Sinner's Halo Book 1: Weaver of Snares - Chapter 4

 Hey all, its been an absolute century since I last posted, but I finally got over my 
2.5 year writers block and am back at it with editing the first draft of my novel, 
Weaver of Snares. This is still completely in development, but I'm pumped to be 
back at it! There's still a ton of changes to be made. Some plot related, some character 
related, but it feels good to get rid of a lot of the sloppy writing I did back in my freshman 
year of highschool. Enjoy!

-L

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So take me back, I have lost the path


I need to recover this life you lead


Sing when I'm broken and I'll sing when I'm free


Sing for the world and then sing just for me

  - Lucy Schwartz Life in Letters




Chapter 4: Mind Exorcise

   † At the end of the hallway, after the bell had sounded, Mr. Will called me back into
 the classroom. Rather than wait for me in the hallway, Dylan followed.

   “Jenna, I just wanted to introduce myself less formally, seeing as how 
I’m going to be your Advisor this year.” I accepted the polite formal handshake,
 ignoring the clamminess of his palm. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here this morning to 
meet you during homeroom—I needed to help Luke Cane with a soccer clinic.”

   “How’d that go by the way? Do you think that with his leg all swollen I might actually 
be able to steal the ball this year?” Said Dylan.

   “Dylan, your brother was lucky he escaped leg necrosis. Its rare to find a poisonous
 snake in the northeast, so just be happy they could treat it.”

   “So what you’re saying is,” Dylan twirled his cane over his shoulder and struck a pose, 
“Maybe?”

   “Strong maybe, leaning towards not likely,” said Mr. Will, turning back towards Me. 
“I trust Ms. Fendever welcomed you this morning in my absence?”

   “Honestly, I didn’t even make it through the door. Bus was late this morning. 
You were flaky, I was flaky, no harm no foul.”

   “No detentions though, I hope?” said Mr. Will. I shook my head. “Good,
 then Professor Lyre didn’t see you."

   His words surprised me. Not because I didn’t think that Lyre could be an asshat,
 but because of the way Mr. Will pronounced “Professor”. There was not a hint of malice,
 or disrespect. He did not skew the word in any way, but said it… well, normally. 
It was the first time I heard anyone say ‘Professor Lyre’ without rolling their eyes. 
After the way those two had argued earlier in the classroom, I figured that Mr. Will 
would be one of the teachers loudly reducing his majesty’s status.

   “Anyway, shouldn’t you two be off to sports about now?” Mr. Will said, interrupting
 my thoughts. Dylan checked his watch and swore.

   “Two minutes to bell – and no time to suit up. Thanks a lot, Mr. Willie.” Dylan said, 
grabbing my hand and sprinting, with lilting steps, down the hall. When we made it out 
the doors I forced Dylan to slow down by grabbing one of his hands and swinging it lazily 
along with a slower pace.

   “You signed up for swim team like I told you to, right?” Dylan said, occasionally using 
his cane to kick acorns like golf balls as we walked.

   “Aren’t tryouts today?” I asked, feeling a hollow form in my stomach.

   “Jenna, tryouts were during orientation, which you skipped – didn’t you send them a 
form or talk to them or something?” He must have seen my panic stricken face, because 
then he said, “They probably already put you in field hockey like your last highschool. 
Probably 3rds because of the no try-out thing.”

I pulled my schedule from my bag, and scanned the list. Down at the bottom of row, 
every day except for Friday, had been typed the words, Mind Exorcises.

   “Ah crap.” Dylan said, crinkling my schedule and changing direction.

   “Crap? What’s crap? Is it physical fitness for the uncoordinated? Weights all day 
every day?”

   Dylan scoffed at me. “Worse,” he said. “You aren’t really in a sport at all.”

   “That’s it?” I caught up to Dylan who was moving around too quickly again. “That’s 
not so bad. I guess I’ll be sad I missed fall field season, but I’ll always have basketball.”

   “That’s not what I’m saying.” Dylan turned the corner around the only blocky boring 
building on campus. Its red 70s brick exterior stuck out from the sculptural excitement 
of the others. “Just because you aren’t in a sport doesn’t mean you have a free period 
at the end of the day.” He pulled me inside the door without going in himself, and turned 
to speak.

   “ Congrats and welcome to hell. Mind exorcises are ‘classes’ taught by Crazy Lyre. Only 
people who take it either have an unavoidable health condition, hate breaking a sweat or 
forgot  to sign up for something. Swim coach lets me sit on the side or paddle around if I 
feel ill just cause she knows how bad this class is. Liv should be here somewhere though. 
She is B-Ball or nothing this year.” Dylan squeezed my hand before stepping out the door.
 “Good luck,” he mouthed, before walking away.

I grimaced and waved. With trepidation I  advanced into the inner sanctum of the 
building. Inside I found one of the decked out theaters I’d ever seen in a school. 
The stage was gargantuan, and for the moment, unoccupied. Plaster casts of Cherubs
 decorated the walls and ceiling while vignettes were carved around the well-hidden 
speakers and light fixtures. An an enormous catwalk hung above the stage, which 
was lit and hiding behind a monstrous burgundy curtain. I was so busy looking up that
 I tripped over the edge of a step and found myself having a staring contest with a 
deep, dark hole: if it hadn’t been for the short barrier in front, I would have fallen 
straight into an orchestra pit so big it could have fit the entire national orchestra.

   Turning back, I scanned the rows of seats on the main level for Liv; the seating did not
 just stop at the orchestra level. No, the seating rose through not one but two higher 
balconies, both of which receded out of sight to the back of the building. Spotting Liv was
 going to be harder than Dylan had led me to believe.I eventually found her at the back of
 the third floor balcony, slouched in a chair with her feet up and listening to a red ipod-nano. 
She saw me and lazily waved me over to the seat next to her. Plopping myself down, I hitched
 my own feet up on the seatback in front of me. Liv handed over an earbud blasting some 
Panic!  as a boy with rust colored hair walked up the steps.

   He locked eyes with Liv, swore under his breath, and gave her a pointed look. “Tomorrow?”
 He said. Less of a question and more of a fact.

   “Deal. Now go back downstairs before we all get caught, O’Conner,” Said Liv.

   “Fine.” The boy started back down the stairs but paused on the second step. “Whose 
your new friend Canto?”

   “Her name is Jenna, she should be in field hockey, now get your ass downstairs, Gael, 
before class starts and we all get in trouble.”

   “Nice to meet you Jenna.” Said Gael, sounding less than thrilled to be introduced, before 
hopping down the spiral stairs 2 at a time.

    “The hell was that about?” I asked.

    Liv dropped her voice as a door opened from the back of the stage.

“We take turns slacking up here. All Mondays for the whole year are ours now. If we’re
 lucky, we can snag Wednesdays too,” Liv pointed down the steps after Gael. “We can’t 
sit here all the time though - we have to take turns playing seat fillers to the Prof’s
 performances on our off days so other people can goof off.” The confusion on my face must 
have shown, because Liv continued. “We’re not technically supposed to be up here. 
Crazy Lyre never checks attendance but he’d notice if his captive audience suddenly 
stopped showing up entirely.”

    “What? You mean he notices things other than potatoes?”

Liv flipped her long braids dramatically behind her. “I mean, it doesn’t hurt that 
I am the most glamourous couch potato of them all. By the way, are you confused
 slash wondering about anything else? Splendidus Stultus can be bonkers. I am a 
professional high school tour guide. I got them deets.”

   “Nah, school is school no matter how you dress it up. I am curious about the dirt on a 
few people around here though.”

   “Ooooo, I see where this is going. So who is he?” asked Liv, a sudden gleam in her eyes.

“No.”

“She? They?”

   “Not where I was going, but thanks for the inclusive pestering. It’s just… where are 
they getting all the money for the extra curriculars around here? And, uh, what’s the deal
 between Mr. Felis and Crazy Lyre? Is there any drama to watch out for? With Luke and
 Dylan at school, I mean. What’s Asher’s deal anyway? He said he’s 19 already? And 
what—“ An obnoxiously loud, off-key clang reverberated around the room. “—Is that god 
awful sound?”

   “That, would be Crazy Lyre,” she paused at a particularly screechy pitch. “Playing what I 
think is supposed to be a trumpet.” She stood up and peered inconspicuously over the railing. 
“Ah, yup, I was right. It’s a trumpet.” She confirmed. "So I told you before, the arts budget 
comes out of all the other extra-curriculars. Strangely it’s not like we get to use anything 
they buy though. In art class we bring our own pencils. We’ve never done an official school 
musical or a show in here, just outside on the green, and sometimes they get rained out. 
People avoid this room as much as possible.”

   I suddenly realized that the stage must look so new and shiny because no one ever HAD
 used it…

   “I mean, we have a drama club, and they’re pretty good, but they have one small rehearsal
 space in the basement blackbox. Supposedly, the fall play has finally gotten permission to be 
performed in there.” Liv shrugged, “Must be time for a donar to fund Lyre an even bigger 
eyesore if we are suddenly allowed to use it.” She paused to turn up the music on her iPod 
so it blocked out the worst of the trumpet. “What was that next thing?”

   “Drama, Luke and Dylan, or Asher being an old man?”

   “19 isn’t that old! He’s barely a year and a half older than me.”

   “Spoken like someone who’s got it bad for a Senior Citizen.”

   “Oh my god, shut up… He’s real oblivious anyway. You can’t tell me you don’t crush on 
any of our boys. Since summer ended I swear Luke has grown in all the right places.”

   “None of them are bad looking by any means, but I wouldn’t propose this second or 
anything. Besides, the twins are practically brothers to me, and I barely know Asher.”

   Liv smiled impishly. “So you admit you think they’re hot?”

   “I think you’re hot too but I’m not about to date you either.”

   “Only cause I’m straight,” Liv stuck out her tongue and grinned at me.

   “Yeah, cause that’s totally the only reason I think of you as just a friend. You got me,
 that’s how bisexuality works.” I rolled my eyes.

   “Well if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay away from Luke. He’s mine, even if 
he doesn’t know it yet!” Liv had risen out of her seat and glared down at me, teeth bared.
 I raised my eyebrows and Liv burst into a fit of silent laughter.

   “You should’ve seen your face, I totally had you for a second. Priceless.”

   “You are so weird, Liv. Shocking as it may be, I’m just here to graduate high school 
and not get kicked out. Friends are a plus. Dating is optional, though it would beat sitting 
at home with my sisters every night.”

   “I guess.”

Liv unzipped her bag and pulled out a huge pack of M&Ms. She grabbed a handful and 
offered them to me. Liv’s mouth was half full of chocolate, she asked, “I have a question 
for you - Do you know what happened to Luke’s leg?”

   I sighed. Luke had mentioned it almost in passing after a week holed up in bed.

“Over the summer he tripped or something, landed on a snake den and got bitten.
 He claims the snake wasn’t THAT poisonous, but he was still off his feet for over a 
week. Happened while you were at Comp Sci camp.”

   “Not that poisonous?” Liv said, incredulously. “The hell does that mean. Did he say where
 he fell?”

   “It was near that creepy old house. You know, the one on Amica St.? Their Uncle lives on
 the corner at Sanguis Drive. Luke was headed over there I think. He’s been keeping the 
snake bite on the DL though cause he wants to start this season.”

    “Or because the Church Townies are notoriously superstitious,” Liv said, throwing another
 handful of M&Ms in her mouth. “Probably say that the ghosties stole his soul or some shit
 like that.” I perked up. It was embarrassing to admit, but I’d always been intrigued by the 
concept of ghosts… and I liked urban spelunking and posting the pictures on ghost hunting
forums.

   “Do you think it’s haunted?” Jenna perked up, more interested now.

   “Yeah, if ghosts existed, which they don’t. It’s just some dirty abandoned house that’s 
falling apart and has a flair for melodramatic legends.”

   “What legends?” I’d done research on the area half a dozen times but always considered 
the Florin Hill Manor too close to my own backyard to be interested. If I got caught trespassing,
 I wanted to be an out-of-towner.   

   “How do you not know this? Aren’t you supposed to be the ghost whisperer or something? 
I’ve seen those tabs open on your computer all the time,” said Liv, cringing at the loudest blair
 of the trumpet yet from below.

“I missed one, so sue me.”

“Well, Slacker, story goes that the happy couple that built the place a hundred and fifty 
years ago died there. A hot piece of ass showed up, asked to spend the night and as
 shitty newly-wed husbands do, he done-did the deed. When they hooked up his wife 
walked in. That’s where the story gets a little muddled.”

   “If she murdered them I’d call it moderately justified,” I said.

   “I mean, yeah that’s one version. Another says that the man killed himself in the woods,
 the wife made it out, and the woman basically took the house and lived there till she croaked.
 There’s also this really crappy novel about it that ignored bloodshed altogether and jumped 
straight into Threesum City.”    

   I raised an eyebrow. “I’m guessing it was written by a man?”

   “How did you know?” Liv smirked. “Anyway, my favorite ending is the one that Mr. Felis told
 during orientation-- which you missed by the way, you bum.”

   “I wasn’t feeling being the only Junior in a sea of freshmen, so sue me.” I’d been to more 
orientations than most people have in their entire lives. Last thing I wanted was to become 
house mom to a bunch of 14-year-olds.

   “Well,” said Liv, finally having swallowed the latest mouthful of chocolate, “If you had been
 there you would’ve heard how when the wife found her husband getting jiggy with their guest,
 she cursed him and turned around to leave. The beautiful lady transformed into a succubus
 and slit her throat on the spot. Did the same to Mr. Fidelity when he tried to save his wife. 
Legend says she’s still haunting the grounds, ready to kill anyone who sets foot on it.”  
Liv popped a few more M&M’s into her mouth. Below us, the blaringly off-key notes of the 
“trumpet” had been replaced with what I assumed was a banjo. Peeking over the edge, 
I was surprised to see the crazy little man sitting at was an old piano greatly in need of tuning.

   “Its not that creepy,” I said. "Last year I snuck into this old Asylum and I swear the never 
bothered cleaning up after the patients. Stuff just smearing the walls -"

Liv cut me off. “Ew. The mansion legend is plenty spooky for me. Though it does seem 
like something spread by the housing authority to stop people from breaking into a 
condemned building. I guess a lot of people are freaked out by the gargoyles out front and
 the clockface on the front of the building. It’s the only one I’ve ever seen with thirteen
 numbers.” Thirteen numbers? That was weird. Might make for a good photoshoot...

   “Well,” I said, taking a few more M&M’s from the bag. “Maybe we could check the old place
 out this weekend. Friday maybe. We could all go, split up, get you some alone time with one 
of your boys, while I get some pics for the blog.”

   “I don’t know…” Liv stiffened and she hastily said, “Luke never liked bringing up the 
mansion, and that was before this summer. I doubt he'd be into talking about the mansion
let alone go back anywhere near it…”

   “I bet Dylan would go. And maybe we could talk Asher into it--" I said, dangling Asher in 
front of her like bait on a hook.

   “True. You know? That could actually be cool… double date time!”

   “Er, well, I guess you could call it that,” I said. I hadn’t really thought through what Liv might
 call it if we ended up wandering around in pairs.

   “Hey, you said a date would be better than hanging with your sisters for another weekend.
 Destiny clearly just knocked.” Liv said, guessing what I was thinking. “We’ll ask the guys 
tomorrow at lunch—no wait, Luke will be there… How about I ask Asher during history, and
 you ask Dylan when you get the chance.”

   “Ok” I relented. It was just one date, not a weird thing to do with your friends on the
 weekend. The bell rang, adding to the cacophony of sound as the final minor chord was 
played on the piano far below, sounding anything but harmonious. †

Next Chapter
 First Chapter 
Previous Chapter 

September 2016 Projects update:

Quick update! Been doing a lot more with my film recently than writing.
I am in the midst of my Directing Debut, with the independent short film, Curbside Waltz. Produced by Black Coffee Productions, Curbside Waltz tells the story of two kids whose imperfect upbringings have brought them together on a street curb in Brooklyn. The short film, produced by Black Coffee Productions and Frostwick Flix, was filmed in September and is currently in post-production.The creative team strongly believes the themes and subject matter of Curbside Waltz are important for a wide audience, including children. We are fundraising to spread Curbside Waltz and enter the film into a variety of film festivals. If you would like to contribute or learn more information, check out the campaign at Indie Gogo , and watch the Teasers below:

Web Comic coming (with an update schedule hopefully soon)

So I am starting a webcomic about a story I wrote and never posted to this site. I have the first few pages done. I would post them up here, but I feel like that would get complicated in updates, so I will make a new blog specifically for that and post when I've updated on here. Thats the easiest way I can think to do it. Here's the chapter 1 promo pic, and I hope you enjoy.

Also, if you have a tumblr, I've posted the this pic as well as the pre chapter page, and first actual page on my Scavenger blog at SCAVENGER comic

Refrigerator Poetry pt. 2

Copyright  2016 Lex Vex

Refrigerator Poetry pt. 1

Sinner's Halo: Book 1 Weaver of Snares - Chapter 3

First Chapter

Previous Chapter

You're dangerous 'cause you're honest
You're dangerous, you don't know what you want
Well you left my heart empty as a vacant lot
For any spirit to haunt

-U2 Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses

Chapter 3: The Liar and the Cat

           

† It took me a few minutes to realize that Zack’s muscles still hadn’t unclenched. I jumped off and before I could tell him, Luke was at his brother’s side. Zack waved off the need for the nurse and said that his legs had just cramped up and he just needed a minute to relax. However, each of his fingers erected into stiff rigors, as his blood pulsated inside. Each muscle spazzam ran through Zack like ripples through a river. His breath quivered but he smiled. Liv had forgotten her momentary attention ploy and run to get Zack some tea, leaving Asher looking on, running a hand fruitlessly through his hair. Luke coached him through breathing – four count inhale, four count hold, four count exhale, four count hold. Repeat.  

The Styrofoam cup Liv set down on the table in front of Zac squeaked. The steam that rose in curls from inside smelled of burnt bread. Zac wrinkled his nose and moved a little closer to me so that Liv could squeeze between him and Asher on the bench. One hand in each boy’s, Liv clenched her fingers between theirs. Playfully she began a surprise thumb war with both of them at once. Slowly Zack’s shoulders relaxed as he concentrated moving his thumb. Zac’s paroxysms subsided as he and Liv struggled to force each other’s thumbs down. I barely heard Luke exhale as he got up from where he had been crouched in front of his brother to join me at the table. While Zac relaxed, Luke remained tense.  He glanced at me and let the shadow of a smile form. I thought he was looking at me, but his gaze was pointed, like an arrow, past to my plate.  

            “So you’re not going to finish that brownie, right? Great. Thanks a bunch!”

            “No wait I—”

Before I could finish, Luke picked it up and smashed the entire brownie in his mouth. When he smiled, his teeth were blacked out by chewed brownie.

            “dhoo ymm wnnit bmack?”

            “No Luke, but thanks for asking…”

            “Imn—” Luke swallowed what he had in his mouth. “In that case, I’ll be taking that!” And picked up the other brownie from my plate. This did not go unnoticed by the other boys, and after a brief argument, they split up the brownie in crumbling pieces. The atmosphere was wrong. Bubbly laughter replaced the static electricity that had burned through each of us only moments earlier. Just like that, we were kids again. Asher chased Luke around the table, both passing pieces of ever decreasing brownie off to Zack for ‘safe keeping’. At one point, when he thought none of the teachers were looking, Asher shot a purring smile at Liv and me and propelled himself over the table. Finally both Luke and Asher triumphantly held as the boys finally decided that their pieces were equally sized, a stout man in a hideous orange tweed suit trotted up to us.

The man’s dark brown hair was gelled into wings on either side of a slightly zigzagged part. His eyebrows were so small that only appeared visible on the very ends, which curled up in a tight corkscrew. His flabby face concealed beady black eyes behind a bulbous nose and his upper lip extended itself far over his bottom lip, glistening with saliva.

Stale silence had infested the room, not just from our table, but the rest of the cafeteria as well. The hum of smacking lips and grinding teeth and all levels of chatter had been stifled as if a deadly virus had killed every sound-making thing in the room. All faces turned, anxious sunflowers towards a bulbous sun.

The man jutted out his lower jaw so that his yellowing teeth met.

“What in the name of all that is good and holy and liminally appropriate is going on here?” He spoke in a forced British accent, clicking his tongue against his teeth with every ‘t,’ on every ‘p;’ his vowels were wide and round. 

             I wanted to laugh. I wanted to speak. The words almost drizzled off the tip of my tongue: The hell are you talking about? Zack’s lips were quicker. 

            “You see Professor Lyre, the three of us,” he indicated himself, Luke and Asher, “were just working on a—a celebratory dance to celebrate the—the innermost workings of your high and glorious mind. Those two,” He shoved a finger in the direction of my chest, ignoring that Liv sat at least two people away. “Were giving us constructive criticism—in hopes that it would better portray it… it being, uh, your mind.”

            Not a single person laughed. Several eyebrows were raised, and some eyes shone in ridicule, but no one even betrayed a smile. Professor Lyre’s chin rose revealing the uneven stubble around his adam’s apple. He studied us each in turn for over a minute. 

            “Was this the way of it?”

 When Liv, Asher, Zac and Luke nodded, I copied them.

            “Then you must continue. It had better be perfection if you expect me to put it into the end of year galleria—you there!” Professor Lyre’s head turned suddenly in the direction of a small dark haired freshman standing rigid next to the tray return, her spoon about to push grey potatoes off the plastic plate.  

            “WHAT ARE THOSE GHASTLY LUMPS YOU HAVE LEFT ON YOUR PLATE?!”

             

            Twenty minutes later, the five of us left the cafeteria in silence. It wasn’t until we reached the main quad that people started muttering about what had happened.

 “Dang, that was harsh. We got so lucky no one laughed, or we would be worse off than potato-kid.” Liv whispered.

            I was totally blown, nodding. “What was up with that? All that she did was not finish her mashed potatoes. Half the people sitting next to her hadn’t finished their food.”

            “Yes, but they all finished their potatoes,” said Luke.

            “She still didn’t deserve detention,” I rolled my eyes, and glanced in Asher’s direction. He shrugged.

            Zack’s gait slowed. Despite the limp, he swung his cane like a golf club before tossing it over his shoulders to use as an armrest. “I guess there’s only one way to explain it.” Zack said. “Professor Lyre is completely insane. Crazy. Any rule that he comes up with himself is irrational—sometimes dangerous, always stupid. Rule one: if anyone takes potatoes from the Cafeteria, they must finish the whole thing or else get detention.”

            Asher slowed to walk beside Zack. “All of his rules have stemmed from some sort of epiphany that he had during one of his mind exorcize classes.”

            “That particular one,” explained Luke, “came after Professor Lyre did a study on Ireland. He thinks that the potatoes famine is still a problem, and he refuses to let anyone waste even a tea spoon of any kind of starch.”

            “I saw that thing the school sent me in the mail but it just seemed like such a joke…” I said, reaching for the doorhandle of the Bram English Center.

            Through the door I followed my friends into a corner of the building, shaped like an oversized book. Sculpted pages seemed frozen mid page-turn and disappeared as I wandered into the foyer, an airy indoor garden. Light poured in from the wide skylight, broken up by the ribs of a vaulted ceiling. Sunbeams settled on a small waterfall that graced the front of the room. Several classes were already stationed around the garden, some sitting on benches, some on giant rocks near the falls, while many others sat on thick grass that carpeted the floor. Classrooms dotted the edges of the atrium on three floors.

            “And this, my friends, is where leave you,” said Liv as she executed a swirling bow, “Have fun in the bookworm class!” She hopped to her English class in the nearest doorway. I waved, turned without looking and ran right into Luke’s chest. The slight bump on my nose did not hurt but I lost my balance, and landed on mossy floor-tiles. I grasped Luke’s wrist as he pulled me up.

            “Ugh,” I said, shaking off the clammy cold of his fingers and reaching for the Purelle in my pocket. His skin had been so warm in the past that we had often joked about selling him as a Space Heater to our grandparents. “You better not have gotten me sick, Luke.”

            The boys dragged me up two flights of stairs, down a hallway and up another small set of steps before we found room 333. The atrium may have been gorgeous, but the layout of these buildings was a laberynth. I was dragged to a desk in the back row and caged in by the twins and Asher.

            “I can see you have all found your seats.” 

The angular young woman I had met during homeroom strolled through the rows, handing out papers to each desk she passed. Alongside her name, Ms. Ayern Fendever, she had listed an email address and her office number.

            “I hope you liked the seats that you have picked, because they will be the ones you will have for the remainder of the year. That is of course,” she stopped next to Zac and Asher, who had plastered cherubic big eyes to their faces in mock adoration. “Unless you distract each other so much that I need to move you.” She handing them each a piece of paper and continued, “I doubt any of you really want to sit half a foot away from the desk. Again.”

            Zac and Asher exchanged guilty grins.

            On the board, Ms. Fendever wrote down book titles. To my surprise, she put the chalk back down after only three.

            “This year, we will be going over, in depth, the following books. Romeo and Juliet, Catch-22, and A Tale of Two Cities.” Groans revved up like engines at the start of a Grand Pre.

             “Come on Ms. Fendever, Dickens was paid by the word— Can’t we just do what the regular English Class is doing and read To Kill a Mockingbird?” Zack said, running a hand through his hair until it stood on end.

“Zack, we discussed Harper Lee last year. You haven’t read Dickens yet. How would you know if you do or don’t like him?” Ms. Fendever challenged him with a raised brow. When she again turned her back, Zack turned to us and made a vomiting sign with his hand, which I returned with a polite grimace. Truth was, I loved the book. Sydney Carton happened to be a favorite of mine, right up there with Atticus Finch. Ms. Fendever must have seen the exchange, as she straightened her back, like an angry raven ruffling its feathers.

“Its just so boring,” Zack whined, shrugging at her.

            “Zack, don’t be biased because you couldn’t get halfway through the book.” Luke chuckled, taking a worn copy from his backpack. “How many times do I have to tell you? Just get to the ending. Throws you for a loop – not to mention the freaking glorious imagery.” He added for the teacher’s benefit.  

            “Thank you, Mr. Cane. Though, please refrain from using the word ‘freaking gorgeous’ to describe Dickens. I think I heard him roll over in his grave,” Said Ms. Fendever.

            The rest of class went by in a blur, and too soon the bell rang. Asher and Luke grumbled something about Spanish on the other side of campus and dashed out. Before I could read it myself, Zack grabbed my schedule from my bag and scanned it.

            “Sweet! We both have Felis for history next period. You’ll like him.” 

            We ran down the hall and thousands of stairs, wizzing past Liv arguing with a freckly underclassman and out the door.  Across the neatly trimmed grass we approached a building shaped like a globe. Grey veins littered its surface and a loose map design covered the marble façade.

            “So,” I was almost more out of breath than Zack, he was moving me along so quickly. “Who’s this Felis guy?”

            Zack shrugged. “You would have seen him in homeroom this morning, but he came in late. He never likes coming in on days where we have long boring homeroom explanations. You’re in his advisee group.”

            “With who else?” I asked.
            “You, Me, some ugly dude named Luke, Liv, some uglier dude named Asher and a chick you don’t know called Kelly Ovis. Kelly isn’t technically in our advisee group, but she’s skipped out on her own to bum around ours. Senior, not high-strung or anything.”

            I held the thick oak doors open, noticing Zac was favoring his cane. Inside, I gazed across the newspaper wall again. People still loafed around the circular entrance, and a glance at my watch told me I had a minute or two to browse through the history wall.

            Titanic. World War I. World War II. Woodstock. The Berlin Wall. Some Clippings as early as the Civil War and some as recent as 6 weeks ago just pinned to the wall. I got so caught up in touching the crinkled parchment of some old letters I almost didn’t hear the bell sound. Luckily Zack was there to tug me along to Mr. Felis’s classroom.

            I was digging around in my bag for the extra notebook that I must have misplaced when the door of class clicked shut. As I fumbled for a pencil I glanced up at the front of the room, where a very young teacher pulled out the chair from an ancient looking desk that I hadn’t noticed when I entered. Mr. Felis could barely have been over 25, if that, and would have appeared completely unremarkable in his button up shirt and coordoroys had it not been for his hair: styled like a ginger Lawrence Olivier with a thin mustache to match. All I could think was that this was the first line of hipster gone corporate. Or educational, anyway.

            While we waited for the rest of us, students, to find their way in, Felis never looked up from his hands where he played with a string, making adept loops and images between his fingers. When the last kid finally ran into the room and apologizing a million times a second, Mr. Felis finally stood, tucking the string into his pocket.

            “Good afternoon,” Felis waited patiently until we all mumbled as one, “Good afternoon,” back. “If you read the schedule, the syllabus or my desk nameplate, you are probably aware that my name is Mr. Felis, comma, William, and as I always ask, I hope that by the end of this year you will all call me William, at least behind my back, if not to my face.” He gazed off into the motionless fan above our heads. “Nothing makes you feel like an old man more than people refusing to say your first name…”

            “Its alright, Bill, that’s what we’re here for. To keep you feeling youthful and fresh.” Zac smirked.

            “Hardy har har, Zac. It’s pronounced Will- eee- um.”

            “I mean, if you insist, Willie.”

            “You know what?” Felis raised his fist in an imitation threat. “One of these days, kid, one of these days.”

            Zac rolled his eyes and gave an overindulgent sigh. “William is too old man, Old Man. You don’t want ‘Felis,’ you don’t like ‘Bill,’ or ‘Billy,’ or for some reason ‘Willie,’ so what do you want us to call you? ‘Hey you,’ ‘teach’?”

             “Lets hold a congress about it and vote!” said wafer-thin girl.

            “Wait – hold on – what’s wrong with ‘William’?” Felis said as everyone got up and moved to the back. I followed as Zac dragged me along to the back of the class beside some industrial fake-wood cabinets.

            “I, Secretary of Education Coggins, call to order, this cabinet meeting,” said the thin girl. Suddenly everyone was talking over one another about what to call Mr. Felis, who stood helplessly at the front of the classroom. In a few moment we were divided by neighborhood, given a district number, and informed of our electoral college votes. I was handed a small piece of notebook paper and given the choices. We voted and the paper was collected. Votes were tallied in the back by Zac and Ms. Secretary of Education Coggins, who was really just a girl named Amser, while we all went back to our seats. Felis inhaled deeply as his head swung side to side.

“Nice to know you remember what I taught you in Pre-American to Revolution last year,” he mumbled under his breath.  

            “Votes have been tallied, sir,” Zac said from the back of the classroom. “You’ll be glad to know that Willie tied the popular vote with Billy, however, as per the electoral college, it turns out that we have decided on ‘Mr. Will,’ for the remainder of the school year.”

            “All in favor?” said the girl named Amser.

            “Aye,” was the unanimous response, even from Mr. Will at the front of the room. The whole thing had taken up ten minutes of class.

            “I knew I could count on you guys for a great introduction,” said Mr. Will, “But now we move on to new learning and new revolutions,” he moved to the board behind him and began to write down the periods we would study. “This year, the curriculum will revolve steadily around the French revolution. This time in history is a great epic of pandemonium, bloodshed and is also the only course that the Prof would approve in the budget. This will coincide nicely with what some of you will be reading in your English classes.”

            “Aw jeez,” I heard Zac swear under his breath, “Not Dickens again…”

            Once he finished the summery of the syllabus, Mr. Will sat down lazily in his chair, took out his string from the desk and fidgeted with it once more. I looked around and everyone watched him expectantly.

            “What?” Mr. Will said to our staring. “That was all I had planned. The Congressional hearing and vote ate up a lot of the extra space already, but since you guys really don’t want free time –” We all stared in horror at him, shaking our heads – give us free time, Mr. Will, give us free time!— “—since you really don’t want free time, then everyone gets to do an oral report – right here, right now—on what you did over the summer. Amser, start us off.”

Everyone was grumbly after that, though ‘tell me what you did last summer’ was hardly the worst way to spend the rest of class.  

            Some people, boys mostly, gave a one or two word answer such as, “went to the beach,” or “played video games.” One guy, Tamãs, just grunted. Some people went off on long-winded rants of how amazing their summers were as they traveled to far away places. Zac told us how he went to what he thought was a heavy metal concert but turned out to be a senior citizens jazz festival—and how he was pushed on stage by a very flirty grandmother and made to play the harmonica.

            “At first I was wicked freaked, but then I started playing my harmonica, and it turned into one of the best nights of my life. People were throwing flowers and all sorts of things at me—some crazy granny even threw a bra.”

            There was a collective mummer, and someone said, “Right on Grandma.”

When he was done, everyone turned to look at me. Except, the thing is, I don’t have any good stories to tell. Interesting stories, sure – but they always end in me getting a black eye, suspended or ducking under a fence to keep from getting arrested for trespassing. What can I say – the asylum a few towns over makes for some great photography. Instead I said something about how I babysat my sisters through Hurricane Frank when my parents got stuck a few hours away at their monthly square dancing meet up. Mostly we just sat in the basement with a thousand water bottles, watching movies on my laptop till the battery gave out and we went to bed.

            The door to the classroom opened midway through a rant from Natasha Damalez, a nasally blond girl, who was ranting about how her mother bought her the wrong $200 dollar crop top for some party she went to.

            Crazy Professor Lyre skulked into the classroom, brandishing a harp from underneath his neon orange blazer. “Oh Felix-man, vat is this? ‘I vent to zee zoo,’ ‘I ate a lot of grapes,’ ‘I sat through a hurricane’ –” He had obviously been listening from behind the door as he rattled off the past three or four summer story accounts. “Vie do none of zem have their books open? Vie are dey not listening to you speak? Vie do zey look amused?” He was glaring daggers at Mr. Will.

“You see, Sir, right now we are examining the history of each students individual summer. Later, we will analyze them to see how they relate to the French Revolution, in a culminating Midterm paper. And once again, the name is Felis, not Felix.”

“Bah. Felis, Felix – all is the same in Latin. If I find out that you haff been goofing around, heads will roll.” Professor Lyre waddled back through the door, briefly sticking his head back in to say, “I geef you, B-. Good effort, get better.” And with that he closed the door.

A long silence followed.

Zac asked what we had all been thinking:

“So, uh, Mr. Will, do we really have to write a summer vacation paper?”

“If I said yes, would any of you do it?” Mr. Will said, still glaring at the door.

“Not even a little,” I said.

“In that case, you don’t.”

Then Natasha returned to her story and bored them all through the end of class. †

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