The Hate Game

3 | Wesley

Hm, this looked nice.

As he stepped into the classroom, immediately several pairs of eyes left their textbooks to look at his face. Sure, he was a good ten minutes late, but he could flash his charm at the (hopefully) female teacher and everything would be all right. Once he was settled in, out his phone would go and he'd tweet about the latests discoveries of his brand new schedule.

Instantly, all of his hopes and dreams malfunctioned.

"Late, are we, Mr..." a male teacher said from the back of the room, slouched at a desk. "Mr..."

"Carlson, sir," Wesley said, flashing a smile at the class. "And sorry about that. Had a bit of trouble looking for this room. With the new year and all, it's kind of hard." he chuckled and scoped the students again, looking for any of his homies. He spotted a few and tilted his chin at them, giving them a small wave. He chuckled again, feeling compelled to start talking about his day with them - from the teachers, new classes and let's not forget girls.

"A bland excuse, Mr. Carlson," the male teacher said, standing up from his desk and walking towards Wesley, holding a sticky note. "I hope it is one you will never choose to repeat again in this class."

Wesley paused in his grimace. Wha... Huh? "Sorry, I didn't catch your name, Mr..."

"Hamilton." Mr. Hamilton said, standing in front of Wesley. A bit short and stubby, his voice was dominant over all the whispers in the class. "And in return for your... generous entrance, I will compensate you with this." he handed Wesley the sticky note.

Wesley looked down at it and almost jumped. In big, fat, hot pink marker, it read:

PLEASE EXCUSE WESLEY CARLSON FROM LUNCH TODAY TO GO TO MR. HAMILTON'S CLASS TO REPORT TO LUNCH DUTY.

"Lunch duty?" Wesley asked. "What is this?"

"Ah, ah, ah," Mr. Hamilton said, pointing a stubby finger in Wesley's direction. "First rule of my lunch duty class: never ask any questions." several students snickered, including some of Wesley's friends, even that cute girl he was scoping out before school. Anger welled up inside him as Mr. Hamilton walked over to the board. "The place in which your feet are grounded now will be your seat for the rest of the week, Mr. Carlson." he said as he began to write on the board.

"What?" Wesley asked quietly as several students laughed at him. This was horrible. Minutes ago he was chilling with his friends, flirting with girls and being the "It" dude of the junior class - and now he was the class clown, and his lunch was therefore destroyed and subjected to lunch duty... With this man.

"Welcome to Jewelry 101, Mr. Carlson," Mr. Hamilton said, smiling warmly at Wesley.

"Jewelry 101? I never signed up for that!" Wesley cried, and dropped the sticky note as he rummaged his pockets for his schedule. Before he knew it, the entire class was laughing louder than his swearing mind.

"This isn't jewelry 101, stupid," a guy with thick glasses said to Wesley. "Can't you take a joke, man?"

"I... What..." Wesley said and looked over at a bulletin board behind the desks. SPANISH, it read, and he let out an internal sigh of relief. So he was in the right classroom, only the teacher was a pathetic piece of poo who had decided to pick on Wesley, and class had barely started.

"Quiet!" Mr. Hamilton barked loudly and everybody shut up and straightened their backs. He looked at Wesley again, and this time, there was no humor. "Mr. Carlson, I was joking when I refered to this class as a jewelry class. However, now, the joking is over, and class is about to begin. You may stay where you are standing, chico, for the rest of the week until you can learn respect to your Maestro and your fellow amigos. You will report to my lunch duty until further notice that I can tolerate your actions, understand?"

Wesley nodded. "Yes, I do. I understand completely." Inside, so many swear words were coming out he was scared to open his mouth, in fear they'd come tumbling out from there.

"En Espanol, Mr. Carlson!" barked the Spanish teacher.

"Si, Maestro!" Wesley cried, terrified of the sudden outburstof the teacher. Several students laughed, and Wesley felt like running out the door. But who knew what this teacher would do to him?

"Now." Mr. Hamilton said calmly, placing his hands together. "We'll start off the year with a pop quiz - to test you of last year's curriculum and some of this year's to see if you can keep the information fresh in your mind." Several students groaned, but Wesley didn't. He was seething inside. When he looked at Mr. Hamilton, fires broke out in his mind.

He didn't like this teacher. He didn't like him at all.

Wesley didn't notice the one student that hadn't taken their eyes off of him.