Jefferson Lake (MBBF Spin-Off)

Chap. 3

I wonder why they paint the walls of the classroom white.

They know that they're putting a group full of teenagers in here, along with filling the classroom with desks and chairs and everything else that was essential to run a school.

The walls in my Pre-Calculus class were covered in black marks from the movement of the desks one too many times. And in a few spots were the crude drawings of an overzealous teenage boy who'd probably finished his test early or gotten bored during a lecture.

"Lee?" Mr. Polymer called.

My eyes snapped up to the front of the classroom, where Mr. Polymer had worked out a problem on the SMART board, and was waiting for the answer to it.

And he expected that answer to come from me.

"The answer?" he prompted.

This wasn't math that I could do in my head on the spot, as I've managed to do too many times to get myself out of these types of situations.

So I just shrugged.

"After class Lee," he said, before turning to his next victim to call out upon.

Fuck.

I knew those three words all too well. They were always followed by a detention.

And I could not stare at these white walls for an hour.

As the last fifteen minutes of class ticked to an end, Mr. Polymer dismissed the class, and I packed up my stuff, waiting for the class to clear out.

"Three times today Lee," Mr. Polymer said, taking a seat at his desk. "Three times I called on you and you couldn't answer my questions."

He had a picture of his family behind him, and in it he had a mustache.

"Are you having trouble understanding the material?" Mr. Polymer asked.

There were numerous slang terms for a mustache, most of which either reflect upon its tendency to retain leftovers of food or pertain to sex.

My attention snapped back over to Mr. Polymer, who was just staring at me.

I was so done for.

"Detention Lee."

I really couldn't argue my way out of this one.

"Why did you cut off your mustache?"

He just shook his head at me. "Someday you're going to have to start taking responsibility here."

Now he sounded like Parker.

"Sorry."

"Goodbye Lee. I'll see you at 3:00."

I left his classroom, tossing my backpack over my shoulder.

"Took you long enough," Warren commented, as I made my way over to my favorite chair in the student lounge.

"Mr. Polymer gave me a detention."

"No shocker there," Gerard said, laughing as he looked up from his US History textbook.

"I wasn't even disrupting class," I defended, tossing my backpack to the ground.

"You just weren't paying attention," Warren filled in.

Like that's anything new.

"All you have to do is stare at the board," Gerard advised, as he took notes from his textbook. "Polymer preys on the ones that are staring off into space."