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Quinn gazed down at
his shoes, feeling a growing sense of anger. Hawk Ridge was the most
prestigious school a thirteen-year-old could dream of attending. It had a few
peculiar quirks about it, though. For example, they didn't believe in lockers,
instead preferring the cubby holes in the locker room. There was also a strict
dress code. It wasn't just keeping your uniform presentable, but down to the
types of knots you had in your shoes. It wasn't an especially complicated knot,
just something special for dress shoes. A modification on the old bunny ears
kids learn in kindergarten. Quinn never mastered that because of his condition.
Dyspraxia is a
chronic neurological condition that affects the ability to both remember and
plan small movements. Quinn had a rather severe case. He could ride a bike, but
it always felt like he was on the verge of losing control, and he was. His
handwriting was illegible. All these problems were manageable. Walking took a
bit longer, especially in the countryside, riding a bike down the road wasn't
always the fastest way to get somewhere. Tying a knot took many minutes. Thankfully,
he had Velcro shoes for when he was at home. At school, he didn't tie his shoes
as tightly as everyone else. He treated them more like slippers, something he
could slide on and off, but it wasn't the best idea to have loose running shoes
in gym class. It's not like sports were his thing.
One day, somebody untied
his shoes. It was such a little thing, but so intimate. It was worse than being
called a name or getting a rough shove in the hallway. He could ignore those.
Having his shoes untied, that was a real problem.
If he were still
at his old school, he would have turned to one of his friends and asked for
help. James or Dean would have helped him for sure. They had been friends since
they started going to school. They were tight. Together they had done
everything, from getting in trouble together to exploring.
Together they had
gone from showing off their erection at age seven and sword fighting to BJ at
around eleven. It was never more than just a game, something they did for fun. Loser
does this. The winner gets this. Then the last few months, puberty started to
sink its claws into Quinn, it had brought forth a discovery. He liked being on
the losing side. Well, maybe not so much losing, but he enjoyed sucking. It was
something he wanted to explore, hoping it would lead to something more. He was
pretty sure his fantasies were a bit different.
Of course, his
friends weren't there. Since school had started a month ago, he had barely seen
them. He was busy with schoolwork or simply just too tired. The schoolwork was
undoubtedly more demanding. He was on the IEP (Independent Educational Program),
but that was only to keep him on track with everyone else.
Not that that's
how everyone else saw it. Quinn was permitted to have a laptop to take notes in
class. His typing was still slower than everyone's writing, but that's not how
people saw it. He had an advantage. He was different. Of course, his IEP
addressed educational issues. It didn't address dress code issues.
Resisting the urge
to throw a glance over his shoulder to see who might be enjoying his little
problem, he got dressed as quickly as he could. They had enough time for that,
but not for his shoes. He remembered the necessary steps needed, what he had to
do. It was when he tried to transfer it to his fingers that they didn't listen.
After his first two failures, he heard the warning bell ending class. Quinn's
next class was nearby. He could spare another moment. That's what he told
himself, but that mild sense of panic was growing. Soon his rights shoe had a
knot in it. He wouldn't be able to get out without a fork now.
The locker room
was emptying behind him. Quinn still had his left shoe to worry about.
Absentmindedly, he wondered if you could ask the gym teacher for help. That
would be very embarrassing and probably useless, though. In his experience, the
physical education teachers tended not to be the most sympathetic. Being clumsy
tended to make you not want to participate in sports.
When it came to
his left shoe, he just tied it as best as he could and tucked the excess laces
inside, hoping nobody would notice before grabbing his bag and heading to his
classroom. Quinn made it less than two steps outside of the gymnasium when he
heard it.
"Hold up
there!" an older boy said, stepping in front of him.
Quinn recognized
the older boy from reputation more than anything else. Peter Hanger was a Proctor
who was enjoying the limited power he had to make other people miserable.
"What's your
name?"
"Quinn Howard."
he said, coming to a stop.
"Well, mister
Howard, you're not appropriately dressed. It's a minor infringement, so if you
fix it quickly, I will overlook it." The older boys said with a smile.
Mentally, Quinn
was screaming. There was no way Peter Hanger could have seen his shoes that
fast. What was he even doing hanging outside of the gymnasium anyway? There was
no way this wasn't a set up.
"I'm sorry.
Can you please give me a demerit so I can be on my way?" A demerit would
be unfortunate, but if he avoided any other trouble for the semester, it would
amount to nothing.
"What, you
want a demerit? I'm trying to let you off with a warning here."
From the corner of
his eye, Quinn could see two of his classmates lingering. They were paying far
too much attention. One of them was Rick. Last week Quinn had beat him in a
persuasive debate. He and the other boy started to walk up the hallway, not
wanting to be late for class. They still looked back.
"I'll take
the demerit. I don't want to be late for class."
The older boy
smiled and said in a condescending tone. "Well, I'll give you your
demerit, but you still need to fix the problem. You do know what it is?"
Quinn's mind was
roaring with anger and frustration. He couldn't help but feel that all the
students in the hall were looking at him, and a lot of them were. Being stopped
by a hall monitor was a prime rubbernecking opportunity. Quinn felt like he was
about to shout or cry. For better or for worse, he picked the former over the
latter.
"Would you
just give me the fucking demerit!"
Quinn had always
thought the expression `you can hear a pin drop' was an exaggeration. Well,
that's how things felt after his outburst. Every kid nearby looked over and
stopped. All conversations that were being carried on ended abruptly. The kids
that weren't the closest by were still moving down the hallway, but even then,
he could sense something had happened. Peter Hanger, the Proctor, felt all of
that too.
"Office,
now!"
Quinn felt a
sensation of relief as he was being pulled away from that terrible silence.
That feeling lasted until he got to the office and sat down. Swearing,
especially at a proctor, was a significant infraction. Quinn knew he was going
to get detention for this. He had never had detention before.
He felt numb
sitting there as the Proctor went in and explained the situation. When the door
opened again, Peter Hanger emerged with a grin. It wasn't something the principal
could see. The anger he felt at that moment towards Peter Hanger was a new
level of hate for him.
The principal's
office was a little nicer than that found in public schools. The desk was real
wood, and the chairs were more comfortable even for a student who was in
trouble. Quinn sat there and listened to the man explained how inappropriate
his behavior was. He was waiting patiently to at least attempt is defense. That
was until the conversation took an unexpected turn.
"Mister
Howard, you managed two infractions of the rules today. Combine that with the
complaint I received from Mr. Stands, and that makes three demerits worthy
occasions."
"Mr.
Stands?" Quinn interrupted, not understanding where that one was coming
from. "What is his complaint?" even as he said the words, he realized
it was the wrong thing to say. The principal was in lecture mode, not debit
mode.
"He says you
have been very confrontational in class."
Mr. Stands was the
Civics teacher. He was also one of those teachers who like to inject their
opinion as fact. Quinn had called him on it a few times, once he had even
gotten the class to laugh at him though that hadn't been his intention. The man
has started stammering and tripping over his own words. "That man is a
parrot. If he is going to inject his opinion as fact, shouldn't he be
challenged? Isn't that what this whole school is about? Challenge yourself to
challenge the world?" that was one of the school mottos at least.
The principal
glared down at him. "There may be something to what you're saying. I have
yet to investigate the matter. However, given the severity of your outburst, I
think you've earned some corporal punishment." The principal said as he
walked to the corner of the room where a large paddle was kept. "You'll be
the first of the year."
Quinn stared at
the paddle. No, this wasn't happening. He never got into severe trouble. He
simply didn't get into trouble, not big trouble, not like this.
An epiphany is not
something everybody experiences in their life, when you have a moment where
everything makes sense, when little disconnected things come together, and you
understand. Something more profound than you can ever understand anything else.
Quinn Howard experienced one at that very moment.
Quinn had made
very few decisions in his life. Hawk Ridge was not a school his father could
have ever afforded. When he had received the letter that he could receive a
scholarship to go, he hadn't wanted to. It was expected of him, though. He went
along with it. He had never wanted his IEP; it had just been given to him and
assumed he would use it. The fact that he had gone from a public school to a
private school had not been something he thought of. He didn't think how much
more extreme the students' reactions might be to perceive advantages. He had
just gone along with it.
The untying of his
shoes been had been a very intimate way of bullying. He wondered how much they
had thought it out. Certainly, they had intended for further humiliation, but
there was no way they could have seen it going this way.
He reflected
briefly on how the principal had acted. He had talked to the Proctor first, and
during his whole lecture, he had not sat down. Using a height difference to
intimidate was a pretty easy tactic to see. If Rick had been the one who untied
his shoes, then he'd only been the first bully in this chain of events. Peter
Hanger was certainly involved somehow too. They were kids and, on some level,
he could understand that. Mr. Stands and the principal though? They were
bullies too. Mr. Stands in several ways, using his position of power to assert
his agenda. The principal wasn't looking for an explanation. He just wanted to
remind the student body of corporal punishment. It was a pre-emptive measure
and he was expected to go along with it.
"No."
the single word stopped the principal in his tracks and Quinn looked up at him
feeling rather disconnected.
"This is not
a debate young man. Your behavior has been abominable."
"Maybe, but
I'm not taking a paddling for this." He was surprised at how his voice
sounded calm, but nobody was supposed to like a bully.
The principal was taken
aback, and he drew himself up even taller it seemed. "Your parents agreed
to the rules of the school when they signed you up. I am fully within my
rights."
"My father
agreed." He cut the man off before the principal could say anything more.
"I didn't. If you attempt to use that on me, I will treat it like the
assault it is and fight back with tooth and nails. Then when it is over, I will
call the cops, or you will call the cops I'm sure they'll be called at some
point. I bet it will make the 6 O'clock News." He slowly started to stand
up and rolled his shoulders. "Do you want to make the news, or should I
get to class?"
Sometimes, bullies
are ready to be stood up to and other times they're completely blindsided. that
was something Quinn didn't understand now, it was something he would reflect on
later as he walked down the hallway to his classroom.
He knew that
wouldn't be the end of it. A couple of the kids asked him between classes what
he got in trouble for and he told them everything. It all felt rather distant
at the time almost as if he had watched it on TV. By the time he finally got
home he was more himself.
His father's job
wasn't the type that you could easily get off early from. It was still warm
enough that he sat out on the porch and waited for him to come home. Quinn
could tell just by the look in his father's eyes that he had been called
though. Not that that was a surprise.
However, his
father wasn't a bully. He simply walked up onto the porch and sat down on a
chair a little further away. There was a long moment of silence before he
spoke. "Your principal called me today. Care to explain?"
Quinn did. He
described everything from his point of view. How one small thing had rolled
into something much larger. Maybe he could have mitigated it, but the situation
with the Proctor would have played out just slightly differently. He was too
frustrated to be able to do it right, it would have just been further
humiliation.
His father
listened and nodded when he was done. "You're not exactly innocent, but
you're not exactly guilty either. I reminded the principal about your
disability. You never untie your shoes."
"Yeah."
Quinn agreed.
"He thinks
detention for two weeks will be sufficient. You'll be informed tomorrow." His
father continued.
"All
right."
His father was
silent for a long time. "Do you have anything else you want to say?"
Quinn considered.
"I'm going back to my old school in two weeks."
His father raised
an eyebrow with that. It wasn't a question, it wasn't a request, just a simple
statement. He sat back for a long moment then looking at his son realizing somehow,
he had changed. "Why two weeks?"
The End.
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