They Rely On Hope. What Do I Rely On? - Tommyinnit Adoption AU

Chapter 52

TW: panic and harassment

The next class was Software Engineering with Purpled. It was both mind numbing and extremely confusing at the same time. Throughout the entire class, the teacher spent the whole time ignoring them, playing games on his phone, which all things considered, Tommy didn't mind. It meant he couldn't ask questions, but he wouldn't ask anything anyway, so really it didn't affect him. Purpled seemed to have finished the project that they were supposed to be doing, which theoretically was programming a game, so in between working on his own side project, he regularly pointed out ways to improve Tommy's own, or explained why a line of code wouldn't work. It did help significantly, but it also terrified Tommy that Purpled was seeing all these mistakes, because he knew mistakes were not something people liked to see.

When there was five minutes left of the lesson, people started packing up. That was quickly stopped when the teacher started screaming at them all. It was the first words Tommy had heard him say, and he wished he hadn't heard anything.

The teacher screamed at them, claiming they were wasting his time, and demanding that they go back to work. This rant was quickly interrupted by a kid standing up and arguing that the only people who's time was being wasted was the students. She started to scream about his inability to teach at all. This lead to about 10 other students standing up and joining in.

The bell went, signalling the end of the day, but any movement towards the door was quickly stopped by the teacher, who stood in front of the door, screaming that he'd get the principal to come down and that no one was leaving until they had all made up for the five minutes of extra time, and the students who had reacted badly had apologised. This insistence was quickly met with promises for NO apologies from multiple of the people who had fought him, the first girl by far the loudest.

The teacher continued to yell at them to sit down, and they continued to demand a better teacher. One of the kids in the back who hadn't even gotten packed up was begging the teacher to let her go, because the bus would leave in a minute, but the teacher ignored the pleas. Tommy didn't make a sound, but he did calculate how dangerous it would be to get outside. Too dangerous. He was going to need to sprint faster then ever after he was let out if he were to make it back to Dream's house on time.

Relief flooded Tommy when the principal arrived. Maybe he'd let them all go? Maybe he'd calm the fight?

"What's going on?" The Principal asked, and all of a sudden the teacher changed from a screaming furious man, to a professional one.

"These children were disrespecting me and when I dealt with them, they started yelling at me, it's ridiculous."

"That's not what happened!" The girl who had been the most vocal throughout this began to scream.

"Can you calm down for a moment so we can sort this out?" The Principal asked. The girl was fuming, filled with built up anger, so a different girl told her she could handle it and stepped forward.

"Throughout the year, this so called teacher has not taught me or anyone else in this class a single thing. He spends the lessons entirely on his phone and doesn't give us any help when we need it. He hasn't said so much as a word to the new kid, who's being taught entirely by Purpled. He has not earn our respect, but just now when we started saving our work and getting ready to leave five minutes before the bell, he started screaming at us. It was a completely unreasonable reaction. So, yeah, we got defensive, but we never got close to the level he did," The girl said, her tone even, not wavering. There was a clear distain in her voice, but she didn't raise it. As she mentioned Tommy, everyone looked over at him, and he wished he wasn't there in that moment. Why did she have to bring him into this!?

"Can the people who need to catch the bus please leave? I didn't mean to hold them up and I don't want them to be stuck here with no way home," The girl who had been first to speak added, looking over to the one in the back, who seemed on the verge of complete panic.

"Yes, bus people go now unless you are in the group that actively fought the teacher, we still need to talk," The principal agreed, and with that 7 students, and Tommy, stood up, dashing out of the class. Tommy didn't catch the bus, but he needed to go right now, so he took his chance. None of the ones catching the bus mentioned it, all too busy trying to make it there on time.

As soon as they were outside, Tommy split from the group, dashing onto the street and running as fast as he possibly could, needing to get there on time. He skidded to a stop outside the shop, before jogging, not quite fast enough to risk getting told off, but enough to significantly speed up the process. He grabbed everything on the list and dashed towards the cashier, only to freeze when he saw it was the angry cashier who had held him back last week. He spun, going towards the other cash register, but the first saw him before he had the chance.

"Hey you!" She yelled, "I thought I told you not to come back alone! Do you need me to knock some sense into your parents!?"

"Please, I'm fine, I just do this every now and then to help out. Please," Tommy begged but the cashier had already caught up to him and grabbed his wrist. He tried to pull away, but she took out her phone, glaring at him.

"What are your parents' phone numbers?" She asked and Tommy shook his head, pleadingly.

"I don't know, I'm sorry, please, it's fine, please, I'm begging you, just let me leave. I'm not breaking any rules. I'm just trying to buy some food."

"No! I bet you've been here all week!" She glared, before waving over a different employee, "Hey, Mandy! You work these hours on other days, has this kid been here a lot!?"

"Yeah, I've seen him, same time everyday, is there a problem?" The other employee asked, walking over to join them.

"His parents shouldn't be making him do this! He's just a kid! He shouldn't be buying all this for them! That's the parents job!"

"Well, I brought food at his age, it's like any chore, your parents give you money and a list of items, and you buy them, easy enough. I don't understand the problem."

"He's a kid!"

"So? Just because he's young he can't have responsibilities?"

"I'm running late, can I please go?"

"No! Not until you give me your parents' numbers!"

"I don't know their numbers," Tommy pleaded, wishing the cashier would just let him leave.

"Just let him go, he's fine," Mandy insisted, trying to step between Tommy and the cashier, but the grip on Tommy's wrist made it difficult.

"Why are you on his parent's side? I thought you cared about people! His parents are using him. It's cruel and unfair! He should be allowed to just be a kid!"

"And I'm sure he is allowed to, but that doesn't mean that he can't do stuff to help his parents out. You don't know his situation. Leave him be."

They kept arguing, Mandy trying to help Tommy get away, and the cashier still screaming that he's being treated cruelly. A crowd grew, people curious as to what was happening, and Tommy did everything he could to escape, but it wasn't possible. He couldn't get out of her grip.

The clocked ticked over a second, then another then another, then it was a minute, and then more. Tommy watched it, panic growing with every second, the certainty that he wouldn't make it back in time grew and grew until it overflowed as the clock hit the time he had to be back. There was no making it. He was too late. Tommy gave up on fighting to escape. It was too late. There was nothing he could do. He was stuck. He had messed up too badly. He couldn't escape and he knew that even if he could, it was too late.

Finally the manager came and forced them to let Tommy go. He dispersed the crowd and gave Tommy a large discount for the harassment. Then he firing the cashier since she had apparently harassed costumers like this many times. It helped that the manager had arrived, but the damage was already done long before. He had already lost. It was too late. He had failed.

Words: 1500

A/N: I love reading the predictions and knowing wether or not they are going to happen- I don't know why I find it so funny but it's amazing XD