REEK HAVOC-DEAD POETS SOCIETY

𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓽𝓱𝓻𝓮𝓮

"Pick three laboratory experiments from the project list and report on them every five weeks. The first twenty questions at the end of chapter one are due tomorrow." Droned the chemistry teacher giving a last piece of hell to his students before his class ended.

The class collectively groaned. Juno sat beside Charlie due to sitting arrangements and she hated it. It was constant staring and winking when she glared at him. "Come on Dalton stop being such a skank and pay attention." Seethed Juno before writing down the homework in the notebook.

"Sorry sweetheart." He chuckled turning back to the board.

Dion who was sitting behind Juno gave her a light kick at the back of her chair. "What?" Whispering not wanting to catch the attention of the miserable teacher.

"Looks like you have an admirer." Said Dion leaning forward slightly,making her eyebrows go up and down. Laughing silently and sitting back at her seat before Juno could give her a back handed slap.

Meanwhile in Latin, Steven and Luna were repeating each and every word on the black board monotonously while Dixie was already drooling on her textbook. "Agricolam. Agricola. Agricolae. Agricolarum. Agricolis. Agricolas. Agrilcolis."

"Miss Goldstein wipe the drool of your face!" Dixie shot up and sheepishly apologised to the teacher and rubbed her eyes to keep herself awake for at least the last 10 minutes of the bloody class. "Again please! Agricola!"

"Your study of trigonometry requires absolute precision. Anyone failing to turn in any homework assignment will be penalized one point off their final grade. Let me urge you now not to test me on this point." Juno groaned and whined finding the homework given in 'Hell-ton' was way too much let alone a graded one.

"How do you think this Mr Keating guy is going to be like?" Neil asked Luna who was sitting closest to him. Luna shrugged and answered, "He'll probably be like every other teacher in this damn school. Sad and lonely,and who knows maybe he'll be like Mr Jones and be a creep." Neil chuckling at her statement.

Juno and Charlie were at the back actually joking around a little with each other laughing at their jokes and Charlie's cheesy pick up lines. Juno had even more fun making snappy remarks to shoot him down.

The whole class quieted down when Mr Keating himself emerged from his office at the back of the class sticking his head out and walking out of the classroom while he whistled.

"Well come on." Encouraged the man sticking his head back in the classroom before walking away. After some hesitation the whole class gathered their things and followed their new English teacher out of the class.

The students stood in front of the trophy case waiting for Mr Keating to start his class. " 'Oh Captain, My Captain' who knows where that comes from?" Asked their teacher.

Dion's hand shot up knowing the answer immediately. "It's from a poem by Walt Whitman about Abraham Lincoln." She smiled at herself proudly and Mr Keating's impressed smile.

"Very good Miss....Danburry. Very very impressive." He praised. The other girls smiled at her happy that their new teacher wasn't underestimating them. "Now let me dispel a few rumors so they don't fester into facts. Yes, I too attended Hell-ton and survived," making quit a few of them let out a light laugh, something that rarely happened in Welton classrooms.

"And no, at that time I was not the mental giant you see before you. I was the intellectual
equivalent of a ninety-eight pound weakling. I would go to the beach and people would kick copies of Byron in my face." Making everyone in the class start laughing a few even clutching their stomachs.

This was hands down the best class in Welton history.

Well everyone except for Cameron, Charlie's unpleasant roommate who was taking down whatever Mr Keating was saying.

"Now, Mr... Pitts. That's a rather unfortunate name. Mr Pitts, where are you?" A tall lanky boy raised his hand timidly clearly uncomfortable with everyone having their eyes on him.

"Mr. Pitts, would you open your hymnal to page 542 and read the first stanza of the poem you find there?" Pitts turned is hymnal and his eyes widened at the title of the poem.

"To the virgins, to make much of time?" Mr Keating nodded while the rest of the class laughed. "Rather fitting isn't it?" Whispered Juno to Dion making her laugh covering it up with a cough.

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, old time is still a flying, and this same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be dying." Me Keating nodded content with Pitts's rendition of the poem.

"Thank you Mr. Pitts. 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.' The Latin term for that sentiment is Carpe Diem. Now who knows what that means?" Meeks raised his hand confidently, "Carpe Diem. That's seize the day,"

"He's pretty smart isn't he?" Dixie said smiling at him while biting her lip. Luna furrowed her eyebrows, "Out of every guy in this school you pick Meeks?" Dixie's face heated up becoming a light shade of pink. "No just to me he stands out." Luna rolled her eyes mumbling something under her breath.

"Seize the day. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. Why does the writer use these lines?" Asked Mr Keating. "Because he's in a hurry!" Exclaimed both Juno and Charlie at the same time.

Both high-fiving each other.

"No, ding! Thank you for playing anyway," pressing an imaginary buzzer. "Because we are food for worms.Because, believe it or not, each and every one of us in this room is one day going to stop breathing, turn cold, and die." The class went quite when the topic of death came into Mr Keating's speech. Keating turns around to face the case filled with trophies, photos and footballs.

" Now I would like you to step forward over here and peruse some of the faces from the past. You've walked past them many times. I don't think you've really looked at them." Everyone slowly approached the glass case looking over each other's heads getting a glimpse of the students who came before them.

"If you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in."

The four girls leaned in almost warily observing each photo looking for at least one woman but it seemed like they and the others from Midtown really were the first women to step foot in Welton.

"Carpe.... Hear it? Carpe. Carpe Diem. Seize the day children,make your lives extraordinary."

Their group exit the building, Mr Keating's class fresh in their minds.

"By the way Pitts, Cameron, Dixie, Juno, Dion and Luna. Girls, Pitts and Cameron." Introduced Neil. Pitts nodded in greeting and Cameron rolled his eyes ignoring them.

"That was weird, the class." Many agreed.

"But it was different wasn't it?" Juno retorted high on happiness, finally finding a teacher who understood her way of learning. "Do you think he'll test us on that stuff?" Asked Cameron. Charlie rolled his eyes scoffing.

"Come on Cameron, don't you get anything?"

"What? What!"