, but who cares about him, right?

'Well-' Mister Smith concluded after a fair amount of questions. He sounded a bit disappointed. 'It seems I have underestimated your knowledge on this particular subj-'