Chapter 7: Escaping the Confines
(Language, obviously. Enjoy the chapter!)
The lecture of Mr. Stein's was suddenly stopped by the sounds of a screaming teenage girl right down the hall. The sound of giggles erupted from the class, even though the scream was drowned out by the chatter of the students. Brian wasn't paying attention, which is a first in his school career. He's always been a good student and took meticulous notes so he won't be a failure in life, so his dad said. He found economics easy and Mr. Stein barely hands out any work anyway so he could pass the class even if he listened to music with his Walkman every day. However, he knew that the screaming fit was obviously between Claire and John. Using the din of the other students as a distraction, he left the room with a hall pass of course he took from Mr. Stein's desk. He waited until the door shut behind him and he looked for the source of the noise. Low and behold, the two fighting teenagers were at the end of the hallway to the right. After smiling at the commotion, he approaches the arguing pair who was in an intense stare-down.
"You two are causing quite a scene." Brian said sarcastically. The couple flicked him off in sync before returning to their banter.
"You're calling me a bitch you spoiled brat?!" John's words were rough. However, Claire was unfazed.
"Fuck you!" Brian let's go!" Claire pushes John out of the way and grabs Brian by the arm to continue to the section where the phones are. Brian looked back at John who had his arms crossed.
"Wait a second Claire!" Claire halted and almost released a volley of anger at Brian but she composed herself, smiled and asked nicely although with a tone of bitchiness.
"Allison got knocked the hell out by Kayla Roman. I need to call her dad." John's footsteps toward Brian and Claire are heard and Claire shoots a look at him which stops him dead in his tracks. He backs away and holds his palms out but his right hand forms a middle finger and he goes back to approaching the group. Claire does nothing to stop him and he makes it to them without trouble.
"Then why are we waiting? Let's call Mr. Reynolds." Brian said. Claire opened her mouth to say something about John, but Brian frankly sick of the fighting, pushes her along as an incentive to ignore him. John pulls out a pack of Marlboros from his pocket and begins to smoke one as he follows the rest of the two. Brian gives him an annoyed and disapproved look while John forms a sly smile on his face. Arriving at the section for the payphones, Claire picks one up and angrily slams it back on the hook.
"Do you know his number?" Claire asked Brian. He shrugged which caused the anger again. Brian was at the wall finishing his cigarette while Brian just stared at Claire who looked like she was going to blow like a bomb. After she composed herself once more, Brian's imaginary light bulb went off.
"Andy does." He said. Claire looked at him and her palm met her face. John laughed in the background, grounded out his cigarette and regrouped.
"What class does he have?" Brian shrugged once more. But, it wasn't going to be difficult to find out. The current period is A-Day electives and all of them already know that Andy would most likely be at the gym for wrestling practice. As if their minds were synced, they began walking to the gym which was only down the hall to the right. Reaching the gymnasium, Claire takes a peek inside of it. She sees the horde of jocks and athletes in the room. She sees the basketball team practicing in one end of the room while the girls' volleyball is practicing at the other end of the room. She finally spots the wrestling team, with Andy going against Austin Carpenter, Andy's best friend.
"I see him." Claire announces. She turns around to see if there's a plan to get him, but John simply pushes her out of the way and walks across the ocean of sweaty teenagers. He on purpose shoves some of the female volleyball players which caused Coach Langdon to whistle angrily at him, but he ignored the coach as usual. Claire and Brian followed a few paces behind him, careful not to disturb any of the athletes in their natural habitat. By the time they got to the wrestling section, the match isn't half over as the two teammates are obviously equally matched.
"Don't blow up on me Clark!" Austin shouted in Andy's ear. Andy puts more pressure on his attack, but he saw a weak spot in Austin. Catching him off-guard, he lets go of his current move and pushes Austin an inch back. Austin used the window of opportunity to tackle Andy, but Andy was ready. Instead of bracing for impact, he grabbed Austin by the neck and gets him in a choke-hold, effectively ending the match. After their post-match honors, he approaches the rest of the group.
"Why are you guys here? Class isn't over." Andy slowly pieced together that something was wrong because Allison was missing.
"You may have won this fight, but your girlfriend got knocked out by Kayla." John said. Andy looked at him in confusion.
"What? Is she okay? Where is she?" Andy immediately made a beeline for the exit, but he was intercepted by his three friends.
"Allison is fine. She's in the nurse right now. We need her dad's phone number." Claire said. Andy's strength overpowered the three's attempt to stop him. All Claire did was give him a destination in mind. The three, unable to stop him instead follow him to the infirmary.
"Wait! Clark! Practice is not over!" Coach Jennings said from the mat. Brian turned around.
"His girlfriend is in the nurse!" Coach Jennings nodded and returned back to his remaining team, able to sympathize for his best player.
The Breakfast Club minus one didn't take long to make it to the nurse when the athlete didn't want to waste time. Bursting through the office door that acts as a gateway to the Nurse's Office, the four were intercepted by Richard Vernon.
"Well well, who do we have here?" Vernon said, crossing his arms. Brian, Claire and John immediately stopped at the man but Andy pushed past Vernon to continue to the Nurse's Office. Vernon, annoyed turn around and shouted at Andy.
"Hold it right there Buster!" Andy stopped but didn't turn around. Vernon approached him from behind.
"Apologize and maybe I won't throw you into another Saturday detention." Andy didn't turn around, which caused Vernon to pop a few veins. "It's disrespectful to ignore people when they're talking to you!" Once again "ignoring" him, Vernon prepared another spiel before the door was opened by Florence Sparrow.
"Richard! Leave the poor boy alone. He and his friends want to visit their friend." She said, sweetly in an attempt to quell Vernon. He still wouldn't budge.
"You can visit her after school, now all of you back to class!" However, Florence lifted up her hand and stopped the kids.
"You guys can visit her. Vernon, the girl woke up and I think she would like to see her friends." Florence pushed the door wider to see Allison splashing water on her face at the sink.
"Her? She has friends?" Vernon's cackle is heard through the office. Andy clenched his fist. Seeing the action, his three friends rushed to him for him to calm down. Vernon, still amused that the basketcase has made any friends, relented.
"Fine, go entertain that girl. I want to see all of you in class in a few minutes!" Richard Vernon disappears outside of the office while the rest of them reunite with the missing piece of the Breakfast Club. Allison turns around is immediately met with an embrace by her boyfriend while the rest awkwardly hang out at the door with the Nurse. Claire, remembering the phone call, returns the slip to the Nurse. In the few seconds of handing the slip of paper back to the Nurse, she hatched out an idea.
"Oh, I contacted Mr. Reynolds. He said that he won't be able to pick her up until after school and she requests that the four of us take her to the ER. Allison suffers from some strange anxiety that involves the number 4." Claire didn't stutter at her completely false statement, but the fortunately naïve Nurse released the Breakfast Club to take Allison to the ER. The Nurse hands Allison a doctor's note and an icepack as she exits the infirmary.
"Tell the doctors that you suffered a nasty fall and hit your head. I hope they'll fix you right up." Florence goes and hugs Allison, who reciprocates although with disgust. -
After getting their ducks in a row, the Breakfast Club regroups at the front of Shermer High School. Allison was perched on the railing with the icepack on her head being held on by Andy, who was sitting beside her. Brian was sitting on the steps right at their feet. In a few seconds, John and Claire exit the high school. They exit the same door, although it's obvious that tension is present. They meet the rest of the group to the side.
"Oh finally, my anxiety is disappearing!" Allison said. The group erupts in a chorus of laughter. Claire pulls out her keys from her bag and she motions for them to walk over to her Mercedes.
"We're lucky that the Nurse is dumb as a sack of hammers or else she wouldn't believe Claire's bullshit story." John quipped. Claire for once ignored his words and there was no argument in the middle of the parking lot. -
Pulling up in the Chicago Mercy Cross Hospital, Claire drops the group off at the front as she drives into the garage to park her car. The four walks into the busy emergency room as John mumbles about the devil driving away. The emergency room was strangely busy for the middle of the morning, with the room being populated with worried mothers and their obviously fine and bored out of their mind children. Nobody in the room needs urgent medical care so Allison hoped the visit will be brief. Allison walks with Brian, the less belligerent one of the group to the front desk.
"Hello, how may I help you?" The snooty front desk lady asked. The main thing the two friends paid attention at was the booger inconspicuously in her nose.
"Yes, I got punched in the jaw and I hit my head on the stall." Allison recalled. The lady looked at her in disgust, particularly her messy hair and the fact that she's a teenager and is probably skipping school.
"Look, I'm not giving you some doctor note so you can skip school. Unless you are going to hemorrhage in a few minutes, I advise you go home." The same anger for Kayla Roman begins to increase in Allison's body. Before Allison can release a volley of profanity at the woman, Brian steps in.
"She actually hit her head on the stall after some girl punched her." The lady still wasn't fazed. She kept the stupid teenager attitude.
"There are actual people who need medical attention." Allison looks back at the many children and mothers then back at the woman.
"Look you condescending little bitch! I am not going to stand here while you stall and wait for me to die from a brain fucking hemorrhage!" Allison vehemently yelled at the woman. The room felt silent and a few seconds later, a collective ooohs from the eight year olds in the ER in response to Allison's excessive profanity. After the din of the children died down along with the sounds of disapproving mothers everywhere, the front desk lady was completely speechless but she still kept the face of somebody who doesn't give a shit. But Allison's anger did merit results, a nurse in scrubs who did give a shit about the well-being of teenagers ditching class puts her hand on the front desk lady's shoulder.
"Tracy, they need you at the pharmacy." The nurse said. Tracy had a crooked frown on her face as she stood up and went to the back door without protest. The nurse looked sympathetically at Allison.
"I'm sorry for Tracy; she can be a runt sometimes. She doesn't like teenagers." The nurse whose name is Andrea typed into the computer and looked back at Allison. "Concussion I assume?"
Allison nodded and her nerves calmed. "Yeah, I got punched and hit my head on something in the bathroom." Andrea looked at Allison's face with a half frown, half smile. The purple bruising that nobody else noticed is where Kayla punched her.
"I remember when I was your age; I got into plenty of fights with the popular girls." After another round of speed-typing, Andrea handed Allison the medical form clipboard. "Fill this out and I'll be right with you in the back. Just hand it to Tracy, don't make eye-contact." Brian thanked Andrea and followed Allison back to the seats where John, Andy and the newly arrived Claire were.
"Way to go Klepto! I see you're the one in control of this relationship." John nodded, proud of his remark. Allison took the seat beside Andy after John snatched the clipboard from Allison's hand and began interviewing her with the questions to murder boredom.
"What is your full name?" John asked in a Bob Barker voice.
"Allison Reynolds."
"What is your date of birth?"
"February 25th, 1969."
"Do you have the following medical problems: Diabetes, asthma, kidney or heart problems, arthritis or angina?"
"No, I do not."
"Are you menstruating, pregnant or breastfeeding?" John asked, holding back his giggles. Sighs of disgust murmured between the group after Claire smacked him on the arm.
After the lightning round of medical talk that was answered with no, Allison scribbled her name on the bottom and returned it to the front desk where Tracy was. Allison listened to Andrea's words and avoided eye contact with Tracy. With boredom slowly creeping back at them, the rest of the Breakfast Club followed Allison a pace behind.
"Hey! Only patients allowed back there!" Tracy shouted at the herd of teenagers. Tracy's word did nothing, as the teenager continued to follow their friend. However, John's voice said, "Fuck you!" and the chorus of ooohs from the children populating the ER came back.
The hallway was dimly lit and narrow, with Allison and her groupies attracted to the source of light that comes from two doors down. The light illuminates the emergency room area, where patients ranging from broken limbs and headaches to amputated limbs and bleeding from every orifice. The 20 beds were arranged in a square, with beds to the wall and privacy curtains surrounding them. In the middle of the room were medical supplies which also had diversity ranging from tongue depressors to IVs. Allison spotted Andrea in the back caring for a young boy with a broken arm. After putting the boy's arm in a cast and sling and leaving with his mother Allison took the bed right next to him.
"I see that you made it here safely." Andrea went to the station of medical supplies that is positioned in the middle of the room and she walks back to Allison and starts the exam by shining the lights in her eyes. After checking her eyes, Andrea goes into Round 2 of Medical Interview.
"Are you nauseous?" Andrea asked.
"No."
"Do you remember what happened?"
"Bitch knocked me out."
"Did you black out?"
"Well, she knocked me out."
"Are you dizzy?"
"No."
"Is this your first possible concussion?"
"Yes."
After giving Allison an ice pack, Andrea returned the medical supplies to their places and went back to the group.
"Will she be okay?" Andy asked.
"She'll be fine. No memory problems, nausea or the likes. I'll write up a doctor's note so you guys can have an excuse to stay home. Take a nap and you should be fine. If there are any problems, call the number on the note." Andrea takes out the notepad in her skirt pocket, scribbles a note and a phone number in almost illegible handwriting, rips it and hands it to Andy.
"Take care, kids!" Andrea goes to the next bed where a man is holding his bandaged hand and closes the privacy curtain.
The Breakfast Club walks out of the eerily dark hallway and back into the waiting room of the ER. Allison and John hold up their middle finger as they walk by Tracy and they leave the hospital, heading for Claire's Mercedes on the other side of the hospital.
"Why did you have to park so far, Princess?!" John moaned. Claire didn't answer, unwilling to entertain John. After piling into the Mercedes, Claire starts the car.
"Where to now? Allison's home? A diner?" Everyone shrugged, leaving the injured one to make the choice.
"I'll be fine. Let's go to the diner." -
