LOTF: Before and After

Phase 3: Chapter 28

Ralph Langley tended to refrain from using the word hate, but he was willing to make an exception for private school. His parents rejected his request to stay enrolled at Georgia Cyber Academy until graduation; insisting that he needed socialization and real learning experiences in his final year of middle school. The only choice he was given in the matter was whether he wanted to go to public East Point Middle School or the private Eastern Woodland Academy.

In Ralph's choice of the private school, he was hoping that the students would be more disciplined, and academically inclined. The uniforms would be respectable and the experience wouldn't be so drastically different from those he'd had in military school. It'd be less of a curveball, he assumed. But he was surprised to learn that most students were uptight, ignorant rich kids whose bedrooms were bigger than Ralph's entire house and the rest were delinquents whose parents hoped private school would whip them into shape. There seemed to be no in between, and Ralph didn't fit in with either crowd.

Sure, Jeffery made good money. But he was never a big spender. Ralph knew they had a substantial emergency fund in a bank account somewhere, a life insurance policy, and that even though their house was small, Jeffery owned it. His dad had always taught him that people put more value on money than it really had. What mattered to Jeffery Langley was family, community, safety, health, and sentiment. He wouldn't pay big bucks for a nice vehicle or a hot tub in the backyard, but a good education was something worth its salt.

What Ralph was genuinely looking forward to about returning to school was physical education or gym class. He had been used to a vigorous workout and training schedule back at the academy, and after five months and a whole summer free of any physical training, Ralph was more than ready to get back into the groove. He was expecting a high class program, but was surprised by the nonsense fitness tests and intro level sport games his gym classes were filled with. He was more hopeful about the prospect of training in the fitness centre at lunch and after school, but he quickly discovered that the gym 'belonged' to the junior and senior students, who don't take kindly to sharing the space with middle schoolers.

"How's 7th grade treating you guys?" Ralph asked the twins over the phone two weeks into the new semester.

"It's not bad" Sam replied simply. "We get hot lunch every Friday. And it's not gross cafeteria food like the other four days of the week. We get real good stuff like McDonalds and Pizza Hut."

"How's Grade 8 going?" Eric asked Ralph.

"Could be better. I'm not really loving my new school. I miss GCA" he admitted with a sigh.

"We heard Will and Tony and a couple others are back at the academy" Sam chimed in.

"As in Bainbridge?" Ralph questioned with surprise.

"Uh huh. I think Rapper is too" Eric added, and Sam nodded to him in confirmation.

"Wow. Did they say if they really wanted to or did their parents make them go?" Ralph wondered.

"Tony wanted to for sure" Sam confirmed. "I dunno about the others."

"It's not like anything bad happened to anyone at the academy. It was all after we left the campus, y'know. I don't think any of them are gonna be doing the international program though" Eric stated.

"That'd be crazy" Sam agreed.

"I guess that's true" Ralph considered. "It wasn't really the academy's fault, what happened to us."

"Did they ever find out why the plane went down? I just realized I never actually knew how that happened" Sam wondered aloud.

"It was never in the news" Eric said certainly.