User blog:KitCalling/Second Chances - Welcome to the Doghouse

'''[ This installment includes coarse language, violence, and teen delinquency. Read at your own discretion. ] '''

Pamphlets could be quite misleading.

Adrian was certainly feeling very misled when he first arrived at the front gates of Bullworth Academy that overcast Wednesday morning, the sullen sky only hinting at the year that lay in store for him. The school pamphlet - delivered on the sweeping front porch of his grandparents' house in Old Bullworth Vale with the rest of the mail - had been crisp and modern-looking and it painted a favorable picture of the somewhat dismal academy that lay before him. These photos depicted a school that was trim and clean-looking and a single glimpse at the campus ahead of him had served to confirm both that this was, in fact, the right school and that the pictures used in the brochure were a lot older than Adrian had assumed.

The school looked presentable, he reasoned as a bespectacled and somewhat surly prefect escorted him through the gates, which looked similar to the ones in the picture at least, albeit dirtier and more generously coated in cobwebs. The pamphlet had portrayed a school that was modern, with a certain archaic charm in its design and while it was certainly not modern in person, it was, by all means, archaic, at least. The front gates emitted a horrid, strident squeal as his attendant opened them, and as he clapped his hands over his ears, he got his first good look at the place where he would be staying for the next year.

The brick façade of the main building presented a stark contrast from the image of it in the pamphlet; in the photos, it looked rather contemporary but in person, it maintained that crumbly-brick exterior that made it appear very worn. Adrian's brown eyes swept over an impressive array of graffiti that had also missed the pamphlet, though that was hardly unusual. The arcane art of graffiti was a very commonplace sort of thing, but it was also appreciated by very few school administrators. Every school in the world had graffiti, but next to none of them would ever proudly admit to having a chronic vandalism issue.

Still, Adrian thought to himself encouragingly, ''it isn't every day you get to go to boarding school. ''

Beggars couldn't be choosers and Adrian knew he was in no position to select something more accommodating under such short notice. The fact also remained that Bullworth Academy was in close proximity to his grandparents and that meant a great deal to him, considering how last month had been. Their support was a boon for him, especially in trying times like these.

He was hustled through the campus by his escort, who wore his prefect attire as easily as he wore his spectacles or his lapel pin with the school's coat of arms upon it. The one thing that the pamphlet had captured flawlessly was the age of the kids attending the school - eleven through eighteen. Preteens and teenagers passed Adrian by as he was led up to the main building and he was privately grateful that he hadn't attracted too much attention; surely they all had more entertaining things to worry about than a new kid. All of the students inside were just as dismissive and he was taken up a flight of stairs and into the administrative office without a hitch, occasionally hearing the crackle of loudspeakers and a droning female voice.

The administrative office also had a sort of old-school charm about it. The muted browns and the burnished wood floor gave off the air of a rustic if somewhat refined hunting lodge. A long desk - perhaps dark oak, though Adrian wasn't an expert - cut across the nearest half of the room, barring access to a desk and some filing cabinets. This long front desk was stacked high with paperwork and office supplies and it was here where Adrian met with Miss Danvers, the school secretary. She was a stern-looking woman with brown hair styled in a somewhat traditional cut and a sort of modest business-attire outfit. He was given a bland reception, one with not very much heart put into it, and he was handed a packet of the remaining paperwork to be completed.

Adrian worked in tense silence as he sifted through the packet of paperwork, interrupted only sporadically by a little black kid with a high-pitched, nasally voice. He couldn't remember the kid's name yet - Vernon, or Boris, or a sort of stereotypical old-man name, if he wasn't mistaken - but he immediately figured out that the kid was a suck-up. Almost all of these interruptions were notes for Miss Danvers to pass on to Dr. Crabblesnitch - presumably the headmaster, who was out - about students that were misbehaving.

“Here you are, ma’am,” Adrian sighed as he placed the completed paperwork on the desk in front of Miss Danvers roughly eight minutes later, his hand slightly aching. “I hope I didn’t take too long.”

“Very well,” Miss Danvers replied, and Adrian was quick to recognize her as the droning voice from the loudspeaker. “As I understand, you’re going to be a bit behind the rest of the class due to your late enrollment, Mr. Coburn. Your grandfather should have enrolled you sooner. It won’t be easy catching up with your peers.”

“That’s the thing, ma’am,” Adrian returned respectfully if somewhat tersely as his body tensed up, recalling that stressful last month. “My transfer was unexpected. I’m from out of state. A lot has happened in the past month and I’ve only just arrived at my grandparents’ house this week. I’m sure I can catch up with the rest in time.”

“You’d best,” Miss Danvers continued sternly as she either failed to notice the anxiety that jolted through Adrian or pretended that she couldn’t as she handed him a sheet of computer paper and a timetable printed on cheap card stock. “There is your schedule and the paper has your dorm room number on it. If you need help finding the boys’ dormitory, there’s a map on the back.”

As Adrian sauntered out of the main building, it struck him how surprisingly disconnected his reception was at the school. He wasn't even offered a walking tour of the facilities or advised on where the infirmary or the restrooms were. Miss Danvers had just handed him a map and sent him on his way. Adrian wasn't too concerned with the prospect of getting lost; if he had one implicit talent, it was his innate sense of direction. Adrian imagined that the world had an enormous compass needle atop it and the needle adjusted as needed to point him in the direction of wherever he was going. Adrian located the dormitory without much hassle and gripping his suitcase in one hand, he cut a path for it.

Perhaps his anxiety about his situation was projecting itself on the world around him, but the Boys' Dormitory looked somewhat dreary. It was unquestionably old - like the main building - and currently crowded by boys in the Bullworth uniform, save for a triad of boys that hovered around near the top of the cement stairs that led up to the actual dorm, all of them wearing white school polos and jeans. Adrian began to climb the concrete stairs, oblivious that one of the white-polo boys had stuck a large, sneakered foot out in his path.

Adrian, not anticipating that sudden ankle in his path, landed hard on his right knee as he toppled forward, his navy blue suitcase clattering down beside him. His knee seemed unharmed - he couldn't feel an open wound, at the very least - but his new chino pants had been scuffed badly by the fall and his knee throbbed with momentary pain. Adrian turned to face the tripper, not to confront him but out of mere curiosity, and that was when he detected trouble. The boy that had tripped him was not too big, perhaps shorter than Adrian himself. His short hair was a fiery sort of red, but his eyes presented a very real indication of trouble; blue like the sea, they were narrowed down into hostile, leering slits.

“Watch where you’re going, banana heels!” growled the red-haired guy as his comrades chuckled. Both of them stood taller than the red-haired boy did. One was slightly taller than even Adrian and blonde; the other had auburn hair shaved down in a rough buzzcut. As Adrian's wide brown eyes met those of his tripper, he once again sensed danger. A kind of deep-rooted wrath seemed to boil in those bright blue eyes and Adrian became cognizant that he wasn't the source of that anger, but that didn't stop him from being the punching bag to vent it out on, either.

"I'm sorry," Adrian began quietly, diplomatically, hoping that an apology might sate those fierce eyes as he clutched his suitcase. "Please let me through, I'm not looking for trouble."

"What a wimp," the kid with the buzzcut laughed, but the red-haired guy walked over to stand in front of Adrian, his eyes continuing to glow with fury as he sized up his taller, and somewhat more reluctant opponent.

"Are you gonna do something about it?" the red-haired guy sneered as he rounded on Adrian. "Come on, maggot! Step up and do something!"

At that last sentence, the red-haired guy shoved Adrian into the brick wall and Adrian narrowly avoided concussing himself, using his right arm to stop his body from going headfirst into the brick facade. What Adrian had missed was the punch that the kid threw right after; his fist shot out into Adrian’s stomach and Adrian yelped with pain as the wind was half knocked out of him. Gasping for breath, he narrowly avoided a second punch. At that moment, Adrian felt more threatened than he had ever been in his entire life. It was not the most terrifying event in his life - the events that occurred a month prior were far more frightening - but he was unquestionably under a kind of physical pressure that he was unfamiliar with. And when the guy had called him a maggot, well that was strangely evocative of when he...

Adrian narrowly blocked another hook with his arm and felt what surely mark the beginnings of a bruise on his right forearm. He had been taunted before, but he had never been assaulted. Tranquil and benign, he bore a kind of deep timidity that had made him more of a target upon which to direct emotional abuse rather than physical. Even then, it couldn't have prepared him for an attack like this. His eyelashes fluttered for a moment with shock and panic as his body was beginning to respond to the turmoil in much the same way that a frightened animal might in a similar situation; the fight or flight response was kicking in.

“Come on, Wade!” the blond guy piped up, perhaps understanding the animalistic terror that came into Adrian’s eyes. “Let’s go whale on one of the nerds. This guy ain’t no fun, he don’t want to fight back.”

“I’m not going to calm down!” the red-haired guy - Wade, apparently - screamed now, his eyes wild. For a moment, Adrian felt a surge of empathy cut through the sheer panic he was experiencing; he was under the impression that he and Wade had a bit more in common than either of them knew.

“Come on,” the blond groaned once more, but with less conviction, his face set and worried. He seemed to know that Wade wasn’t going to back down, at least not yet.

“Why won’t you fight back?” Wade shrieked at Adrian and his hand flew out once more, just barely missing Adrian. Adrian, reduced to a kind of subconscious state of frenzy and not knowing how to respond to the threat being posed to him, gripped the handle of his suitcase and swung it as hard as he could.

''Crrr-ack! ''

The edge of the suitcase collided with Wade’s face and he screamed once again, this time with blind fury and pain. Fight or flight had been too strong an evolutionary response to danger to ignore and Adrian felt sick to his stomach. He wanted to take it back immediately, but it was too late; Wade had crumpled to the bottom of the concrete steps and clutched at his nose, howling with pain. His two friends watched on with numb confusion, uncertain how to respond to such an unexpected counterattack.

"Holy shit!"

A guy around Adrian’s age stood a few feet away from them, his face ashen as he gazed down at Wade, who was now sporting a bloody nose. His eyes, wide and chestnut-colored, danced from Wade to Adrian as the biting October wind tousled his dark, bushy, shoulder-length hair. He wore school slacks and a white shirt but cloaked his top under an indigo cable-knit sweater. His face troubled, he moved to stand closer to Adrian.

“You! Are so! Dead!” Wade shrieked in a kind of incensed staccato. He attempted to scramble off of the cement to lunge at Adrian, leaving a rusty stain where his blood-sprinkled hand had been. Adrian privately hoped that he had only burst a few blood vessels and that he hadn't broken the guy's nose.

“Hold up!” the boy in the cable-knit interjected, moving to stand between Adrian and Wade. "Just let the newbie go, Wade. He only hit you back 'cause you wouldn't stop screwing with him. He's a good kid, see? He's soft. Go easy."

“Out of my way, Winters!” Wade spat as he covered his bloodied nose. "I'll give you a beatdown too if I have to! I'm not done here 'til his teeth are rearranged and nothing's gonna stop me!"

“Not even Shep?”

Winters' voice was urgent and high as he retorted and it was clearly some kind of stall tactic and surprisingly - or perhaps not, for the word "Shep" held no meaning yet for Adrian - it worked. Wade stopped dead in his tracks and in that moment, some of that rage left his narrowed blue eyes, which crinkled with revulsion and dread before the boy stalked off bitterly, wiping his nose off on his arm. Wade's two pals were quick to bound off after him and Winters turned to regard Adrian apologetically.

“Sorry he gave you crap,” Winters lamented, and his voice seemed to lend itself to a cheerful, cordial, somewhat smug cadence. “Wade's alright most of the time, but he has a lot of shit to deal with at the moment and you got all caught up while he was in one of his moods. There is no worse place to be than in front of a bully when he's got a bunch of pent-up emotions on him. Anyway, I'm Robbie, Robbie Winters. It's nice to meet you. And you are?"

"A-Adrian," Adrian stammered back, a timorous tremble in his voice. “Adrian Coburn...and um, thanks for that."

“Don't mention it,” Robbie replied back, far more at ease now that the white-polo guys were out of sight. “If I’m not wrong...and I'm usually not...you’re the only new kid, so that means I'm one of your roommates."

“One of them?” Adrian was secretly crestfallen; the brochure had listed a capacity that made it seem as though each room would house two students each. Another roommate added a whole new layer of potential concerns to the situation.

"You did join late," Robbie retorted, but not unkindly. "You're lucky you've only got to share with two of us. Some of those rooms have got four or five guys sharing in 'em. Come on, I'll show you around the school before we hit the dorm."



The Boys' Dormitory was not at all what Adrian had anticipated. He had never been inside of a madhouse but felt that he had attained a reasonably solid perspective on what one might look like as he stepped into the dorm for the first time. His eyes wandered up from the wooden floors, dull from an astounding level of neglect. In places, it was concealed beneath tattered, fraying blue rugs. There was a long hallway ahead that stretched to the left and right, with a common area placed directly ahead. Adrian took another few steps into the dorm, his hand brushing against a shabby drinking fountain that was installed somewhat haphazardly into the right-hand wall. There was a trash bin up ahead on the left corner, one that was presently filled to capacity; a scrawny, bespectacled boy with stringy brown hair and a green school vest squealed pitifully, having been stuffed hastily inside. Half of the lights in the hall had burned out but never replaced and while there were windows in the common area, the blinds were drawn, leaving the dorm in a kind of semi-darkness.

"Have you ever read Harry Potter?" Robbie asked jovially as he led Adrian towards the common area. "Remember how the books described the Gryffindor common room? How nice it was?"

"O-of course, yeah," Adrian stammered back demurely, glancing around as they entered the common area. Adrian couldn't think of a room further from the grandeur of Gryffindor Tower; the tile floor in this room hadn't been mopped in what looked like years. There was not much in this room at all. There was a battered green sofa leaning in front of a television set that looked as though it was from a bygone era. A few boys were packed around the TV, which was in the process of displaying a logo from some show called Rehab Island. A card table stood abandoned in one corner, a loudly-buzzing Beam Cola vending machine in the other, both amidst some shoddy folding chairs. There was even a bulletin board displaying a bevy of extremely flattering statements, like "FATTY SMELLS LIKE DEAD DOG SHIT" and "CRABBLESNITCH CAN SUCK MY ROOT" in large, blocky Sharpie letters.

"Nice, isn't it?" Robbie snarked before leading Adrian down the left-hand hallway. At the end of the hall, both boys paused before a door at the end of the hall, one from which music could be heard faintly behind. Robbie turned to regard Adrian with a far more grim expression.

“I wanted to let you know before you meet our roomie," Robbie began quietly, scanning Adrian's brown eyes as if searching for fear, or perhaps some form of weakness. "Our roommate is the guy I mentioned to Wade earlier, Clive Sheppard. I... well, you saw how those guys reacted. Clive has a bad case of having a reputation that precedes him. Loads of the other students here are going to tell you some outlandish shit about him and I didn't want you to judge him based on all that."

“Like what?” Adrian returned, now scanning Robbie’s face just as intently.

“Well,” Robbie proceeded slowly, looking somewhat strained. “The consensus is that Clive got expelled from his old school. No one's sure why though, and I think some very vivid imaginations have tried to fill in the blanks. I've heard all of it by now, but the two most current rumors are that he either tried to shoot up the school or knife the principal. I have serious reservations about either rumor, but they still spread, you know? For all we know, Clive's never been to juvie...he's never mentioned it, for what that's worth. Anyway, don't shrink away from him because of the shit you're gonna hear, okay? Give him a fair shake. He's a good guy, he's just got a bad temper on him sometimes."

Without any further word on Clive Sheppard or any of his misgivings - imagined or not - Robbie pushed open the door to their dorm room.

The room was surprisingly nice compared to the rest of the dorm, the walls painted a soft color that suggested that someone - or perhaps two someones - had painted it before moving the furniture in. Robbie flopped down on a bed draped in maroon bedspread on the half of the room closest to the door while another person stirred in a blue armchair in front of a TV set that was, while not luxurious or modern, far preferable to the one in the common area. There was a radio in here, currently playing a song that Adrian vaguely recognized as being by The Ramones. He could see two beds on the other half of the room, along with dressers. His bed was easy to spot; it was against the same wall that the door was placed on and made neatly, as though it hadn't been slept in. It was then that the person in the armchair stirred and Adrian got his first look at this infamous Clive Sheppard.

Adrian could see why the rumors stuck, at least to some extent. Perhaps it was his unruly, bleached-blond hair and his leather jacket, or maybe the vague smell of cigarette smoke and fruity chewing gum that hung around him, but it gave him the appearance of a punk. He was wearing the dark-teal uniform vest under his jacket, though he was clad in dark jeans instead of the standard khaki that Adrian had seen around thus far, sort of like the white-polo boys that accosted him outside of the dorm. Yet, there was something different about him, something unlike those guys in their white polos.

When he turned to greet Adrian, he flashed him a weak smile. It wasn't an entirely happy smile, but it was already far warmer a welcome than he'd received from any of the faculty. Clive was certainly not the big, gorilla-like barbarian he was expecting after the way Wade and his friends took off at the mere mention of Shep; Clive was instead somewhat attractive, with striking blue-green eyes and he stood just a touch shorter than Adrian himself.

"Hi," Clive mumbled and his voice was a complete contrast to Robbie's friendly, smug tones; Clive's voice was relaxing and a bit on the quiet side, the voice of someone that was more perceptive than he seemed. "I'm Clive. You?"

"Adrian," Adrian answered back and he took Clive's hand, mirroring the firm handshake he got. "My name's Adrian."

"So," Robbie began, firing a cursory glance at the clock that hung on the wall before his gaze wavered over to a Nintendo system that sat beside their TV. "Who wants to play some Mario Kart before class?"

(It isn't my finest work, but I hope it was enjoyable. Thanks for reading.)