Good morning everyone. I hope you had a fantastic weekend. This weekend I actually managed to get out all of my fall and winter clothing. To be honest i hadn’t really needed them until now. Last week I went scrambling for a sweatshirt so I figured it was time to make the grand clothing swap. I am amazed by how many t-shirts this summer destroyed. but that is a problem for the spring. For now, I have warmer clothes at my disposal and we have a new week of prompts to kick off. Are you ready to start the first one of the week? I am, so let’s go.
Interesting. I am not sure if this wants to be a dealing with a bully sort of story or if it needs to be something else. I might have to give it a good think and then return to it.
Monday, October 24th: The bench shifted with his weight.
The bench shifted with his weight. It gave a low and ominous creak that sounded suspiciously like old nails pulling out of even older wood. He froze in place. The sound stopped. He leaned forward a little balancing his weight on his feet as much as possible. He had been told to sit down on the bench and wait. He knew he was already in enough trouble without directly disobeying a direct order so he did as he was told. He just hoped the bench too did as it was told.
With his weight shifted to his feet, the bench stopped complaining as much and quieted. The shifting too stopped and Kevin hoped that it would at least last the duration of his weight time. If it collapsed he wanted it to be under someone else. The last thing he needed to add to his list was destruction of school property.
‘Well more destruction,’ he thought glumly.
He hadn’t anticipated the destruction in the first place. He knew it wasn’t even his fault. He hadn’t added the extra bits. If left on his own, the chemistry experiment would probably have gone off okay. Chemistry wasn’t his strong suit, but he paid attention to all of the notes this time and thought that for once he managed to mix things in the right order.
‘Even if it wasn’t a failure, it wouldn’t have blown up.’
Kevin knew that while he wasn’t the best at mixing it was mostly because he rarely bothered to take the time to measure things correctly, not because he didn’t understand the science. There was nothing in the collection of chemicals he had on his table that would have caused the reaction it did. There was no combination or measurement discrepancy that would have caused the damage.
‘Someone added something.’ If he thought about it, Kevin knew he could probably work out what was added. It didn’t take a genius, or even very much thought to realize who had done the adding.
‘Jacob said he would get back at me,’ Kevin thought. ‘And this is the sort of thing he would do.’
But knowing why the experiment went wrong and who was responsible was only part of the problem. Even if Kevin wanted to tell on Jacob, something he wasn’t sure he wanted to do, there was no proof. Kevin doubted anyone else had seen Jacob tampering with things.
‘or if they did, they would keep it to themselves.’
Jacob was too mean to cross. Everyone knew it. Kevin hadn’t actually meant to cross him. It just sort of happened and now he was stuck dealing with the aftermath. If everyone hadn’t known Jacob was bad to cross, watching the events of this semester would have clued them in. This was hardly the first time he had been called in to deal with the repercussions.
It was however the first time he had been asked to wait outside the office. Kevin was usually brought in and talked to immediately, receiving his punishment in short order and being sent on his way. Mr. Harris did not like students hanging around the office. He felt they should receive their sentencing and get sent back to glass with a minimum of disruption to the learning process. This was his first time being sent to the bench to wait.
On the other side of the door there was the sound of Mr. Harris. He was on the phone and clearly talking to someone else. His voice was muffled by the thick wood of the door and it rose and fell. The tones sounded serious. Kevin wondered who Mr. Harris was talking to. Was it his parents? He suspected as much. Which parent it was would determine his fate once he left school grounds. Neither was a cheerful option to contemplate.
Ten til Midnight 