“Nobody,” Mark said.
“Well, you probably missed your bus,” he informed him. “I’ve got to be at the station in less than an hour.”
“Sorry,” Mark lied.
He couldn’t care less.
- - -
He rode to school that morning in silent protest. The last thing he needed was his father dropping him off on his first day, he just prayed that he wouldn’t insist on coming inside with him to register, that would be worse than death. Lately he’d been doing a lot of stuff like that, trying to hug him, talk to him, asking about his feelings as if he gave a shit.
Near the town limits, mere feet from the sign on highway forty that read; Please visit us again, they passed by what had once been the high-school. Named after the town's founder, Glenn Albert Ratcliff, the school was set half a kilometer back from the highway. The enormity of the grounds was impressive. A massive red asphalt running track circled a large playing field, flanked by wooden goalposts, and four sets of bleachers faced the field in front of which generations of students had gathered before the morning bell. Now it was overgrown tall grass and weeds.
The building itself was surprisingly large, standing five stories high and spanning the length of two football fields, but the school's most striking feature was an enormous mural, which stood as high as the buildings center structure. Painted on over a thousand individual tiles, the mural depicted a large pair of hands stretching out to a group of students wearing graduation gowns. Below them, a young man wearing the school's gold and green colors was leaping over a hurdle far ahead of two other slower and differently clad athletes. The remainder of the monstrous painting was filled with smaller pictures that depicted teachers standing at lecterns, students with their hands raised, and sports orientated scenarios like a female basketball team rushing down court and a young man preparing to throw a javelin. They were clearly in the process of removing the mural, possibly to preserve it, the rest of the building looked too far gone for anything short of demolition.
A long driveway ran up to the school and back out to the highway like a horseshoe. The place looked kind of cool, and a little creepy, Mark thought. He was no stranger to urban exploration, he and his friends had formed kind of a club in the city and together they had infiltrated dozens of abandoned factories and vacant buildings. Too bad he wouldn’t be here long enough to check it out.
They drove past the school and continued down the highway for what seemed like forever before they reached the next town. It was a larger place than Ratcliff, almost a city by comparison. He noticed the welcome sign that read; Parry Sound Welcomes You and below it, population 26’000.
They made a quick turn onto a side street and finally reached the school a few minutes later. Compared to the big one in Ratcliff, this structure was only two stories high and had all the architectural appeal of an office building. A dozen school buses were lined up single file leaving only a single lane past the main entrance to a large parking lot where the teachers and students parked their vehicles. Mark was surprised at how many students were leaning on vehicles or sitting on the hoods giving him the impression that they owned them. None of the cars were anything special, mostly just pickup trucks and sedans, but he was impressed just the same. Some of his old friends from the city came from money, but none of them owned cars of their own and they drove to school only under the most unusual circumstances. At that moment, Mark would have given just about anything to have a car of his own.
As his dad stopped the Jeep near the entrance, he drew a folded piece of paper from his shirt pocket and handed it to him. "Here's our new address and phone number, you'll need it to register, and I put down my cell phone and the number at the station as an emergency contact."
“Great,” Mark mumbled back.
"You want me to come in with you?" his father asked, reaching for his seatbelt.
"Yeah, right," Mark replied, gathering his backpack and climbing out of the Jeep.
"I should be home around five,” his father called after him. “Don't take off anywhere, we still have lots to do at home."
"Whatever."
As his father drove off, Mark joined the crowd of students filing through the main entrance without looking back. The main foyer opened up into a large lobby, floored in marble, the walls painted with the school colors of green and yellow. The main hall, directly ahead of him, was lined with lockers on both sides, and extended as far as he could see. To his left, a long four shelved glass case was mounted to the wall, filled with trophies of varying size dating back as far as the nineteen fifties. Above it, a banner was attached to the wall that read; 'Excellence is never an accident.'
Opposite to the trophy case was the school office. Mark made his way through the heavy traffic and went through the double doors. Inside, several students sat in plastic chairs facing the long counter that separated the kids from the adults. Two older women chatted excitedly until the bell rang through the P.A. speaker mounted on the wall. At the sound of the bell, the activity in the hall began to thin out. One of the women behind the counter spotted Mark and waved him over with a bony white finger. "Who are you?" she asked impatiently.
"Mark Stevens," he replied, stepping up to the counter.
“Who?” she croaked as she cocked one hand to her ear and leaned closer.
The second woman, Mrs. Dodd, Attendance (according to her nametag), overheard them and approached. “Stevens, did you say?”
“Yeah,” Mark replied, resisting the urge to walk out.
“Our transfer student from Toronto,” Mrs. Dodd informed the other woman who shrugged as if to say; ‘And this is supposed to mean something to me?’
“Have you registered yet?” she asked.
“Nope.”
Mrs. Dodd, drew out the necessary forms and after slipping them into a clipboard with a pen attached by a string, slid them across to Mark. “The Principal insists on seeing all transfer students personally. Things are a little woogy right now so you’ll have to wait.” The woman slid a clipboard toward him, “Take a seat and fill those out, she’ll be with you shortly.”
“Whatever,” Mark shrugged, tossing his backpack under one of the hard plastic chairs.
The office continued to buzz with activity as he worked on the forms. Students came and went, some eyeing him curiously, but Mark figured that was to be expected. After all, most of the students probably grew up together and were quick to notice a fresh face in the herd. If he had his way, he’d be long gone from this place before any of them got to know his name. Ten minutes later, the bell rang from the PA again and the halls outside the office quickly cleared. A woman's voice crackled over a speaker mounted on the wall. The women behind the counter stopped mid-sentence and stood at attention.
"Good morning, students," the voice said. After a brief pause, during which time Mark assumed the students throughout the entire school were saying ‘Good Morning’ to a stupid speaker on the wall, the voice continued. "Today is Monday, September 16th. Here are the morning announcements," Mark heard the shuffling of papers and then the woman went on. "First, I want you all to wish our lunch staff, Mrs. MacDonald, a happy birthday. Today she turns fifty-four years young and as a special treat, she'll be serving her homemade meatloaf in the lunchroom."
One of the boys waiting on a plastic chair made a retching sound, drawing disgusted glares from the women. Mark snickered, wondering if this was a joke. Did they really do this crap every morning?
The voice continued, "Secondly, the intramural basketball game scheduled for 4 pm tomorrow afternoon is being rescheduled for Wednesday. All students who were planning to attend the game need to schedule transportation for Wednesday, not tomorrow." Another pause ensued; Mark was beginning to think she was finished when her voice, sterner than before, came back over the speaker.
"A word to all of you about smoking. I find myself having to remind many of you that smoking is not permitted on school grounds and there is not a single student in this school that is of
legal age to buy cigarettes. Now I’m well aware that Mr. Beamer has grown tired of our students trampling through his cornfield and has since prepared an area on his property for you to smoke. I want to remind all of you, once again, that you are not permitted to leave the school grounds for any reason without express permission from Mrs. Dodd or myself. I don’t care if it’s ten feet or ten kilometers away. Those of you that continue to break the rules of this institution will find yourself on detention.”
There was a pause for effect, during which Mark imagined half or more than half of the school flipping the bird to the speaker on the wall of their classrooms. Then she moved on.
“The following students are to report to Mrs. Dodd in Attendance," she read the names off quickly and without prejudice as if she had been reading the same names for some time. "Mike Stanley, Lisa Stanley, Robert White, Randy Boyd."
The boy in the office laughed and slapped his knee, a cold look from one of the women quickly quieted him. The voice on the PA terminated as quickly as it had begun. "Remember, excellence is never an accident."
The moment the speaker clicked off, the activity in the office resumed as if they were actors who had just received their cue from the wings. Mark continued filling out the registration papers, unnoticed by the students that came and went. A hush fell over the office and a group of three older boys (Mark guessed by their size and the presence of facial hair that they were seniors) and one girl, strutted in like they were arriving at a party. The boy in the front seemed to be the leader of the group. He looked to Mark old enough to attend college rather than high school, he wore long sideburns and appeared to be sporting a five o’clock shadow. He wore tight denim jeans, torn at the knees, and faded to threads in some places, and under a skintight black t-shirt bearing the band name of AC/DC, his muscles bulged through the fabric and a tattoo of a Cobra peeked out from under one of the short sleeves. His long, dirty blonde hair (dirty being the operative word) hung down past his shoulders and contrasted with green eyes set under a full brow, giving him a fierce appearance.
His black motorcycle boots scuffed across the marble floor as he casually approached the end of the counter where Mrs. Dodd had stopped her morning routine upon his entrance. The girl, similarly clad in jeans and a T-shirt that left little to the imagination of the form beneath leaned against the counter, slipping one hand into the boy’s back pocket. Mark thought the other two could have been brothers. They were clearly younger than their leader, though they weren’t far behind him in size. They also dressed as if they had driven farm tractors to school. Both of them had their hair cropped close, but one wore his baseball cap (John Deere) backwards, while the other wore his, (#24 Jeff Gordon) straightforward. The four of them glared at Mark icily. He put his head down and went back to the forms on his lap.
“What is it, Randy?” Mrs. Dodd said, disdainful of the group as a whole, confirming Mark’s suspicions as to their identity.
“You tell me!” he sneered at her, looking back at the two other boys behind him, gauging their approval.
“Don’t you think it’s a little early in the school year to be skipping class?” she said to the group.
“Who’s skipping?” Randy laughed. “I just turned eighteen, I can sign out of here anytime I want!”
“Tell her, Randy,” agreed John Deere.
Mrs. Dodd stiffened, “Mrs. Ross wants to have a few words with all of you, take a seat.”
“Whatever you say,” he scoffed, moving towards the nearest group of chairs. The boy occupying one of them instinctively moved out of his way, sliding over beside Mark. “What a crock of shit this place is!” Randy said loudly. "I'm missing class to get in shit for missing class!"
The office door behind him burst open and the principal appeared. Mrs. Ross, the woman who had read the morning announcements, was a short homely looking woman, but carried herself with a high degree of confidence and authority. She was well dressed, a tailored skirt and heels, a red blazer over a silk blouse. Her hair was dyed black and cut short, framing her round face. Just then, that face was flushed with anger. It made Mark wonder how many times a week (or a day) she had to deal with this group.
“Randy, get your ass in here, now! And you two,” she bellowed, wagging a finger at the other boys, “one more word out of either of you and you’ll both be on detention for the next month.”
Randy rose slowly, acting as if he was enjoying the scene, and after pausing momentarily to stick his tongue in the girl’s mouth while the entire office looked on. As he turned towards Ross’ office, his eyes momentarily met Mark’s. “What the fuck are you looking at?” he hissed at him.
Mark felt his heartbeat skyrocket, for a moment, he felt paralyzed. Growing up in the city, boy’s his age inevitably found themselves in situations like this, but for some reason this was different. There was a cold hate in Randy’s eyes that caused Mark’s skin to crawl. Mrs. Ross finally succeeded in getting him into her office, slamming the door behind them, his girlfriend and the two boys fell silent, with nobody left to impress. He returned his attention to his admission forms. He could hear Mrs. Ross' raised voice through the closed office door. After five minutes of browbeating, the door opened and Randy strutted back into the office.
"Randy needs a pass," she called out to Mrs. Dodd.
"Yes ma’am,” she replied dutifully. “We have a transfer student out here for you," she added.
At her comment, Randy turned his gaze back on Mark who tried not to return his stare. Thankfully, Mrs. Ross stepped out, brought him into her office and closed the door. She quickly began flipping through the forms, taking a seat behind her desk.
"So, I understand you just moved here from Toronto?" she said absently.
"Yeah," Mark said.
"And I'm told that your father is a policeman?"
Mrs. Ross appraised him curiously, continuing to flip through the admissions form. Mark felt as if he was applying for a summer job, and that his responses meant something to her, something beyond the purposes of registering for school.
"Yeah," he replied.
“The correct response is, ‘Yes, Mrs. Ross. Not ‘yeah’,” she said in a tone of mild disgust.
“Yes, Mrs. Ross,” Mark said, rolling his eyes.
“I see that you attended the Leard School of Performing Arts in Toronto and that you were top of your class.” She leaned back in her chair and looking momentarily at the diplomas hung on the wall beside her desk. “I think you’ll find,” she said wistfully, “that despite our geographical handicap, this school is a top-notch institution with a long history of excellence.”
Mark thought briefly of the banner he had seen hung over the trophy case. “And excellence is never an accident, right?”
Her eyes glazed over for a moment, Mark realized that this was not a friendly little chat as he had suspected. Maybe there was something in his transcript that was off putting to her sensibilities. The way she had stared up at her diplomas, looking to see if Mark had seen them too, her inexpensive clothing and jewelry, and the way she was looking at him made Mark feel almost as if she was jealous of him. People like her always failed to consider the ramifications of having a cop for a parent; he’d never been spoiled in his entire life. If anything, he was held to a markedly higher standard of conduct than his peers.
“Well,” Mrs. Ross said after a moment, “success or failure rides entirely on your shoulders. Keep your nose clean and stay away from boys like Randy and you should do fine.”
“Sounds good to me,” Mark agreed. “I mean, yes, Mrs. Ross.”
This seemed to be all that she needed to hear because she immediately rose from her desk and moved to the office door. “I’ll have someone show you to your locker and take you for a little tour before second period.”
With that, she turned to Mrs. Dodd. “Is Kyle Sturges on free period right now?”
“Kyle Sturges?” Mrs. Dodd thought for a moment. “Yes ma’am.”
“Call him to the office would you?�
�� Then without waiting for a response she turned to Randy’s cohorts. “All right you two, you know the drill.” As they rose, so did Randy’s girlfriend. “Not you Lisa, we’re going to be giving your mother a call,” Ross informed her.
Mark took this as his cue and stepped out of her office as she ushered the two boys in. And taking a seat in the now nearly empty office, he listened as Mrs. Dodd called for the boy as per her instructions.
The boy, Kyle, must not have been far from the office because within a few minutes, one of the doors banged open and Kyle bounded in, out of breath. Except, Kyle Sturges didn’t exactly bound anywhere, it was more like he waddled. Mark watched as he made his way up to Mrs. Dodd at the counter, sweating from the effort and breathing heavily. “You called for me, Mrs. Dodd?” he asked dutifully.
The woman smiled at him kindly, like he was a puppy or a newborn infant. “Yes Kyle, there’s a new boy starting here today and Mrs. Ross would like you to take him around.”
“Sure!” he replied happily.
Mark rose from his seat and met him at the counter. "Hi, I'm Mark."
"Kyle," he replied. "Come on, I'll give you the grand tour.
Despite his size, Kyle carried himself with confidence. If he hadn’t told Mark that he had been born and raised in towns like Ratcliff, Mark would have pegged him for a city kid like him. He seemed too street-smart to have come from a town as small as Ratcliff. As he took Mark around the school, showing him the gymnasium and the cafeteria, they encountered many other students, a few of which were cordial with Kyle but several of them went out of their way to spit names at him and remark on his weight. He seemed impenetrable to their remarks and continued jabbering on to Mark about the school and Ratcliff in general as if he were used to the insults. As it happened, they were in the same grade and would have most of their classes together.
Mark followed along behind Kyle, doing his best to absorb all the information Kyle was spewing out with the fervor of an auctioneer.
“Autoshop is down there, Kleinburg is a total fucking asshole. Last year he beaned me in the head with a screwdriver from across the room, guy goes off like Chernobyl when you mess up. Science lab is up those stairs over there, the gym is end of the hall on your left, change-rooms on the right but I wouldn’t recommend changing in there for at least a month unless you like the idea of being stuffed into a locker with drawings of penises all over your face in permanent marker.”
Rage: The Reckoning Page 4
