Ch. 11- Breaking Desks and Learning Math
It was five minutes of staring in complete disbelief before one of the remaining students finally got over the shock and said something even if it wasn't a complete sentence. That student was Kyler. "Dude, what the?..."
Shanks stood in between the desk, which was now split evenly down the middle. "This," Shanks answered, "Is what I'm talking about. You are all weak!"
"You just broke the weakest desk. There's no proof that you are stronger than the rest of us." Elie said emotionlessly.
"Says the girl that could knock me through a door but couldn't break a simple desk." Shanks countered.
Elie glared at Shanks with hate in her eyes. How dare he say something like that to her. It was basically the same thing as calling her weak and weak was something she knew she was not, but…how could he break a desk when not even Kurt, who was stronger than her could not?
"I'm going to show you all how to break a desk by using your bare hands. Your first assignment is to find a desk." Shanks ordered. The order was mainly headed for Maura, Kyler, Victoria, and Johnny but only Johnny, Kyler, Kurt, Elie, and Larry moved to empty desks. Maura and Victoria didn't move from where they were standing. Shanks pointed at the two girls and asked, "Didn't you hear me? I said go to a desk."
"Yeah, we heard you, but I mostly specialize in dodging. Besides, I'll have a hard time dancing if I bruise my arms or legs by hitting a desk." Maura answered.
"Mr. Shanks, I don't like fighting. Couldn't I just use my wind powers so I won't have to touch anybody?" Victoria asked.
Shanks' eyebrow twitched a little as he listened to the girls' excuses, but he chose to let Victoria's slide. She did have a point. She had the powers of the Kaze Kaze no Mi, so she might as well use them. However, he wanted proof with Maura's claim to specialize in dodging. "Okay, you're excused, Victoria, but I'm going to have to give you some special lessons on how to control your wind powers. Maura, I want you to prove to me that you have a specialty." Shanks said.
Maura grinned, "Okay, fight me…without guns or swords. I haven't gotten around to getting really good at dodging bullets and long blades."
Shanks didn't have to be told twice. Without warning, he ran at Maura, throwing quick punches and kicks her way. She dodged every single one of his hits. She even dodged the punches and kicks that came swiftly from above and below her body…and she did it all by simply dancing. "That's what you do?" Shanks asked after five minutes of attempting to catch her.
"Yup. It's all about the dance." Maura said, stopping. "Seems like you can learn something from me rather than me learning something from you."
Shanks ignored her and turned to Kyler, Johnny, Kurt, Larry, and Elie. "The first step for you all to do is to shut up, close your eyes, and block yourself from everything in the world. Just pretend that all the troubles you have in your life are gone. Your pain-in-the-ass parents do not exist neither do the other pain-in-the-ass schoolmates."
"You really want us to close our eyes?" Johnny asked seriously.
Shanks turned to him and shouted, "Is that talking I hear? I said shut up! And yes, you do, so all of you, close 'em!"
Kyler, Johnny, and Larry obeyed him and closed their eyes. Kurt and Elie were not quite so obedient.
"Of all the dumbest shit you put us through…" Kurt muttered.
"Hey, shut up!" Shanks shouted, "Or I'll make you!"
"Whatever." Kurt responded.
Shanks shrugged. His warning was ignored and now it was time for the punishment. He may have only had one arm, but both of his legs were still strong and he knew how to use them in fighting. With no other warning, he ran up to Kurt and kicked him in the gut so hard that he fell against the wall.
Kurt stood back up and ran at Shanks with his hands clenched tightly into fists. How dare somebody kick him! Unfortunately, he never got to actually hit the man. He was kicked back into the wall.
Elie decided that as her cousin was being kicked into the wall, it was her turn to make a surprise attack. Good idea? No way. She didn't even get a warning before Shanks quickly turned around and kicked her into the wall opposite of the wall Kurt was kicked into. She got up and tried to make another attack, but kept getting kicked back into the wall. Even when Elie made an attempt at the same exact time as Kurt, both were kicked into their walls.
The same attacks continued for another twenty minutes and Shanks showed no signs of becoming tired or bored. Elie and Kurt, however, finally admitted defeat and walked back to their own desks and shut their mouths.
Shanks smirked at his two victims, "I knew you would see things my way. Okay, now open your eyes." They did. "Very good. Now think of the one thing you hate the most and channel it into one part of your body. Your choice. It could be your fists, your legs, anything…and I want you to pick the one thing you hate and not screw around with it. Now, go!"
The five that chose to take the lesson did not have to think very hard about what they hated and it was obvious to Shanks what most of them were.
Kurt and Elie were the first to let out their attacks. By both using their right hands, they clenched their hands into fists and slammed them right into the middle of their desks. Their aim was not perfect, mostly because they weren't sure where exactly to pick the best place to make the desk break. They were, however, able to make a large crack in each of their desks, almost permanently breaking the desks.
"Hey, what the hell?!" Kurt shouted.
"You did what I wanted you to do. Congratulations. You and Elie have passed." Shanks said cheerfully.
Johnny and Larry attacked next, this time taking the advice of using their legs rather than their fists. However, unlike Kurt and Elie, they chose to attack from the front corners of their desks: Johnny from the left and Larry from the right. Their cracks were not as large as the ones Kurt and Elie made, but because of the force from the corners of the desks, the leg from the corner they attacked was broken off of the desk and the desks began to tilt a little bit.
"Okay, good. You two pass. Kyler, we're waiting for you now." Shanks said.
Kyler took a deep breath and decided to use his head---literally. Without thinking about what pain he could go through if he used his head as an attack, he took his head and slammed about two inches short of the exact middle of the desk. He got a crack, a big one that wasn't as big as Kurt and Elie's. Along with it, he got an injured face and a bloody nose.
The rest of the students took a look at Kyler and all of them, except for Kurt and Elie, started laughing. As they laughed, Kyler gave them all a playful smile like he actually enjoyed hurting himself by slamming his head into the desk.
Shanks started laughing too, but not as hard as the already laughing students. "Kyler, of all the dumbest fighting moves I have ever seen anybody do, you take the cake. Congratulations. Not only have you passed, but you have also earned the place of Youngest Dumbass Fighter."
Rather than take what Shanks said as an offense, Kyler's smile got wider and he actually said calmly, "Hey, thanks Shanks."
"That wasn't a compliment." Shanks told him.
"You better get used to that. Probably half of the stuff you say, he'll take as a compliment." Maura told him. She walked to her desk and pulled out a small package. From inside the package, she pulled out two little white tissues and placed them over Kyler's bloody nose. "Tilt your head back, babe." She said to Kyler.
Shanks shook his head as he watched the boy tilt his head backwards like Maura commanded him to do. Now it was apparent to Shanks that if Kyler was going to listen to anybody and not screw the order up it would be either Maura or Johnny. Not Shanks. He would have to talk to Maura and Johnny and ask them to make Kyler obey him without screwing the order up, but how? Both of them had minds of their own. All the students did. He would have to do it sometime later. "Okay, that was good, guys. Tomorrow's lesson will be on how to make sure to hit the desks in the right place without using your head." That last part was aimed at Kyler. "Also tomorrow, Victoria you will be taught how better use your powers and since you got all that space at your house, you can experiment a little bit as long as you aren't around people or machines or your house. Maura, tomorrow I want to test you again on fighting and dodging." He took a deep breath before adding, "Now all of you take a seat in some of the empty desks. I'm supposed to be a teacher and today I'm going to be teaching you math." The response he got was a bunch of loud groans. "Hey, you guys. What's wrong with math?" he asked.
"It's boring." Larry answered.
"There are too many equations." Victoria answered.
"It makes me think." Maura answered.
"I hate numbers." Johnny answered.
"Yeah, there's too many of them." Kyler agreed.
"Math sucks." Kurt and Elie answered at the same time.
They all had a point, Shanks had to admit. Math was boring and it did suck. There were way too many numbers with too many different ways to use them, which really did make a person think. He hated math, too. Almost everybody he knew, friends or not, hated math. Only the really intelligent people liked math and even a few of them hated it for almost the same reasons as the seven students in his classroom.
"Okay, you guys are right. Math is stupid. However, you have to learn it." he told the class.
"Mr. Shanks, are you going to make us do Algebra or Calculus." Victoria asked timidly.
Shanks placed a confused look on his face. What the hell is she talking about? "Alge-what? What-ulus? The hell are you talking about? I never even heard of those."
"Algebra is a hard class that has lots of different equations, variables, and exponents." Johnny explained.
"That's nothing. My brother, Adam, took Calculus in this school eight years ago and he has his old book. He showed me the book and it was talking all about permutations, a butt-load of ways to find the exact area and perimeter of something you have to measure on your own, and the hell of a lot more things that I've never heard of. He took Trigonometry the next year and he said it was a whole lot harder." Maura argued.
"Variables, exponents, permutations, Trigonometry…sounds like words a drunk person would make up. I don't know what the hell they mean, so if any of you guys know what they mean, forget them. You aren't going to use them in real life. I'm going to teach you the only math skills you need to know: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and a few fractions and decimals." Shanks answered.
Victoria looked a little more relaxed.
"It's still going to suck and be boring and there will still be a lot of numbers and you will have to think, but you won't have to worry about all these different equations." The class members, all of them, groaned.
"Shut up!" Shanks ordered. Strangely enough, they all obeyed him and shut their mouths. "That's better. Now sit in any desk that isn't ruined." Even more strangely, they all obeyed that and took seats in any undamaged desks. "Now take out a piece of paper and take notes. I don't want you guys forgetting this."
That last order was not obeyed by most of the class. In fact, the only ones that took out sheets of paper were Victoria and Kurt. All the others stared boredly at the board at the front of the room, where Shanks stood with an eraser in his hand. He took the eraser and wiped away all the parts of Johnny's Al Bhed lesson that was written on the board.
After Johnny's lesson was erased, Shanks replaced the eraser with a used piece of chalk and wrote, in large letters, the word "ADDITION". "Addition is probably the most useful math skill you really need to do and the easiest. It's basically counting and if you take 2 + 2 and add it together, you get the answer 4…" As Shanks wrote on the board addition problems, he took at the class from the corner of his eye.
Kurt and Elie were sitting on the far right side of the room in desks side-by-side, away from the rest of the students. Kurt was scribbling something on a piece of paper with a pen. A few times Elie grabbed the pen away from him and added something on before Kurt either shook or nodded his head and took the pen back. It was pretty clear that they weren't taking any notes, but he didn't expect them to.
Larry was sitting in the one of the desks in the very back, right next to the toolbox that held the tools that fixed the heater. He wasn't doing anything except for staring at the clock, silently wishing for the time to go by fast so that he could get out of the room.
Johnny, Victoria, Kyler, and Maura were sitting in four seats in the far left side of the room, all side-by-side. The farthest right, the closest to Shanks, was Johnny and sitting next to him was Victoria, who sat next to Maura, who sat by the farthest left one, Kyler. They all had pens of different colors out and wrote on a piece of paper before passing it to the next person. A couple times the girls giggled at what they read on the paper and sometimes the boys let out little chuckles.
After five minutes, Shanks stopped and turned around. He looked at the four that were making all the noise. "So, I take it that you are all enjoying my lesson." he told them.
Bravely, Maura lifted her hand up in the air. "Hey, I got a question." She said rather loudly.
"And I'm afraid to know what it is." Shanks responded. "Go ahead."
"Why are you making us take math that is intended for first graders? You think we're that dumb?"
Shanks looked at Maura and asked in a serious voice, "Do you want me to be truthful?"
The four on the left side nodded.
"The way you guys are, I'm surprised most of you can even count. Johnny and Victoria are the only ones that I truly believe know this stuff, but I have my doubts about the rest of you. Maura, I think you can count. I also think the same way about Larry, although he is still in school with kids, and the two cousins even though they don't pay attention or care about what I do. After Kyler's display of attempting to break the desk and the way his papers on the books were written, I seriously doubt he can count without help from others."
"Hey! I can count by myself!" Kyler shouted.
"Prove it. Count to ten without any help." Shanks said.
"One two three four five six seven eight nine ten." Kyler answered without any hesitation or help.
Shanks nodded, "Okay, good. You have proven to me that you have graduated from Kindergarten. Now, if you can do this paper tonight, I will know that all of you have passed the first grade." He reached into his desk and pulled out seven sheets of paper and handed each of them to the students.
"Ah weak." Kyler and Johnny groaned.
Shanks took out an eighth sheet and handed it to Johnny. "Give this to either Lynn, if she's still here, or one of the members of her little group." he said calmly.
"No way. I can't stand them." Johnny said before handing the paper to Victoria. "You do it. Everyone likes you."
Victoria shook her head and handed the paper to Maura. "I don't like them. Maura, you do it. You're braver than me."
Maura laughed at Victoria. "Right, I'm really going to give something to the one group of people that hates me more than anything on the island." She handed the sheet to Kyler. "You give it. They like you and would take anything from you, especially if it's meant for Lynn." Kyler groaned, but seeing as there was no other students sitting close enough for him to hand the sheet to, he agreed.
The time couldn't have been better for Shanks or the students because as soon as Kyler agreed, the bell rang for lunch and Shanks couldn't blame all of them for dashing out of their seats and towards the lunch room, taking their papers with them.
Lunch today was a hot soup with a choice of water or juice, which was a good thing because the cafeteria was still a little cold and it was still pouring outside. Kyler handed Lynn's homework to her little group of friends at their table and they gladly accepted it. He then took a seat next to his friends while the rest of his classmates sat where they normally were. The teacher's lounge was full of shivering adults who either had nothing interesting or nothing at all to say.
After lunch was over, the seven of Shanks' students that stayed made it up to their classroom with their teacher following them. As soon as they opened the door, they felt a gust of wind enter from the hole in the window. Somebody had turned off the heater and taken away the toolbox so the room was freezing and a damp feeling was in the air.
Quickly, Johnny ran to the cabinet that held the art supplies and pulled out a large roll of thick gray tape and a small knife before heading for the window. Kyler followed him and took the tape from Johnny and handed it over to Victoria. Johnny ordered Victoria to hold the tape while Kyler unrolled and cut it. The girl did not protest.
Within the span of three minutes, Kyler unrolled large strips of the tape, but them and handed them to Johnny, who taped them over the hole. Everyone else stood either to the side or holding something.
"Victoria can control the wind. Can't she just use her powers to make it go in a different direction?" Elie asked.
Shanks nodded, "She could, but she's not experienced enough and would probably make the hole bigger or even destroy the entire window altogether. Also, the Kaze Kaze no Mi can zap away energy if used too long. Judging by the weather, it doesn't look like the wind's not going to stop any time soon and Victoria can't stop the wind. What Johnny and Kyler are doing is the best we can do."
It was still cold in the room and the area around the window was soaked with rain by the time the hole Lynn made was taped up, but at least no more rain or wind was getting through. Unfortunately, the room was cold and to top it all off, the wind outside caused the power to go out and because heavy rain clouds covered up the sun, there were no outside lights to enter the room. All the street lights were on the front side of the school, not the back, where the classroom was.
Twenty boring, quiet minutes passed before Victoria's timid voice asked, "Mr. Shanks, can we please go home?"
Shanks turned his head towards the clock, which had stopped moving the second the power went out. "Ah, what the hell, sure. However, I wouldn't recommend you practicing your powers tonight in this storm, Victoria. Save it for a more clearer day."
"Yessir." Victoria said happily.
"Good. Now get out of my classroom, all of you!" Shanks ordered.
The students didn't need to be told twice. They all ran out of the room faster than they did when they left for lunch. Shanks shrugged and erased what he wrote on the board and headed down to the main office and gave his notice that he was leaving early since he let all of his students leave.
Manson wasn't upset about the decision. Some of the students were already leaving to go home anyway, so it didn't really matter. A couple of the teachers were planning on just packing up their things and going home after their students left.
Shanks never felt happier to be back onto his ship. The rain got worse and even a few of the street lights weren't working. He had to rely on some of the car's lights just to see where the road was and his instincts to find his way back to his ship. As he dried off, he told the rest of his crew about his day and how…eventful it was. As he talked, he couldn't help but to remember the notes Johnny, Victoria, Maura, and Kyler were writing. Did they have something planned? He wouldn't find out until the next day.
TUESDAY
The weather was a little bit worse than it was yesterday. It was still rainy and the clouds were thicker. The streets were aligned with puddles, but the power was back on so Shanks had working street lights that guided him to the school and the cross walks.
Even better news: all of his students were in better moods than they were yesterday. Kurt and Elie weren't picking fights with others, Lynn and Maura weren't screaming at each other, and Victoria was smiling.
Shanks took a good look at Victoria. Her dark hair was tied back with a yellow headband and she wore a pair of jeans and a cute purple top, but that didn't catch his attention. What caught Shanks' attention was the stack of little books Victoria held in her hands. "Hey Victoria, what's with the books?"
"You don't remember?" Victoria asked, "Our class is doing a play for the end of the year and Principal Manson expects us to go through with it so I brought along the books for us. I even picked parts for everyone."
"Okay, that's good."
"May I hand them out now?" Victoria asked.
"I guess, sure."
Victoria smiled and turned to Kyler, who sat in the same desk he sat in yesterday. "Kyler, you will be playing the part of the hero, Deveon. You will have the most lines and you will be the main character of the play. You are also going to have to work on being the silent type, but there is a good side to this: You get the girl." She explained.
"Oh yeah!" Kyler shouted. He took a look through the book and said with a confused look on his face, "Hey, what's a meridian?"
"Looks like somebody needs to work on his vocabulary." Maura laughed.
"You do too, Maura. That's why you will be playing the part of the evil fairy-siren, Aeriala. She's got a bunch of big words, too." Victoria said as she handed two of the books to her two friends.
"Excellent. I get to be evil and I get to sing and dance." Maura smiled.
Victoria next placed a book into Johnny's hands. "You get to be Samuel, Deveon's best friend. Act child-ish and girl crazy…or act like Kyler. You can handle that, right?" Victoria asked.
"Absi-posi-you-better-believe-it." Johnny said with fake enthusiasm.
"….okay, fine. You can act like him, too. Just no speaking in Al Bhed."
"Gotcha."
Victoria smiled at him timidly and placed a booklet on Lynn's desk.
Lynn stared at Victoria with a hateful look on her face. "This had better be a good part. I'm getting tired of being insulted by you poor people." Lynn snapped.
"Is the part of the beautiful Princess Marie good enough?" Victoria asked. Lynn's face began to slightly change to a pleased look. "You get to kiss Kyler in the play and help kill Maura."
Lynn's face no longer had the hateful look. It completely changed to a happy, pleased look. "Victoria, honey. Maybe I underestimated you. Maybe you aren't as bad as the others in this god-forsaken room." Lynn said sweetly.
"Ummm…thanks, Lynn." Victoria said before heading to Kurt's desk and placing a book into his hands.
"The hell is this?" Kurt asked.
"Your part." Victoria explained, "You will be playing Griever the thief. You don't talk much and you are hardly on the stage."
Kurt muttered something Victoria could not make out. She ignored it and headed to Elie's desk next to his. "Elie, you will be Calle, the mute eleven year old daughter of a poor wood carver. You only have five lines at the end of the play. Otherwise, you just walk around without saying a word." Victoria placed a book in Elie's hands.
Elie, like her cousin, grunted something Victoria could not make out.
"Larry." Victoria said, placing a book in Larry's empty hands, "You are going to be Harold, the adoptive father of Calle."
One more book was in her pale hands…and it was placed in the hand of her teacher in the front of the room. "Mr. Shanks, you will be playing the part of King Leo."
Shanks pushed the book back into Victoria's hands and shook his head. "No way. I'm not going to have any part of this." he said simply.
"You only have a few lines." Victoria said.
Shanks shook his head, "Forget it."
Victoria felt hurt. The others seemed at least moderately pleased with their parts. Kurt and Elie were participating, so why wasn't Shanks? She then remembered something her brothers and sisters did to get what they wanted. She was sixteen, too old to do it, but it couldn't hurt to try. She widened her violet eyes and gave Shanks the puppy dog look.
Shanks knew what Victoria was doing and it wasn't going to work. He refused to fall victim to the puppy dog eyes. It happened too many times to him especially when he met up with a little boy who, like Victoria, ate a Devil Fruit. When Luffy did it, he was better than Victoria and Shanks never fell for it. "I said forget it."
Victoria took a deep breath. It was time for her to do something drastic, the one thing that would almost give her success. She forced some tears to fill up into her eyes and began to cry. "B-but I t-thought you would do it, too. B-besides, I spent so much time picking out the best part for you…" she cried and pushed the book back into Shanks' hand.
Shanks took a quick look through the casting part of the book and his face brightened. Victoria only gave out eight parts, but there were still at least fifteen parts that needed to be filled, so how could all the parts be filled?
His answer came when Manson's voice came through the intercom, "Good morning, students. Please rise to say the Pledge of Allegiance." None of the students stood while the pledge was being said. After the pledge, Manson started talking again, "Today is Tuesday, March 6th. Due to the rain, tennis practice has been cancelled. Chess and Choir club are still going on after school. Chess Club will meet in room 115 and the Choir Club will meet in the gymnasium. Also, the end of the year school play will be The Saviour in Blue by Victoria Marxus. A list of parts available will be posted in the cafeteria during lunch and auditions will begin after school in the same place. Thank you and have a nice day."
"Please, Mr. Shanks." Victoria begged while still crying.
No, don't look into her eyes. Don't look into them. Don't look into them….Dammit, I can't help it. She's been so nice lately instead of a little hellraiser like the others…I gotta do it. "Are you sure I only have a few lines?" Shanks asked.
Victoria nodded, "And you only appear in the play in the middle and for a minute in the end."
"Then I'll do it." Shanks promised.
Victoria smiled and threw her arms around Shanks' waist, "Oh thank you, Mr. Shanks!"
Shanks did not smile back at Victoria. What have I got myself into?
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A/N: Okay, that's chapter 11. Hope you guys like it. I know I did not explain who Johnny was acting like but I will explain in the later chapters, but if you guys want, you can guess who he's acting like. R/R please.