chapter sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

            Maxwell arrived at school the next morning just as the morning bell rang.  The classroom was silent.  'This is a nice change of pace,' Maxwell thought as he rubbed his temples.  He had what his mother referred to as an 'Excedrin headache'. 

He looked around the room.  It was silent.  In the corner he could see Jenna crying.  A few of the other girls were crying too.  Even the boys, who were normally so rowdy that no human being could conduct any sort of lecture, were sitting in their seats with expressions of absolute shock on their faces.

Something drastic must have happened, but exactly what it was he simply wasn't sure.  Maxwell sat down and closed his eyes as he took several deep breaths in order to restore control over his thoughts.  The light in the room was extraordinarily bright.

 He closed his eyes again so that he could relapse into the comfort of his own internal darkness.

            "Hey Maxwell, did you hear the news?," Jimmy asked as he ran up to his desk. 

            At that very moment, the door opened and Dr. Schmidt walked into the room with another somewhat older lady.  She was a portly woman, who mildly resembled Janet Reno in her younger days.  Jimmy suddenly froze in place, then slowly began to creep back to his desk.

            "Take your seats now, class," Dr. Schmidt bellowed as contrite as he possibly could, "We have to keep order amongst ourselves, so please, don't step out of line.  I have an announcement to make."

            Maxwell was momentarily seized with anxiety, 'Ms. Butternut!  Where was she?  She couldn't have, ... '  This thought occurred to him just as Dr. Schmidt promptly confirmed the worst of his fears.

            "In case you haven't already heard, your teacher, Ms. Butternut, passed away last night.  I'm very sorry to bring you this terrible news, but we have to continue teaching the curriculum for this class.  There aren't any more days left that we can technically miss, so I think it's of the upmost importance for us to push forward with the time that we still have.  After lunch, once we've met our obligation to the state board to put in a mandatory four hours, we'll skip recess and the busses will come to take you home."

            Scattered whispers began floating around the classroom. 

            "Now, moving forward, I'd like you to meet your interim teacher.  Her name is Ms. Mooseknuckle. 

She's been a substitute teacher here for several years, and is also a personal friend of mine on the school board.  She'll be serving you in place of Ms. Butternut for the remainder of the year."  The classroom was suddenly filled with the moaning of whiny children.

            "Silence!," barked Dr. Schmidt, considerably louder as the classroom immediately became extremely quiet and somewhat still.  The fear of death by severe brutalization was palpable in even the most awkward of silences that followed.  Dr. Schmidt drew a scowl that Maxwell himself thought somewhat humorous; he was indeed one scary beast of a man.

            "You'll show Ms. Mooseknuckle every bit as much respect as you showed Ms. Butternut, understand?"  He raised his eyebrows and looked about as menacing as a certain professional wrestler.  Dr. Schmidt, it seemed, was about to cook something up for the students that chose to 'step out of line'.

            Maxwell snickered at the thought of this.  If this class had given the amount of respect to this new lady as they had to Ms. Butternut, she'd surely be heading for an early retirement and probably before ten o'clock. 

            Dr. Schmidt left the students in silence as he exited the classroom.  Ms. Mooseknuckle sat down in Ms. Butternut's vacated seat.  Her face, which had only seconds earlier reflected a pensive solemnity, had now been taken over by a very deviant and seemingly sinister smile.  This lady seemed very pleased with herself right about now.  It appeared to Maxwell that she had finally arrived in what she considered to be her purest element.

            Jimmy was still standing as he had been during the duration of Dr. Schmidt’s comments, and didn’t know how to make it to his desk without being noticed.  He slowly made his way back to his seat which was still quite a ways away. 

            "Get in your seat right now mister, or I'll put you back in your seat myself, and you know what happens when I put you in your seat, don't you?  I make it very difficult for you to ever sit down again!"  Her smile became even more frightening, exposing her gruesome teeth as she did so. 

            'Ugh!,' Maxwell thought.  He'd seen some Brits in his time, but never a mouth that looked as if it had obtained ground up intestines for teeth.  He had a sudden urge to throw-up, but was somehow able to keep it down.  The classroom was truly quiet for once, 'if that's even any real consolation at this point,' he mused.

 

            The day went on.  Never before had Maxwell actually missed the incessant drone of a class out of control.  Maxwell was absolutely positive that this room had a sort of 'feeling' that was very much a reality in and of itself.  He experienced it as a state of grave anxiety with a touch of the utter distraught.  As he slowly surveyed the room he noticed how the students appeared to look completely miserable.  Some of the girls were still crying.

Ms. Mooseknuckle, who was a nasty trout of a woman who wouldn’t be troubled with insolence would ask them if they were okay, then quickly follow up by implying that if they couldn't put a lid on it, that she'd definitely have to see them after class.

            "So you see class, myself and Dr. Schmidt are really good friends, very close in fact."  She said this as she licked her lips and began to stare like a crazed loon into the eyes of the horrified children.  'Gross' was all Maxwell could think almost throwing up again for a second time.  He could even taste the saltiness of the saliva coming into the back of his throat, which was usually a precursor to the real thing.

            Finally, after what felt like several hours the arm on the clock ran into the twelve and the class began to line up for lunch.  Maxwell put his stuff together and shot a quick glance over at Jenna.  She was getting her own stuff ready as well, just as William was helping her put on some kind of fancy knit jacket.

           

            Everyone filed into the cafeteria and Maxwell found himself completely famished.  The only trouble was that he of course gave away his twenty dollars.  He also found his headache was still most definitely present as he took a seat.  Fortunately he'd be home soon enough and could find something to eat there, then the thought occurred to him as to how exactly he was actually going to get home in the first place.  His mother wasn't going to be able to get off work for at least another four hours, maybe he'd be able to talk the bus driver into going over his way?

            Just then, Jenna and William walked over to the table where Maxwell was currently sitting. 

            "Do we really have to sit here?," William was saying to Jenna, "Lets go sit with the rest of the football team."

            "We don't have to sit here at all William," she smiled at Maxwell. 

            Maxwell's heart sank into his colon. Her eyes where so perfect, he'd never noticed they were so green before.  He was green himself with envy after being 'so easily brushed off like that by the hottest girl ever to walk the halls of such a school, but what did it really matter, anyway?  Maxwell had already submitted to the fact that it was his destiny to get kicked in the face by the upper crust of society in the first place.

            "Well, come on then Jenna, what are you waiting for?"

            "I told you, William, 'we' don't have to sit here.  'You' can go sit with your football buddies, 'I' have to talk to Maxwell and Jimmy about our project that's due next week, ... so 'I'm' going to sit here.  You can join me if you want, or you can go be with your friends, I don't really care either way."

            William began to glare at Jenna.  She seemed completely unaffected by it.  Jenna Myers had just earned  ten thousand million cool points in Maxwell's eyes.  Slowly, William walked over to the other table with a face filled with humiliation.  He'd just been forsaken by his girlfriend for a couple of dweebs, an occurrence that definitely got totally under his skin.

            As Jimmy slowly came to the table, he quickly noticed an unusual guest sitting there.  The look of perplexity on his face was priceless to Maxwell.  Somewhat embarrassingly, he began to giggle a little bit like a little school kid.

            "What the hell are you doing here?  Don't you know that seat's taken?"  Jimmy, ever the fast talker was already shooting pearls at Jenna.  She looked confused at first, then Maxwell hit his head with his hand as he drew a grimace.  'Way to go Jimmy, real good one there, buddy!'  Jenna then reached for her tray and began to get up. 

            Jimmy, not missing a beat, quickly shot back, "Hey, sit back down.  You know I was just kidding, right?  No one ever eats with us.  So what's up with you, Mad Max?  Don't punch me in the face or anything, okay?  I look too beautiful.  Hey, you still hitting the old oxygen diet?  Where’s your lunch?"

            "Oh my goodness," Jenna remarked, "You really aren't eating, are you?  What's the matter, Maxwell?  Do you want some of my lunch?," Jenna asked as she slid her tray forward.

            "Umm, no thanks Jenna, I'm really not that hungry right now.  You go ahead, it’s your lunch anyway."

            She looked at Maxwell as she smiled.  This caused Maxwell to become consumed with feelings he'd not even known to exist prior to this moment.  His anxiety and fear of being a fool in front of her was jostled around like a tug boat in a rushing river crashing into a sea of emotions.  Maxwell was so dumbstruck in fact, that he wasn't even able to be afraid anymore.  In fact, this 'sea of emotions' seemed to suddenly become so completely still, peaceful, and tranquil that he found it utterly shocking to himself yet infinitely calming at the same time.

            "Oh Maxwell, he's so shy!," Jimmy said as he started laughing, "He's embarrassed to tell you that he actually gave all his lunch money to a homeless person."

            Maxwell quickly scowled at Jimmy which only made him laugh even harder.  That was classical Jimmy, for you.  He was always trying to cause a scene.

            "Yeah, this silly biscuit eater gave a twenty dollar bill to an old man he found talking to himself on a sidewalk walking down the street, and that was all the money he'd been given for the entire week!"  Jimmy, quickly implementing his best impersonation of Maxwell's voice, reiterated as thus, "Yeah, I was silly wasn't I?  He probably spent the whole twenty on booze, right?  NO!  I says to Maxwell," Jimmy continued, not wanting to stop while he was on a roll, "you did a good job there buddy!  A good deed, indeed!  It'll never get noticed in this cruel world, but that's the irony of existence, right?  You keep it going, brother.  Right on!  Keep on making the world a better place, even if its only in the shadows!"

            Maxwell shook his head at Jimmy, 'What a retard', he thought, 'what's he even talking about anyway?'

            "He's right Christopher," Jenna said. 

            'Jenna just called me Christopher!,' Maxwell suddenly realized.  A warm and happy sensation rose up from the bottom of Maxwell's spine all the way up to the top of Maxwell's head.  

            "That's a very noble thing for you to do.  You have to be careful though, you really need to watch who you choose to trust in situations like that.  It isn't always a bad thing not to give your money away if you feel it might be bad or unsafe, I mean what if he pulls out a knife or a gun or something?"  There was a brief pause, then she continued, "I'm just glad you're okay, and yes, that was a terribly nice thing to do, Christopher.  You really are a nice boy."

            Maxwell, upon hearing these words, didn't even know what to think.  He felt as though he was full of helium or laughing gas or something that seemed to send him into another dimension.  

           

            He told the group about everything he'd researched on the internet as they checked their notes with his.  As it turns out, Jenna was actually a very intelligent girl on top of being completely gorgeous, which led Maxwell to feel that the beast inside of him was ripping his insides to shreds.

            Jenna was also rather impressed with Maxwell's grasp on evolution.  Jimmy basically listened and provided the necessary comic relief when needed.  As lunch slowly came to a close, they could hear the busses pulling up outside. 

            "Christopher, how are you planning to get home?"  

            "You can call me Maxwell if you want. I think I'm going to walk home," he said.

            "No, don't do that!  Come with me instead.  I'm calling my dad right now to pick us up." 

            Maxwell admired Jenna's fancy looking cell phone.  "I, umm, ... okay, sure," was all Maxwell could seem to fit out of his mouth.  He was going to get a ride from Jenna Myer's dad!  The world, it seemed, had totally turned itself inside out. 

            This slowly began to reveal somewhat of a problem to Maxwell as he stepped inside the back seat of Jenna's father's Infinity.  'She and her father are going to actually see where I live, oh no!'  He quickly tried to figure out a solution to the problem.  'Maybe if I have him drop me off at Jimmy's house, I can save some face.  His folks are freaking rich.  It'd only be a two mile walk from Jimmy's place to get to my house anyway,' he figured.

            "No need to give me your address Christopher, I know exactly where you live.  I used to be pretty good friends with your father, did you know that?"

            This comment solved everything. They already knew Maxwell was actually white trash.  "No sir, I didn't know that.  How exactly did you know him?"  Maxwell was genuinely interested at this point.  If he was going to look like a doofus, he was at least going to ask some probing questions along the way.

            "Yeah, he and I went to high school together.  We played baseball together.  We were both pitchers.  He had one hell of a left arm.  My goodness, he probably got it close to eighty-five miles an hour on a good day.  I always gave him grief because I'd have a better record than he would, but his stuff was actually much nastier than mine though.  He was a real student of the game, if you know what I mean.  I never really figured out why he never tried to get onto a farm team to develop his talent a little more.  Why, I actually think he had what it took to become a real professional ball player.  All talent but seemingly no real desire it seems.  I had to rely more on my smarts as I figure it.  I was a little bit craftier than your old man, but he had some really decent stuff for sure."

            This was all news to Maxwell.  He'd never known his father to have been anything of an athlete before.  Why wouldn't he have let Maxwell know any of this before he passed away? 

            As they pulled into Maxwell's drive, Jenna's father looked at him for a moment, then added, "Tell your mother 'Bobby says hi', she'll know who you're talking about," throwing a short wink.

           

            Maxwell got out of the car and watched as it drove away with a little puffy white dust cloud chasing right behind it.  The day was still young, after all.  There was still a cave to explore.