The Scars of Qulin Moore

Chapter 11

The final period bell rang. Lucas stopped scribbling mindlessly on the inside cover of the math book, and snapped it closed—another grueling school day coming to an end. Another school week, done. He stuffed the book in his bag, and hurried to leave.

"Lucas," Mr. Jostin called out, "please wait a minute. I need to speak with you before you go."

Lucas slumped. Air from students rushing by smacked against his face in an unruly mockery.

So close, he thought, and turned to face this dictator. "Yeah? What is it?"

Mr. Jostin waved him over while skillfully keeping his eyes glued to a stack of papers.

"I said, yeah. What is it?"

Mr. Jostin's eye brows scrunched inquisitively. The pencil he'd placed behind his ear bobbed up and down like a plank of wood.

He flipped through the papers, and sighed. "We've got a problem," he said, finally looking at Lucas. His brows furrowed, rolls forming across his forehead.

"I want to talk to you about your homework."

"What about it?" Lucas replied.

"You haven't handed in the last three assignments."

Lucas scratched his head feigning surprise. "Are you sure you didn't just lose them? There's a lot of paper in that stack, seems like it'd be easy to lose."

"Yes, I am sure Lucas," Mr Jostin replied, sharply. "Currently, you're failing my class. Are you having any trouble with the formulas or the arithmetic?"

"No, I guess I just forgot to hand them in."

Mr. Jostin thought deeply for a moment. A teacher of greater than fifteen years and never once had he heard such a blunt explanation. It was almost comical. "Lucas, that's not a good reason. If you're going to pass my class, it's important that you complete the assignments and hand them in on time."

"Yeah, I know," Lucas said, growing impatient.

"Okay then, well listen, if you bring me those assignments in on Monday, I can give you at least partial credit. Think you can do that?"

"Sure, you got it Professor."

"Don't be smug, Lucas. I'm trying to help you."

Lucas wondered what kind of car Mr. Jostin drove. By the looks of his puke green sweater vest, the thick rimmed bifocals and the Co-exist sticker on his briefcase, he figured maybe a ragged station wagon or an old buggy. Whatever it was, it wouldn't drive well on slashed tires.

"Is that all? Can I leave now?"

Mr. Jostin shook his head. "Yeah, Lucas. You can go now."

Lucas darted from the classroom and careened down the hallway, weaving around the last few loitering students, and burst through the main doors of the high school. The fresh stench of exhaust still hung in the air from the departed busses. He looked towards the vacant senior parking lot, which was usually bustling like 5th avenue and hurried over to the crosswalk and without waiting for the guard to signal, darted across while laughing at the subsequent guard's whistle blaring at his violation. Everyone ordering him around—do this, do that—no body ever seemed to get tired of it. Holding him late like that, homework was just another crafty way of adults tried to control every minute. But Mr. Josten's concerns weren't an isolated incident. Wouldn't be long before the science teacher, Mrs. Daly, and the english teacher Ms. Hanley, added their two-cents. He'd not handed in any of their assignments.

He approached the football field. The football team practiced in their bulky red garb running drills and spouting all sorts of testosterone fueled rants.