What Should I do? | Shawn Hunter

ii. School Sucks

THERE WERE MANY things that Kardern wasn't good at. He could honestly write a book on everything he wasn't good at and it'd be over five hundred pages, but perhaps at the top of the list of things he struggled with was school. It didn't make sense to many when they compared his sunny personality to his mediocre grades especially with the number of hours that Kardern would sit, head buried in a book 

That being said he still tried to do well in school -- even if he didn't really like it, so when Mr Feeny announced that they were doing a test, Kardern really did try to study, he only hoped he had done enough as he sat in his seat at the back at the class a seat down from Shawn Hunter as he tried to control the anxiety swirling in his chest 

Tapping his pen against the desk, he impatiently waited for the test to be handed out and when his grey-haired teacher put the slip of paper on Kardern's desk, he gave the eleven-year-old, a small smile which encouraged Karden to let go of the breath he was holding 

An hour later and Karden didn't even want to look at what he had written, not even when Mr Feeny had asked them to pass their papers to the front. Anxiety built within him but he tried to supress it as he pulled out a book and delved into the comfort that the pages of books seemed to offer him 

"Mr Minkus, the test didn't require an essay answer, but how refreshing you've chosen to include one" Mr Feeny answered as he moved around the tables to collect papers one after the other and even though Kardern was still reading his book, he couldn't help but overthink the answers he put on his test

Shawn coughed into his fist "Suck up"

"Future plumber" Minkus shot back without looking up

"Feels a C-- short" Mr Feeny told one of his other students and Kardern frowns, if they got a C what did he get? Did he fail the entire test? What if he did worse than Cory who had slept through the entire thing? Mr Feeny finally arrived at Cory's desk and came to a stop  "Ah yes, here we are"

"Huh is the test over, how did I do?" Cory asked, leaning across his desk

"Looks like an A"

"I got an A"

"No A is the only answer you put down before you slipped into the coma"

"So what did I get?"

"Well you answered one question out of forty and got it wrong, so what grade do you think I'm going to give you?" Mr Feeny asked, levelling Cory with a look and Kardern once again turned to the pages of his book, no longer interested in how the conversation was going. Instead, he let the conversation float over his head like white noise.

"Can it be found at the beginning of the word Fajita?"

"Si Senor"

"C'mon Mr Feeny I was up till after Midnight"

"Oh, and what earth-shattering event, kept you up until that time of night?"

"A no-hitter"

"You got to stay up and watch the game?"

"With my dad" Cory answered proudly and Kardern felt a spark of jealous in his chest. At least Cory got to spend time with his dad, at least Cory's dad wanted to spend time with his son. Karden was lucky if he saw his dad for a few minutes before he went to bed -- he was always working late.

"Cool"

"Ah silly me. Baseball. I thought you might have stayed up to watch something frivolous like the announcement from Stockholm of the Noble Prizes" 

* * * * *

Looking at the C marked in red pen at the top of his paper and sighed. It wasn't the bed but it wasn't like he was hanging his head in shame, he knew he worked hard for the grade he got, he just knew he had to do better next time 

"Ah Mr Osborn, what are you still doing here? School ended ten minutes ago I would have thought you would have enjoyed going home and turning on the television to relax" Mr Feeny asked the dark-haired boy who finally looked his teacher in the eye

"I was just caught up in my book...It's a good one"

"I can tell, I've seen you read it in class. It must be good"

"Sorry!" Kardern blushed, as he stuffed his paper inside of his book and tucked away the book in his backpack "I didn't mean to disrespect you by reading in your class, it's just reading helps me take my mind off my problems"

"We should all have something that takes our mind off things...But we should make sure that the things that distract us don't take over from our lives and stop us from facing our problems" Mr Feeny informs him as he begins to shift papers into a briefcase and standing up from behind his desk 

"I should probably go home"

"You did well today, you should be of yourself"

"Thank you"

With those parting words, Kardern left the classroom and the school putting on his headphones and turned over his walkmen and began listening to music as he continued to walk down the streets thinking about what had happened today, Karden was never good at school and in his opinion it sucked but at least he tried because he didn't want to spend day after day of his adult life stuck in a dead-end job 

He wanted to get out of here when he was older

Wanting to make something of himself, not like his parents. His mom walking out on him when he was just a kid and his father having to be burdened by the weight of two jobs and long hours which means that Karden rarely got to see his father and when he did he was too tired to mumble more than a few coherent sentence  towards his son 

Karden didn't know what he wanted to be in the future, but he knew he wouldn't be his parents.