A Young Academic Named Blathers

Chapter 10

Professor Nat loved to ramble on about the diversity of the insect world. Blathers could hardly keep his eyes on each slide the professor brought up, so instead he turned his attention out the window. The spring weather was quite warm in the city and the sun no longer set as early as it did in the beginning of the semester. Blathers watched as people tossed frisbees out in the fields, thinking of how it might feel to have a friend to play frisbee with.

"How about you Mr. Blathers?" Called out Professor Nat.

Blathers looked stunned, brought back from his day dreams, "Eh, wot?"

"If you were paying attention you would know exactly what my question was. Can anyone help Blathers find the correct answer?"

Professor Nat called on one of the students who was raising their hand, "Stick bugs belong to the order called phasmatodea, Professor."

"Very good. Scrumptious phasmatodea. Quite delectable. I hope you're taking notes, Mr. Blathers." He moved on to the next slide.

Kevin looked over at Blathers and teasingly laughed.

"Phasmatodea. Disgusting creatures." Blathers whispered to himself as he wrote in his notebook.

As the clock approached 10:00pm the class began to put their things away. Blathers became accustomed to pack up his things early as well on Fridays only because he really wanted to get away from all the insect talk.

As the class was dismissed, Kevin approached Blathers, "So we still good to work on this thing tonight?"

"Ah, yes! I'm quite available and eager to get some work done on this report. Shall you lead the way?"

"Sure thing, pal. Now I should probably warn you, the boys back at the dorms aren't really the cleanest or organized bunch."

"That's quite alright, I'm merely stopping by to work on the assignment, you needn't worry about tidiness or anything of the sort with me. I imagine its a rowdy bunch you live with."

"Yeah. Rowdy is one way you can put it."

They made their way to the residential area and entered the dorm building. There were plenty of students in red varsity jackets lounging about chatting and fooling around. They walked through the main floor and Blathers looked around at the walls. They were covered with decorative school banners and dart boards. Clearly none of the players had good aim as some of the darts were stuck into the wall. There was a ping pong table and pool table laid out in the centre of the room. In the corner there were a number of dumbbells, a squat rack and a weight bench.

"We spend lots of time perfecting our skills down here as you can see." Kevin said as he motioned to all the games laid out in the room. They went up some stairs and arrived to the floor Kevin's dorm room was on. As they entered the long hall, Blathers was shocked by what he was looking at. There was an inflatable kiddie pool with a few students laying down in it holding red solo cups. Some of them were wearing snorkelling masks.

Before Blathers could even ask, Kevin explained, "We're pretty resourceful around here."

"Kevin! Sup, bro! You should come take a dip with us, the water's great!"

Just then a student came out from their dorm room and made eye contact with Kevin.

Blathers noticed Kevin had immediately tensed up, "Eugene."

Eugene glared back, "Kevin." He put on his sunglasses and walked passed them, "I see you've brought a friend with you. Maybe he can help you hit the bullseye on our next match."