Locker 2375 Chapter 6

Posted on | March 15, 2009 | 1 Comment

Locker 2375 c6

The Desk.

“Darling you know how much it hurts me to have to put you into detention for the next month, but it’s for your own good” Ms. Shelley seemed to be enjoying the whole parade of shame much more than she had to.

But I was very glad we were walking fast because what ever the brown stuff from the toilet explosion was, it was beginning to dry and it was getting even more horrible smelling.

“A month, you can’t be serious”, I half-heartedly protested, “I am innocent”!

“Now Max don’t back chat or you might find that this is your new home for the rest of your academic career, and you wouldn’t be the first to have that happen”!

I had walked by the detention room many times but had never been into it.

Rumour had it that there were students who actually lived there because they had been so bad!

And that was why the detention room was located in the basement of the school in a small non descript room behind the elevator shaft.

It was also rumoured that the detention room was blasted out of ancient stone when the school was built and that is why you never heard a peep from the room and nobody, NOBODY talked about the place when they came out.

Even Charles the security guard seemed to stay clear of the detention room and he seemed to be everywhere.

Ms. Shelley marched me down the stairs, past the elevator and then we walked behind the elevator shaft to the large black metal door with the word DETENTION painted on it in big red letters.

Funny the things you notice when a teacher has you by the ear and is almost lifting you off the ground.

For instance, I had never noticed that the door to the detention room had a big doorknocker on it in the shape of a lion’s head.  I was sure I had seen one of those doorknockers before, maybe it was in Rome or Pompeii but it looked oddly familiar and there was nothing new about it.

The keeper of the detention room was Mr. Smith.
Ms. Shelley heaved the doorknocker and with a loud, almost deafening clang it fell against the door and shook it causing dust to fall from the ceiling.

Ms. Shelley heaved it again and I could hear the door latch screeching open.

“Your on your own Darling”. Ms. Shelley said and vanished back up the stairs.

That was the second time in one day that I had been told that I was on my own!

This by the way was also the second place that I really began to realize that there was something up at this school and that there really was a space between the real and the imaginary that somehow had shaken open right here and my locker was somehow related!

Mr. Smith opened the door and the room was unnaturally light.

I expected the room to be dark, damp and dungeon like but it seemed to have the atmosphere of a beech or ski chalet.

Mr. Smith met me at the door wearing sandals, a kiwi take on a Hawaiian shirt and a large stopwatch around his neck.

“Don’t let the look of this room fool you Max, this is detention and we do mean business here!”

Who exactly was the we he was talking about?

And what business was he thinking he was in?

Then I noticed the line of desks, the 3 lines of desks, 12 in total and one off in the back corner with a plaque on it!

I thought I saw a picture on the desk in the back corner and a candle in one of those red glass jars that you see at memorials in old churches.

But I could not be too sure because just as I started to look around Mr. Smith dropped a book onto the desk in front of me, and it sounded like a piece of stone falling from the ceiling!

I must have jumped 3 feet, which did not go unnoticed my Mr. Smith!

“ A little edgy are we”, he said with that same grin that Ms. Shelley had as she hauled me off to detention.

“This is the detention manual”, Mr. Smith said with a sly grin.

“In this 543 page book are the rules of detention, your obligations and our expectations YOU MUST READ THE WHOLE THING COVER TO COVER, and then sign this paper acknowledging that you understand your obligations and our expectations, and here is the sheet you need to sign”, now this was getting strange.

A 543-page manual for detention?

A detention contract?

Why had I never heard of these details before before?

“Your seating assignment is on the top of the contract”, shouted Mr. Smith as he returned to the door of the detention room to speak to what I think was another teacher.

My seating assignment was indeed on the top of the form.

In big bold letter it said SEAT 0192ac4d.

That was what was written in my locker!

But there were only 12 seats in the room.

I then noticed that each seat did seem to have a number, very strange.

As I walked across the room towards the right wall the numbers did grow until I found 0192ac.

So where do I go now?

Then I noticed that the seat behind was 0192ac1d.

I walked to the next and next and next desk until I did find my assigned spot, 0192ac4d.

How odd that this number would be in my locker after the stuff from Erin’s locker went missing, and I am not even sure there is an Erin at our school!

I looked at the desk and I was sure that there was a fine layer of dust covering it.

Just as I was about to wipe the table clean in a gust of commotion Mr. Smith whirled by, “Get cracking lad”, he said, “you have a lot of reading to do.”

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