Soft but dusty light shone through the windows on the far left of the classroom as last night’s snow started to melt.
Mr. Garrison droned on about some celebrities and controversies.
Stan could practically hear the clock ticking with each passing moment, with each movement of the second hand on the old analog clock that hung above the door.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
The emptiness was interrupted by the beeping of Scott’s blood monitor going off. He did his usual routine, checking his phone to see what his blood sugar was at and when noticing it was too low, going into his bag for something to bring it back up.
Mr. Garrison was visibly irritated. He had reached that old age where everything seemed to be offensive, especially Scott’s diabetes, (Even though Garrison had his own medical issues that needed consistent monitoring.)
Scott found nothing to eat in his bag. For some unknown reason, Scott’s blood sugar had been dropping recently, and he had forgotten to replenish his snacks. At least that's what it looked like to Stan. Stan always felt embarrassed when he noticed little things like that about people he never really knew.
Scott raised his hand.
Garrison sighed. “Yes, Scott?”
“May I go to the vending mathine?”
“I’m not allowed to let students go to the vending machine during class. Lunch is in half an hour.”
“Pleathe, itth an emergenthy.”
“‘I’m thcott malkinthon, and I have diabetethe!’ Will you stop disrupting the class?”
Scott did not respond.
“Alright, where was I? Oh yeah, Ariana Grande. Now who can tell me what subtype her controversy was?”
The lecture continued.
Stan’s phone lit up with a message. He hid it behind his stack of school things and checked it.
Wendy ❤️
March 19, 2023
< I’ve got a big volleyball game tonight. I hope you’ll be there, it's very important to me. It's one of the last ones I’ll be playing this year and I’d really appreciate it if you showed up.
10:51
Sure >
10:52
The teacher wrapped up the lesson shortly and beckoned Bebe and Kevin up to help pass out the worksheet.
“Since I’m feeling nice, I’ll let you all pick your own partners for the activity. If you can’t find a partner, I don’t get paid enough to care.” Mr. Garrison sat down at his desk and started reading.
Stan caught Wendy’s pleading stare, but Kyle had already made the decision and sat down next to him.
“I wasn’t listening,” Stan said simply.
“You never do.”
Stan began to doodle a cat in the margins of the paper, waiting for Kyle to finish reading the questions. It didn’t look like a cat. It looked like a dog. He tried drawing a bird. The bird looked rabid. Could birds have rabies?
“This is the same stuff as last week.” Kyle finally said, dropping the eraser he had pressed against his chin and tapping it on the sheet. “Literally the exact same assignment. It’s not even relevant to this lesson.”
“Should we tell him?”
“No, I don’t think so. I remember last week's answers.”
Scott’s blood sugar monitor went off a second time. Stan wondered if all monitors made the same noise. Maybe something was wrong with it.
“Will you turn that off?” Mr. Garrison said, clearly annoyed, in the fashion of an old person who did not own any cats.
“Thorry thir, I can’t. Itth a medical devithe.”
“Just sshhut up! Since you’re such a troublemaker, go work with Damien, and I better not hear that lissssp or that beeping again, or you’re going to the officcce!” He yelled, drawing out the syllables that Scott couldn’t pronounce. There was some snickering across the room.
“Can he do that?” Stan whispered.
“Probably not. Not my problem.” Kyle answered.
“It could be.”
Kyle’s eyes turned up from the paper, glared to silently tell Stan to shut up, and looked back down. “He’s not going to be working here much longer if he acts like this. Scotts a snitch.”
“That was just middle school. It’s not like anyone believed him either.”
“Middle school stays with you forever.”
Stan recalled his middle school self and shuddered.
Ten minutes passed, and a third time the alarm went off.
“Thir.” Scott raised his trembling hand. “I need to go… to the offi… the nur…”
“Ssorry, what wass that? I don’t sspeak diabetess.”
“Pleathe.”
“You’re not abandoning your partner. There'ss ten minutess left of classss, You’ll sssurvive.” He looked back down at his book. “If you’re really that hungry, I wanna hear your sssstomach growl.”
Scott's head slammed down on the desk.
The class fell silent.
“Damien,” Mr. Garrison held his fingers to his temple and sighed.” What’d you do this time?”
“What? That’s your fault!” Damien said.
“You’re the antichrist, Damien, everything’s your fault. Get over it. Take Scott to the nurse. Butters, you go with and make sure Damien doesn’t try anything.”
Damien frowned.
Damien and Marj picked up Scott and put his arms around their shoulders. His feet dragged on the ground as they carried him out of the now buzzing classroom.
“You might want to talk to PC Principal about this,” Stan muttered.
“Why me?”
“You’re good at getting a point across and taking action?”
“Go get Wendy to do it, she’s better than me.” Kyle didn’t look up from the paper.
“She has enough to deal with.”
“And do you know what any of this ‘enough’ is?” Kyle paused. “ I don’t particularly care about his shitty teaching anyway. I guarantee you he’s only got a few weeks of breathe left in him. Don’t worry about it.”
The bell finally rang for lunch.
(946)
YOU ARE READING
The Loser Boy Blues
FanfictionStan Marsh is a loser who takes a swig of whisky in the morning to calm his nerves and takes a shot at night to sleep. (Placeholder description and cover. Wip story) SLOW UPDATES
