{As promised, here is the next chapter. This one's a juicy one too because it contains one of my all time favorite Disney villains…who we'll be seeing a lot of in this story (SPOILER ALERT!) Heh-heh…anyway, enjoy!}
Chapter Six
Ethics was supposedly in the English and History building, but I wasn't sure where the classroom was. It was labeled as Class Number "0," which completely perplexed me, so I stood there on the first floor, in the main hallway, blinking like an idiot with my schedule in my hand.
Fortunately for me, I heard the sound of Belle's pretty laughter and her saying, "See, I told you guys he'd be here."
I smiled in relief as I saw her walk up with Wendy and a slender black girl who had intelligent brown eyes and a pretty smile. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun and she was wearing practical clothes. I recognized her from my history class, where she had mostly ignored the bickering and clowning, and paid attention when Professor Porter started talking.
"Hello, Shane," said Wendy.
"This is my best friend Tiana," said Belle.
"Oh, thanks," said Wendy.
Belle giggled. "Sorry, Wendy. My other best friend."
"Nice to meet you," I said. I squinted at her, recalling that she was one of the newer princesses in the Disney lineup. "I haven't actually seen your movie."
"What?" Tiana asked, confused.
'Keep it together, Shane,' I chided myself before saying aloud, "Sorry, sometimes I say things that don't make sense. I have a dumb sense of humor."
"Then you'll fit right in here," she said.
"Frollo's room is down in the dungeon," said Belle. "This way."
"The dungeon?" I repeated, not sure if I had heard her correctly. But she just laughed and started walking.
I followed them down the hallway to the side of the building, where we opened a heavy pair of double doors and began to descend down into darkness.
"So are you in Class Council too?" I asked Tiana.
"Nope," she replied curtly. "Too busy."
"Tiana's got two jobs," Belle explained.
"Even if I didn't," Tiana said, "I have no time and no interest for all that foolishness."
Wendy made a tiny offended noise. "Oh come on, Tiana, it's not foolishness."
"It is way too much drama for my tastes," Tiana said. She glanced back at me and said, "I hate drama. I've just got no patience for it."
"Oh, same here," I quickly agreed. I paused and noticed our surroundings. "Hey, this is actually pretty creepy down here."
We were at the bottom of the stairs and I could see that there were actually torches providing lighting, which created a sense of eeriness.
"Yes, this is terrifying and I sort of wish we didn't have this class," said Wendy. She actually looked a little pale but I wasn't sure if it was just the glow of the torches giving off strange lighting.
We walked to the large iron doors at the end of the hallway and opened them to find a large, cavernous classroom. Not many people were inside the room, which looked like sort of a cross between an old Catholic church and indoor Greek amphitheater. It reminded me a bit of Snape's classroom in the Harry Potter films. I kind of liked it. It had style.
Wendy, of course, wanted to sit near the front. Naturally, those seats were open and I reluctantly followed the three girls over to her desired section. We set down our things and then I perched up on top of my desk, resting my shoes on the seat, so that I could look out at the rest of the room behind us as people started to enter.
"So what is this class even about?" I asked.
"Mr. Frollo attempts to instill in us ethical values to guide us in our decision making processes as we leave the school and make the transition from adolescent to adult," Belle answered. "It's supposed to be intense. I'm kind of intrigued, to tell the truth."
"He used to be a judge," Wendy said. "He's very serious."
"He's a creep," Tiana said. "Straight up."
"You don't know that," said Belle.
"With some people, you can just tell," Tiana said. "And he's one of them. Trust me."
The doors opened and the rest of the class began to pour in. To my dismay, I saw Gaston's head towering above the rest.
"Crap," I said.
"Oh no," said Belle, "Maybe you should try and sit somewhere else before he sees you."
"Who?" demanded Tiana. "Gaston? No, screw that guy. Don't you go anywhere, Shane."
"I'm just trying to avoid a confrontation here," Belle said. "It's only his first day."
"Well he can't run away from him forever. Besides, Gaston needs to learn he can't always get his way, that ass-hat."
I sighed. "That's easy for you to say, Tiana."
It didn't take long for Gaston to spot Belle and he strode purposefully over to where we were sitting, followed by his ever-present lackey LeFou. I tried to duck my head and remain as incognito as possible. If I was lucky, Gaston's simple one-track brain would be too pre-occupied with love for himself and lust for Belle to notice the other insignificant people around him.
"Belle!" Gaston exclaimed, laughing heartily. "Of all the surprises. Fancy running into you here! And to think I was afraid we wouldn't have any classes together because you're on the honor track."
"What a tragedy that would have been," Belle sighed dismally.
"I wanted to allow you to apologize for the little…for the way this morning went," Gaston continued as LeFou snickered. "I think we got off on the wrong foot."
"You want…me…to apologize?" Belle repeated, her mouth gaping. You would think she'd be used to his act by now, but you'd be wrong.
"Well, I guess we're both a little at fault here," Gaston said. "I can be a little too…enthusiastic sometimes and that gets misinterpreted by some people as aggression. But I'm a gentle soul at heart. Really."
Tiana snorted and he gave her a dirty look. LeFou, however, looked and saw me sitting there, trying unsuccessfully to blend in with the desk I was sitting in.
"Hey, Gaston, look who it is!" he declared.
"You little asshole," I said between clenched teeth.
"Now this really is surprising!" Gaston said, a malicious glint entering his eye. "I was hoping to run into you again, my friend. Looks like it's my lucky day!"
"Look, man, I'm not trying to pick a fight with you," I said. "I don't care about strutting around and puffing my chest out, trying to be a tough guy or anything. I just want to go to school because I have to, and that's all. You go ahead and do your thing."
Once again, I noticed all the students in the back of the classroom perking up and all starting to watch the second round of our conflict. In the very back, I caught a glimpse of an amused-looking Meg watching with her arms crossed. She had three friends with her, who all looked equally intrigued.
Gaston's eyes narrowed and he took a step towards me, looming like a bulldozer. "Well maybe it's a little too late for backtracking now. You punked me in front of my fellow Disney High Lions, and I can't let that go unpunished."
"Oh, go jump off a bridge, Gaston!" said Tiana. "Stop trying to be some macho bully, you idiot."
Gaston chuckled, a dangerous sound coming from him. "Oh, Tiana, you are very lucky that you are a girl, very lucky indeed…but keep in mind, nobody slaps a bitch like Gaston."
That got a big reaction from our fellow students, including hysterical laughter from Meg and her crowd. I noticed that Jasmine was sitting nearby as well, shaking her head at this display.
"Oh, hell no!" Tiana shouted, jumping up. Wendy squeaked and cowered in her seat, but Belle and I quickly got between Tiana and Gaston, restraining her.
"Tiana, chill," I warned, still clinging to the hope that I could somehow prevent this from turning ugly. Those hopes, however, were quickly slipping away.
"I'm not just gonna let him talk to me like that!" she protested.
"Seriously, Gaston!" Belle pleaded, "Just leave us all alone. Mr. Frollo is going to be here any minute now and you don't want him thinking we're trying to disrupt his class."
"I'm not afraid of that creepy old man," Gaston scoffed. "What's he gonna do, tie me to the goalposts and whip me?"
At that moment, a deeply rich, sinister voice announced, "1959. Whipping as a punishment was first appealed to the Disney District's Board of Education as a target for reform. It was quickly and swiftly denied."
While everybody else scrambled for their seats, Belle, Tiana, Gaston and I froze as a tall, narrow figure emerged from the shadows near a towering bookcase filled with thick volumes of what were presumably law and reference books.
"Oh shit," LeFou gulped, quickly ducking behind our desks and climbing into his, as though he had been sitting in his seat the whole time. Belle, Gaston, Tiana, and I however, were rooted where we stood, locked in the fearsome gaze of Mr. Claude Frollo.
"Where did he even come from?" Tiana whispered, almost inaudibly. Nobody answered her.
Frollo stepped forward. "1968. Nearly ten years later, whipping as an acceptable form of punishment was again brought up for questioning following the tumultuous changes that were sweeping the country during what some called 'The Sexual Revolution' and the backlash stemming from the Vietnam War. However, despite the most earnest hopes of the long-haired so-called flower children, whipping was not only upheld, but embraced even more fully by the schools in the District."
His face was terrifying-all sharp angles and pale skin stretched over hollow cheekbones, with dark eyes that seemed to gaze directly into my soul. It was almost as if he could see every wrong thing I had ever done, and it made me feel like I wanted to throw up all over the stone floor.
He took another few steps forward, eyes burning with a low, smoldering black fire. "The issue was not raised again until 1984, after several particularly vigorous whippings carried out in response to particularly extreme cases of insubordination resulted in some permanent damage to the offending students. This time, the controversy served to help the appeal gain traction. While some wise purists recognized the value of physical punishment, and its effectiveness in dissuading dissonance and disobedience, there were those who claimed it was archaic, barbaric, and outdated. The issue became not only a moral one, but a cultural one. As greater society continued to grow more permissible, more accommodating, more enabling, the pressures to conform to these new lax ideals were felt by many institutions, none more so than the schools. Despite passionate lobbying and unyielding support by many of the tenured educators for the retention of physical punishment, whipping as a penalty for unacceptable behavior was finally dissolved completely by the year 1987."
Frollo was now standing directly in front of the four of us. Even big, stupid Gaston seemed terrified by the razor thin old man, and he could have snapped him like a twig if he wanted to. But something in Frollo's tone and gaze kept us frozen and helpless in fear. Imagine the most intimidating, frightening teacher that you ever had over the course of your education, and I'd bet a million bucks they'd shit their pants too if they somehow caught the ire of Claude Frollo.
"Mr. Gaston," Frollo said in his low voice. "You are the starting quarterback of this school's football team, are you not?"
"Y-yes," Gaston said, eyes wide.
"The starting quarterback, a supposed leader of your team, and yet your wanton provocation of these female students belie your lacking abilities as an effective leader of men, and seem to expose you as nothing more than a boorish…bully. Do you choose to refute what I'm saying?"
"Uh…" Gaston stammered, "…I'm not…sure, exactly, what you said just now."
Frollo's eyes narrowed into tiny, wrathful little slits. "I'm saying that you don't conduct yourself in the way that you should, which I believe clearly stems from a misplaced sense of entitlement that your status as an athlete has thus far provided you with. If it were up to me, I would gladly sentence you to five lashes like we might have done in the olden days, when times were pure and students knew better how to behave."
Gaston's face fell and his big shoulders slumped, completely emasculated. Instantly, there were furious whispers throughout the class. Belle, Tiana, and I stood there, unsure of whether we were going to be safe from Frollo's judgment or if he was about to reprimand us as well.
"Take a seat, Mr. Gaston," ordered Frollo. Gaston trudged over to a seat next to LeFou and sat down with an audible WHUMPH, then slumped down and stared at the ground. Frollo's gaze drifted over to Belle, Tiana, and me. "As for you three, I don't want to see you getting into any more altercations in my classroom or there will be consequences. I don't care how innocent you claim to be. Is that understood?" We all nodded furiously and he waved a spindly hand. "Now take your seats."
We started to sit down, but then Frollo pointed at me.
"Stop," he said. "You. What is your name?"
"Uh, it's Shane," I said, my voice hoarse.
"Do you have a last name, Shane?"
"Barrera," I answered.
"Hmm," Frollo said. "Of Hispanic origin, it appears. The Spanish have reputations for being hotheaded and here you are in a near altercation with another student, in my classroom no less. Very interesting. I'm sure that you are aware, Mr. Barrera, that Spain has a very tumultuous history with France, and coincidentally, the altercation you are in is with a student who so happens to be of French origin…a heritage which he happens to have in common with none other than…myself. Are you aware of these things which I have just told you?"
I found myself blinking uncontrollably and the words that came out of my mouth struggled to form coherently. "I-no, no I didn't-I didn't know that."
"Well, Mr. Barrera, that is quite a pity, quite a pity indeed. I must admit, I don't recognize you, so I assume that you must be new here, but let me assure you of something. We have a very specific way of conducting ourselves on this campus. As the acting vice-principal of this school, it is my job to ensure that our policies are upheld and to enforce them when necessary. For those who fail to comply with our behavioral expectations, they fall into my hands for punishment. Let me advise you, Mr. Barrera, that you do not want to be one of those students whose disciplinary actions must be decided upon by me. Is that perfectly understood?"
"Yes, sir," I croaked, feeling faint.
"Very well," said Frollo. "Take your seat. I think we've had enough disruptions for the day. I want everyone to look at the syllabus on their desks. Get to know it, because you will be tested on every inch of it by the end of the week."
There were immediate groans and Frollo lashed out at us with a terrifying snarl, which served to effectively silence everyone.
"There will be absolutely no groaning, moaning, or complaining in my class. In here, my word is the law, and it will be followed unflinchingly, lest you face the consequences. And it goes without saying that stepping out of line in my classroom has very dire consequences."
{*Shudder*…Show of hands, who would like to attend a class taught by Frollo? Anyone? Anyone? I'll wait…*crickets chirp* …no? Hmm, well, that's about what I expected. No matter! There are other teachers and students at this fine establishment you'll get to see. Thanks to everybody who has left such positive reviews. I am exceedingly grateful for all of them. I will be working on uploading the next chapter soon!}