Without stopping to think about it, he nearly shouted, “She was just defending him!” His voice was thick with indignance.
“Lunch detention!” This time Mr. Poulton pointed right at Patrick to accentuate his damning sentence. He said it as if the punishment were a lightning bolt coming from his finger, and his eyes dared anyone else to test him and suffer the wrath of Zeus.
“You can’t do that!” Patrick knew it was a stupid thing to say, but his rage was hot now, hotter than it had been in a long time.
“Watch me!” Mr. Poulton hit him with another lightning bolt. “Lunch detention for a week! Now are we done talking?”
It took every ounce of strength inside of him to keep his mouth shut this time, but he just barely found enough to hold back all the nasty things he wanted to shout at the man. The original Stern Look himself stared right into Patrick’s eyes, thick eyebrows and all, demanding the question be answered. The correct answer of course was compliant silence, and giving it to him was maddening.
Finally Mr. Poulton withdrew as a dog might pull his teeth away from the throat of some scrawny mongrel that dared to question his dominance, leaving Patrick seething, but with his ears down and his tail firmly between his legs.
Face smeared with blood, Bibbles returned to his ball and continued the lesson, though Patrick scarcely heard a word of it. His face was hot and his mind was a scrambled mass of rage clawing at the back of his eyes, furiously trying to escape and reap vengeance on the idiot at the dry erase board.
Rachel gave him a worried glance, or perhaps an apologetic one. He gave her a brief shrug of indifference, though he knew it wasn’t convincing in the slightest. The injustice was biting at his insides, and the image of that smarmy little bearded face was burned into his retinas. Patrick noticed out of the corner of his eye that Owen hadn’t yet found the nerve to take his hands out of his lap.
No one dared to speak for the rest of the class period.
*****
“It’s very mature to take your anger out on us.”
“It must be fun to have power you can abuse.”
“If you’re done throwing a tantrum, maybe we should return to the lesson?”
For the final half hour of the flu-prevention lecture Patrick was left to stew, his mind filling to the brim with things he should have said, would have said had his mind not been so sluggish with rage. He would have given anything to go back and say them to the man’s face, and ran such scenarios through his head over and over again.
Finally the droning voice stopped and the students were quickly sucked into the vacuum that was the outside world, eager to escape the hot pressure inside the classroom. Owen walked out into the quad with Patrick and Rachel.
“Man, I’m sorry about that,” Owen said glumly when he was sure that they were a safe distance from the chem lab. “That was meant for me.”
Patrick thought that Owen’s behavior was definitely foolish, but he wasn’t mad at him in the slightest.
“Don’t worry about it, man. It’s no big deal.”
“A week, though! It’s absolute bull.” He hitched his backpack higher on his back and started toward his next class. “I’ll make it up to you somehow.”
What a nice kid, Patrick thought, despite his sour mood.
“It’s really okay, it wasn’t your fault,” he assured Owen as he walked away.
“It wasn’t fair,” Rachel said finally, staring at the ground in front of her. Patrick hadn’t even considered how she might feel about her own detention.
“No,” he said. Then, even though he still felt nothing but smoldering anger in his gut, he tried to make light of the situation. It was almost painful to see Rachel down.
“Have you ever even had detention before?” he asked her with a faint, half-forced smile.
The question might have been slightly upsetting if asked another way, but when she saw his little smile she returned with one.
“No,” she said defensively.
*****
The joy and confidence Patrick had exhibited the previous night at dinner was now gone. It was funny, he thought, how happiness could cast out fear and anger, but the unwanted emotions always threatened to swoop back down again and scare the happiness into submission. He was still immeasurably grateful for the turn his life was taking, but he couldn’t seem to shake this deep feeling of injustice.
The last thing he would do, he thought as his family chatted happily and ate dinner, was tell them about the incident in full. Although he wanted Mr. Poulton to have his comeuppance more than anything in the world, he couldn’t let anyone find out exactly what happened. If his father caught wind of the affair he would most certainly go and tear the man a new one (so to speak). He would go to the school board and complain that the detentions were given unjustly and in anger, and above all else in the spirit of punishment rather than discipline. All three of them would have their detentions lifted and Mr. Poulton would be left to lick his wounds, suddenly and very acutely aware that compared to the mighty titan that was The Parent, he had no more power than a sniveling a little imp.
But in the back of Patrick’s mind there would always be that knowledge, burning at him like a little cinder that refuses to go out, growing a little brighter whenever he saw that bearded face as if from a light breathe, that Daddy had to come and win the battle for him. And that was a satisfaction that he would never give the man. It would be like winning every battle in a war except for the one on your home turf. Your enemy suffered the most casualties, but was it really a victory?
“So what’s up, Pat?” his father finally asked in between bites of his burger. “Something wrong?”
Patrick swallowed his own bite and said, “Nothing, I just got lunch detention today.”
His father tried to stifle a chuckle as he asked the obvious question, “Well what did you do?” It seemed that the idea of Patrick getting into very much trouble was literally laughable.
“Mouthed off to a teacher,” he said indifferently, then took another bite.
“Patrick,” his mother said accusingly, though she was smiling as well. “What did you say?”
“He gave some other kid detention for something stupid,” he said vaguely, not wanting to recount the details that had run through his mind the entire day, “and I said it was dumb, or something, and he gave me detention too.”
His father laughed again.
“Well, Pat, you should definitely, uh… try not to do that. In the future.” He feebly attempted to avoid smiling, and it was clear that he was trying desperately to wear his Discipline Hat (though it didn’t fit his head quite right, thanks to a mostly quiet and well-behaved son). The matter that was truly important however, burst from him a second later.
“So what’s with this teacher guy?” he asked with a little excitement, meaning, of course, “What makes this guy so weird that he would ever need to give you detention?”
Patrick was rapidly growing tired of the subject, but he knew his father wouldn’t relent.
“Mr. Poulton,” he said. “He’s just a jerk.”
“As bad as Mr. Fitzpatrick?” his father asked with a grin.
“Just as big of a wiener, but only tolerable because he’s so easy to make fun of.”
“Patrick!” his mother said again, but with a lot more sincerity than before. “You need to respect your teachers, even if you think they’re wrong.” She was a little taken aback, but Patrick didn’t care at this point. His father and sister just laughed out loud, the latter with a gruesome mouthful of beef and bun.
It felt good. He and Rachel were always poking fun at the man and making little jokes about his funny habits and whatnot, but in the absence of her innocence it felt good to simply tell someone how crappy a guy he was.
His father laughed for several seconds, but Patrick continued, knowing what questions would be coming next.
“He’s bald and he’s got this stupid beard-face and whenever he’s
mad, which is pretty much always, he looks at you with these big, thick eyebrows.” He did the most exaggerated impression of the man’s sternest look and shot it at everyone at the table. This kept his father and sister laughing steadily, and when it was directed at his mother even she smiled a little, though she still looked mostly uncomfortable.
For the rest of dinner (which was prolonged due to frequent bouts of laughter) Patrick entertained them with the various Poultonisms and jokes that he and Rachel had amassed over the short time they had been friends.
It would have been much better if Mr. Poulton were there to hear it all, but at least Patrick could pretend.
*****
It took much effort to get his tired legs up the stairs, and when he plopped onto his bed Patrick knew he wouldn’t be going into the woods tonight. He had missed a tremendous amount of sleep over the last several nights and it was finally catching up with him. Couple that with the huge amount of physical exertion and he was left feeling like his bones were made of noodles. Unable to sleep with the sun still up and too tired to do anything else, he recalled lunch that day.
He and Rachel hadn’t sat on their favorite bench critiquing each others’ lunches as they had planned. Instead, they had spent it in some big, empty classroom that Patrick had never been in before. It looked like it was meant for history or political science, its walls covered with related posters and timelines. The room was painted a reddish brown which reminded him of a comfortable redwood log cabin, but the desolation made it a little too unsettling for him to want to stay the night. (Patrick would be spending a week in that room, he thought with a fresh twinge of anger.)
In addition to the three of them, there had been two other guys with long hair, black clothes and nose rings. Rachel explained later that they were of a small rabble of kids that practically spent their entire lives in detention due to a complete refusal to do homework of any kind. (“A carnal sin,” he had joked with her.)
They had all been forced to sit several seats away from each other to ensure that there was no chance of any sort of communication between them, and above all, not even an ounce of fun. They were only allowed to eat their lunch and do their homework quietly. The two guys sitting on opposite ends of the back row claimed that they had no homework to do, so the unnamed heavyset woman who watched them all from the desk at the front of the room told them to sit there with their heads on their desks, which they did gladly.
Owen had sat and worried at his math homework, a look on his face that spoke both of remorse for having gotten everyone detention, and of painful confusion over the daunting problems in the textbook.
Rachel claimed before and after detention that she didn’t really care about it, that it was, “just an opportunity to get your homework done early,” but Patrick knew that she missed the laughter-filled free time as much as he did. It was one of the only chances during the day that they ever had time for a real conversation.
Now that Patrick remembered her saying it though, he was actually a little thankful that he was able to get his homework done early, because it seemed as if he might be falling asleep soon. He couldn’t ascertain just when that would be, however, because he then fell asleep, images of an angry, bearded face floating through his mind.
Chapter 9
Patrick dreamed about being a wolf that night. He dreamed about running and sniffing and chasing animals—most definitely a good dream. When he awoke he found himself underneath his blankets, and for a moment thought that he had actually become a wolf without meaning to. He had most certainly fallen asleep on top of the covers… But as a few moments went by and he shook the last bits of sleep from his eyes he realized that he had probably just gotten into bed in his sleep.
*****
Such a deep, dream-filled sleep was exactly what Patrick needed, and as he chatted with Rachel before English class he reflected that staying in bed last night was very much the correct decision. He still wasn’t quite at one hundred percent, but he certainly would have enough energy to make the trip to that other world come nightfall. He wished that there were some way to get his family to go to bed earlier…
“I think it will be ‘Of Mice and Men,’” Rachel said to him amidst the rabble of voices from the settling students. The two of them were sitting in the middle of the room. Patrick could see Owen looking over his homework off to their left. With a glance behind he spotted Dean sitting slouched in his seat with the usual bored look on his face. Patrick had learned the names of a few other kids in the class, but he made a mental note to learn them all soon.
“Gosh, I hope not,” he returned with a roll of his eyes. “Why do you think that?”
“I’ve heard from lots of the older kids that you read it sometime this year. Have you read it before?”
“Yeah, twice.” He grimaced. “I read it once in eighth grade for some weird reason. We all thought it was supposed to be a book you read in high school. Then I had to read it again my freshman year.”
“Your school made you read it twice?” Rachel asked. “Didn’t the teachers communicate with each other?”
“The high school was a different school. There were tons of them in the city.”
Rachel rolled her eyes to herself, a little embarrassed.
“Right. Derp. Sorry, I’m so used to living here where we’ve got ‘the middle school’ and ‘the high school’.”
Patrick laughed.
“I much prefer it this way, honestly.”
Mrs. Spotts walked in a second later, holding her bag as usual. What was not usual however, was the look on her face. She seemed either worried or nervous; a great departure from her unwavering cheeriness. Her wrinkly eyebrows were scrunched together and the tops of her cheeks were pulled up in a squint that made her eyes even smaller than usual. The class quieted as she moved to her desk and unpacked her things.
“A quick announcement before we start today, class,” she began, wringing her hands together nervously.
Whatever the announcement was, it seemed to disturb her very much. Patrick and Rachel exchanged this thought quickly with a worried glance.
“Mr. Poulton was injured last night. He’s going to be alright, but he won’t be able to come to school for a while.” She paused and regarded the class for an uncomfortable moment.
“What happened to him?” a long-haired girl wearing a bandana asked from the front row.
Mrs. Spotts took a breath and held it for a second, apparently hesitant to continue.
“He was attacked by an animal. A dog. He was taking a walk last night, very late—Mr. Poulton has always had problems with insomnia, you see, and often takes walks up and down Deer Creek, from what he tells me—and he said it was big, and looked like a wolf, but this is a very strange place to find a wolf, I think…”
Patrick’s stomach plummeted and he was suddenly overcome by an intense feeling of vertigo. His heart began pumping madly. His skin flushed cold. This wasn’t happening; he had to still be dreaming.
“So it may have been some sort of husky or similar dog, but if it was indeed a wolf it had a long way to travel to get here,” Mrs. Spotts continued. Patrick swayed slightly in his seat, certain that she couldn’t be saying what it sounded like she was saying. “But either way the animal must be sick. Mr. Poulton has been treated for rabies, just to be safe. A very… painful procedure, but he’s going to be okay nonetheless.”
“They didn’t catch it?” asked a boy near the door, clearly fascinated. He sounded far away. “How did he get away?”
“I don’t know, sweetie. From what I heard, it just attacked him and left.” She looked like she was growing progressively more uncomfortable, but couldn’t seem to stop herself from answering questions.
“How badly is he hurt, Mrs. Spotts?” The question seemed to float into the room without a body, but just before it was complete Patrick realized that it was coming from Rachel.
“One of his legs is… ver
y hurt. One of his arms, as well, but like I said, he’s going to be fine. We are very lucky that he escaped with his life.”
This time her worried pause wasn’t broken by a question.
The silence seemed to drag on for much too long.
“So let’s start on our lesson for today,” she said finally after what must have been an eternity.
Patrick didn’t’ know what to think. His heart was beating so hard it almost hurt, and he worked as hard as he could to conceal his increasingly deep breathing. He cleared his throat and raised his hand.
It took a few moments for Mrs. Spotts to turn away from whatever she was writing on the board, but when she saw the raised hand she said, “Yes, Patrick?” Her voice was still a little shaky.
“Can I please use the rest room?” he asked as steadily as he could. He was suddenly aware that sweat was beginning to accumulate on his face and neck and hoped that no one had noticed.
“Of course you can,” she said with a touch of relief in her voice, obviously happy that he hadn’t dug for any more grim details.
Patrick rose from his seat and left the room without turning to see if Rachel or anyone else was watching him go. The walk down the hall to the bathroom was blurry and vague, the rush of blood to his head distorting both his vision and the passage of time.
This has to be a dream, he thought as he pushed into the bathroom.
There was no one inside, and he hoped desperately that no one would need to make a stop for the next several minutes. He rushed to the sink and leaned over it, holding the sides for support. He held his head down for several long moments, trying to slow his breathing.
The fear was back. That fear that crippled him, that he had thought must be gone forever. It had returned and cast out every feeling of joy and ease inside him. That fear that made him want to run and cower, that told him everything was wrong and out of his control.
He looked up into his reflection.
A perfectly clear human face stared back at him. It wasn’t a dream.
I almost killed Mr. Poulton.