Chapter 2. Nearly suspended.
Monday morning Bradley and Megan had to go to summer school. Bradley was very sad about this. There was a very slight chance that there was something they’d not learned on their own already that was covered at school while they were gone. There was a lot of repetition in the end of the year that Bradley did not like. The person who replaced him had to be completely ignorant and not know a squat to get Bradley’s grades so low! Another drawback was that the yearly US Open of Surfing competitions were about to start and Bradley was really frustrated that because of the Unknowns he was missing them entirely. Maybe he could talk dad into going there at least on Saturday, if there was not much homework… Dustin was going there with friends almost every day this week!
Because they went to bed early the previous day, even Megan got up on time, and they were walking to school together. The unidentified wooden structure, through which they got into the world of the Unknowns, was missing.
“The school must have broken it down,” Bradley concluded. “It probably was an eye sore.”
“Are you sure they even saw it?” doubted Megan. “Maybe only we did. Otherwise there would be many more kids who got entrapped by it and should have gone to the World of the Unknowns”.
“How do you know they didn’t?” objected Bradley. “There were plenty of kids there. Granted, we did not know anyone, but this could simply be by chance”.
“I had an impression that they were all coming from all over the world”, said Megan. “And maybe this structure moves itself around to different locations to entrap kids from different areas…”
“You are making it up”, said Bradley unwilling to give Megan any more credit for figuring the Unknowns out.
“I am, but the entire story about being taken up by the Unknowns also sounds as a made-up story. Why not this?”
“Because we want the truth, not fascinating stories like Dad believes”, Bradley replied.
They entered the school building and went to their classroom. There were a few other kids from their school as well as some they did not know. The teacher gave Bradley and Megan a surprised look, but they started to get used to it. They said “Hello” to the teacher and proceeded to sit down at their desks.
“Very well”, said the teacher. “Let’s begin. Everybody is here except for John, but I don’t expect him to show up on time”. And she looked towards Bradley and Megan again.
“Hinting that we were not on time before also”, whispered Bradley to Megan.
She nodded. The summer school was not fun at all. All these other kids were here because they were truly behind and did not understand stuff, and it took a really long time to move forward from one task to the next. Bradley was getting bored. Finally, the teacher gave them an assignment that they had to do on their own, and Bradley finished it really fast. The teacher did not believe he was done and asked to look at his work. At this very moment the door swung open and John stormed in. He threw his schoolbag from the entrance to the end of the classroom and started wildly running around the desks. While passing by the teacher, he snatched Bradley’s notebook from her hands and threw it out of the window. After that, he ran to his spot, sat down and froze.
“I see, I see, one of your well-planned tricks again!” the teacher exploded. “Bradley, here is a piece of paper and I would ask you to do the work again since I have no reason to believe you actually did it. John, you missed the theoretical part of the lesson and will have to read two paragraphs in your textbook before you can start with your assignment”.
Bradley took a piece of paper from the teacher and started to re-create his work. At first he almost started to argue, but then thought better of it. He had no idea what happened in school and what those individuals whom everybody thought to be him and Megan manage to accomplish here on their behalf. The teacher did not expect Bradley to start doing the assignment and was very surprised to see that he was doing it. John, however, continued to sit there completely motionless.
“John, I told you to start reading your textbook”, the teacher reminded him trying to not lose her composure.
But John did not move. Bradley expected the teacher to explode again and scold John, but to his surprise, she sat down at her desk. “It must be easier that John is just sitting in his place instead of doing something wild again and distracting everyone else”, Bradley thought to himself, raising his eyebrow to look at the teacher without stopping to write. She was sitting there staring away from John.
When Bradley finished with the assignment, he went to the teacher and gave her the piece of paper. At the same moment John jumped up, ran with unfathomable speed to the teacher’s desk and snatched Bradley’s assignment right out of her hand. He made a little paper ball out of it and threw it right out the window. Then quickly returned to his desk and froze.
Bradley could not take it anymore. He followed John and started to punch him without looking where he was hitting. John started to fight back. A couple chairs were turned over, and desks were moved out of their places. The teacher called the principal. Bradley and John were taken out of the classroom, and had to sit in the principal’s office until their parents arrived and picked them up. “This is not good”, Bradley was thinking to himself as his father had a lengthy conversation with the principal. The conversation took some dangerous turns from which Bradley gathered that if this behavior continued, he would be suspended. “But it was not my fault!” Bradley thought in despair. “I did the assignment twice already, and this fellow, whoever he is, just would not leave me alone!” In the car on the way home his father told him he was on restriction for a week, dropped him at home and went back to work. In the evening, he said, they were going to have a very serious conversation.
Getting restriction for a week messed up Bradley’s plans completely concerning talking his father into going to the surfing competition on Saturday. If before there was a slight chance of convincing his father that his behavior changed, now for sure his father would not go for it. When his dad left, Bradley went to check if Dustin was home. Luckily for Bradley, his brother was in his room working on a project.
“Dustin, please no jokes”, Bradley raised his hand giving his brother a warning. “I need to talk to you seriously”.
“Really?” Dustin asked sarcastically. “Do you wonder what happens when you get kicked out of school?”
“I asked you, Dustin. This is much more serious than that”, continued Bradley. “Did you notice anything weird about us that started to happen, well, so to speak, all of a sudden? We did not change gradually, did we?”
Dustin didn’t respond right away. Bradley was relieved when Dustin put aside his screwdriver and turned his chair around to face him. This indicated that Dustin admitted that the matter was serious.
“You are right”, Dustin finally said out loud after a few minutes of silence during which Bradley was scared that his brother would change his mind. “One day the principal called from school and told Mom and Dad that you were out of control. Then you were out of control ever since”.
“Do you believe it was us?” Bradley asked.
“Who else could it be? Don’t be silly, Bradley. Better explain what went wrong with you”.
“That’s the thing, Dustin. These were not us. Remember I slipped a couple of weird phrases in the car on the way from the airport that made you think I was nuts?” and Bradley told him the story about the land of the Unknowns.
Bradley could not hope that Dustin would accept the whole story as truth right away. But he was expecting that his brother would not believe that Bradley actually had enough imagination to make it all up. When Bradley finished talking, Dustin appeared to be convinced that it was all true. He said to Bradley, “I agree, it was not like you at all. John, also. Especially if he is still back there. I can’t believe that what happened in school today could actually happen to you and John”.
“Thank you, Dustin. Can you help us to convince our parents?”
“I don’t think I could??
?, Dustin said doubtfully. “It seems to me that we need proof. I am not much older than you, you know”, he added. “You know adults, they always tend to think that we, kids, make things up”.
Bradley nodded. “The teacher today also didn’t believe me. Hence the trouble. The supposed John took my assignment from the teacher twice and threw it out the window”.
“All right, pal. I believe Megan is going to be back any moment now. Let me have a few minutes with her, all right?”
“You don’t trust me still, do you?” asked Bradley.
“I do, I do”, Dustin tried to convince him. “I just have a few questions for her”.
At this moment Bradley heard the door bang downstairs and realized that Megan was back from school. Bradley left Dustin’s room and went to his own; Dustin went downstairs to talk to Megan.
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Acknowledgements.
This book would not be possible without the generous contribution of many people. First and foremost, I thank my family for their support and patience during the times when I was writing this book on the weekends. Thanks to my husband, Todd, my daughter, Marie, and my beta readers for giving me constructive feedback, based on which significant improvements to the book were made. I would like to thank my sister, Elena Kochetkova, for creating a draft of the cover design, and Paul Dean Coker for designing the cover professionally. Thanks to you, my dear reader, for taking your time to read this book. If you liked it, I hope you consider reading another book about the adventures of Bradley and Megan, “The World of the Unknowns: The Rescue”.
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