Shannon tapped her foot under her desk all the way through English class. When the bell finally rang, it felt like the day should have been half over. Socks was waiting for her by the trophy case like she'd asked him to, but he looked really confused. "So, what's up?" he asked, keeping his voice low. Though it wouldn't strike anybody else strange, since Socks and Shannon talked to each other a lot.
"Where's your next class?" Shannon said, eyes darting back and forth.
"Biology. Downstairs," Socks said.
"I'll walk you there," she said, heading for the stairwell before him. Socks hurried after her, creating a space cushion between themselves and the flood of people behind them.
Since they had known each other in elementary school, they'd had hundreds of casual conversations. Socks wasn't used to the idea of Shannon talking to him like a confidant. "What's all the secrecy about?" he said, slowly and uncertain.
"I needed to make sure Robot didn't hear us," Shannon said. "Because… you know…"
"I mean, yeah," Socks said. "Things got kinda weird back there."
"It's been weird for months," Shannon stressed, looking him in the eyes. "And I don't know what to do about it."
"Months. What are you talking about?"
She stopped, causing some students to swerve around him with narrowed eyes. "Hold on, you mean you're only noticing this now?" Shannon asked.
"Noticing what?" Socks asked, eyes wide.
"Noticing Robot, I mean, the way he's acting."
"What's different? I mean, yeah, I've never seen him snap at you like-"
"Not just that!" Shannon said, forgetting to whisper. A couple of kids standing at their lockers looked their way, so Shannon dropped her voice again. "You didn't notice how he just stood there when my locker fell apart?"
"I don't know," Socks said, scratching his head, "I just thought he was being shy-I swear, I had no idea there was anything going on."
Shannon didn't know how she had expected to be able to get help without busting out the details, but now it was obviously what she had to do. "Socks, that thing he said was the first time he's even acknowledged me since April."
"Whoa," he said with a sigh. "That's one heck of a grudge. What happened? Did you guys have a fight or something?"
She cringed, the memory of that day coming back in fluid detail. "It wasn't a fight, exactly. See, I asked him to sit next to me when nobody else would give him anywhere to sit, and Robot must have assumed that I was only being nice to him because I felt bad."
Socks's eyes darted left and right. "You assumed he thought that, or is that how you actually felt?"
"No! I mean… I don't think I was, entirely," Shannon said as she stared at her hands. She felt like she was defending a person she didn't know. "Oh, I don't know."
"Shannon," Socks interrupted, "Have you thought about just telling Robot you're sorry?"
"Haven't you been listening? Robot doesn't even acknowledge I'm THERE, anymore. How am I supposed to apologize when I'm dead to him?"
"So, what is it you want me to do about this?"
"You could TALK to him," Shannon said, her hair becoming visibly frizier as her stress level increased. "At least he's still talking to you."
"Ah-ah," Socks said, wagging his finger. "This is between you guys-I ain't getting in the middle of it."
"Why not?"
"Because," Socks said, "Because…" He scratched the back of his head. Socks prided himself on his social skills, and to admit that he didn't know how Shannon could approach the situation in a way that didn't directly involve himself would forfeit that pride."T-the Man-Code!"
"The Man-Code?" she repeated.
"Yeah!" Socks said, nodding furiously. "You know, stand up for your buddy, Bros before Does, that stuff."
"Bros. Before. Does," Shannon repeated dryly. "As in, girl deer?'
Socks gulped, but was saved by the sound of the next period bell. "Sorry, Shannon, I gotta get to my next class!" and zoomed off.
Shannon slapped her cheek. Why had she thought Socks was going to help her with this?
Sighing, she turned around and marched to her next class, which required her to go all the way back upstairs. Maybe if she hadn't been so distracted in English, she would be able to tell the plural of 'doe' as 'does' was even a word...
Somehow, without the anticipation of talking with Socks next passing period, the Shannon found 2nd period class going even slower than usual. It was an art class that Shannon's guidance counselor thought would be good for her, given the record of her interest in art in Elementary school. What they didn't know was that Shannon hated art class in middle school. With so many enthusiastic, talented artists in class, it was suffocating, and part of what caused her to hide her sketchbook under her bed, where nobody would find it. Where nobody would judge it.
This week's assignment was to pick an item in the real world and sculpt it out of multimedia. The current week, the students had been sketching out ideas of what they wanted to create, and out of what material. For the next two weeks after this weekend, they'd be expected to create this thing, and turn it in two Fridays from now.
Some kids had picked industrial things like cars and buildings to sculpt. Others more organic things, like birds and people. And others more fantasy based, such as one kid who was bent on sculpting a full sized figure of an alien he designed out of nothing but clay and paint.
Shannon had sketched and scraped at least ten immediate things that had come to her head since the week had began, and none of them were even remotely interesting to her. She had eventually settled her eyes on the tree right outside the window of the art classroom as something for her to study, and continued shading her tree sketches in the hopes that the teacher wouldn't notice that she still had no idea what she was going to do for this assignment.
While the teacher, who the children knew better as "Ms. Silva" had passed her three times and not asked her anything, today she wouldn't be so lucky. "That's some nice shading," the middle aged teacher said, kindly reaching over to look at the paper. "So, what materials do you think you will be using?
Shannon's heart skipped a beat. Materials. "Uh... um... I haven't really thought of that."
"You know, some of the other students are already beginning collecting materials for their pieces. You seem like you know what you're doing, so why not get started?"
Shannon's eyes fell from the teacher's and were locked on the stupid tree on her desk. Great. Now she was stuck with it. And she hadn't even thought once about what she was going to MAKE it out of. "Um..." she looked up shyly, eyes hunting for the faster kids, who were already grabbing clay and cardboard and pipe cleaner from the supply closet, chattering away carefree as they did so. "I was thinking I'd bring in some stuff from home," she lied.
Ms. Silva continued smiling, but raised her eyebrow inquisitively. "Oh, really?"
Before Shannon was obligated to say further, the industrial lights above them flickered. Ms. Silva frowned and looked up, as half the class did. The teacher took a breath to continue speaking, but it happened again. And less than a second later, they heard a whoosh from the hallways, as all the lights in the classrooms and the connecting hallways shut down.
A brief hush fell over the classroom before the students began whispering to themselves. "Friday the 13th, man," one of the boys across from Shannon whispered to his friends. "It's gotta be."
"Now everybody, calm down," Ms. Silva said. "It's probably just a short circuit. I'm sure Maintenance will get it back up and running in less than ten minutes. In the meantime, please keep your voices down."
While the rest of the students got on the topic of prior Friday the 13th scandals, the kids at her table were speculating dark reasons for the power failure. One boy adjacent to Shannon taking it a bit too far: "What if someone's trying to get in the building and cut the power?"
"And they've got a knife and Madman will be on the PA any second, saying lock the doors," said the rather butch girl next to Shannon, with a sadistic expression.
"Oh, I don't wanna die," panted the brunette cheerleader, sinking in her chair across from the cyborg girl in legitimate fear. "I've only ever got to second base..."
"Hey, Shay," said the butch girl, nudging Shannon in the shoulder, "Think they'll do a lock-down drill? Shannon?"
But Shannon's mind was way off in the distance. In her head, the dream from this morning came flooding back to her. She should have been able to bury that sound with him, but in the panic of situations like this, and how fresh it sounded-how real it felt when Benji screamed...
Benji.
"Shannon?" the butch girl waved her hand in front of Shannon's face. "Hello? Earth to Westerburg?"
"Cyborg girl's gone again," said the boy with folded arms.
"Huh?" Shannon snapped to, hearing the word cyborg unpleasantly thrown her way.
The cheerleader across from Shannon leaned forward on the desk, her worries about a school intruder distracted by her curiosity. "You're interesting, Shannon. You seem so, well, normal, but then you just zone out every now and again." She cupped her chin in her hands. "Where do you go when you're away?"
"Someplace better than this, I bet," muttered the boy.
They were talking as if Shannon was a secret member of a warring alien race who had to occasionally beam herself back to her home planet to fight off the enemy. She blinked a few times and decided, with a few breaths, that she should not react to her offense. They didn't understand. They could never understand. Better to think that she was more normal than she was, and that her fade-out moments were far more innocent than they were...
Suddenly, the PA crackled to life, just as the students had anticipated. A few of the kids high-fived, already knowing what was going to be said. "Ah-hem. Th-this is Principal Madman speaking. Students, I regret to inform you that we are in the middle of a power outage here at Polyneux-"
"You don't say, Madman?" said Ms. Silva to herself rolling her eyes.
"-and uh, well, our staff efforts to restore power have failed, and we've dialed a repair man to be out soon-"
"WOW, DANG, THOSE WIRES ARE HOT!" screamed a heavy country accent voice in the background. "MY FINGEY'S ARE BURNING!"
"-as well as an ambulance. Well, for Clancy, anyway. But without heat and lights, I'm afraid I have to cancel school for today-"
The classroom burst into cheers, and down the hallway, Shannon could hear an echo of further celebration flow through the student body. "I've called to have the buses come back to the school, and within an hour, everybody should be on their way home. If anybody needs to dial their parents, report to the attendance office to use the telephone. Otherwise, have a-em-safe weekend."
At this point, the PA should have clicked off, as the students in the art room ran rampant, gathering their belongings and shouting about the unexpected three-day weekend. But Shannon heard Madman still leaning on the microphone, saying something to the custodian, Clancy Q. Sleepyjeans, something along the lines of "I told you to put the horseshoe in your pocket, but you didn't believe me!"
"Heh, superstitions," Clancy muttered back, audibly angry, before the PA finally 'click'ed off.
Ms. Silva, a good teacher with young heart, took in a moment to smile as her classroom fell to mild chaos. "Alright, everybody, you may start to put away your projects. You can go to your lockers-but not until this place is spick and span. You got that?"
"Yes, Ms. Silva," the class chorused back.
Obeying a teacher like Ms. Silva came easy, because it was obvious that she worked for the students, and not against them. True to her word, the classroom was cleaned, and she opened the door for them to flood out into the halls-the first classroom in the school that was officially "free" for the long weekend.
But as Shannon was about to leave, a hand touched her shoulder. "I hope you make some progress on your project over the weekend, Shannon," Ms. Silva said.
Shannon turned back towards her, her relief of getting away from school suddenly tanked. "Oh, yeah... I'll have it... getting there," she said, twisting one of her fingers in her other hand.
"Do you remember what I said at the beginning of the semester?" the teacher asked. "You're not going to be invested in any project unless you actually care about it. What do you care about that you want to express?"
Shannon saw the knowing look in her eyes and admitted defeat. What did she care about? A lot of things. What of that did she want to express? None of it. "I... don't know. I'll think about it." She sighed, and walked away, leaving the teacher's hand to drop.
But before she rounded the corner, Shannon came to a sharp halt. "Ms. Silva?"
"Yes?" asked the teacher as she locked the door to the classroom.
"Do you think it would be OK if I, um," Shannon rubbed the back of her neck, "Did the project at home-the real project, I mean."
Ms. Silva furrowed her brow in thought. "Hm... well, as long as you continue to work on something in class-"
"The tree!" Shannon exclaimed. "Thanks, Ms. Silva! I'll get something done!" And with that, she took off down the halls.
The teacher shook her head with a grin, stashed her classroom key, and slipped on her coat, as Principal Madman came screeching by, regarded the startled art teacher with a 'humph' and placed a four leaf clover on a cord on the door handle, before rushing off to presumably do the same to every other classroom in school.
When he was out of earshot, Ms. Silva laughed. "Oh, what would we do without our headmaster?"
Originally Published January 6th, 2018
Author's Note from the Story:
I had trouble writing this chapter only because it's one of those necessary chapters for information leading up to things to happen, and I don't feel like it's TERRIBLY interesting on it's own. But things are going to get intense next chapter onward.
I hope it's not too obvious where I'm heading with the twist...
Whatever Happened to Robot Jones? © Greg Miller & Cartoon Network