SING ME TO SLEEP -- neil perry

chapter five: days end

Neil grabbed his book and ran out of his room slamming the door shut behind him. He was late for his first class and He knew Dr. Wilson would beat his ass, literally if he were late more than twice. It was already the second month of school and the trees had begun to turn brown and yellow with the early autumn. The sweaters and long shirts that Neil had been forced to suffer all throughout the hot days at the beginning of September were now beginning to come handy as the temperatures dropped and the sun began to slip below the horizon earlier and earlier in the evenings. He rushed through the hall, pushing the small boys who wandered slowly into his path roughly out of his way, not bothering to look back when they squealed in annoyance. He reached the door to the classroom three flights down the stairs and out of breath. He pulled open the door quietly, hoping not to draw any attention to himself and found the classroom hard at work with their heads bent down into their textbooks. Dr. Wilson wasn't in sight so Neil assumed he must have been in his study and breathed a sigh of relief, quickly closing the door behind him and sitting down at his desk. He pulled out his textbook and began looking at it intently hoping to present the image that he had been in class the whole time. He nudged Charlie's shoulder and whispered, "what page are we on?"

Charlie whispered back "137" under his breath.

At that moment, Dr. Wilson appeared from behind the door of his study, rapped twice on his desk and said, "Attention." The students all looked up from their books, rapt with attention. "I will not tolerate students being late to my class, Mr. Perry." Neil lowered his eyes and groaned inwardly, this would mean at least one dyas detention if not more. Dr. Wilson continued. "And you Mr. Dalton, speaking with Mr. Perry while you are supposed to be doing your classwork is also not acceptable." Neil glanced over and saw Charlie role his eyes.

"Don't think I didn't see that Mr. Dalton! Now both of you will be receiving two days detention with me." He paused for a moment and then seemed to see the grins forming on Neil and Charlie's faces. "And you will be in detention at different times. Not together." He added. The grins faded quickly.

Neil had a lot of homework to catch up on and detention meant at least a note from his father telling him what a disgrace to the family he was, if not an order to quit some other club and spend more time focusing on "the important things in life."

Neil spent the rest of the class trying to keep his attention towards the front as if he was paying rapt attention while slowly falling back into his own thoughts, unconcerned with the theory of relativity or the law of gravitation and its relation to other forces of nature. By the time the class had ended he had only taken half a page of notes compared to his normal five pages. He was going to have to find someone to copy from.

As Neil was walking out of the class, Dr. Wilson stopped him at the door. "This afternoon at three. Meet me outside my office." Neil nodded glumly and walked out of the classroom.

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Neil stood outside Dr. Wilson's office with his bag slung over his shoulder containing everything he would need to do his homework after this detention was done. He wasn't going to have enough time to go back up to his room if he wanted to work outside while it was still light. And you could never predict how long Dr. Wilson's detentions were going to be, although Neil had always believed that the school should implement some sort of rule for detention length. A teacher should never be able to keep a student for more than five hours, and yes this had happened to Neil on multiple occasions.

The door opened and Dr. Wilson motioned inside with his left hand. Neil stepped into the room and waited for Dr. Wilson to close the door behind him. He did and then sat in the large black chair behind his desk. "Sit," Dr. Wilson said, pointing towards the small wooden chair opposite his. Neil took his bag off his shoulder and did as Dr. Wilson asked.