Inanimate Heroes
by
Zack W. Van
Copyright 2012 Zack W. Van,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0614-5
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This Book is Dedicated to:
•Brandon Bitner
•Asher Brown
•Jamey Rodemeyer
•Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover
•Jesse Logan
•Seth Walsh
•Tyler Clementi
•Billy Lucas
•Justin Aaberg
And Every young man or woman who has committed suicide due to bullying. Stop the hate. Please visit this website to join the fight
Chapter 1
Walking from the commons to my first class seemed awfully daunting for something so minute. But then again, it was high school. Coming from a small-town K-8 school, it was a much bigger step up than what I was used to. It was almost as if they took you from your happy comfortable indoor environment and then shook up the box before dumping you in the woods like a cruel pet owner.
I searched frantically for class 204, Mr. Vue. When I finally found it, after the kind help of 4 or 5 teachers, I was relieved to finally just sit down. I looked around at my surroundings, as If I was drastically trying to clutch to a familiar face and strike up a conversation. Maybe I could say “man this is so stupid” and a friend from my grade school would just appear from the doorway and agree with me.
However, much to my despair I didn’t know a soul except for one. She was a girl from my graduating 8th grade class. The only problem was she never spoke more than a couple of words, and even then it was because she was answering a question asked by someone else. I figured it would still be best to sit by her as she was a nice girl. For some illogical reason, my largest fear was that I would sit next to a person and they would show no more than utter disgust at my existence. I smiled and sat down next to her as I greeted her, as if trying to politely say “well I don’t know anyone else so you’ll have to do.”
She looked up from her book and gave me a quick acknowledgement that she was alright with my choice of seating. In order to pretend I was busy, I sat down and read my schedule while trying to correlate it with the map of the school I was given. After a few moments, a small Asian man, who I presumed to be Mr. Vue, walked in the front of the class and started speaking. His accent was as thick as blackstrap molasses, but he had a kind and gentle demeanor about him that made me feel temporarily at ease.
He explained the process of how our day would be going and why high school was so fun and enjoyable. I disagreed to my utmost ability. High school was like some unbearable and unlawful experiment that should have been instantly considered inhumane by those in power. He explained to us of how today was mostly for the freshman to get involved and that it was a typical day for the upperclassmen. The remedy I felt when he began to speak slowly dwindled in its effect.
As he spoke, I pretended to feign interest while trying to find a path to my classes in a panic. I wrote in several different inks and super-circled places I thought would be the hardest to find. The quiet girl just listened to her iPod and drew her drawings. She was, after all, in an art class; so I suppose if she was caught she wouldn’t be too terribly punished.
I surveyed the room once more for any possible friend that I could find; maybe there was a kid I had overlooked. But I was unfortunately correct in my first tallying of the kids. Suddenly I heard Mr. Vue stop speaking and his desk chair creak. He sat down and started an art project of his own on a large piece of white construction paper. Meanwhile, I looked back down at my map. 4 out of 9 isn’t too bad for having what seemed like 5 minutes to look them all up. The bell rang a short moment after Mr. Vue had sat into his rolling chair.
“Have a nice day and enjoy the rest of your four years at Tomliw High School.”
We all knew as we trudged out the door that he simply must be telling a joke we didn’t quite yet understand. The punch-line seemed awfully mute on the ears of a terrified freshman.
Walking in the halls I did notice one thing that was suddenly noticeable. All of the younger kids had bags and the older looking kids had an arm-full of books. Was it fashionable to walk around as if you didn’t really give a damn? Of course it was. But for a kid that had no interest in getting lost in the high school mosh-pit trying to find a locker nowhere near any of his classes, a bag would suffice perfectly. I finally walked into my study hall where I was greeted by a teacher named Mrs. Stafford. Her hair was in a perfectly pinned bun and her makeup and clothes were as tidy as her desk was kept. She stated the do’s and don’ts of our freshman study hall and what the consequences of our deviance would be.
Apparently when it came to establishing yourself in high school, study hall was a key component. If you wanted to let the others know you were a bad-ass and wouldn’t take anyone’s crap, you would freak out at the teacher and storm out for a generally piss-poor reason. If you were a class clown, you made fun of something in particular about the teacher or a student; even if there was really nothing to make any founded remarks about. If you were the kid whose parents had an aneurysm for a B+ on your mid-quarter, you got out your books and started to jot down notes in a notebook, regardless that it was the first day and second period. My group was the “don’t honestly care for this waste of space in my day” group. We consisted of the girl in the corner that popped her gum and drummed on her desk, the guy in the middle who slept every day, and me, who drew meaningless scribbles to pass the time less painfully than passing a kidney stone.
The room was ordered to stay quiet but within 5 minutes the kids spoke as if they were passing by at the mall. The teacher chalked it up to being the first day. That poor clueless soul had no idea that the light at the end of her tunnel was an oncoming train. The weak ringing bell had finally sounded and I was out of my desk and off to another adventure of finding the correct classroom. Mrs. Stafford gave us a kind “have a nice day” to which no one had replied. I gave her a weak smile and the thought that before the end of the year, her bun would be in shambles and the contents of her desk would be in a box. She would snap on a kid that never listens to her, run through a cement wall and leave a silhouette of her body like they did in old cartoons. I’ll give her 2 months.
My third period was next and I wasn’t particularly thrilled. It was a class that I didn’t quite understand the concept to. World Geography was not only incredibly boring, but it was also redundant. We learned nearly everything we were taught in grade school years before. One
