EVERMORE | DEAD POETS SOCIETY

TEN!

"NO GRADES AT STAKE, LADY AND GENTLEMEN. JUST TAKE A STROLL." Keating told his class as they marched in the courtyard. The air had gotten a bit crisper, and it was quite cold. However, the love that Betta and Neil had for each other was just warming up. The class walked around the courtyard with a steady ease.

All of a sudden, three boys started to march in sync. Keating caught up on this with a smile on his face. "There it is!" Keating smiled. More boys started to clap to the beat, which made Betta giggle as she walked alongside Neil and Meeks.

"I don't know, but I've been told!" Keating shouted.

"I don't know, but I've been told!"

"Doing poetry is old!" Keating shouted again.

"Doing poetry is old!" The boys and Betta repeated after him.

Betta looked up at the window to see Mr. Nolan looked down at them. She felt uneasy, not sure why he was watching them. Mr. Nolan intimidated her, almost as if he didn't want her to become some sort of embarrassment for Welton. If she messed up her opportunity of being at the most prestigious schools in the country, she would never hear the end of it from her parents, who never wanted her to go in the first place.

"Left, left, left-right-left. Left, left, left-right-left. Left, halt!" Keating orders as they all go into a halt. "Thank you, everyone. If you noticed, everyone started off with their own stride, their own pace."

Rebetta smiled to herself, as she always loved Mr. Keating's analogies. He always knew how to make something so little, become powerful. Keating started to walk very slowly. "Mr. Pitts, taking his time." He said, commenting on Pitt's lanky walk.  "He knew he'll get there one day. Mr. Cameron, you could see him thinking, "Is this right? It might be right. It might be right. I know that. Maybe not. I don't know."

"Mr. Overstreet, driven by deeper force. Yes. We know that. All right. Now, I didn't bring them up here to ridicule them. I brought them up here to illustrate the point of conformity: the difficulty in maintaining your own beliefs in the face of others. Now, those of you, I see the look in your eyes like, "I would've walked differently." Well, ask yourselves why you were clapping. Now, we all have a great need for acceptance. But you must trust that your beliefs are unique, your own, even though others may think them odd or unpopular, even though the herd may go, "That's baaaaad." Robert Frost said, "Two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." Now, I want you to find your own walk right now. Your own way of striding, pacing. Any direction. Anything you want. Whether it's proud, whether it's silly, anything. Gentlemen and lady, The courtyard is yours."

They all started to walk again. Some took the walking very seriously, others did goofy walks. Rebetta and Neil kept making fun faces at each other as Meeks kept nudging them to stop flirting. Then there was Charlie, who was not walking at all but instead, just watching his fellow classmates. "You don't have to perform. Just make it for yourself. Mr. Dalton? Are you joining us?" Keating asked him.

"Exercising the right not to walk." Charlie tells him.

"Thank you, Mr. Dalton. You just illustrated the point. Swim against the stream." Keating said. Betta looked back up at window, to see that Mr. Nolan was gone. She just wanted to know why he was watching them so closely?

In the afternoon, she disappeared to go find Todd. A little birdy from the cafeteria blurted that it was Todd's birthday. She was shocked that he didn't tell her anything about it, probably because he didn't want to make it such a big deal. She swung the door open and saw Todd at his desk.

"Betta," Todd smiled. "What are you doing here?"

"You know what I'm doing in here, don't act dumb Todd!" She smiled as she shut the door. "I can't believe you didn't even mention to me that it was your birthday!"