Teach Me!

Scene 5

“Drake Nat High,” I muttered to myself. A school brimmed with bad influences and hopeless futures. The weak were at the bottom, the strong having power and control over them.

I told Alfred, “I gave up living in that school.”

“You? Give up?” Alfred stared at me in disbelief. “The most powerful gang leader of the batch whining about his previous school life gave up. Hah! Pathetic! You make me laugh.”

I tried to keep my calm in order to explain things to him. “Say what you want but I realized that being the kind of person that I was made no sense at all.”

I held my ground, appearing tough to the person I was verbally up against. “Living that kind of life didn’t serve any purpose for me. And that made me break off ties with my best friend. Besides, I gained a new kind of hope when I met my teacher.”

“Oh really?” he replied. “Is this teacher guy that one standing beside you?” He eyed Mr. Crest from head to toe.

Mr. Crest moved forward and said, “Yes, I am. You students are so bent on creating groups that only hurt yourselves.”

“Whatever, teach.” Alfred rolled his eyes. “You don’t know a thing or two about students like us. If we change ourselves, what will I become?” His sullen eyes stared off into space.

I’ll have to say that he’s correct. There was always a prey and a predator in that school. If he quit his gang without leaving his school, he’d become the prey.

Once someone exposed his weak side, all the powerful ones start to pick on him. Status symbols were always evident, girls, alcohol, expensive cars. Makes you wonder if the teachers ever reprimanded them. Unfortunately, it seemed like they didn’t have the ability to.

“You won’t turn into a weak person!” I tried to convince him. “If you quit, you’ll see a better purpose in your life.”

Alfred clicked his tongue. “Has your mind gone naïve because of that guy? You’ve certainly turned into something else, Michael Summers.”

He looked at me as if I threw away an important part of my life. I saw myself as someone who picked up what was supposed to be a living fragment of my being.

I almost forgot the reason behind my curiosity a while ago and so I asked, “You didn’t quit Drake Nat High. So, why are you here in this place?”

He shook his head. That only action was upsetting. All along, I was thinking that he was still in Drake Nat High. But that would be weird that he came all the way to this town just to play arcade. There must have been a feasible reason.  

Hoping for a positive answer, I asked him, “Where’s your present school now?”

Alfred replied with a smirk on his face, a smirk that made you shiver in fear, “Won’t you believe that I’m in this school Michael Summers is studying at? I enrolled at a late time but that doesn’t matter.” He rubbed his chin. “I wonder how I could have fun in that school.”

His reply left me slack-jawed. Imagining what would happen to me and the other students, I questioned him again, “And your gang?”

“A few of those idiots followed me here. They were loyal to me, after all.”

Mr. Crest thought of something. “You might have to reconsider your attitude in the school. I don’t want to hear some reports about bullying and such things.”

Alfred shrugged. “We’ll see about that. Anyway, I gotta go. See you tomorrow.”

As he moved past us, I felt a cold brush of air from him. Will my days get worse?  I was anticipating for days when nothing would happen. It wouldn’t be any good if my school turned into something like my previous one. Controlling the school could be similar to colonizing a country. Which is horrible.

I turned to Mr. Crest and he assured me, “Don’t worry. They won’t just do anything they want to do. They can’t get past the teachers.”

“Thanks. I just wish school will be the same as ever,” I despondently replied.