Morning all and welcome to the middle of the week. It feels like quite an achievement making it here. Today, I am clutching my box of tissues like a teddy bear but despite the running faucet of a nose i am feeling better than I have in a while so sniffles aside, let’s start this day off shall we? wiggle those fingers and get ready to warm up those brains. Set those timers for fifteen minutes and off we go.
Interesting . I can’t tell if I want to start this story earlier to see Billy’s escalation or if I just want to start off Dan’s journey from here. I think it would depend on the story i end up telling. But it seems to be an interesting start for a coming of age story.
Wednesday, August 10th: I will speak to each of you in turn.
I will speak to each of you in turn.” Jake tried not to look as nervous as he felt at the headmaster’s words. Mr. Fitzwilliams pointed at Alex and gestured to his office. Alex rose as though he was a puppet on strings, being pulled up against his will. He slowly walked into the office, Mr. Fitz following him. The door was closed.
Jake looked over to Sean and Billy, but the narrowed eyes of Mrs. Albertson, the headmaster’s assistant made him turn away.
‘I wasn’t actually going to say anything,’ he thought. After all what was there to say? Billy had a stupid idea. He tried to talk him out of it and was unsuccessful. The bad Idea went just as bad as Jake thought it would and now all of them were here, awaiting judgement.
It was, sadly, not an unusual predicament.
Jake tried counting up the number of times he had been in the headmaster’s office this year and found he lost count. He wondered if this time was going to be the final straw. If this was the time when he would be sent away. He suspected it was. This incident seemed to cause more property damage than most if the still billowing black smoke coming from the back of the storage shed was any indication. There were people going in with fire extinguishers as they were led away to the headmaster’s office and Jake hoped no one was harmed as they put out the fire.
It was stupid and he knew it was stupid. ‘If it hadn’t been stupid it would have been easy to talk Billy out of it,’ Jake thought. Keeping Billy from doing anything sensible was the easy part.
‘But he wasn’t that bad before,’ Jake thought. Something happened over the summer. Something Billy didn’t want to talk about. Whatever it was It turned Billy’s antics up from small pranks that earned them scolding to increasingly dangerous catastrophes.
As the headmaster’s door opened, Alex came out and Mr. Fitz pointed at Sean. He beckoned Sean forward and Sean rose. The door closed behind him and Jake looked at Alex.
“You can be on your way now Mr. Dennis,” Mrs. Albertson said. Alex nodded and Jake watched him trudge off. Jake watched his friend walk. Was that the walk of someone who had just been expelled? Was it the walk of someone who had a reprieve? He couldn’t tell and Alex disappeared down the hall, turned the corner and was gone. Jake risked a darted glance to Billy before turning back to study the closed door of the headmaster.
Billy had his jaw set which wasn’t a good sign. It was the look he got when he wanted to do something and thought that someone was in his way. He wondered if Billy would argue with the headmaster. It would be a stupid thing to do. Mr. Fitzwilliams had always let them get away with their less damaging pranks. They had kitchen duty and other chores assigned to them to make up for their misdeeds, but they didn’t get into any real trouble.
Jake had the feeling that leniency was at an end. That they pushed it too far. The headmaster’s door opened and A white faced Sean exited. Mr. Fitz looked at him, pointed and beckoned him forward. Jake stood and walked into the office as Sean headed off down the hall.
Ten til Midnight 