school’s out | fiction
short fiction
It was a hot Monday afternoon one hour before home time. Somewhere outside a kite flew away, bubbles blown by children floated towards a blue sky full of tomorrow’s promise. Soon summer would arrive for adolescent teenagers full of rebellion. But first there was the final day of class.
In a classroom, students with loose ties and untucked shirts slouched at wooden desks. The smell of strawberry bubble gum, BO half-masked by spray deodorant, stale cigarettes. Within each boy and girl was a lack of urgency only someone who understands they cannot escape their environment until time is served understands. Each student had the sad eye expression seen in parents returning home from a night shift at the local factory. As class began, mumblings of not wanting to be there punctuated the air like gun shots.
What’s the point of math?
Is it legal to study in a room this hot?
He dresses like he’s eighty
Can smell his coffee breath from here. Stinks
‘Settle down. Quiet. That’s enough!’
A balding teacher dressed in brown cardigan and chords struggled to be heard. A bell rang.
Oh my god did we start class early?
That’s well out of order!
‘Enough!’
Through squinting eyes encased by thick rimmed glasses, the teacher began registration. His face scrunched up like paper as though being blinded by sunlight as he spoke. Stood in front of a chalkboard covered in math equations, he stuttered as he read from a register full of names the headmaster knew too well.
‘Parker.’
Yeah
‘Kennedy.’
Here
‘Patel.’
Here, Mr. Thompson
‘Lumb.’
Which one?
‘Christopher Lumb.’
It’s Chris
‘Johnston… Paul Johnston?’
Can’t he see in those glasses or what?
‘Lucy, that’s enough.’
What-evs
The teacher wrote the letter P or A or L or E inside tiny square columns beside names that filled a room with young bodies awaiting a final bell that would signal the start of summer. If a pupil was absent and the teacher asked if anyone knew why, words were met with silence. The bigger, louder, angrier students glared at geeks or oddballs or weirdos with blue hair until heads bowed and textbooks opened. Their trembling hands met pages as if paper was made from butterfly wings.
Nobody say anything about Joe, a spotty faced boy whispered.
The teacher read though a list of surnames with the methodical nature of a math teacher. As he did, a fat boy with freckles at the back of class, began pulling on the shoulder strap of a goth’s backpack. It had a smiley face with X eyes printed on it. The fat boy began yanking at the strap as though a flush chain above a toilet. He pulled and pulled until the bag fell from his seat and crashed to the ground.
‘What was that noise?’ the teacher inquired.
Looking up, he scanned a room of disgruntled faces. Each time he attempted to engage eye-contact, a student shot him a look that suggested they’d just smelt a fart.
‘Think it came from outside, sir,’ the fat boy said.
The goth with ink black fingernails and hair the length of his shoulders, waited until the teacher returned to the register, picked up his bag, placed it in his lap and began stroking the logo as though a cat.
‘After class you’re getting it,’ the fat boy whispered.
‘I didn’t tell though.’ The goth whispered back.
‘Yeah, but you wanted to.’ The fat boy kicked a leg of his chair. ‘Tennis courts after school for a quick beating or next time you get the compass.’
‘Please.’
‘Please.’
The classroom was big and square like a canteen, lacked ventilation and windows. Often registration took the teacher several minutes to complete due to unforeseen disruption caused by students who felt slighted for having to get out of bed in the first place. If a fight or verbal assault broke out like acne, it would spread through the room like gossip. Once, the teacher had required assistance from the P.E teacher to break up a fight between two boys on the same football team. Fists pounded away at each other like mallets against meat. Later both boys confessed it started over a girl blowing a gum bubble and winking. Stood in front of the headmaster, they had each confessed to one another they didn’t like her anymore, called a truce and ate detention.
Sir, can I go to the toilet?
‘After you’ve presented last week’s homework, Michaels.’
Dick
A blonde girl with pert breasts yawned in the face of a wide-eyed dreamer as he attempted to pass her a note of paper with the words, you’re well fit written in red ink. Pursing lips, she stroked a ChapStick across them as though a brush on canvas, giggled as the boy’s mouth fell open. His pink tongue appeared like a Kit Kat from a vending machine.
‘You look thirsty,’ she whispered.
‘Can you meet after school?’ the boy asked.
‘Where?’
‘Bike sheds.’
‘You’re desperate for a ride, aren’t you?’
‘What?’
‘Don’t sleep with virgins.’
The keen boy with curtained hair and moonlike eyes blushed so hard, it appeared his face might explode. Returning his eyes to the table, he opened a textbook, began scribbling across pages full of numbers.
‘Alright, calm down,’ the blonde girl said.
‘As if you care.’
She stopped smiling, closed her mouth, put a lid on the ChapStick.
‘Meet me on top bench in the park after school.’
‘Really?’
‘Tell anyone and I’ll say you tried it on with me.’
‘I won’t, I promise.’
‘Better not.’
‘Amazing.’
Once registration was over and the chalkboard was wiped, the teacher instructed students to open their textbooks. Turn to page seven and answer questions relating to algebra. His command was met with grunts and stomping feet.
‘Enough!’ he yelled. ‘Or we’ll find time after school.’
Will we f—
‘That’s enough! Open your textbooks and stop talking.’
They opened their textbooks, sharpened pencils and leaned forward with the reluctance of someone being pushed towards a cliff’s edge.
A train travels at a speed of 80 mph. How long will it take to cover 320 mph?
A ladder leans against a wall, forming a triangle with the ground. The ladder is 10m long, and the base is 6m from the wall. Calculate the height of the ladder on the wall.
2x+5=13
(solve for x)
Among bored and frustrated and angst riddled teenagers who struggled to focus when alone with their thoughts, sat Gabriel. A boy who had grown tall, into social acceptance after scoring a winning goal in the last minute of a cup final for the Sunday football team. He had come on as a substitute, ran into the box as a corner was taken and with eyes closed, booted the ball into the goal on the volley. In celebration, a teammate put Gabriel on his shoulders and carried him off the pitch. Parents stood on the sidelines holding cans of beer cheered and waved fists in the air as he left the pitch.
The goal followed a sudden growth spurt, one that added inches to a chubby frame that quickly slimmed and toned as he reached new heights. Gabriel’s voice, once high-pitched and choir like, was now low rumbling. Acne was replaced by stubble that poked out from taut flesh. Several weeks of furious masturbation followed puberty. Mostly over the pert breasted blonde in math class. An hourglass girl who it was rumoured had given it up to an older boy named Danny Jones over summer. In the back of a Vauxhall Nova 1.4 with black aluminium rims.
Once having finished the math questions, Gabriel scratched his initials into wood with a compass. Looking up at a clock on the wall reminded him he was unable to leave until it was time. Glancing over his shoulder, a student passed him a pack of wine gums. Taking a couple in his hand, he passed the packet to a friend sat next to him.
Nice one, Gabriel
‘Thomas gave us them,’ he said.
Nice one, Thomas.
‘No worries, lads,’ Thomas said.
They chewed sweets until a bell rung and teenagers began flooding out of a musky room with the urgency of passengers desperate to exit a plane that survived severe turbulence.
Heard you’re going out later? A boy stood behind Gabriel whispered as they exited the class.
‘Remember to do your homework over summer!’ the teacher yelled.
No chance sir!
‘I’ll be out,’ Gabriel replied.
They shuffled forward like penguins.
It’s going to be mental. Want to snort a can of gas before the seven bus?
‘I need to collect my sister first from nursey.’
Cool. Joe ended up in ER last week. Did a bottle of Jack and cans, you heard about it?
‘I heard.’
He said he’s doing it again as soon as he gets out of hospital.
‘I heard.’