Hiya, folks! Sorry about the wait. I'm free this weekend, so I'm going to be working in high gear. I made this chapter extra-long as a present for you all reading! I hope you enjoy it 'cause my fingers hurt.

Now, before you all starting reading I want you to know that this chapter has one graphic scene. So be prepared for that. And it gets a little confusing at one point but it will be explained next chapter.

Read On!

TWO DAYS LATER

"God, why is this place so small?"

Pacing back and forth in his cell, TJ was trying to slow down his racing thoughts. In the past few days his mild paranoia had gotten much worse. The walls seemed to close in on him where ever he was, whether that be in the classroom, the open area in the dorms, or in the actual cells. He was pretty sure that there was SOMEONE watching him at all times even though he couldn't see them. No matter what he did, he could feel someone's watching him all the time and there wasn't anything he could do to be 100 percent by himself. Being in his cell was the worst. It was the smallest room, and the walls always appeared to be closing in him faster than anywhere else. Once it was 9 p.m., the cells were locked down, and the option of going outside was not there making his paranoia on his mind for the rest of the night.

"Stop pacin' the floor, Freckles, damn," Said JoJo not bothering to look up from his book. "Yo' crazy ass is makin' me nervous. Shit. Sit the fuck down…."

"There isn't any room in here….." TJ mumbled while combing his fingers through his now blonde hair. "I can't stand being in here…" After a day of accepting the new color of his hair he had gotten used to it. He still missed his brown hair and thought that he looked better with it, but he didn't look half-bad with the blond. Because his hair was bleached he knew sooner or later his hair would grow back with the brown color he was so used to. Then he could cut the blonde off.

"You know what? I don't care," JoJo snapped. "Shut the fuck up, ok? Tryin' to read…."

"….it's just…..it's just…..God!" He yelled, punching the wall the bed were standing against. He hated this. He knew his fears were irrational and unfounded, but they remained with him nonetheless. With the fear constantly on his mind he could focus on moving up the food chain.

"Hey! You're shakin' the bed!" JoJo yelled at him. "Take that shit ova somewhere else!"

"There isn't anywhere else!" Said TJ. "The room is shrinking!"

"That ain't my problem," he said setting his book down and turning off the lights. "It's midnight. Go'ta bed."

'How am I supposed to sleep with these walls closing in on me?' TJ thought as he forced himself to lay down. 'I'm gonna wake up and the walls are gonna be crushing me!' He was beginning to think that he was going crazy. The walls couldn't possibly be closing in on him, and even if there was someone watching everyone, there was no way they could be watched 24/7. It was like being in the box all over again. Closing his eyes he attempted to ease his irrational fear, but all it did was make it worse. He had to sleep; he hadn't slept very much in the last few days. So he forced himself to stay still and eventually fell asleep.

~*~THE NEXT DAY~*~

"Dude, what's up with your roommate?"

Looking up from the book he was reading, JoJo addressed the question that was asked of him from one of his 'friends.' From his seat at one of the tables in the dorms he looked across the area and saw TJ siting on the floor, back against the wall and legs brought up to his chest and mumbling something or other to himself while playing with a lock of his hair. JoJo wouldn't have let him, or anyone else for that matter, know, but he had watched other inmates come in and go through phases while they stayed; though some, including him, didn't go through those phases at all. But TJ wasn't an exception to the phenomena, so JoJo kept an eye on him, just to make sure he doesn't lose his fucking mind. Once he had to bunk with a kid who had a habit of killing small animals and was two steps away from moving up to people. That kid was soon transferred over to somewhere else, but he wasn't going to risk that again.

However, he could also tell which ids were like that and which weren't, and so far Freckles didn't seem to be that type. But he was starting to go a little stir crazy.

"I dunno," JoJo said, returning to his book. "He'll be fine…"

JoJo wasn't the only one who noticed the behavior. A few of the guard were conversing amongst themselves about it as well. The majority of them were the guards who were responsible for keeping the inmate from harming each other, and routinely spent their time bring the inmate to and from the white rooms. The white rooms made their jobs a lot easier, since it was much more convenient to put the unruly and unstable kids there instead of breaking up fights every single day. So they constantly kept a look out for signs that any of the inmates might lose their mind. Of course, the people overhead had certain criteria to call for being put in a white hall, but they kept an eye on anyone they suspected would soon meet those criteria.

While some of the guards put him on their 'to watch' list, TJ was trying to figure out what the hell was going on. He knew he needed something, something that he knew he had before but couldn't quite put a name to it. He was certain that he was beginning to cross the line into craziness at this point, but that wasn't the issue at hand, just one of them. He was always able to find something to calm his nerves, and he was trying to think of what that would be for this particular day and fast. Looking up and across the open area he could see a few other inmates getting in line in front of the closed window in the wall that was the commissary. Since he had gotten that little prison issued card he hadn't bothered to use it to buy anything.

'But I could go for a soda right about now,' He thought. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out the card that was issued to him and got into the slow moving line. He had no idea what was sold there but he hoped it wasn't sold out. Eventually he made it to the front of the line and the first thing he saw was the junk food and soda. After buying two sodas, Pepsi's to be exact, he headed back to his room to drink them. They were ice cold, and because there wasn't a way to keep them cold he wanted to drink them as soon as he could. He was stopped when he felt a firm hand grasp his shoulder.

"If you know what's best for you, you would give me the soda's," Said Tommy Gun after he spun him around.

"No! I bought them with MY MONEY," TJ told him. "If you want then you go buy it with yours!"

"Did you hit your head on somethin' and forget that you're a SCRUB?" Tommy Gun snapped at him. "I said give them to me!"

"And I said no!"

"Yeah, okay," He said. "Fine. Go ahead and take 'em. You better watch your ass when we're outside, SCRUB."

'Yeah, whatever,' TJ thought as he continued his way to his room. He hadn't seen Tommy Gun for the last week and had hoped that he found someone else to pick on. Apparently not. Twisting the cap off of one of the bottles he downed half of it in five seconds flat. 'This tastes like gold after not having it for a week.' Figuring that Tommy Gun would search his room if he's not in it, he hid the last unopened bottle underneath his mattress. There weren't many places for him to hide anything at all, but that was the best place he could think of.

"DETWEILER!" He jumped up when he suddenly heard his name being shouted. Turning around he saw a guard standing in the doorway. "You have a visitor!"

~*U*~

"I was starting to think you weren't ever going to visit."

"I said I was going to. I've just been busy."

During the long and painful (the shoes they give the inmates obviously weren't designed to be comfortable) walk to the visitors room TJ wondered if his parents had come back to visit him again so soon. He honestly didn't expected them to come back so soon, what with work and all. But that wasn't the case. The second he entered the room he could see that the person who had come to visit him was Principal Prickly. The first thing he did was run up and give the man a hug, an action which surprised the both of them. After that they sat across each other at one of the tables.

"I mean I knew you weren't gonna come right away 'cause you run the school and everything," TJ said. "But you know, still. I'm glad you came though. The school years almost over; is the school gonna be repaired by the time school starts again?"

"It should be," The principal said. "They already started doing repairs and rewiring the place. Most of its just replacing the tiles and repairing the walls. Everything next year will be new. New walls, new desks and chairs, new paint, and a new principal to run it all."

"That's good I guess….wonder if anyone else will start pulling pranks to replace me," TJ said, not paying much attention. "Wait, a new principal? What do you mean? You're not gonna run Third Street anymore?"

"Not after this school year's over," Prickly told him. "I'm retiring over the summer. I actually would've been here last weekend but I had to start working on all the paperwork….."

"It's not because of everything I did is it?" TJ asked.

"No, no. It nothing like that," The principal reassured him. "I just can't work for a system that would work so hard to put an innocent student in Juvenile Detention."

"Oh. That's a good reason…."

"But enough about that. What I want to know is what happened to your face?" He asked. "Did you run into a brick wall?"

"This kid had his friend hold me back and punched me in the face," TJ explained. "I dunno what his problem is, I didn't even say anything to him! He obviously has some problems that have yet to be addressed."

"I see. And would you like to explain why you're blonde now?"

"Because my asshole roommate bleached it," TJ hissed. "The guy barely says to words to me since I came here, and all of a sudden he decides to bleach my hair. Now I gotta wait until enough grows back in to cut it off. I hate it; it doesn't even fit me. I'd rather be a redhead than blonde."

"Don't worry. You have enough time in here to wait for it to grow out," Said Principal Prickly. "Is the school even worth asking about?"

"Nope. The teacher is nice and everything, and the work is easy, but I'm bored! I never thought I would be asking for harder work! It's stuff the third graders do! Just because we're in jail doesn't mean we're retarded!"

"At least it'll be easy to keep your grades up. That's a plus."

"Ugh…."

"Your parents visited you already, right?" The principal asked.

"Yeah. A couple of days ago. It didn't go over too well," TJ said. "I was kinda pissed that they didn't visit for a week. But whatever. Hey, was there a huge party after I left? Be honest."

"…..a couple of people did throw a party. I thought it disgusting; if they were going to be happy about something like this then that's fine but throwing a party? That's too much."

"Nah, let 'em have their fun," He said. "Just wait until I get out of here; all hell will break loose and they won't know what hit 'em."

"Try to stay out of trouble, okay? The last thing you want is to have your sentence extended."

"They can DO that?"

"Yep." Suddenly a loud bell signaling the end of visitation rang and bounced off the cement walls.

"You're gonna come and visit me again, right?" TJ hopefully asked.

"Next Friday or Saturday," Said Principal Prickly. "I can't come during the week because I have to run the school, but I'll come on Friday or Saturday, Okay?" TJ nodded just as the guard came over to escort him back to the dorms. Since turning around while walking could get him in trouble he couldn't turn back to get one last look at the room before walking down the long, dark hallways that connected the dorms to the visiting room. Since it was Saturday and there was no school, kids were scattered just about everywhere in the open area carrying on in their own business. Entering his room, TJ saw that JoJo wasn't there, but the soda he left there was. Everyone would be heading outside soon, so he drank what was left. There was no way that Tommy Gun was going to get this.

~*~U~*~

Sitting at his usual spot outside, TJ watched the other kids run around, play some form of baseball with sticks, and general converse with each other. He was going over what he learned in the first week he's been there. If there was any form of hierarchy other than the 'scrubs' and the 'not scrubs,' it was very well hidden. People seemed for the most part to stay out of each other's way. The same kids hung around the same people doing the same thing to keep themselves occupied during their sentence.

All he could come up with to occupy his time was trying to figure out the social system and that wasn't going very well. Maybe there wasn't a system like it was always portrayed in the movies. Everyone, except Tommy Gun in his case, stayed out of each other's way and fights rarely occurred. Most the fights were initiated by the guards in exchange for take-out food for the winner. Otherwise, everyone was pretty mellow.

Waking a deep breath, he reached out to a stray stick in front of him, but was stopped when his arms were grabbed and he was pulled to his feet. Looking behind him he saw that it was the twins that were always with Tommy Gun, so he couldn't be far off.

"I dunno who the fuck you think you are," Tommy Gun said as he stepped out of the gathering crowd. "But I'm about to knock you back down to earth. I'll give you one last chance to give me the soda, Scrub."

"What's your issue?" TJ snapped at him. "I don't even TALK to you! No I'm not giving you my soda! Fuck off!" Tommy Gun huffed at his response. Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled something out, opened it, but kept it out of sight.

"I'm gonna explain something to you, a'ight?" Tommy Gun said calmly, but unnervingly. "I hurt people. I don't give a damn about who it is, I hurt people. And I have no problem going out and playing afterwards. I'll fucking stab a kid in the chest and go watch Spongebob right after and laugh."

"Okay, and….?"

"And. Okay, okay. Roscoe, Doffer, hold him still," He ordered the twins. As they readjusted their grasp, Tommy Gun brought the pocket knife from his back pocket up to his face and looked it over. He polished it with his shirt and made sure it was locked in place before approached. Once he was close enough he reached out and grabbed TJ by his throat with a grip that was close to choking. Since he was a good four inches taller than him, Tommy Gun had no trouble looking in his eyes. He smiled as he slightly tightening his grip. Clenching the base of the pocket knife in his hand, he quickly slashed the blade from the top left of TJ's forehead, across his left eye, and down the side of nose.

He screamed in what can only be described as pure agony. The blood mixed with tears and poured from the fresh open wound down is face and onto the dirt. He could feel the blade scrape against the bone as Tommy Gun repeatedly slashed over the scar. He couldn't count how many times the blade was used on him, but he knew that he wanted to get away from it. Just as he thought it wouldn't end he was pushed on the ground when a guard blew a whistle to make the crowd disperse. Before Tommy Gun left, he gave him a few swift kicks to his chest. Coughing from having the wind knocked out of him, red filled his vision before he slowly passed out.

~*~DUVAL~*~

Journal,

It's so weird not being able to recognize yourself in the mirror. I know it's me, but at the same time, it's not. I can't really explain it any further than that. First it was just the hair. It would grow back out and go back to normal, but now there's this scar to deal with. At least the bruises from before are gone.

I have all this packed up energy, too. But there's nothing to do with it except think and I'm tired of doing that. I've kind of resorted to the only other thing I could think of, and that's not a good thing I'm sure. It has to be doing damage. But I'll do anything to get Alex to leave me alone.

~*~DUVAL~*~

SIX DAYS LATER

Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, TJ looked at his reflection in the mirror. A side effect from his hair being bleached was that it didn't like to go in one direction. The front stuck up in a curl, the right side was in an upward swoop, while the left was the only part acting like it did before it was bleached. His hat was confiscated when he arrived so he couldn't cover the mismatched hair. Running his fingers over his new scar he winced from the minor pain it caused. He had to be taken to the nearby hospital to get treated for it and was told by the doctors that since it went down to the bone it was permanent and would never go away. It was ugly and jagged running from the left of his forehead, his eyelids, and the side of his nose. What was worse than the scar was that when the cut went over his eye, it went over his pupil and iris. As a result, he was now and forever will be blind in his left eye. The blue color of that eye was now dulled considerably and was noticeable from a distance as well as close up.

Brushing a few stray strands of hair out of his face, he head out of his room and sat against the wall, watching everyone go about with their daily business as well as his own. Swing his head back and forth, he banged his head against the concrete wall, though not hard enough to making his dizzy or to actually stop. It was a light hit, sufficient to distract him from the fact that he had nothing else to do. As much as getting scarred hurt, it still took his attention off of him being there in Juvenile Hall for a short time. He didn't want to be there, and that bit helped. The food was repulsive, the school repetitive, and the days mind numbing, so if banging his head was what it took to not think about it, he was going to do it as often as he could.

"You're crazier than I thought."

"Shut up."

"Ha! Just look at yourself. Pathetic. Oh, if everyone from Third Street could see you now they would have a good laugh."

"I said shut up!"

"Any reason you talkin' to yourself, Freckles?" Jumping from surprise, TJ looked behind him and saw JoJo standing, looking down at him.

"I'm not talking to myself," TJ mumbled. "I'm talking to Alex."

"Uh-huh. Look, the guard says you got a visitor," JoJo told him. "Sent me over here to tell you. I swear they keep getting lazier and lazier…" As JoJo walked away, TJ walked over to the guard standing by the door. He was lead down the normal hallway to the visitor's room but took a turn to somewhere else.

He wondered who the visitor would be. His parents didn't visit when he was in the hospital for a few days, and Principal Prickly said he couldn't visit until at least tomorrow. He knew not to even have the thought of anyone else from Third Street coming to see him in his head, so with those possibilities crossed out, he was at a loss. Reaching the end of the hall he was lead into the last room. Inside he could see a table, two chairs, and Mr. Simmons occupying one of those chairs.

"Mr. Simmons? What are you doing here?" TJ asked, confused.

"The court wants me to counsel you while you're here," Said Mr. Simmons. "I'm supposed to come every two weeks."

"Oh well, gee it's nice to know the court cares about me being sane after putting me in the seventh layer of hell," TJ said as he sat down. "Nice."

"How are feeling today?" Mr. Simmons asked him. "How's life…here."

"I wanna go home, Mr. Simmons. There, I said it. I want to go home. I hate it here!"

"Well juvie isn't meant to be a place to enjoy; it's meant for punishment."

"How can they punish me for something I didn't do? How does that make any sense? They only wanted to get rid of me and saw this as the perfect opportunity! I got screwed over, Mr. Simmons! The jury was against me the minute the trial started! My own lawyer didn't give a shit! My parents think it's good for me to be here! The only three people in the world that'll listen to me is myself, Principal Prickly, and you. Everyone else couldn't care less."

"I see. And what about that scar? How'd you get that?"

"I was cut. Ten times over the same spot," Said TJ. "I had to go to the hospital. And now I gotta look at it every day. Matches the blond hair don't you think?" ]

"It matches perfectly. An ugly scar for an ugly person."

"God, will you shut the fuck up?"

"Who are you talking to?" Mr. Simmons asked, puzzled at the sudden outburst.

"Alex."

"Who's Alex?"

"I dunno," Said TJ. "he's just some kid how keeps following me and talking to me when I really don't want him to."

"Is he in the room?"

"He's in the corner," He told him. "I wish he would shut up…" Writing all of this down, Mr. Simmons had a new set of questions to ask, mostly about 'Alex.' He couldn't see anyone else in the room, so he was sure that this had to be all in his head.

"TJ, I want you to listen very closely okay?" Mr. Simmons instructed. "What does Alex say to you? Does he ask you to do anything?"

"No. He just wants to make me feel bad," TJ said. "I don't feel bad for anything I did. It's not working so I dunno why he won't shut-up."

"How long has he been with you?"

"Couple of months."

"And you know that no one else can see him right?"

"Yeah, but I don't get it," He said. "He's right there! How can you NOT see him? How he NOT be the first thing you notice?" The two continued their conversation for another hour. Once the time was up the door opened and the guard, as well as the Warden came in. As TJ was lead out by the guard, the Warden stayed behind and talked to Mr. Simmons.

Instead of going right back to what he was doing in the dorms, TJ was lead to the adjacent door that he had seen other inmates be dragged through by the guards. Inside there was another door leading to another room. The door was obviously there to stop the noise from coming through because once he went through it, it was loud. A long hall with multiple doors on each side held the inmates that were brought there. Walking past them he could hear their screams and yells at the guards that were supervising them as well as a few slams and bangs coming from the individual rooms. Peaking inside he could see that there was only one person for each room, something he was thankful for. He was told to stop at the end of the hall in front of the last room on the left as the guard opened it.

Inside it was completely white, not an ounce of color anywhere. The walls, the floors, and even the ceiling was covered in a soft and fluffy cushion, making it hard for him to walk. There wasn't a bed to sleep on, just the floor, but there was a blanket sitting in the corner. Looking around he saw that there was no window like in the other rooms. Sitting down on the floor he laid on his back as he heard the large metal door shut and the footsteps of the guards walking away.

Out of all the students at Third Street who do all think would be the most likely to visit him in juvie? I want to do a chapter about one of the students visiting him but I can't pick one…

In other news, a friend of mine and I were talking about how movie directors where making old cartoons into movies and I asked would they ever make a live-action Recess. I personally think that if they did, it would either be REALLY REALLY GOOD, or PAINFULLY BAD. It was an interesting conversation too. But they would probably screw it up by making Spinelli a girly girl and making Vince white. Or worse, put them in high school. D: I remember THAT conversation…..

RandallXSpinelli: Sorry about the dialect. :3 That's how the person I based him off of talked and I'm trying to keep that intact. But he usually doesn't carry that much slang in the way he talks like in his rant in the last chapter. That only happens when he's upset…..what I'm trying to say is the slang that he usually has is easier to understand when he's not angry. :)

Donna Nnov: I have trouble picturing him as a blond too, but it was either blonde or a redhead, I thought being a redhead would make him look kind of creepy 'cause he has freckles too…..I don't think I need to go into further detail on why I couldn't make him a redhead….XD

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