Chapter Six: Jack Sparrow vs. Mr. Steele
A/N: Thank you SO, SO, SO, SO, SO much to everyone who has reviewed! I love you all!
Disclaimer: POTC and its characters are not mine. Boo freakin' hoo.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*
After trudging through third and fourth period, we were finally free for lunch. Of course, lunch could (and did) prove to be as difficult, if not more so, as any class, especially considering that at our school the whole school had lunch at the same time.
I want you to close your eyes and imagine this scene: two semi-normal juniors who had never done anything remarkable entering the cafeteria with 1) a very good-looking Orlando Bloom look-alike, 2) a very attractive Keira Knightley look-alike 3) an… interesting… Jack Sparrow clone 3) a blind commodore whose clothes were too small, and 4) a seeing-eye monkey. Needless to say, we turned heads.
Trying to avoid as many uncomfortable questions as we could, the six of us plus the monkey secluded ourselves in a small table in the corner after going through the lunch line. The first ten minutes or so of lunch were perfectly peaceful. We did the usual high school routine: complained about classes, complained about the food, complained about the teachers, swapped some gossip, you know, just the usual. James kept Jack-Monkey by our feet underneath the table, and the little guy was so quiet that we pretty much forgot all about him. That was our first mistake.
Our second mistake was underestimating the intelligence of Jack-Monkey. There's more than one reason that the little guy was named after the infamous Jack Sparrow. The tranquilizer had in fact worn off sometime during fourth period, but he still acted like he was as drugged as could be. As soon as our attention wavered, he quietly slipped out of the collar and put an apple in the loop so there was still some weight on the leash. Then he went off to have some fun.
I had a forkful of mashed potatoes on the way to my mouth when a shrill shriek made me freeze. Without turning around, some sixth sense told me what had happened. The potatoes plopped off the fork and back onto the plate as I sat there, frozen with my mouth open.
Closing my eyes in dread, I whispered, "James. Please, please tell me Jack-Monkey is still sitting under the table."
James lifted the leash with a little laugh, saying, "Well of course he is, where else would he be?"
"So that's where my apple went," Jack said, snatching the apple out of the collar.
We all stared at the empty collar in dismay. I was sitting on the side of the table that faced the wall, along with Will, Elizabeth, and James. But Carrie and Jack were sitting on the other side, looking out towards the main cafeteria. Carrie's eyes were not on the collar. She was staring, horror-struck, at something beyond us. With a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, I slowly twisted around to see what had caused the shriek.
Chaos.
Pure, utter, and unadulterated chaos.
That is the only way I can think of to describe the scene that lay before my shocked eyes.
The entire cafeteria was in an uproar. It took me a few minutes to find the epicenter of the disorder, but as soon as I did I wished I hadn't. Apparently Jack-Monkey had sniffed his way to the cafeteria in search of food. Then he had fallen into a giant vat of bubbling baked beans. The cafeteria lady had scooped him up in her ladle and plopped him onto some poor sophmore's tray. The girl had shrieked and flung her tray right onto the head of the captain of the football team, spilling beans and monkey all over his new varsity jacket.
Everything else was a direct result of that. The guy scooped beans off his head and flung them over everyone in line, who had in turn flung green Jell-O over him and everyone sitting at his table. They retaliated by flinging anything on their trays at the people in line, and it just spread and spread and spread until everyone in the cafeteria was involved in a massive food fight.
As Will, Elizabeth, Carrie, and I stared, awestruck, at this incredible sight, Jack just munched on his apple, completely nonplussed. He either didn't notice or just didn't care about what was going on. That is, until, a glob of chocolate pudding came whizzing our way. Elizabeth ducked in the nick of time and the pudding hit Jack directly in the face.
The whole cafeteria froze. Jack had become somewhat of an idol very quickly and had somehow gained a reputation for being tough and quick to anger. He rose slowly from his seat, the half-eaten apple rolling out of his grasp and landing with an echoing BOOM! on the floor. With one hand he wiped some of the pudding off his face so he could see. Then, in a low, menacing voice, he asked,
"Who. Threw. That."
A young boy, almost certainly a freshman, made a very small sound like a mouse who has just been spotted by the cat.
Jack gracefully stepped over the bench seat and slowly walked around the table, each footstep echoing through the silent cafeteria like a gunshot. He stopped three inches away from the boy, staring him straight in the eye. The kid's knees were actually knocking. We could all see the sweat rolling off his forehead.
Very calmly, Jack scooped up some sort of gloppy food from the nearest tray. With his other hand, he lifted one finger and twirled it in a circle. The boy didn't dare disobey and slowly turned around. Jack pulled out the back of his shirt and stuffed the mess in his hand down the boy's shirt. Then he ran his hands down the back, killing two birds with one stone by cleaning off his hands and mashing the mess all over the boy's back. Jack then leaned down so his head was right above the boy's left shoulder. In a loud, clear voice he said,
"Boy, I hope you learned your lesson. Don't you ever even think about tossing one little bit of food towards this corner again. I'm Captain Jack Sparrow. Savvy?" His lips curled into a ferocious smile. The bright fluorescent lights made his gold teeth flash.
Jack pushed the kid away from him and walked back to our table. Right before sitting down, he made a small motion with his hand and said, "Please, continue."
With that, the chaos restarted. And for the next three minutes, not a single bit of nasty cafeteria food came flying in our direction.
But that was not the least of our worries. We still had the small problem of finding Jack-Monkey amongst this battle. Before we could even begin to look, though, the action froze again.
The two large main doors had swung open to reveal our principal, Mr. Steele. He was a very tall and very large man with a shiny bald head and dark sunglasses. He had a viper tattooed up his left forearm and "death" tattooed on the knuckles of his right hand. It was rumored that he was once in a gang. Needless to say, he had some authority over his high schoolers.
"I am giving you five minutes to tell me who began this. Otherwise I will have the entire lot of you out there running laps and doing pushups until your legs fall off and your arms break in half," he said in a loud, booming voice that made even the mightiest of seniors tremble.
Immediately, the finger-pointing started. Everyone began talking at once until the cafeteria was louder than being in the middle of a mosh pit at a heavy metal concert. Mr. Steele raised one hand and everyone was silenced.
"Let me repeat myself. You have four minutes-" before he could finish his threat, Mr. Steele was interrupted by a projectile flying through the air and latching onto his vest. The whole school went into shock. Even Mr. Steele was caught off his guard and stumbled backwards a few steps. The thing on his chest let out a shriek.
Will, Elizabeth, Carrie, James, and I winced. (Jack still didn't care.) We all recognized that shriek. The thing on Mr. Steele's chest was Jack-Monkey, disguised by all sorts of food and other unidentifiable… stuff.
Jack-Monkey was about to make a leap for it and run through the doors, but Mr. Steele's lightning-fast reflexes were too quick for him. The man held the monkey in a death grip at arm's length, his lips curling in a snarl as he eyes the disgusting monkey.
"Who does this… this thing belong to?" he yelled.
Every finger in that room flew to our corner.
"You six. With me. NOW!"
Like the Red Sea, the crowd in the cafeteria parted to allow us access to the quickest path to the doors. A few people were humming funeral marches as we passed. Mr. Steele stepped aside to let us walk through first. He tossed Jack-Monkey to his namesake, as Jack was the leader of the procession. Jack made a disgusted sound and allowed Jack-Monkey to fall to the floor. I quickly scooped him up, keeping my eyes on the floor, but Mr. Steele stopped us by grabbing Jack's arm.
Big mistake.
"Hey, mate, hands off," Jack said angrily, wrenching out of Mr. Steele's grasp.
"What's your name, son?" Mr. Steele asked, his icy blue eyes boring holes in Jack's face.
"Captain Jack Sparrow at your service," Jack spat.
"Mr. Sparrow, I would like you to drop and give me fifteen," Mr. Steele said.
There was a quiet rustling from behind us. I didn't have to look to know that the entire school was gathered in the doorway to watch this showdown between the two toughest people in school.
"You would like me to give you fifteen what, exactly?" Jack asked, just as cool and calm as you please. He met Mr. Steele's gaze eye-for-eye.
"Actually, make it twenty, and that's pushups, Mr. Sparrow," Mr. Steele replied, crossing his arms across his chest, which was stained with Jack-Monkey's food.
"It's Captain Sparrow, and no thank you, I think I'll pass," Jack replied.
The whole school gasped.
"What did you say?" Mr. Steele demanded.
"I said no thank you, I don't want to do any pushups," Jack replied.
"25, Mr. Sparrow, and I will see you in my office every day after school for one week," Mr. Steele ordered.
"Nah."
"30 pushups, Mr. Sparrow, and detention for two weeks!" Mr. Steele shouted. His face was quite red by now, as if his brain was overheating as it tried to comprehend that a student was actually disobeying him.
Carrie laid a hand on Jack's shoulder. "Please, Jack, just do the pushups," she pleaded in a quiet voice. Jack stared at her for a moment, his face expressionless. Then, to our shock and amazement, he got down and did thirty pushups without breaking a sweat.
"Happy now?" he grunted at Mr. Steele.
"My office. All of you."
Mr. Steele turned neatly on his heel and strode off, the six of us hurrying to follow.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*
A/N: Please review! Wow, that chapter was actually a lot of fun to write. I hope you enjoyed it!
