Chapter 9
Monday morning came, and Sam's guard was up. He thought that he wasn't too old to remember what it was like when he was a teenager, and how weekends were a time to relax from the worries of school. However, it was also a time to get into trouble, and wind up for creating a whole bunch of it at school the first day back. The smart teachers were always on alert for hijinks, and Sam intended to be one of them.
He entered his classroom early to prepare for the day. He set down a styrofoam cup of coffee on his desk along with his books and moved the television and DVD player from the corner. He brought along a visual presentation today, because they jumped ahead to the 20th century after a class discussion on Friday. When this job was over and the real teacher returned he would probably have a fit with Sam for changing things up, but he didn't care, as long as the kids stayed interested and were learning.
"Hey, Sam."
Sam turned from the chalkboard and smiled at his friend. "Jack. Pushing the broom again today, huh?"
"Yeah. I'm tellin' you, Axeman, you got the better end of the deal here." He stopped next to the desk, scanned the board and what Sam had written, and asked, "What are you doing?"
"We're moving into the 20th century this week. Something came up on Friday about military tactics, and the guys really got fired up about it. Some of the girls were really into it too, which surprised the heck out of me." He shrugged. "Anyway, we're going to cover Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and all the places in between, comparing and contrasting them with wars fought for freedom in our country." He winked at Jack. "And if we're still here next week, I'll be grading papers the kids write based on today's lesson."
"Interesting." Jack's face lit up. "You should really consider doing this for a living, Axeman. You've got a gift."
"I don't think so, Jack. I like what I'm doing with you, and Mike." He stood in thought a moment, glanced down at his notes, and continued drawing a diagram on the board. "Besides, dealing with the unruly kids...well, I'm afraid I can only be so creative before they catch on. Right now I'm just hoping I can make this engaging enough that they'll participate instead of instigate."
Jack nodded. "Well, the reason I came in here was to tell you I have some more intel on this gang. I picked it up this weekend when Sash and I were out on a date."
"Mixing work and pleasure?" Sam laughed.
"It was purely by accident, I assure you," Jack replied with a smirk. "Looks like these kids hang out at that new drive-in restaurant on Flagler."
"The one with the carhops on skates?"
"Yeah, that's the one." Jack pulled something out of his pocket and unfolded it.
"They say everything old becomes new again. Please don't tell me they hung out wearing leather jackets and greased their hair."
"No, but it was obvious who they were. I recognized that Nick kid, and Joel. He's obviously the ringmaster in their little circus. Nick thinks he's second lieutenant."
"How many others were there?"
"A half dozen if you include those two." Jack handed him a piece of paper. "Those are their names with pictures. I got this from Carl this morning."
"Uh huh. These kids are all in the files he gave me. So we know who, but how are we going to stop them?"
Jack stepped closer and leaned against the desk. "I think you're doing a good job on your own. You start turning a couple of these kids around and they'll stop hanging with the others. Pretty soon they won't have a gang."
"Joel's the strongest link, and he was pretty unresponsive to my attempts. But then, who knows, it was my first day with him." Sam paused and rubbed his chin. "I'm just not convinced that kid is going to make it easy."
"Then you watch him, Sam, because he may try something extracurricular, if you know what I mean."
Sam nodded. Every day he left the school and walked to his car, he was vigilant against attack from one or more of the kids that he butted heads with. "I'll be careful, Jack. You just keep hanging around."
"Will do, Axeman. Have a good one!" He stepped away from the desk, picked up the broom handle, and pushed some dirt across the floor and into the hallway. He slipped past Nick and one of his friends. They glared at Sam. Nick whispered something to his friend, and he peeled away as Nick entered the classroom.
"You're early, Nick. Did you have a good weekend?"
"It was okay." He walked past Sam and trudged to his seat.
Sam turned his back to finish the board, but he stayed keenly aware of Nick's activities behind him. He heard a sound and turned toward the door. Joel came in, eyeing Sam as he took his seat in front of Nick. He finished writing on the board and turned.
"You guys are both early. Don't you have somewhere you should be right now?" He locked gazes with Joel. "I believe you have Geometry right now, Joel. And Nick, you should be in Biology, if I'm not mistaken."
"What's with you, man? You're like some kind of spy or something, knowing our schedules and stuff," Joel protested with anger in his voice and his body leaning forward, poised to spring at Sam.
Yeah, now that you mention it... "Maybe I care about you getting an education?" He smiled. "I'm flattered that you like my class so much, but..."
"It's got nothing to do with your class...Axeman." Nick spat as he unfurled himself from his seat. "Oh yeah, I heard you talking with that guy pretending to be the janitor."
"He's a friend of mine. So what?" Sam stood in front of his desk and crossed his arms casually across his blue and white hawaiian shirt. "We were in the Navy together, and that was my nickname. Big deal."
"No, something else was going on. I heard you guys talking." Nick stood an arm's length away, and Joel covered his back. "I think you're undercover, like a cop."
Sam laughed and shook his head. "You're funny, Nick. Very funny."
"We ain't laughing," Joel muttered as he moved forward.
Sam heard a blade being drawn as Joel closed the distance between himself and Sam. Nick backed out of the way, leaving it clear for Sam to quickly unfold his arms and reach out. He grasped Joel's wrist, twisted, and forced him to his knees in pain. Within seconds the knife clattered to the floor and Sam pressed Joel into his desktop face first with a chokehold, while he twisted the kid's weapon hand behind his back.
Someone gasped just as Nick picked up the knife and was about to come down with it, aiming for Sam's back. "Mr. Axe! What's going on?"
Sam glanced up. "Oh, hi, Kelsey. Meghan. Nothing much. Just showing these guys a few moves I learned in the Navy. Isn't that right, guys?" He hauled Joel up roughly by the arm and nearly popped it out of the kid's socket. He slapped him hard on the back. "Now, that, guys, is how you take out an armed assailant." He chuckled nervously, watching Joel and Nick as the girls took their seats in the front row.
Joel shrugged out of his grip and slunk back to his desk. Nick followed. He glared at Sam, but there was also a sense of disbelief in his eyes. This was the perfect chance to bust them, but he glossed it over and let them go back to their seats as if nothing had ever happened.
"Oh, Nick, can I have that please?" Sam held out his hand for the knife that Nick picked up from the floor. He was half surprised when the teen laid it in his palm, instead of stabbing him through with it. "Thanks." The knife disappeared in the large desk drawer among the cellphones and other contraband that collected in it on a weekly basis.
When the entire class was assembled, Sam started. "After Friday's discussion, I decided we're going to do something different in this classroom. Shake things up a bit." As he talked, Sam paced the floor slowly. He glanced at Joel and Nick long enough to make them uncomfortable, and returned his attention to the others. "I want you to work in teams of three, but I don't want you hangin' with your friends. Starting here, number one through six." He pointed to each student as they counted off. When they were done, he said, "Find your fellow ones, twos, threes, and so on and bunch together." He handed each group a sheet of paper. "On this piece of paper you will find information about a specific war. You'll have twenty minutes to look in your textbooks or get on the computers to find out what you can on this war, the countries involved, the leaders, et cetera. Then we'll discuss what you found, briefly, and your assignment for the week will be, as a group, to come up with as much information as you can to do a presentation on Friday."
"What kind of presentation, Mr. Axe?"
"It can be whatever you want it to be, Meghan. You want to do a paper? Go for it. Anyone with drawing talent? You could create a storyboard. Or a skit. Whatever your creative minds can come up with. The point is it has to be relevant to the subject matter, and cover the main points that are on each of your papers. The rest is up to you. So, you now have seventeen minutes. Get moving."
Nick and Joel each wound up with two girls, which displeased them to no end. Sam sat behind the desk and watched them try to interact with the girls, but they were having no luck. Tough. They need to learn to work with other people besides their homies, men or women. I just hope the girls are concerned enough about their grades that they don't let the two drag them down to an 'F' on this project.
"Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. Everyone on the team gets the same grade, so you're accountable to each other. I would suggest meeting outside of class to get this done right." He smiled. "Have fun, ladies and gentlemen." He put his feet up on the desk and opened the textbook, reading and watching the activity around the room.
To Sam's surprise, Meghan took charge of her group, which included Joel. She was one of the quieter students, but she knew the material when she came to class. The other girl read the paper to them, and Meghan immediately came up with a plan. Her hands moved about animatedly as she and the other girl plotted away. Joel looked lost, and his eyes met Sam's, threatening to get him back for this injustice.
Sam expected to have trouble when phys ed classes came around, especially with Nick and Joel in the same session. They were at the pool today, so Sam wore his swimming trunks with one of his older hawaiian shirts. Since his first day, when he got a lay of the land and saw what the other teachers were wearing, he decided that he needed to project a different image. He gained the kids' respect, and after that, he became the cool teacher, so he had to dress the part.
The kids lined up along the pool edge, and he divided them into groups of four. "We're doing the 200 yard relay today, people! Two of your team members on each side of the pool!" Six lanes were filled with teams of four. The first swimmers took their mark, Sam blew the whistle, and the first kids hit the water.
"Hey, Sam."
"Mike!" Sam turned, startled to see his friend standing there, dressed in a suit. "What are you doing here? You're not working, are you?"
"I had a meeting with Pearce this morning and I was in the neighborhood, thought I'd stop by. Nice look, Sam." He eyed Sam's attire and grinned. "So how are things going in the blackboard jungle?"
"Not bad. I had Joel pull a knife on me before second period today."
"That's not bad? I'd hate to see what bad is." Michael scanned the wet students standing on each side of the pool. "Is he here now?"
"He's swimming in lane four. Why?"
"Just sizing up your adversaries." Michael smiled.
"Don't worry about him. I've got everything under control. For the week he's stuck with two girls doing a project on war. Should be interesting to see what they come up with, and if he participates."
"Poor girls."
"No, if he screws around, I think it's gonna be poor Joel. Meghan and Jill take their grades seriously."
Michael laughed. "I didn't know you had it in you, Sam."
"Hey, I can torture as well as the next guy. But seriously, Mike, this was just fate. I had nothing to do with it."
"Ah, so that's him, huh?" Michael peered at the tall kid who got out of the pool and glared at them. "He's wiry, but he looks tough. Be careful, Sam."
Sam sighed. "That's what everybody keeps telling me. It's okay! But if I need any help I'll ask. I've already had to disarm the kid, so he knows he's gonna have to be careful trying to mess with me."
"Just the same..." He patted Sam's arm. "I'll see you later."
"Yeah, you go home and take care of that baby!" Sam turned and found the last swimmer touching the side of the pool. "Okay, that was good, but let's step it up. I want to see you shave off thirty seconds! Come on, that's not much! One more relay!"
As class wound down, he gave them some free swim time. Sam recorded the results of the relays in a notebook while he sat on the bleachers. He sensed someone standing nearby and looked up.
"Can I help you, Joel?"
"Nick says you were a frog or something in the Navy."
Sam cocked a grin. "A SEAL."
"What's that mean?"
"It stands for SEa, Air, and Land. We were trained to handle any mission that involved any of those things. Why do you ask?"
"So you've got to be a pretty good swimmer, huh?"
Sam nodded, not sure what he was getting at. "Speaking of, you and Nick are not bad yourselves. You scored some of the best times on the relay."
Joel wasn't impressed. "I wanna challenge you, man."
"Challenge me? What do you mean?"
"A race. We swim 200 yards, no relay. Just mano a mano."
"There's no time left today," Sam said as he glanced at his watch.
"Tomorrow, then."
"I'll see if I can..." The bell rang, rescuing him from giving Joel a definite answer.
"Looking forward to it, Axeman." He sneered and walked away with Nick.