45 Days to Save the Bad Boy

Two

“You don’t seem like a bad boy,” I said.  Wait, what?  Georgie, why would you say that?  Now he’s going to murder you and drag your dead body into the street to make it look like you got run over by a car!

Instead of reacting in the way my over-active imagination suggested, Breton just scowled ferociously at me.

“Sorry,” I squeaked.

“Listen up, Jordan or whatever your name is, I am not doing this to be nice.  I thought there was an animal in here or something.  Not a girl.  So just stay out of my way.  Got it?” Breton growled.

“Got it!” I said shakily, giving him a thumbs up.  “Thanks again.”  Breton grunted, and then left.

“Well, I’m out.  What time is it?  I probably still have like, half of class time left.  Then two more classes and I’m done for today!  If I get Jay and Donna’s homework done right when I get home, I should have enough time for two episodes of Doctor Who after dinner before I go to sleep.”  I have this thing about talking to myself.  Whenever I’m alone I talk out loud, it helps me organize my thoughts and comforts me to hear someone talking, even if it is just me.  

As I navigated through the hallways and up staircases to finally reach my classroom, I realized that Peter would be expecting me to still be down in that closet.  I could make my teachers mad by skipping, I could make Peter mad by being out of the basement, and while we’re on the subject of people being mad at me, Breton could be mad at me for going back down there after he got me out.  Ugh, this was such a hard choice....

“Right, back downstairs it is,” I mumbled to myself as I spun on my heels and began walking back towards the stairs which would lead to the basement.  Then I spun back around.  “If I miss class Mr. Toms will never forgive me.  And Mom will be really really mad.  There’s a good chance Peter would never find out I left the basement!  Attending the rest of my classes won’t hurt me,” I reasoned, reaching for the doorknob on Mr. Toms’ classroom.  Then I let it go and ran towards the stairs.  “Peter would kill me.  Everyone would kill me.  People who don’t even know I exist would kill me!” I said frantically.  Then I flipped around and ran to the classroom.  “I’m more scared of Breton,” I decided, opening Mr. Toms’ door.  

“Sorry I’m late again Mr. Toms,” I sighed.

“Georgie, that’s an after school detention.  I’m sorry.  Now sit down and we can resume with the lesson,” Mr. Toms said, disappointed.

“Yes Mr. Toms,” I replied, taking my seat and pulling out my books.

About an hour later, the bell rang again and class was dismissed with (thank you Mr. Toms) only one page of reading.  My next two classes went by in a blur, answering the questions, taking notes, collecting my homework.  Finally, the final bell rang.  I ran past my bullies, stopping to collect their homework assignments, and into Mr. Toms’ room.

“Hello again Mr. Toms, I’m here for detention!” I chirped as I strode into to classroom.

“Georgie, take a seat,” Mr. Toms said.  He didn’t like giving me detentions, but since I was late almost all the time and sometimes didn’t show up at all, he had no choice.  

Mr. Toms is my favorite teacher.  I love his class, where everything is interesting and new.  I was always eager to learn when Mr. Toms was teaching.  Unfortunately, his class was right after lunch.  Lunch was the only time my bullies picked on me, unless I lingered outside the school building.  If only Mr. Toms had a class before lunch.  Or after the one after lunch.  But it was not so, and therefore I often disappointed Mr. Toms.  Thankfully though, I’ve never missed a second of any of my other classes, so I only got detentions from Mr. Toms.  Overall, it adds up to about 5 absences per quarter, making 2 detentions per quarter, and at the end of the year I only have about 8 detentions unless I’m having a pretty harsh year.  This year has been going well though, so far I’m only at 2 detentions and we’ve made it halfway through the school year.