[Biography] Not Another Slashy Teen Movie (Part Two)

[sungreen70.livejournal.com]

Looking like it's gonna be three parts in total. Make sure you read them in order, or it won't make sense! (Well, it might not make sense anyway, but reading them in order is definitely better...) 

Part One  


Title: Not Another Slashy Teen Movie
Author: Sun Green
Characters: Ryan, Colin, Brad, Jeff, Drew, Dan Patterson
Rating: PG for language
Summary: Based on "The Breakfast Club"

More than an hour had passed without any sign of Dan Patterson. The students had begun talking to one another out of boredom.

 

“Are you grounded tonight?” Brad asked Colin.

 

Colin shrugged. “I don’t know. My mother said I was, but my father didn’t say anything.”

 

“There’s a party at Chip Esten’s tonight. Should be cool. Can you go?”

 

“Nah. It’ll just start my parents fighting. Total drag. It’s just not worth it.”

 

“They use you against each other?”

 

“Yeah, any excuse to go at it. It’s so dumb, because neither of them really cares what I do. They’d rather have me out of the house then have to, you know, actually talk to me.”

 

“Oh, boo fucking hoo.” It was the first time Ryan had spoken since Patterson left the room. Colin and Brad turned to look at him.

 

“What is your problem?” Colin demanded.

 

Ryan snorted. “You have a hard life. I mean it. Oh woe is me, my parents don’t understand me!”

 

“Shut up. You don’t know anything about it.”

 

“I know all about it, pretty boy. Rich parents, trust funds, a car for your birthday, Daddy pays the insurance. You’ve never had to do anything for yourself.” He looked at Colin scornfully. “You’re all the same. You couldn’t do a damn thing without your rich parents holding your hand.”

 

“Just because my parents have money doesn’t mean my life is easy,” Colin shot back. “You don’t know the kinds of pressures I have to deal with.”

 

“Yeah, deciding who to take to the prom must keep you awake nights.”

 

“Fuck you.”

 

Brad rolled his eyes. “This is all part of his image,” he told Colin. “He’s supposed to be the only one who knows what a hard life is, and that makes him the better, stronger person. The School of Hard Knocks. Yeah, look at him – it made all the difference, huh?”

 

“I’m gonna hard knock your head in another minute.”

 

Brad shoved Ryan’s shoulder. “If we weren’t in school, I’d kick your ass.”

 

“Don’t let that stop you.” Ryan stood up.

 

“Guys… guys!” Drew got out of his seat and scurried over. “Come on… no one likes their lives, okay? We’re in high school – our lives suck. It’s universal. It doesn’t matter whose sucks more. Let’s not fight about it, okay?”

 

Momentarily distracted, Ryan and Brad looked at Drew. He smiled, trying to ingratiate himself. “Yeah… my life sucks too.” He laughed. “Pretty fucked up, huh?”

 

Jeff looked over at Drew, speaking for the first time in a long while. “Why does it suck?”

 

Startled, Drew turned to look at him. “What?”

 

“Your life. You said it sucks. Why does it suck?”

 

Drew shrugged, uncomfortably. “Well, you know, whose life doesn’t suck? Like I said, we’re in high school. Our lives suck.”

 

“That’s not what I asked.” Jeff stood up, swirling his cape around him. He stepped towards Drew, studying him intently. Drew backed away nervously. “I asked you… why does your life suck?”

 

“You think it’s easy being me? Having to come here every morning wondering who’s going to shove my head in a toilet, just because they can get away with it? Because even the teachers think I’m a big dork? Hell, Coach Brady - ” Drew broke off what he was saying and scowled at the floor.

 

Brad had been listening to the conversation, perched on the edge of his table. “What about Coach Brady?” he asked. “He’s a pretty cool guy.”

 

Drew looked at Brad scornfully. “Sure, if you’re one of his little darlings. I’m not good at sports, okay? I can’t even play tetherball.”

 

Colin shrugged. “So, big deal. Sports aren’t everything.” Brad looked at him, appearing shocked. Colin smiled. “Sorry, but they’re not. Not to everyone.” Brad made a small “hmph” noise in his throat and turned back to Drew.

 

“Yeah, well, they are everything to Coach Brady. Brad here is his hero. He talks about you all the time, you know.” Brad smiled modestly as Drew continued. “But he doesn’t give a crap about me, you know? Hey, I don’t care. I don’t mind him ignoring me in gym class because I can’t make a basket or hit a softball. I’d rather not do those things anyway. But the other guys… they don’t ignore me. No… they’re the ones who steal my pants from my locker and knock me down during games. And Brady never does anything about it.”

 

“Did you ever talk to him about it?” Colin asked. “Maybe he figures you’re all just messing around.”

 

Ryan rolled his eyes. “You think any of the teachers in this school give a shit about us?”

 

“Maybe not you,” Brad muttered under his breath.

 

“Hey - ” Ryan started, but Colin interrupted them.

 

“Look, shut up, you two. Let him talk.” Surprisingly, both of them fell silent.

 

“Yeah,” Drew said bitterly. “I talked to him. One time the whole class was playing dodge ball. And someone got the great idea to leave me in the middle of the circle and just slam the ball at me. Over and over – just throw it at me, and hit me with it, and never let me out. Brady was there for the whole thing, right? Never said a word. So after class I went to his office and asked him if he could make them stop picking on me. And you know what he said? He goes ‘look, Carey, this isn’t kindergarten. You have to fight your battles. If someone gives you a hard time, be a man and do something about it.’ Yeah, sure,” Drew snorted. “Easy for him to say. No one’s ever gonna mess with Brady in the first place. You know how big he is. If anyone ever tried it, it’d be the last time. But someone like me…” Drew shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way.”

 

The other four exchanged glances. Drew continued.

 

“Coach Brady’s kind of why I’m here today. Last Tuesday, in gym class? It was happening again. We were jumping hurdles. And I couldn’t do it. Not even the lowest ones. No one else had problems getting over them, except me. And Brady kept yelling at me to do it again. He wouldn’t let me stop. But I kept falling, flat on my face. The rest of the class was supposed to keep on doing them, but they all stopped, and they were watching me, and laughing at me. The whole class, standing around and laughing, and Brady just kept yelling at me to go back and do it again. He didn’t do anything about the rest of them. He just let them laugh at me.” Drew stopped talking, blinking rapidly.

 

“Brady’s a fucktard,” Ryan said finally.

 

Brad scowled. “He’s a coach,” he said defensively. “He’s doing his job. He’s trying to get these guys into shape.”

 

“That doesn’t mean he has the right to humiliate them,” Colin snapped.

 

“Anyway…” Drew said, “Anyway… when class ended, and we were going back to the locker room, Brady yells over to me ‘you’re gonna keep doing it till you get it right, Carey! You better practice up for Thursday!’ So that means I’m gonna have to do it again on Thursday. And everyone started cracking up. They couldn’t wait to watch the show again. I couldn’t do it again, you know? Just thinking about it was making me sick. I needed to get out of gym class on Thursday. So, I uh… called in a bomb threat.”

 

The other students stared in disbelief.

 

“A bomb threat? You can go to prison for that,” Colin said.

 

“Why weren’t the police here?” Brad asked. “Remember that bomb threat we got two years ago?” Unnoticed by the others, Ryan snickered and looked away. “The place was crawling with cops, and they evacuated us. How come none of that happened this time?”

 

“Well,” Drew said sheepishly. “They didn’t need the police. They caught me right away.”

 

“How?”

 

Drew blushed. “Well… I made the call from the pay phone right outside the main office. And the secretary heard me.”

 

Ryan, Colin, Brad and Jeff simultaneously burst into hysterical laughter. “Hey, come on, guys!” Drew protested. But in another minute, he was laughing too.

 

******

 

Dan Patterson entered the room, looking around suspiciously. All five students were seated at their tables, as if they’d never moved.

 

“All right,” Patterson grumped. “Thirty minutes for lunch.”

 

“Excuse me, Mr. Patterson,” said Ryan, waving his hand in the air. “Will milk be made available to us? We’re growing children, you know.”

 

Patterson glared at Ryan, who merely smiled. “There’s a soda machine in the teacher’s lounge.”

 

Ryan stood, holding up his hands. “You relax. I’ll get it.”

 

“Sit down!” Patterson thundered. “Sherwood! You and…” he looked over at Jeff, who was leaning back in his chair, eyes closed, mouth open. “What’s his name? Get up. You. Get up!” Jeff jumped to his feet.

 

“Sir! Yes sir!” he shouted, clicking his heels and saluting.

 

“I’m warning you…” Patterson fumed through gritted teeth. “Both of you. To the teacher’s lounge and back. Now!”

 

As they walked through the halls, Brad glanced at Jeff several times. The other boy never made eye contact, but looked straight ahead, humming tunelessly under his breath. Finally, Brad spoke.

 

“What’s your name, anyway?”

 

“What’s yours?” Jeff asked in return.

 

Brad chuckled. “You don’t know?”

 

“Should I?”

 

Brad was taken aback. “Well… most people do.”

 

“I’m not most people,” Jeff said simply.

 

Brad shook his head. “You got that right.” When Jeff didn’t respond, he added “I’m Brad Sherwood.”

 

“You say that like I should be impressed,” Jeff remarked.

 

Brad opened his mouth, then closed it. He decided not to pursue the matter. They had arrived at the darkened teacher’s lounge. The fluorescent lights of the soda machine cast a dim glow over the room. Taking coins from his pocket, he asked, “What are you drinking?”

 

Jeff pulled his cape up around him. “Blood,” he said with sinister smile. Brad glanced at him. In his cape, backlit by the fluorescent light, the other boy looked eerily like the vampire he was clearly imitating. Brad shuddered and hurried with his task. 


On To Part Three