Daniel made his way down the empty halls of Ekhart Academy. This wasn’t the first time Daniel had done this, so he knew which routes could be taken at what times to get where he wanted to go undetected. Chapel may have been mandatory for the kids at Ekhart, but the professors only took note of one’s attendance on the way into the auditorium.
Classes remained in session across the campus. The halls were devoid of people for the most part. Daniel cruised down the halls with their marble tile and chair-rail, oak paneling. Lockers were the only thing about the halls of Ekhart that weren’t highly adorned, but even those had to be free of personal decoration and graffiti.
He walked up several flights of stairs. Along the way, Daniel noticed one of the school’s many trophy cases. The large glass case displayed all manner of trophies for track and field activities, rugby, and soccer (of course). Daniel leered at the awards as he passed.
None of the trophies in the case had his name engraved upon the brass plating. The irony for him laid in the fact that he was a straight “A” student and yet he was virtually invisible at the school. Only the bullies gave him regular attention, but that was attention he could do without.
He continued up several more flights until he came to the top level. Daniel found the wooden door he was searching for—the fourth floor, east wing boy’s bathroom. He listened at the door briefly before entering. Hearing no internal movement, Daniel went inside.
Each of Ekhart’s bathrooms in the east wing had a small sitting area with a couch and a chair. The school was very well to do. This was one of Daniel’s favorite places to come when classes were out or when he skipped Chapel. Most of the boys did not come to use the east wing bathrooms because they were considered a bit on the frilly side. So, they avoided them and the stigma incurred by being found there.
Daniel went to the couch and slipped his hand down between the armrest and cushion on the right side. There you are. He retrieved a copy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” and sat down. He had saved his place at page number 300 with a bookmark containing a picture of Frodo Baggins, from one of the movie adaptations. He looked at the wee hobbit portrayed on the bookmark and thought of how small they were in their world compared to everyone else. And yet the fate of all Middle Earth had depended upon a single hobbit. I’m such a geek, he concluded.
Daniel settled in for one of his favorite pastimes—reading. He estimated having nearly thirty minutes before he had to vacate and get back for a dorm check. William would be angry at him for the rest of the day, but he would get over it. He always did.
That was one of William’s most endearing qualities. He forgave people very easily. Even when confronted with someone he didn’t care for, like Derek Wentworth and his cronies, William always showed kindness to them. Daniel had often daydreamed of ways he might get even with Derek, but it seemed nothing could have been farther from William’s mind.
Daniel heard a noise coming up the hall—the sound of boys trying to whisper to one another, and doing a bad job of it. He leaped off the couch, taking his book with him and slipped into the farthest stall from the door—the handicapped stall. He slipped up as quietly as possible onto the horseshoe shaped commode seat. Daniel calmed his breathing and waited.
The bathroom door eased open cautiously and several boys slipped inside. “Is there anybody in here?” Derek Wentworth asked.
His voice even sounds like he should be a bully, Daniel thought.
Derek led their small group and was the biggest among them. The rest were lackeys and glom-ons. They only hung around with Derek, feigning their worship of him, so he wouldn’t beat them up.
Daniel just wasn’t the type to follow someone around like that. He enjoyed being a real thinker and the kind of boys who followed Derek did whatever he said—slaves.
Derek led his pack beyond the seating area and around the corner where the stalls and urinals lined the wall. A counter with four sink basins adorned the opposite wall and held a dish with mints in the corner.
Daniel watched them from a crack between the door and its frame. Derek pulled out a pack of cigarettes and jostled one of the white sticks into position to remove it from the pack. Two of the three boys with Derek giggled. The third boy looked nervous. This was initiation time.
Any of the smaller boys who wanted to run with Derek had to undergo some form of ritual to prove their loyalty. Daniel had seen them undergo all sorts of humiliating things just to become one of his lackeys. For the younger or smaller boys who wouldn’t throw away their dignity, Derek bullied them and took it anyway.
Daniel groaned silently. Derek favored him for stuffing into lockers and swirleys. He was a little older and a lot meaner and he just happened to be Daniel’s neighbor back home. Their parent’s estates happened to border one another.
Daniel’s family possessed more wealth than Derek’s family. They had a larger home and they owned more land. But in the topsy-turvy world of teenage boys, what difference did it really make?
“Check the stalls first,” Derek commanded.
Daniel carefully maintained his perch upon the toilet seat, squatting there like a bird on its nest, desperately hoping not to be found. Just smoke your old cigarettes and get out of here!
One of Derek’s crew began to go, one by one, to each stall looking under the doors. “No, you don’t do it that way,” Derek scolded. He kicked open the first stall door with his big size eleven foot. The metal door slammed hard against the stall partition, sounding like a gun going off. His cronies gasped. Derek might draw teacher attention making that kind of racket.
Derek went to each of six stalls knocking each of the doors open. They each swung closed after the blow. Daniel panicked. The handicapped stall was the only one left. He ducked under the partition as silently as he could. It paid to be small for your age. Derek kicked open the last stall door. No one was there.
“All right, boys, time to light up,” Derek said. Most of the others laughed. One of the boys took a peek out from the bathroom door just to make sure no one was coming down the hall to check on the noise.
Daniel hunched over with his feet on top of the commode pipes inside the stall next to the handicapped stall. He expressed his relief with a big silent exhale. And then his right foot slipped off of the pipe.
Derek flicked his grandfather’s World War II Zippo lighter as the toilet behind them flushed. He kicked the door open and there sat Daniel Harwick squatting on the silver pipes coming off the back of the toilet. “Hello, Danny boy,” Derek said with a delightfully vicious grin on his face.
“Hey, Derek, how’s it going?” This is it. I’m dead.
“Oh, it’s going great…now.” He caught hold of Daniel’s uniform shirt collar and pulled him down from his perch. “Look what we’ve got here, boys.”
The other boys were elated. They knew Daniel well. He was the nerdy kid who was always reading his fairy tale books. Daniel earned far better grades than the other boys and that hadn’t earned him any fans.
“I think it’s time for a swirley, boys!” Cheers arose from all, except Daniel. “Hey look, Daniel’s got one of his prissy story books. They grabbed it from Daniel’s hands and began to slowly rip the pages away from the binding, giving him wicked looks the entire time.
Derek grabbed the thick novel and tossed it into the toilet bowl. “Here you go, Daniel. Let’s go bobbing for books! Pucker up, buttercup.”
Derek forced Daniel back into the stall, holding him by the back of his neck. Daniel tried to resist the older boy by pushing his hands against the sides of the stall, but it was no use. It never helped. Derek kicked the flusher and sent the water into motion.
Daniel watched as the torn pages of his favorite novel circled around the bowl. The binding, along with all of the remaining pages, threatened to stop up the flow. Derek pushed Daniel down by the neck and kicked the flusher again. The water began to rise. At least it’s clean this time, he thought. It had not always been the case, but that had never stopped Derek.
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“Uh hmm!” Someone cleared their throat loudly behind them.
The boys turned to find William Harding standing in the doorway. Derek released Daniel and looked out of the stall. “Harding? What do you want?”
“Let him go, Derek…NOW!”
William stood about the same height as Derek, but he was faster and more athletic. Derek knew not to mess with him. William’s size and the little fact he was a black belt in Tai Kwon Do were nice assets to have at Ekhart if you didn’t have a wealthy family. Derek had learned that lesson the hard way.
Daniel pushed past Derek and emerged from the stall. He left his book behind, shredded into a soggy mess inside the porcelain bowl. Fortunately, it was only the paperback edition. Daniel walked over to William. His uniform looked a bit disheveled, but he was all right.
William gave him a stern, fatherly look that made Daniel feel about two inches tall. He had ditched William and made him mad. And now William had to bail him out of trouble again because of it. Daniel hung his head low and walked out of the bathroom. William gave the other boys and Derek a look which said, Beware. Then he followed Daniel out.
“Thanks for coming to the rescue, William.”
William looked flustered. “Well, I don’t know why I did. It serves you right for ditching me and being so rude to the minister. One of these days, God is going to teach you a lesson, Daniel, and I won’t be there to bail you out.”
“Ah, come on, Will. Don’t be mad at me. We’ll be leaving for Christmas break tomorrow and you’ll have a miserable time if you’re angry.”
William sighed. “I’m not mad. I just wish you would take your life seriously. You’re constantly getting yourself into trouble. If you keep ditching me, like today, then one day Derek is going to find you by yourself and there won’t be anything I can do about it.”
Daniel pooched his bottom lip out and looked at William with puppy dog sad-eyes. “Come on, Will…buddy? Let’s get back for dorm check before we both get into trouble.”
HOLIDAY
Daniel scratched at the creamy, beige upholstery covering his armrest. He had worn a spot there over the years. It was always a depressing time for him when he had to go home.
The Bentley rode as smooth as glass. William had never ridden in such a fancy car before. His dad had a Chevrolet pickup which had been given to him by a church. It needed new springs and a host of other items, but even if it were dipped in gold it would never be this classy.
William flipped the switches just to see what they did. Daniel watched the partition window go up and down as his friend relentlessly toggled the switch, fascinated. Parker, the family butler and driver for Daniel, sighed heavily, voicing his frustration with William’s curiosity. Parker was a man of thinning hair and pale complexion somewhere in his early fifties and very kind.
Daniel caught sight of Parker’s eyes looking at him through the rearview mirror and gave him a sheepish grin with reference to William’s complete amazement with a simple Bentley. What was the big deal, anyway? They had five, after all.
Daniel couldn’t remember his family not having money. His father had taken their life savings and made some very wise investments. The man had parlayed his meager wages into a small fortune.
William soon discovered the collection of DVDs in one of the rear seat compartments and settled in on the vehicle’s small television for awhile. Daniel stared past his reflection in the window to the dark countryside passing beyond. He strained to catch glimpses of the snow as it blew sideways under the streetlights. The flakes each caught a glimmer of orange light and then blew away into obscurity. That was his own life in a nutshell—a faint glimmer and then obscurity.
William had been easily dazzled by the Harwick family’s wealth because he was one of the few students at Ekhart Academy that didn’t have much money. William had won a scholarship for under privileged children at his previous school, in part, because he was a promising soccer player—a genuine student of Pele himself, if Daniel had ever seen one. He was one year Daniel’s senior at a strapping fifteen and a good six inches taller than him. With bushy blonde hair neatly trimmed off of the school uniform collar, William was perhaps Daniel’s only real friend at Ekhart.
Yesterday’s near swirley had been only the latest event. It had cost Daniel a new paperback edition of The Lord of the Rings, but it was a small price compared to having your head shoved into a commode. Once again, William had arrived just in the nick of time. And once again, Derek Wentworth had backed down from him.
With William’s family currently on a mission trip, Daniel had invited his friend to spend Christmas vacation at his home. The boys had the option of staying on campus, but most of the buildings would be shutdown, so it wasn’t a very appealing idea for anyone. “I can’t wait to see where you live, Daniel. I bet it’s awesome,” William said.
Daniel sighed, keeping his gaze out the window into the night. “I suppose,” he said as he spotted the gate. Parker tapped a remote button on the dash and the gate opened up enough for the Bentley to pass through. Parker drove the luxury car down the tree lined drive winding up to the main house. The wind had calmed down by now and the snow fell in huge flakes, making the slightest crackle upon impact.
Only the tallest trees remained to break up the vast expanse of perfectly manicured lawn. The snow-covered ground stretched out on either side of the drive like a vast white carpet. “Good snowball fighting, eh, Daniel?” William said. Daniel didn’t respond. His mood had changed completely since leaving school.
The burgundy Bentley made its way up to the large manor house. The driveway terminated just beyond at a ten bay garage. Parker stopped at the stone steps leading to a set of large doors. Another butler greeted the car, wearing a dark overcoat and cap. He opened the right rear passenger door for the boys.
“Evening, Master Daniel, sir,” he said as Daniel stepped out of the car.
“Thank you, Aleister,” Daniel replied. He stepped up onto the first step and waited for William. He slid across the leather upholstery and stepped out after Daniel.
“Evening, Master Harding,” Aleister said.
William grinned at Daniel, clearly impressed that the butler already knew his name.
Daniel pushed his wire-rim glasses up on his nose and turned to lead the way up the walk to the house. Two identical stone griffins stood guard for the family on either side of the walkway. Blankets of snow had formed upon each of their backs. Aleister took time to remove the boy’s luggage from the Bentley and then followed them into the house.
They stopped to remove their coats in the foyer where two glass doors stood between them and the rest of the house. Once inside, they came into a large open room that extended into a long hallway straight ahead. A curved staircase started at their left then proceeded to the upper level over the hallway. Everything in view spoke of quality. No expense had been spared for even the smallest things.
Daniel led William into a large room to the right which contained a massive fireplace. A set of matching leather chairs and sofa sat before the hearth. The river stone fireplace held a roaring blaze within and the mantle was tall enough so that Daniel could have walked upright into the inferno had he wanted to.
A tall, decorated Christmas tree stood beyond the couch situated near one of the room’s cathedral windows. Presents galore had been placed under the tree, but Daniel remained uninterested in them. He knew his parents had probably shopped for none of them personally. And, as caring as Parker and the other staff were, it just wasn’t the same.
Daniel walked over to one of the high-back leather chairs and fell into it, placing his feet upon the matching ottoman. William walked over more slowly, taking in as much of the huge room as he could on his first inspection, then settled into the other chair across from Daniel.
“This place is great, Daniel! I can’t believe it. You’re so lucky to live here.”
That had never occurred to Daniel. Usually, coming home left h
im feeling even lonelier than staying at school.
“Where are your parents, Danny boy?”
Daniel stared into the fire. “Probably in Paris by now,” he said solemnly.
“Paris? Aren’t they going to be here with us for Christmas?”
“They had a trip scheduled to Europe instead. They’re not exactly what you would call hands on with their parenting.” It had taken some time, but Daniel had come to the conclusion that he was simply an imposition.
“I’m sorry, man,” William said.
“Ah, don’t worry about it. It’s not like I’m not used to it,” Daniel said, trying to sound more upbeat now.
“Daniel! How has my boy been doing?” said a slightly portly, older woman as she entered the room.
Daniel perked up. “I’m fine, Mrs. Trumble.”
The woman wore a black dress with a pressed white smock. She carried a silver serving tray with two steaming, ceramic tumblers balanced on top.
“Ah, and Master Harding as well,” Mrs. Trumble said. I’m glad you both had a safe trip. I made your favorite, Daniel, my own special hot chocolate.” She presented the tray’s contents on the table between their chairs.
“Wow, that looks great,” William said. He picked up his mug and sniffed the sweet vapor rising off its contents. It smelled of rich dark chocolate with the slightest hint of something unknown but wonderful.
“Mrs. Trumble definitely makes the best hot chocolate.” Daniel grabbed the other mug and settled back into his chair.
“Stop teasing,” Mrs. Trumble said. “We’re glad you’re home for Christmas. If you boys need anything further, just call. I’ve already got your beds turned down.”
“Thank you,” they said as Mrs. Trumble walked back out of the room.
They sank down into their chairs, sipping from their mugs and soaking up the fire’s warmth. The boys kept quiet as they watched the flames dance before them.
The wind whipped the snow around outside. The boys slurped hot chocolate as the clock on the mantle ticked, and the fire in the hearth warmed their bones. Before long, they both drifted into sleep.