TW: This chapter contains light descriptions gore.
Jimmy clenched. His fists in his pockets. He could feel every thread on his poorly ironed uniform at the same time. Anxiety burrowed itself within his tense body. He could feel the air slightly blowing against him as he sped walked through the halls.
“Jimmy!” Cried a whiny voice followed by rapid stepping.
He looked behind him. A sweet face inched closer to him as Petey walked forwards.
“You were walking fast, you know I can’t keep up” he said through a pant.
After a forever of walking, they came to the doors of their English classroom. Quietly opening the cold, metallic door, they stepped in.
“10 minutes late,” rung a masculine voice. “30 points off.”
Petey let out a harsh sigh. He slumped down at the thought of his grade. He closed the door, gripping the handle sharply, as if it would rid him of his anger.
Petey navigated his way to his seat. The wood of the old, unwelcoming chair grinded against the bones of his back.
The teacher slapped down a paper in front of him with a note sloppily written “Late to class by 10 minutes.” He cringed inside.
Petey looked over at Jimmy. He glared at Mr. Galloway.
The teacher plopped down in his chair. He took a swig of the poorly hidden beer bottle, then grimacing at the taste of warm, hot, beer. He looked over at Petey.
Quickly, Petey looked down at his paper, furrowing his brows. For a minute, he pretending to be thinking about his answer. Soon becoming bored, he read question one.
“In the excerpt from the book, “The Great Indian Novel’, what is the riddler the writer talks about?”
This time, Petey furrowed his brows unconsciously. He shook his pencil, thinking.
He didn’t even read the article. He’s not about to read 5 pages for 6 questions.
“A. The story of a father’s accident and the mother as a surgeon.
B. They story of Sphinx near the great pyramid of Egypt
C. The story of Ravana with ten heads and strong will.”
Lazily, he circled C. C was always the right answer.
Jimmy however didn’t bother to think about any of questions. He found that the more he thought, the more likely he was to get the question wrong. He’d skim through the question and answers and circle one that seemed the most correct with no afterthought.
After a good 5 minutes of some non fiction article about some type of cannibal worms, Jimmy moved onto the questions.
“God, this is the only interesting article I’ve read all year.” He thought.
Jimmy read through the first question.
“How does the author explain to the reader the effects the worm has on the environment?”
Jimmy rolled his eyes, he didn’t know. Too lazy to look back at the paragraph he remembered being blatantly labeled “Effects on Environment”, he looked over at Petey.
Petey was scrunched up over his test paper, looking focused. He had his right arm laying on the table, bent backwards to rest his head on, fiddling with his pencil in his left.
Jimmy had that monotone but relaxing, test taking feeling. That one you realize you actually enjoyed after you snapped out of it.
The speakers coughed out a low buzz, one that signalled the bell was about to ring.
A shiver of panic ran down Jimmy’s spine. He looked down at his paper, realizing he was on question 13.
He quickly gained a strict grip on his pencil and started to circle random answers --the signature Jimmy test taking move.
Jimmy looked up, making sure the teacher wouldn’t notice him doing this. He then looked around the classroom for a second. No one else was in a hurry, not even Petey.
In a matter of seconds, he got to the last question.
He heard the steps of this teacher’s dirty loafers. A sound someone could only describe as pointy.
He looked up, seeing the teacher walking directly towards him, skipping everyone else.
Jimmy short Petey a nervous glance as Mr. Galloway walked closer.
Galloway snatched up his paper and began examining it. His nose almost touching the paper.
“I‘ll give this….” He stumbled out. “A…. 42…”
There was no way he. Memorized all the answers and graded it in his head. Not even a prefect could do something as impressive as that. It was obvious he was drunk. Hopefully he’d sober up before putting this in the grade book.
Mr. Galloway creeped up to every other student, making sure to take his time getting the papers, watching to see if anyone dared to pack their bag before he said they could.
He always got strict when he was drunk. Usually he could care less if someone came in late or passed notes.
No wonder he took off 30 points for them coming in late. It was obvious now.
The bell had rung. A loud buzzing sound ran though the halls, soon to be drowned out with laughing, screaming, and chatter.
Opposite of the outside, Galloway’s room was dead silent. No one dared to move. Everyone could smell the strong alcohol on his breath. Almost like a something releasing pheromones to warn other animals to stay alert around it.
Everyone was watching the clock, watching the red line clicking continuously.
He had picked up Derby’s test paper with a loud crack that filled the air.
He burped. “Alright.. You may go… QUIETLY.”
Jimmy and Petey met up at the water fountains outside of the class.
“Did you finish?” Asked Jimmy, hoping someone else was in as deep shit as he was.
“I didn’t.” He responded. “Hey.. Wanna go to that homeless guy’s shack for lunch? I got 20 bucks, we could get him to get us some lunch.”
“Sure, but I don’t have any money to repay you,” Petey said, looking up at Jimmy.”
“Just do some type of errand for me.” Jimmy replied.
The boys had retrieved the greasy bags of food and shoved it under their shirts, praying for there not to be a stain.
After carefully passing the prefects that were scattered across the campus, they had made it to the boy’s dorm. Jimmy reached for the metal knob on the door and shivered. The winter air freezed the knob. He opened the door, allowing him and Petey to scoot through the slim door.
They reached their rooms and parted ways.
Petey came to his room and plopped down on his bed, about to dig into his grease-ball burger. Then an idea came over him. He’ll just take some money from Gary’s room. Shows him a taste of his own medicine considering how much of a bitch he was to him.
While chewing his food he thought about everything Gary had done to him since day one. What makes him so special? Why was he THE target of Gary. He was just some guy. He wasn’t a nerd or prep or anything. Just some townie.
Petey sighed as the crunched the wrapper to his eaten burger. He would do anything to get Gary to leave him alone.
“Wish.. Huh… What’d I do if I had a genie?” He mumbled to himself.
Petey thought about it for a second. First was obviously Gary to leave him alone… Forever. Next would for him to be taller, and then for him to be more handsome.
He really didn’t know what to think of himself. His parents and grandparents always said he was good looking. That was the only real experience he had with being called hot or ugly.
He wasn’t important enough to be discussed by the girls, or even guys! He guessed he was average. Nothing was special about him.
Petey fell down on the thin mattress. He grunted since the tough springs hit his back.
Now that he thought about it, he grabbed a fry. There wasn’t anything exceptional about him.
He was an average looking guy, and a slightly below average height, he was an average student, a townie. He had an average shoe size and an average clothing size. The only real thing that wasn’t average about him was his weight. He was a scrawny kid throughout all of his life. He was never scrawny enough to be picked on, but it stuck out to him.
Thinking even more, the only things he thought stuck out about him only really stuck out to him. No one else noticed anything. Maybe he was just to average for anyone to notice him.
He was also too timid. Someone even called him adorable last month!
Petey reached back down to the carton of fries laying to the left of him. His hand reached an empty box.
He leaned up, looking in the box. He might as well go into Gary’s room now. There wasn’t much time until 3rd block anyways.
He got up as the bed made a creaking sound. After opening the door and sneakily walking down the hall, he leaned up to Gary’s room.
He pressed his ear to the chilly wooden door.
He didn’t hear anything except for the heater beating and buzzing.
Softly, he turned the knob. He looked around through the slim crack he created, still nothing.
Petey tip toed in, closing the door just enough to make it looked closed, but not have that loud click. He walked across the rough, stained carpet and over to the closed closet door.
His had breezed over to the handle of the door. Still anxious about someone hearing him.
He slowly opened the door and saw a pair of feet covering the sock drawer.
Now he thought he want to change his first wish to having a stronger personality.
His eyes came across a pale body dressed in basketball sorts and a wife beater. He looked up even further to be met with Gary’s face, just 3 inches upward of his.
Petey yelped, falling down and scooting back. Tears ran down his face.
Before he could even comprehend, Jimmy bust into the room.
Jimmy felt his heart drop. He saw Gary hanging on a noose, slit wristed. Fresh blood running down his hands onto the beige carpet.
Jimmy swallowed the lump in his throat. He then ran outside to a prefect.
