Ch. 15- The Day the Field Got Vandalized
The weekend went by as quickly as it came. In the two days that Shanks had away from the school and his students, which he had not seen over the weekend, things had gotten peaceful. It was a shame that the weekend had to end. The weather was a little chilly on Monday, but there wasn't a strong wind so there was no indication of a storm coming by again.
The streets were still messes as he walked over to the school, but most of the trees and branches were removed from the streets and a few of the power wires were repaired. A few houses were still without power and so were a few streetlights and a few cars on the side of the road were a little dented, but otherwise, everything was fine.
The talk of the day when Shanks walked into Morning Glory High, was a mixture of the storm and the big play that was to be put on at the end of the year. Many of the students didn't know Victoria very well except for the fact that she was in the class at the top of the school, but many of the people in her play were those of the popular kids so everybody knew about it and was excited about it.
He walked into Manson's office to say that he was around for work. A few pieces of papers were placed in Shanks' hands, talking about some sort of test. Manson also told him that the field and wooded area was off limits due to vandalism. Shanks nodded and left the office.
When Shanks got up to the top floor, to his classroom, all of his students except for Lynn was inside and the ones that were inside were split into three little groups. Kurt and Elie, who were both covered in bruises, were seated around Kurt's desk, going over papers. Kyler, Maura, Johnny, and Victoria were talking in soft voices around the middle of the room. Larry was seated in front of the TV, watching a dark-skinned man covered in baggy clothes and gold chains, singing something that sounded a lot like talking with a beat.
It would be another fifteen minutes before the bell would ring for class to start, so there was really no need for Shanks to try and quiet the class down. Although whatever Kurt and Elie were looking over seemed very tempting to find out, it was more tempting to find out what Kyler, Maura, Johnny, and Victoria were talking about just to make sure that they weren't trying to plot anything against him.
"So, what are you guys talking about?" Shanks asked as he walked up to the four.
Johnny turned his head towards Shanks and said, "The costumes for the play." He turned to Victoria and asked, "So, the school won't lend us any costumes for the play?"
"I talked to Principal Manson this morning and he said that we are free to use any costumes left over from the other plays from the years before, but they're so used that it will cost more money trying to touch them up than it is to get brand new ones." Victoria explained.
"So how are we going to get someone to make us costumes? I'd gladly put in some of the money I make at the bar, but there wouldn't be nearly enough to pay for it." Maura asked.
"Because you use it all on cigarettes." Shanks added.
Maura glared at him, "I do not spend all of my paycheck on cigarettes. I only use some of it for that. A huge chunk is used for something else."
"Which is?" Shanks asked.
"Which is none of your damn business."
"Okay, okay stop it. And you're wrong, Maura. We do have someone that can help us, someone that is the best fashion designer on the Island and a relative to one of us." Victoria answered.
Maura paled, "You don't mean…"
Victoria nodded, "I do. Maura, just ask Alice if she'll do it. She is your sister-in-law."
Maura shook her head, "No way. We hate each other."
"Just give her a chance, Maura." Johnny told her.
"I did give her a chance. I gave her tons of chances. I gave her chances when Adam was dating her. I gave her chances when he became engaged to her. I even gave her chances after he married her. It's not my fault that she refused to take them."
"Oh come on, Maura. Please?" Kyler begged.
"We won't ask you for anything else." Victoria added.
"Yes, you will." Maura said, "But, since you guys asked, I will do it if, and only if, all three of you and bastard here come along, too."
"Deal." Kyler, Victoria, and Johnny said. Shanks shrugged, which Maura and the others took for an agreement.
The noise from the TV was starting to get irritating. Whatever the guy on the TV was singing about, the only words Shanks could actually make out were "mother fucking", "hoe", and "nigger". Everything else sounded like gibberish and the beat was getting more and more annoying.
"Larry, what the hell are you listening to?" Shanks asked the man in front of the TV.
"It's some new rapper that goes by the name Yo Momma." Larry answered, not turning his head away from the TV.
The four students discussing the clothes for the play started laughing. Kurt and Elie joined in with a few soft chuckles. "I'm sure he's going to be getting far with a name like that." Maura said in a sarcastic tone.
As soon as everyone finished laughing about the rapper with the rather strange but also quite amusing name, the door opened and Lynn walked in with a small box in her hands. "You guys should thank me for what I'm going to do for you." she explained.
"You're finally getting out of here?" Maura asked in a hopeful voice.
"Not yet." Lynn answered in a slightly upset voice. Her face lit up as she placed the box on her desk and opened it up. "The walls here have absolutely nothing on them, so I took the time to grab a few posters to hang on the wall for a little bit of decoration."
Shanks nodded. "That's actually a pretty good idea." He meant it, too. Lynn was right. Despite the fact that many things were replaced and/or fixed in this room, the walls were completely bare. It almost looked like there was nothing in the room at all.
Kyler, Johnny, Larry, Victoria, and Maura walked over to Lynn's desk and each took out different small, folded up posters and read aloud the names at the bottom of the posters, "Emma Thompson…50 Cent…Orlando Bloom…Jessica Simpson…Johnny Depp…"
"Lynn, do you have anything else that didn't come from a Seventeen magazine?" Victoria asked.
"Not all of these are from Seventeen. I took a few of those posters from Teen People and Elle magazine." Lynn explained, "And I have a rare poster that would look perfectly on the walls of this room." Lynn took out more little posters before taking out a poster that was a little bigger than the other ones. She opened the art cabinet and took out four thumbtacks. She used them to stick the poster on the wall to the right of the blackboard in the front of the classroom.
The poster Lynn placed on the wall looked quite old, but was still a very beautiful poster. It was of a young woman dressed in a sporty teal dress with matching colored boots on a stage. Her long, curly brown hair had hair clips all over it and her face was absolutely perfect—no scratches, acne, piercings, or any other little disfigurements like the people in the smaller posters. A microphone was in her hands and a smile was on her face. The thing that stood out most about her was her bottle-green eyes. Kyler and Maura couldn't even look at her.
"This is Elaina Everlasting." Lynn explained, "The greatest singer in all of Washington." She looked at Kyler and Maura, "Why aren't you two look at her?"
"Bad memories." they both answered. They did not explain why it brought back bad memories even though both Shanks and Lynn asked why.
The loud bell rang again and the voice of the vice principal came over the intercom, asking everyone to state the Pledge of Allegiance. Like what happened a few days ago, nobody stood up. The rest of the announcements went on.
Today is March 12, 2007 and the weather is cool and breezy. Attention students: it is almost time for the ITED and WASL testing. The tests will take place from April 2 to April 13. Your teachers will talk to you, explaining the tests and what your schedules are for those two weeks. Congratulations to those of you that have made it into the school play, the Saviour in Blue. Rehearsals will start today in the cafeteria after school. The yearbook club will meet in room 125 after school and all other clubs will meet in their usual spots at their usual times.
Over the weekend, four teenagers came to the school and burned anti-Bush messages into the soccer field, but our security camera was not able to catch their faces. Because of that, the field will be blocked until the culprits are found. If any of you know who may have done this vandalism, please tell Principal Manson or myself and your help will be kept anonymous. Because of this act of vandalism, all sports teams, except for the basketball team is cancelled until this mess is cleaned up.
On a happier note, Happy Birthday to Jennifer Dolten, Greg Trevor, and Rico Gonzalez. Those are all the announcements for today.
"Okay, guys. I want you in your own seats so I can go over whatever the ITED and WASL are." Shanks announced.
A loud set of groans from every student came out as they all sat down in their own seats.
"Okay, the papers I got say that the ITED is for the ninth graders. Which of you are in the ninth grade?" Shanks asked.
Elie raised her hand. Maura had to stand up just for Shanks to see that she was, like Elie, in the ninth grade.
"Okay, and which of you are in the tenth grade?"
Johnny and Victoria raised their hands to show that they were in the tenth grade.
"Okay. Maura and Elie will be taking the ITED, which stands for the Iowa Tests of Educational Development. Every Monday through Friday from 7:45am to 11am. Students with last names A-M will meet in room 101, which means that both of you girls will meet in there. I won't bother reading the rooms where the other ninth graders are going to be since you girls are the only ones here. All pencils and papers are offered." Shanks said, looking at both Maura and Elie.
He took a deep breath before turning to Johnny and Victoria, "Johnny and Victoria, you will be taking the WASL, which stands for the Washington Assessment of Student Learning. At the same time as Maura and Elie, you will be taking your test. However, you both will be taking your test in room 246. As for Kyler, Larry, Lynn, and Kurt…you guys don't even have to come to school until 10am, when the ITED and WASL are over. After the testing, or at 10am, you all need to come here for testing. I don't exactly know what these tests are for, so…"
"The ITED is a complete waste of time since we don't even live in Iowa. The WASL is a requirement for graduation from High School. It tests us on Math, English, Science, and other stuff and it determines how smart we are. It's more important than the SATs because nowadays colleges don't give a damn about SAT scores. It all depends on how we do on the test." Johnny explained.
Shanks blinked, "How do you know that?"
"Everyone in this classroom has taken the WASL. You have to take it in the fourth, seventh, and tenth grade and you really have to pass the one in the tenth grade." Johnny explained.
"I hated the English part. I failed it all three times." Kyler added.
Shanks looked at Kyler, "English? Isn't that what you speak?"
"English is just a fancy word for reading and writing, Mr. Shanks." Victoria explained.
"…oh. Well, it's time for today's lessons. The field and wooded areas are off limits for today until the school catches the kids who did the anti-Bush…whoever he is…thing on the grass in the field…"
"Bush is the President of our country. Everyone voted for him, but because he's bringing troops into Iraq, people want him kicked out of being the president." Johnny explained.
"My dad calls all of them pansy-asses." Elie said.
"Adam says that, too. They're all just being wusses." Maura said.
"Okay, guys. That's enough of that. Since we can't do anything outside, I think we should go back to where a few of you guys teach the class something. Johnny, get up here and teach us some more of that weird 'Al Bhed' language you like speaking. Maybe we can actually use it to hide stuff away from Manson and the others in the school." Shanks ordered.
Johnny thought about it for a minute. It seemed like a good idea to hide something from everyone, especially from those that tended to look down upon those in room 314. He stood up and walked to the blackboard. "You're all probably going to want to take out papers so you can write down some of the sentences and letters I'm going to be using." Johnny said to the class. He continued with his lesson, not exactly caring if only one or two of the students actually took out papers and began writing.
"I'll give you the translations for the first ten letters of the English language." Johnny explained, writing 'A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J' on the board and then directly under them, 'Y, P, L, T, A, V, K, R, E, Z' under them. "Here are the translations. You can mess around with these to make them into actual words, but sometimes it's more fun to learn letters by looking at an Al Bhed sentence and its translation. Here are a few we could use…"
Johnny continued to work on the blackboard, writing down English sentences with their Al Bhed translations:
I'm going to kick your ass- E's kuehk du gelg ouin ycc
Fuck off- Vilg uvv
I'm sorry- E's cunno
You can't prove I did it- Oui lyh'd bnuja E tet ed
Shut the Hell up!- Crid dra Ramm ib!
No, I didn't- Hu, E teth'd
So what if I did?- Cu fryd ev E tet?
Shanks had to admit, although he didn't particularly like any of the students in this classroom, he had to admit that Johnny was right about learning things easier with the sentences and it was pretty interesting learning something new. Apparently most of the students looked intrigued with his lesson because they knew that if they learned this language, they could keep something to themselves. It even got them to quiet down just a tiny bit…or maybe was it because Johnny was up there? No, that couldn't be it. Kurt and Elie were watching him quietly with looks of hope in their eyes, like they knew that they could keep secrets from everyone else and this was the best way to do it. If Shanks was up there, giving the lesson himself, if he actually mastered the Al Bhed language, they would have listened and given him more respect.
Johnny finished his little mini-Al Bhed lesson and took a few questions before proceeding back to his seat. Almost immediately, the door to the class opened and there in the doorway stood Principal Manson and a few security guards.
"You…all of you…I want you to come down to my office immediately. I have some questioning for all of you." Manson ordered the students.
Everybody stood up and began walking out of the class. Shanks turned to Kurt and Elie and asked, "Why did you guys give in to the guards so simply?"
"Because those assholes have taisers and those things hurt." Kurt explained. Elie nodded in agreement.
"This is great. I knew this was going to happen. Somebody said that we were the ones that vandalized the fields so here we are being punished for it." Maura said in an upset voice. "This is just like what happened three years ago back in middle school."
"What happened three years ago that is like this?" Shanks asked her.
Kyler answered this one, "Back in middle school some kid was causing bomb threats and the principal wanted to know who did it, so everyone was accusing each other. Naturally, at the top of the lists were Maura, Johnny, Victoria, Elie, and me because a bunch of kids hated us for no reason. They never found out who did it and we were in…in…what was that word they used?"
"Interrogated." Victoria said.
"Yeah. We were like that for hours before we were allowed to go home." Kyler finished.
Like what happened three years ago, as Kyler had said, each and every one of the students in the class was interrogated by age. Larry, being the eldest went in first. Shanks sat in the interrogation room, which was actually the teacher's lounge, the table where they ate lunch. The questions being asked to Larry was the same to all the others. "What were you doing on Saturday night from 8:00 to 10:45pm? Who were you with? Where were you? Did you do anything else? Did you vandalize the field? What is your opinion on Bush? Have you ever vandalized anything before? Do you know who did this? Do you know who might have accused you of vandalism?"
"On Saturday night I was at my friend Adam Anders' house from 7:00 to 11:00 playing poker, Maura and Kyler can back me up a little. I was with Adam, Alice, and Maura Anders and Kyler Hooker. I went home at 11:00. I have better things to do than vandalize a field. Bush is my President and that's all I'm going to say. I did vandalize the side of the school building ten years ago with Adam Anders, if you can remember. I don't know who did it and I have no clue." Larry's answered.
Kurt was next since he was the second oldest. "I was going over plans on Saturday. Elie. None of your business. You think I would waste my time vandalizing a field? I don't really give a damn about Bush."
Kyler was next, being the third eldest. "Up until nine I was at the Karaoke bar downtown but went to my neighbor's house to play poker. Maura was with me the whole time. At 11:00 I went home. I wouldn't vandalize a place that you can play soccer on. Bush doesn't bother me. I vandalized a neighbor's car when with Maura when I was nine. No. No."
Victoria went up next, being the fourth eldest. "Up until nine I was at Capricorn Karaoke Bar with Kyler, Maura, and Johnny. After the bar, I had to go home because I had chores the next day. I did not vandalize the field nor do I know who did it or why people think I did. I've also never vandalized anything before. I think Bush is doing a wonderful job as President."
Next up was Johnny. "I was at Capricorn Karaoke Bar up until nine, where I went home. At the bar I was with Kyler, Victoria, and Maura. I didn't do anything else. No, I didn't vandalize the field, I swear in the name of Yevon. Bush? Eh, big deal. No, I never vandalized anything. I don't know who did it and I can't tell you who got me on the accusation list."
Maura, being the next eldest went up next. "I was at work until nine and I was with Kyler, Johnny, Victoria, and my co-workers. At nine, I went home to play poker with Larry, Kyler, and my big brother. Why would I waste my time vandalizing a field? Tell you what, if Bush could find a way to get me free cigarettes, he'd be my friend for life. Aside from little Halloween pranks with egging houses and TPing property, I did vandalize a car that belonged to a neighbor of mine with Kyler back when I was seven. I have no clue who did it and I can't tell you who assumed that I did it because the list of names would be too long."
Elie was the youngest, so she went last. "I was going over a plan on Saturday. Kurt. Why would I tell you? You think I would waste my time vandalizing a field? I don't really give a damn about Bush."
Lynn was the only one of the eight that was not interviewed and the reason for that was that nobody accused her of doing the vandalism in the field. It wasn't really very fair to both her and the rest of the class that she was there. It wasn't fair to her because she had to sit for hours in the office when nobody accused her of what happened. It wasn't fair to everyone else that she was the only person in the class that wasn't accused even though she likely was the one that really did do it.
Since Kyler, Maura, Larry, Johnny, and Victoria had parts of their stories mingled together, the interrogators didn't have to question them very long. They only had to ask Victoria and Johnny to explain a little deeper what they were doing after they left the bar at the same time as Kyler and Maura at nine o'clock.
Kurt and Elie were the most difficult ones to interrogate since they didn't explain very much of what they were doing or where they were going even though they were in the same place. They were the ones that took up two of the three hours of interrogation. It would have gone longer if Elie had more time to continue with more answers but the lunch bell rang and all of the students ran out. It didn't really matter that they did. It wasn't like they were going to admit what they had done if they had done it.
All the talk in the cafeteria was all about the vandalism of the field. Some of the students thought it was rather funny, but the jocks were annoyed. Because of the vandalism, the field was off-limits and if the field was off-limits, that meant no sports.
From inside the teacher's lounge, the talk of vandalism was more intense. Aside from the students in room 314, only three other students: two boys and a girl, were interrogated but none admitted that they had done it nor had they knew who really had and they had no intention of doing so no matter how serious the situation was. For the first time ever, Shanks stood up for the seven of his accused students. Larry, Kyler, Maura, Johnny, and Victoria's stories all checked out and it was unlikely that they would take the time to burn a message into a field, especially since Kyler and Johnny played soccer. Kurt and Elie, as tough as they were, were the types of kids that used fists rather than messages. If they wanted to do some damage, they would use what Shanks had taught them.
All of the students met up after lunch in their classrooms, where it was time to continue the lessons they were to be learning. Like Shanks had said before, there was going to be a test on subtraction and thankfully, in the storage closet, there was a folder of already made math problems. Shanks took out eight of the subtraction papers and handed each paper in front of each student as soon as they were all seated in their desks.
Immediately Larry, Johnny, and Victoria went at it, scribbling down answers as quickly as they could. Maura rolled her eyes, but followed her friend's movements and began to scribble down answers. Kyler and Lynn, though they were both seventeen, took a while to write their answers down. Kyler actually had to think about his answers while Lynn just chose to take her sweet time. Kurt and Elie refused to do the paper all together. It just lay on the desks in front of them.
After a half an hour, everyone but Kurt and Elie were finished with their tests. In fact, Kurt and Elie didn't even touch their papers. They just stayed in the same position they were in earlier without a single mark on them.
"Okay, guys. Hand in your papers." Shanks ordered. Larry, Kyler, Lynn, Victoria, Johnny, and Maura handed up their papers and gave them to Shanks. The man looked at Kurt and Elie and asked, "You two…is there a reason why you didn't do anything?"
"We didn't want to." Kurt answered.
"I don't give a damn if you wanted to or not. I want you to do it." Shanks ordered.
Kurt and Elie looked at each other, grabbed their papers, and tore them into little pieces before tossing the pieces in different directions.
"Fine. Be that way, but remember, I can kick your ass even though I have only one arm because I'm stronger than both of you combined and you know it." Shanks told them. He quickly looked over all the papers and said, "The rest of you. Great job. A. Now, to go on with another lesson. I remember that back when I first came here, I had a book on US history, so we're going to be going over it and if you already know what I'm going to be teaching, then I don't give a shit. I still want you to pay attention."
Shanks reached into his desk and pulled out the thick and very worn history book that was inside. "Okay, let's skip this introduction shit…okay, here we go. 'Before the English came to America to escape tyranny and their crowded country in the 1600s, the people that lived in America were the Native Americans, or Indians as they are often called…'"
None of the students were paying attention. In fact, after a few small groans, they were just sitting there, either writing, drawing, or just staring off into space…up until about twenty-five minutes into Shanks' reading when Kyler fell asleep. It didn't bother Shanks, though. They were all practically quiet and Kyler didn't snore all that loudly, so he didn't have to worry about shutting them up. Besides, he didn't really much care for the history, either.
Shanks' reading went on for an hour and a half before he woke Kyler up with a loud, swift smack on the back of the boy's head. There was only one more hour left of school and so far, the rest of the students were half asleep, so to pass some time, Kyler walked up and turned on the TV.
The channel that was on was a news channel and the topic that was being discussed was the vandalism of the field at school with the anti-Bush messages. After a few minutes of the female news reporter repeating what everyone already knew, a little video of the school being vandalized was shown, a thing from the surveillance camera Victoria explained.
Although the camera was in black-and-white and the four teens were dressed in black, it was easy to tell that there were two boys and two girls doing the damage. In fact, Kyler, Lynn, Maura, Johnny, and Victoria actually knew who they were.
"Dude, it's the rejects!" Kyler shouted.
"The what?" Shanks asked.
"Those four we call 'the rejects'. They used to be in this class before you came along. Randy, Cole, Sierra, and Teresa were probably the worst students that ever had to be in this room. They were like Lynn, but about ten times as whiny and bitchy. Because of their failing grades, they were sent here, but they cried about everything and I do mean everything. If they got a bad grade, couldn't think of the answer to a question, or if we were better than them at something, they would whine until the temporary teacher gave in." Johnny explained.
"They are some of the rich kids at the school, but nobody likes them. Our temporary teachers finally kicked them out of the class and none of the other teachers wanted them, but Principal Manson made them be in a class. He put them in room 113, which is the study hall room so they could learn at their own pace." Victoria added.
"They're always trying to be popular, so they try doing things to be noticed. They tried out for Victoria's play, but none got through. This is probably revenge or probably another thing for attention." Kyler continued.
"They'll fess up. They always do." Maura said.
"Well, then I guess it's a good thing that I got here early. One Lynn is bad enough, but five would be too much." Shanks said.
"Oh, trust me…and Lynn, this is a compliment, Lynn is nothing compared to them. There would have to be ten Lynns to make one of the rejects." Johnny said.
"So, you call them the rejects because they were kicked out of this class?" Shanks asked. Everyone nodded.
The students watched the news until the bell rang and Kyler turned off the TV. Everyone started gathering up their belongings.
"Okay, I'll see you guys tomorrow." Shanks said.
"Mr. Shanks, you have to come with us. Rehearsals are today and you promised that you would be the king in my play." Victoria pointed out.
"Oh, that's right." Shanks said, suddenly remembering his promise to Victoria. He smacked his hand against his forehead. Now he was stuck at the school even longer.
"And you have to come with us back to Maura's house to ask Alice to make our costumes. You promised."
"…Dammit. This is why I hate making promises to kids. They always remember them." Shanks cursed the day he started making the promises.
The nine from the room, both gloomily and happily, walked down to the cafeteria. Everyone that got a part in the play was already present and that was a good thing. That meant no waiting for others to come and they could get right to work and the sooner they started, the sooner they could stop.
Victoria placed a smile on her face, reached into her bag, and pulled out all the needed scripts. "Thank you all for coming. As I promised, I made copies of the script for everyone that needs one. When I call your name, please pick up your part." Victoria announced.
"What are we going to do about costumes? Are we going to wear the old worn out ones from the school?" the girl playing Lynn's understudy asked.
"We are trying to find a way to get new costumes," Victoria explained, "And if our plan does not work, then we might have to make our own or use the old ones."
All the girls and the two boys playing the male fairies wrinkled their noses in disgust.
Victoria began to call out names and hand out scripts to those that needed them. Once finished, she announced, "Alright. In this first scene, the townspeople are walking around town, talking to each other when Deveon and Samuel walk up, so I would like the townspeople, Kyler, and Johnny to go up on the stage. The understudies will stand by me for a while to watch what happens. Don't worry, I will practice with you guys, too." The small group of people walked onto the stage. "Alright and…go!"
As soon as Victoria said the word "go", the large doors to the cafeteria opened and a large group of rather large male jocks came inside and began throwing around paper balls, banging into those in the play, and making a lot of noise.
"Hold on." Victoria told those on the stage. She turned to the largest boy and said loudly, "Excuse me, but we're trying to rehearse."
"Then you should have talked to the principal about using this cafeteria. The field is off-limits until they find the assholes that wrecked it, so we're using the cafeteria for track." the boy replied.
"The announcements said that we were going to be using the cafeteria for our play." Victoria explained. "You have to leave."
"We want to be in the play then." Another boy, the fourth largest, said.
Victoria shook her head, "It's too late. The play has already been cast. There are no more parts. Please leave."
None of the jocks moved.
"Didn't you hear her? Get lost! We're trying to work!" Maura shouted at the jocks. She was backed up by a group of "yeah, get lost"s by the other cast members.
The tallest boy glared at Maura and walked up to her, showing that he was easily a foot taller than her 5'5''. "Shut your damn mouth." he said before shoving her.
Immediately, Kyler jumped off the stage and gave the boy a sucker-punch for shoving his girlfriend.
The boy turned his attention from Maura to Kyler and spit on the ground. Blood and a loose tooth fell to the hard, cold floor of the cafeteria and the boy was pissed.
Inside, Shanks was actually pleased with what Kyler had done. He would have done the same thing, but that wasn't really the thing he was pleased with. He was pleased that Kyler actually used force in his punch even if he didn't stop and think. Kyler knew his target and how much strength he wanted to use and he hit his target and caused some damage even if the outcome wasn't as good as it could have been.
The boy that got punched had muscles, big muscles, much bigger than the ones Kurt had and certainly much bigger than Kyler's. Quickly, he grabbed Kyler by the throat and began to squeeze.
"Let go of him!" Maura screamed in alarm. At the same time, her and Johnny, who had jumped off the stage, began to beat against the largest boy to get him to release Kyler.
The boy released Kyler after about thirty seconds, causing Kyler to fall to his knees coughing for breath. The tallest boy was now heading for Johnny. Before he could even grab Johnny, the understudies, or at least most of them, began to attack. He was completely outnumbered. "Guys! Give me a hand!" he shouted to the other jocks.
His fellow jocks followed the order and began to attack the male cast members, who fought back. Soon, the cafeteria was no longer filled with the patience of cast members ready to rehearse for the big play. It was now filled with screams, curses, and fighting from both innocent cast members and brutal track team members.
Victoria was almost in tears. All her hard work and plans for the day were completely ruined and no matter how loud she called and screamed for everyone to stop, nothing worked. She wanted to ask Kurt, Elie, and Larry for help since they were the strongest of her play members, but they were too busy fighting. She ran up to Shanks, who was looking at all the fighting, wondering who he was going to attack without hurting an innocent play member. "Mr. Shanks, what do we do? People are going to get hurt!" She asked fearfully.
Shanks suddenly had an idea and it was going to be one that Victoria would not like. "You have to use your powers." he said simply.
"But, the only move I know is for a barrier and I don't know how to make a barrier for multiple targets." Victoria explained.
"No, I mean you have to use your powers to attack. Do you remember last week when you and Maura were walking through the back of the school and were outnumbered by the rich kids and you used that wind move to knock everybody back?" Shanks asked. Victoria nodded. "Good. You're going to have to use that again. You can even scream a message to them."
"The wind will carry the sound?" Victoria asked.
Shanks shrugged, "It might. Just do what I told you to do with the barrier attack. It should be easier to do this time since Kyler won't be making faces at you. Just close your eyes, summon a windstorm, and scream a message…just don't use too much force or you could hurt somebody."
Victoria was hesitant, but she nodded. She took a deep breath, summoned a small windstorm, screamed, and as the wind came and knocked the fighters in different directions, her scream echoed. "STOP!!!"
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A/N: Happy Birthday to me…yes, today really is my birthday and I decided to be nice and present you guys with not one, but two chapters of this story.
There are tests actually called the ITED and WASL that are taken in Washington and the explanation of what they do and times are based on a schedule from Whidbey Island. The ITED is pointless, but they make ninth graders take it (for reasons I'm still unsure of) and the WASL is more important than the SATs (for another reason I'm unsure of).
There is also no rapper called "Yo Momma" (or if there is, then he must not be very popular). I just made the name up for humor purposes.