Chapter 2 – The Whispering Room

The bold yellow school bus finally made its final stop in front of the withering and tall Peach Creek High School, where young minds either came to be molded or to be forsaken, the choice wasn't theirs, however.

And thus, the Eds piled off in their typical way, with Eddy of course leading the pack, followed by Ed, with Double D trailing his friends while constantly stopping to dust off some part of himself. The hollow thuds of locker doors slamming and the quick stripes of shoes scuffing floors filled the air as the two big glass doors opened and the fluorescent light cast its web across the face of the Eds, causing Eddy to squint. Double D's face lit up by the noises of academia and the light cast upon it, this was truly what he considered his home. Home always felt so…quiet, so empty. Noise only came in two forms: the morning alarm or the rambunctious racket of one of his friends doing God knows what. Home was an end to a means for Double D, simply a place to hang his hat and prepare for the next day's schoolroom subjects. This however, this school was home for him; a place where his brain could feel welcome along with the tomes of knowledge that lined the walls of the library; nothing could harm him when he was cocooned in the volumes of learning that he gleaned through everyday when boredom struck him. Home is a state of mind, and he truly began to understand this as his high school years passed him by. His friends never really understood him, being the smartest of the cul-de-sac can do that for a boy. Double D was in the college-preparatory Advanced Placement courses, with his two friends being placed in the rather simple regular classes. Such an intellectual gap separated the boys, and this gap become more and more obvious as the years ticked by and graduation slowly approached without hesitation. Things were changing, but no one had the courage to understand why.

The boys were now coming to the close of their junior year of high school, with one year left after this before, as Eddy says, they "make us put on a dress and wear a pizza-box hat in order to get a piece of paper telling us we can get the hell outta here!". Eddy didn't share Double D's enthusiasm about school, likely to no one's surprise. Eddy just didn't like being surrounded by four walls; they bothered him and closed him in to a world that he knew had to be out there, somewhere. The immature attitude of his brother certainly didn't do much to scare him, but it did check him enough not to drop out or lag too far behind the high school crowd. He was, as ever, still quite the delinquent he was in childhood; only this time the consequences were more severe for the actions he took. It wasn't uncommon to find him sitting in the In-School Suspension room, tapping his eraser to his paper in endless duds and thuds. School just wasn't for Eddy; he would much rather think about anything else, like what he'd be doing that weekend. His delusions sat in making large sums of money, and that was about it for him. His grades floated on the surface of passing, and his parents rode him hard about his apathy towards his studies. In his world, Eddy was a cool cat, and didn't need no education no way. After all, what good is history or science when he could just make a living selling used cars at his father's lot for the rest of his life. Afterall, he did learn from the master. Eddy's father, also named Edward, was the fastest-talking used car salesman in Peach Creek. His face adorned billboards and bus benches all over the town, and his wacky commercials were ubiquitous. Eddy grew up understanding the art of the scam, because his old man had it in the bag himself. But his dad wanted more than that for Eddy. "If only you'd apply yourself, you'd find this education-thing a lot damned easier than you're makin' it, bud" his father would often tell him after the report cards came out and Eddy's read:

D
D
D
D
C

Eddy just plain didn't like being told what to do, which is tough in high school when so many try to tell you what to do, but few of them will ever disclose why you have to do it. All Eddy really wanted was money, and school didn't give him that desire; that raw, monetary desire.

They Eds walked their way down the hall, and eventually made it to Double D's locker. The color scheme of the school reflected its name, with light pastel peach walls and alternating orange-and-white colored floor tiles. The lockers were all a burnt orange color with bright silver locks; however, a few decades of wear and neglect and left many of the lockers coated in dents and scratches, much to Double D's dismay. However, he did his best to keep his locker as spiffy as he could, and it showed. He used his trusty label-maker to attach his name to the outside, EDD. He carefully twisted the knob around to fit his combination, and thus the sheet metal popped open and the contents open for all to see. The locker was of course neatly arranged, with all the textbooks organized based on schedule, and a few metal cups for pencils, pens, and other various office supplies necessary for these education routines. Double D carefully removed his jacket before placing it in his locker, and took out his AP Chemistry, AP Biology, and AP Government textbooks to carefully place in his bag for the first half of the day's learning.

"Curse these heavy books, but my how they entice the eager learner!" Double D said as he strapped up his bag and lifted one solitary index finger into the air, making sure his point was assured on the ears of his two friends.

"Yeah yeah who needs 'em…" Eddy scoffed with a wave of his hand. "You'd think with all the lifting you do on those things you'd have guns like these, huh? Huh?" Eddy said as he lifted back his sleeves to reveal what he imagined to be arms of pure muscle, but were simply the scrawny arms typical of teenage boys. Double D winced at his display while Ed simply gazed confused and scratched his particularly flat noggin.

"But Eddy, you know guns aren't allowed at school!" Ed called out in his typical goofy way.

"Pipe down Lumpy! It's just a figure of speech, ya know?" Eddy quipped as he pushed his sleeve back down angrily. Ed simply chuckled and looked back at Double D, who had now closed his locker door shut.

While no one would vouch for Ed as some sort of Einstein-level genius, he was not the apathetic rebel-without-a-cause that Eddy had fashioned himself as. Ed quite enjoyed school. It gave him routine and structure, and of course mashed potatoes and gravy were served every day in the cafeteria, so what wasn't to love? Ed of course wasn't so good at the advanced or difficult subjects, but he excelled in literature and art classes. Ed even earned a spot on the high school literary magazine, where he wrote horror/sci-fi short stories and did a weekly comic strip known as The Adventures of Gravy Boy. He found a lot of enjoyment in the school's theater department and acted in many of the plays put on by the school. He didn't have any true plans after school, because truth be told, Ed just didn't think for anything further than three minutes in the future. He simply lived for what he enjoyed: monster movies, comic books, gravy, and his friends. That's all that really mattered to him, and that's okay. It did alienate him from his family a little, particularly his mother, who had always tried to push Ed to do more and be more. His father, on the other hand, was quite proud of his boy and only wanted what was best for him.

"Okay gentleman, let us go to those bastions of learning then, shall we?" Double D said with a smile as he turned to his friends.

"Yeah, sure…" Eddy sarcastically replied while rolling his eyes.

"Go go go!" Ed called out as he took off in his speedy walk, followed by the other Eds. Then along came Rolf.

Rolf was strolling down the hallway in a very happy step when he glanced and saw the Eds approaching towards him. "Hello there, Ed boys!" he called out "How are you on this day that my Nana's plums turn pink?"

"Well hello there Rolf, great to see you! Is your Nana better after her little bout of flu?" Double D asked as he reached out for a friendly handshake from Rolf; however, Rolf extended it to a hearty pat on the back, one which nearly knocked the breath out of old Double D.

"Yes yes, quite good, yes!" Rolf said with a smile on his face, "Nana will be back to stuffing the Octopus in no time, brainy Ed boy!"

"What's your grandma doin' to that octopus again Rolfy boy?" Eddy asked in a tone of both slight curiosity and disgust.

Rolf either didn't hear him or ignored him all the same. "Well Ed boys, Rolf must be off now. Much learning is to be from the class of science today. Goodbye, Ed boys!" And with that, Rolf trotted down the hallway, his fluffy hair flopping along the way. Physically Rolf had not changed much beyond the usual height or acne, but he now sported a quite striking set of sideburns and his physical brawn was not to be underestimated by the sight of his arm muscles. He was a tall young man, physically fit from years of tilling and planting on his Nana's fields. But his personality still reflected that of the sweet, naïve boy that played alongside the cul-de-sac kids all those years ago. The boy will still there, concealed beneath the brawn.

It was at this point that Eddy looked up at the clock and saw that it was fifteen minutes until classes started, and he desperately needed to wet his whistle before the school day.

"Well boys, it's been a good one" Eddy said as he pointed his thumb towards the stairwell that capped off the end of that particular hallway, "but I gotta see a man in the lunchroom about a carton of chocolate milk. See ya!" Eddy then backed away before turning around in his faux-cool fashion and strutting down the hallway. He passed by one girl with curly blonde hair, clicked his tongue and made a finger-pistol directly towards her: "Hey baby, what's goin' on? Wanna grab some milk with the E-man?"

A look of disgust came over her face as her friend adjacent to her began to chuckle under her breath. "Eww gross, get lost geekbait!" she exclaimed as she continued walking up the hallway, never even looking in Eddy's general direction.

"Later!" Eddy said as he completely shrugged off any sign of rejection in favor of his overwhelming ego and confidence.

Double D turned to Ed and said politely "Ed, dear friend, I must go to my chemistry class now. We're covering Gibbs free energy today! Quite exciting, don't ya think?"

"That Gibbs guy must be poor, Double D; giving all his energy away!" Ed said with a silly grin.

"He might have been, Ed. He might have been." Double D replied with a sigh, disappointed that even his closet friends couldn't at least attempt to understand his love of learning.

"Bye Double D, see ya at lunch, ahahah" Ed said as he turned and trotted away to his locker further down the hallway and around the corner. Double D took in a slightly heavy breath and began to walk up the stairs next to him and towards the third floor where the science buildings were located. As he came up the final stair, he made a clumsy right face before heading down the corridor. It was there that he came down what was sometimes known as the "Fright Light" hallway (or as Eddy so eloquently called it, the Bumpin' Hallway, "because,…well…that's where all the kids bump during lunch!"). The Fright Light got it's moniker due to it's persistent flickering fluorescent light that never seemed to want to work. It was a relatively empty hallway, with only three rooms that branched from it: the Calculus-based physics room at the very front (framed with murals of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein to either side of the door), an unused conference room that had likely not seen a meeting since the late 80s, and a janitor's closet at the very end. People avoided that hallway at all costs, because something was definitely…off about it. Students of physics would slip straight into their class without hesitation, and anyone heading down the hallway adjacent to it (as Double D was doing at this time) knew to silently hold one's breath as the light flickered in a dismal, macabre way. But as Double D's vision panned from the flickering Fright Light back to the hall he was shuffling down, he suddenly caught the face of Marie, the blue-haired Kanker who rarely ever came near him, let alone spoke to him. Sure, she had spoken to him a thousand times in her head. Those rehearsed lines seemed so bold and confident in the confines of her imagination, but now, as her eyes moved in crawling slow motion to meet his, all bets were off. She was frozen, a deer in the headlights. Sound ceased, movement halted. She was terrified beyond reason, and nothing could free her from this grasping situation.

Double D put on a slight smirk and gently waved to her as he walked past, never knowing the mental gymnastics show that was occurring in the head of Marie. She blushed, her pale cheeks turning a vibrant pink as she shuffled her feet faster, clutching her textbooks closer and closer to her chest. She sped away as quickly as she could, because making even slight eye contact would likely be too much for this young lady to bear. Time was unfrozen now, things moved as they should be. Double D carried on into his classroom down the other end of the hall, as Marie gave a Lot's-wife glance back over her shoulder to see. As she turned around, she immediately saw her chemistry teacher, Dr. Strickland, coming up the stair case with his typical mug of coffee and his typical binder in his hands, the light casting off his metal-rimmed glasses and scattering across the hallway like a police-light going off in traffic. Suddenly slow students moved more quickly, loud conversations turned quiet, and classrooms along the hallway suddenly started to fill up as locker doors slammed and shoes scuffed. Again, Marie froze.

"Marie, I'm glad I could see you. Do you have a minute to talk?" Dr. Strickland said as he slowly strolled up to her. He was a short little man, so he was able to more or less make direct eye contact with her. He made her incredibly nervous, but his receding hairline did make her chuckle internally in order to relieve the pressure.

"Ooh,…um….yes sir, I do." Marie brushed her hair behind her right ear before looking down to the ground.

"Over here please, so our talk can be private?" he motioned towards the end of the hallway that contained that dreadful Fright Light.

"….okay…." Marie strutted over very nervously as he took a large swig from his coffee, his glasses sliding down his nose in the process. He used his fat finger to push them back up afterwards.

"Marie, I was looking over grades in class last night after I graded last Friday's quiz. I don't really know how to lightly say this, but I'm afraid you've slipped into F territory Marie. You know that there isn't much time before the final, don't you?"

She was shaking visibly, so afraid and disappointed with herself. General chemistry just wasn't a great class for her. This was her second time taking it, as she had failed the year before and the thought of yet another failure caused her to fight as hard as she could not to just break down and cry, and in front of Dr. Strickland no less. A slight hum filled the silent air as she stood for several seconds before responding with a rather meek "No…"

"This isn't going to be easy, Marie, but I have faith in you. There's till six weeks in the school year, and the final exam is worth a quarter of your grade. If you're able to get at least a 90 on the final, you'll be able to pass the class, with some room to spare at that. There's no way I'm gonna let you stand by and fail again!" Dr. Strickland said with a hesitant grin. No one had ever seen the man outright smile before.

"…Dr. Strickland, how in the world am I gonna be able to do that if I can't even pass a simple quiz!" Marie said with a little more lilt to her tone, obviously becoming more agitated with every new thing that this man said.

"Lucky for you, I've come up with an idea that I think might work. Would you be willing to sit with a tutor a few times a week to review the material and handle questions about homework and problem sets? I can ask my best chemistry student to help you, and I'm sure that he would agree without hesitation."

"Who is it?" Marie sheepishly asked, though she quietly assumed who the name would be. Seymore Jones. He was always the top geek in the chemistry club and stuck closer to Dr. Strickland than a hemorrhoid. She would rather not listen to him geek on for an hour a day if she could.

"His name is Eddward Morano, he's currently a top AP chemistry student of mine. He gets the best scores in his class, and he's a damn fine student. Spells his name with two Ds, so bizarre. But anyway, he's so nice and friendly, I'm sure he'd love to help! It's worth a shot, right? Do you know him already, by any chance?"

Marie froze for a second. "Shit, he's talking about Double D! Shit!"

"…Vaguely, sir. I know his face but that's about it…." She lied, she was secretly obsessed with the boy. But that was none of Strickland's business anyway.

"Well good. I'm about to see him in class now, I'll be sure to let him know that you're interested! Would Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays work for you? Just an hour or so after school on those days, enough to review the material and whatnot as I said. That okay with you?"

She thawed from her freeze just slightly enough to acknowledge him. "Yes sir, that would work fine. Thank you so much."

"No worries Marie, see you in class later." Strickland raised his mug to her and swiftly turned around, his Lewis-structure decorated tie following him a second later. He marched down the hall and entered the same class which Double D had entered only moments before. As he left the classroom, suddenly students walked in their normal pace and amplified their conversations once more. Marie stood motionless for several seconds before a familiar voice sounded behind her ears:

"Yo Marie, what was all that about, huh?"

This was the voice of Lee, Marie's older sister whom she placed a great deal of trust in. Her bushy red hair cascaded over her eyes as her high-waisted blue jeans met her polka-dotted t-shirt. Much taller than Marie, Lee looked down and again spoke in her gravely voice:

"Hey I asked you a question, now what was all that business with Strickland, huh? Am I gonna hafta tell Ma?"

"Lee, Whispering Room,…now!" Marie said as she took Lee by the hand and led her down the Fright Light hallway to the abandoned conference room.

"That bad, huh?" Lee responded as he trailed behind her sister. Marie looked around slowly before opening the creaky door with the words CONFERENCE ROOM stenciled on the fogged window. Lee followed her in and the door closed behind them. The metal doorlock closed with a sharp thud before total darkness surrounded Marie and Lee. A whirling sound commenced as Marie flicked on the overhead projector which remained in the room, neglected for years. The bright yellow light cast itself against the walls like a structured kaleidoscope. Cobwebs covered boxes of printer paper, and dusty chairs had been stacked upon dusty tables to accommodate room for several broken xerox machines that had been left for dead in this room. Suddenly Marie and Lee's face became illuminated by the projectors great light as they faced one another, ready to speak at last.

"Okay, we're here now. So what's up?" Lee whispered over the whirling sound.

"Lee," Marie said, clinching her eyes shut, "I'm failing chemistry…"

"Again?" Lee said with a heavy sigh, "Ma ain't gonna be happy about this, I can tell ya that. You better prepare what you're gonna tell her when you get home missy!"

"That's not all" Marie responded, "Strickland felt sorry for me, so he assigned me a tutor to help me study for the final. He says that if I get an A on the final, I'll pass the class."

"Well that's a relief, but who's the tutor? Don't tell me it's that Seymore dweeb…"

"No,…thank god,…but no. It's…." She looked down and let out a heavy sigh, then dropped her voice. "It's Double D…."

"Ooh hey hey!" Lee said with a grin as she elbowed her sister across the projector, "this has done fell into your lap now, huh? Why ain't ya more excieted then?"

"Because Lee, what am I even supposed to say to him? Ooh hey Double D, I'm so dumb that I'm failing chemistry for the second time in a row! Could you ever be so kind and use that big and sexy brain of yours to help me escape failing this time?"

"That would work on me if I were him…." Lee casually responded, shrugging her shoulders.

"Lee come on, be serious!" Marie was getting visibly frustrated.

"Alright alright. Just go to the tutor session tonight, see how it goes. Put a little charm on him. He won't think you're a dummy if you smell good and look pretty. Double D seems like an understandin' guy, a lot different to the normal pricks around here, know what I mean? Plus he's your man, get him if you want him. This is your first chance to get close to him like this, take advantage of it." Lee placed her hands on her sister's shoulders, attempting her best to reassure her.

"But what if he doesn't like me, Lee? What if he sees how awful I am up close, then my chances are ruined forever!"

"Come off it Marie! You're a cute young gal, how could he not resist the old Kanker Charm?" she smirked a little "Just go, okay? What's the worst that could happen. Take it slow, don't rock the boat, and focus on the learnin' first, then the flirtin', got it? And be sure to stop by my locker after school, I'll hose ya down with the good stuff before you go in to see him. How's a man like Double D gonna resist the charm of Ma's Avon perfume, huh?"

"So you're the one who took Mom's perfume!" Marie gasped.

"Guilty!" Lee said as she raised her hand. "Now I gotta get to class, and you do too!" The five-minute bell hollowly thudded in the hallway outside that sacred door. "Don't sweat it alright, and see me after school, I'll fix you up right for your handsome man!" she nudged her ever more in the chest with her elbow. Marie finally converted her nearly teared-up eyes and frown to a slight smirk, and gave her sister a warm hug of appreciation.

"Thanks Lee, you're the best!"

"Won't be the last time I hear that!" Lee chuckled as she left the embrace after a few pats on the back. "Now go do you some learnin' missy! Don't keep that man too much on your mind!" Lee's words trailed as she quietly opened the Whispering Door and exited out into the hallway, brushing the dust and cobwebs off her thighs and heading off.

"Gonna be hard not to…." Marie whispered to herself as she flicked the whirling overhead projector off and cast the room in darkness once more, bracing to face what was surely to be her longest day.