With the school year barely started, a strange tension filled the halls. The town’s famed architect Walton Walters himself would have never foreseen what would unfold in the high school bearing his name. For the first couple of weeks, settling into a new routine, new classes, and newly forced associations kept the building animosity from boiling over. Then the first pep rally of the year pulled the pin from the grenade.
“Our team captain and quarterback who will lead the Wizards to victory this season, Jason Lucas.”
Jason Lucas stepped to the center of the gymnasium floor to loud applause as the senior class president offered this introduction. He threw both arms up in the air like a goal post. Then he waved his hands upward and the student body obliged with louder cheers and a few whistles. Before he could tune them up again, a teacher stepped forward and claimed the microphone with a squeal. The overhead lights gleamed off of his bald dome as he wetted thin lips and placed them closer to the microphone.
“Sadly, Mr. Lucas will be riding the bench until he brings up his history grade.”
The last of the cheers and burgeoning excitement died at these words. The entire school stared at Mr. Lawrence. Most didn’t realize their mouths gaped open with shock. The majority of the teachers nodded agreement and understanding. The principal looked stricken. Jason’s face flushed red and he swallowed hard against a lump in his throat.
The crowd erupted in jeers. Items flew through the air, causing teachers and students to dive for cover. Mr. Lawrence didn’t dive fast enough to avoid an apple and a bottle of soda. The former promised him a black eye by the morning while the second exploded all over him. He frowned and looked around for the guilty parties, but too many angry faces glared back at him and he fled for safety.
Police arrived quickly since half the local force attended most pep rallies to support family members. The other half were just down the street at the station, since their small town usually resisted excitement. Today resistance gave way to chaos and the beanbag guns and tasers came out to calm down irate students and defensive school staff. Thankfully, the pep rally closed the Friday school day before game weekend, so most of the students were easily diverted to their buses and thus became the responsibility of their parents. A couple, who refused to be calmed down, got to sit in interrogation at the police station, so the police officers could let them sweat enough to reconsider a life of crime or subversive protest.
~
The next day found the whole town gathered at an impromptu Saturday school board meeting. The superintendent wiped sweat from him brow though the air conditioning pushed a harsh chill into the room and most other attendees shivered or pulled cardigans and jackets tighter around their shoulders. With every speaker that approached the podium to express their opinion for or against keeping their star player from leading the team to victory, more perspiration coursed down his face. He thanked each speaker politely, regardless of their stance, and then raised his water glass to his lips to perpetuate the cycle of fluids through him. Finally, the last speakers stepped forward.
Coach Tanner joined Mr. Lawrence at the podium. They nodded politely to each other and then began a discourse while people nodded along with the stance they most agreed with.
“We must uphold the educational standards of our fine school. Sadly, Jason failed his first test, so he didn’t even come close to those standards,” Mr. Lawrence explained with an apologetic glance toward the Lucas family at revealing this information.
“But the first game is tomorrow. We need Jason to play,” the coach implored. “Perhaps if you gave him extra credit?”
“You think I have time to come up with and grade extra credit for every student?"
“No,” confusion marred the larger man’s face. “Why would you?”
Mr. Lawrence’s lips raspberried as he forced a sigh past them. “Because if he gets extra credit, I have to make it available to everyone.”
No light dawned in the coach’s eyes, “That will help them all succeed, won’t it?”
“It will help them succeed at not bothering to learn it the first time.”
A roar of defiance erupted from some of the gathered students. Both the coach and history teacher looked up in surprise and fear. Then the spitballs started flying. The superintendent slid under the table on a trail of his own perspiration. Parents tried to restrain their children and teachers raced for the exits.
The school librarian raced for the microphone. Her normally serene voice rose as she shouted for peace and quiet and a show of good faith by allowing Jason Lucas to lead his team to victory in a few short hours. No one heard, or at least they didn’t acknowledge her.
As more spitballs rained down all around her, she gave up ground and joined her coworkers as they fled to the safety of the halls of Walton Waters High where they ruled supreme and children cowered at the threat of homework, suspension, and being held back a year. The art teacher pulled out rulers and clay-shaping tools to use as weapons. The shop teacher went to work refitting a potato gun to shoot larger ammunition—used textbooks.
They worked into the night, sleeping in shifts on the mats in the gymnasium as students took their own shifts of heckling and declaring the school no longer in charge of them. When Monday morning dawned, the students arrived, unsatisfied with their forfeiture of the first game of the season on Saturday night. They arrived with backpacks loaded with heavy items that made their shoulders sag just as much as the miserable start to football season. As these two warring factions meet at the gates of learning, who will emerge victorious?
~~~
So this post is so very very late because my children brought a virus back from school. As I am still expected to fulfill all my cleaning and cooking obligations, I did not bounce back as quickly as my little cuties but I have found time to proofread and post at last. Let the peasants rejoice!
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