Just as any other day, the bell rang and the students were in their seats. The classroom was bright, lit by the industrial bulbs encased behind Here the wording comes off a little awkward 'encased in' or simply 'in' would be sufficient, KISS applies to writing as much as anything else. large plastic sheets. The ceiling panels a musty beige, as were the walls, and so even was the hard carpet flooring, trampled and frayed, worn underfoot after years of abuse. So although well lit, the spacious room had an almost caustic factory feel to it. The few windows were well above eye level, encrusted with a film of water spots and unreachable anyway without effort should anyone actually desire to clean them. This sentence feels like a run on, it matches the rest of your writing style which is drawn out and vivid, but this one stood out to me, the choice is really yours. If this feels right to you keep it, but to me (and I personally write in a very sharp style) this seems drawn out The students settled in their chairs, some fiddling nervously with pencils or pens, other shuffling papers, but none talking, which was extremely again the word seems excessive odd for a classroom filled with no one older than fifteen years of age I say drop this. The years of age breaks the tempo of the sentence and makes it heavier than it should be. They all waited anxiously, some looking down at their desks, others simply encapsulated word choice, personally I don't see kids encapsulated in anything, the connotations of the word read wrong within their own mind, still others looking at the instructional teaching aids placed upon the walls- a panoply of posters, knick knacks, papers, decorations, and similar decorum meant to add some color to an otherwise dreary room. Today however, those posters and odds and ends evoked an uncomfortable familiar feeling. For some, a twist of guilt. For others, sadness. And I would suggest keeping this completely parallel. A rhythm gets build around it then which draws the reader to the most important part of the paragraph for still more, questions.
The silence of the room grew as the seconds passed. Movement seemed a disturbance, an uncomfortable feeling even more uncomfortable than the growing silence itself. Like still water, the quiet intimidated those present to refrain from motion, lest the ripples disrupt the glassy reflection.
And so when the school administrator and an entourage of his staff entered the room in a fluster, the stillness and paleness of it all became intensely magnified I think the order of the two words switched would lend more power to the sentance for one last moment before being ruptured.
Administrator Johnson stood before the class, looking down on their young faces and soaking in the sheer magnitude of the responsibility he was now faced with. He stood silently at first, acutely aware of his own urge to remain silent, before reaching into the lining of his jacket, where he pulled out a faded burgundy handkerchief. He dabbed his forehead and then used the material to stroke back the remaining hair of his receding widow’s peak. He replaced the handkerchief, soaked with sweat, and looked to his staff waiting in a tight group near the door. Mr. Johnson wasn’t a heavy man, and the Tennessee weather was actually quite mild. He cleared his throat.
"Class… Students.”
He cleared his throat again. He clenched his fists.
“Students, as you know, Mr. Nally…”
Has been removed? Has left us? Will not be your teacher? Has been suspended? Here you have a great tool, the only problem I see are it being overused. You don't in this story, but it is tempting so do be careful
“…has been given a leave of absence until the situation has been resolved. I can’t say whether he will be coming back or not because, truth be told, I simply do not know. Some of you know, or think you know rather, what the situation is. I would ask all of you to refrain yourselves from speculating or allowing rumors to be spread until all the facts have been revealed. In the present time, Mrs. Tenenbaum, the charming woman near the door, will be assuming responsibilities as your instructor.”
There. That wasn’t so bad.
“It is extremely…”
Three rows back, slightly to the right of center, Jackie Austin, a petite caucasian girl, brunette with green eyes, smothered a muffled cry. It was useless. The result was instantaneous. Almost simultaneously, the entire class, seventeen girls and eleven boys, all of the highest character, began sobbing.
Oh dear.
“It is extremely important that you maintain positive spirits and…” He trembled. This was exactly as he imagined it. He felt the muscles of lips turn, his eyes grow weary, and the emotions within him rise to his throat. Administrator Johnson swallowed hard, clenched his fists tighter still. The sobbing grew louder.
“You must do all you can to preserve yourselves in this time and please aid Mrs. Tenenbaum in adjusting to her new environment.” He turned and quickly started out the door. As he left, Mrs. Tenenbaum looked first to him for guidance, and receiving no acknowledgment, turned to her very bleak situation. Damn
* * * * * *
It was October. The warm summer still lingered, but the air had changed. A wind, a change of color in the trees, something. It happened every year and Daniel Nally loved it. It was as if everything natural changed form just a bit. The sense of that first change before autumn, there really was something unique in it. And this was the first day that he sensed it in this year.
His step quickened, and he lifted his face to the breeze, soaking in the first day of the change in seasons. Daniel could already imagine the Tennessee winds whisking red and yellow leaves across the sidewalk and through downtown. He felt thankful to have such senses to bring the most remote natural changes to a level that he could experience. The sun was three hours high, and puffy white cotton clouds could be seen, seemingly hugging the very stratosphere, ready to swim off beyond the atmosphere itself. He reached the steps of Addie Historical High School.
“Good Morning Daniel.”
“Good Morning Jack! Fishing again this weekend?”
The old guard looked up from his paper, and took his coffee cup off of the school’s bronze sign. “Of course. Nothing but catfish, proud to say. When are you going to join me again?”
“How about this weekend? But only if Mary fries the catch…”
“Sure, sure. Say Saturday at seven?” he waived as Daniel reached for the door handle. The rule I was always taught was that dialog goes "text," tag. This happens throughout, I do it all the time but there you have it
“See you then.” Daniel felt the cool metal bar in his left hand and opened the heavy oak door, gripping his leather case in the other hand. He walked down the hall, passing the occasional early student. The girls smiled at him, the boys would give a hearty ‘Hey Mr. Nally!’ which he would return with a hearty ‘Hey!’ right back.
He reached his classroom, and opened the door. Daniel flicked the light switch, and the industrial lights came slowly on, as if awakening from sleep, yawning and stretching as they turned to their duty. Daniel reached his desk and dropped his briefcase to the side, removed his suit jacket and placed it on the back of his chair. He straightened his tie and took a seat.
The students began to trickle in, each giving Daniel a greeting. As the bulk of the students pressed through the door, some only nodded, others still rubbing the sleep from their eyes. The bell rang and the children were all in their seats quietly talking amongst themselves. Daniel went over his seating chart and checked attendance. One missing. The pacing is wonderful
The door opened and Sandra Williams quickly hurried to her desk, looking down at the ground and avoiding eye contact with the other students. She sat down and set her backpack under her chair. She stood out just a bit from other students. It wasn’t her clothing, which was fairly conservative, or her skin color, nearly thirty percent of the student body was black. It was just in the way she carried herself. This was a small town, and most of the students were fairly open, easy going, and socially tolerant. She stood out because she was reserved. Daniel knew she would lighten up. New students are always nervous. He’d skip the tardy mark.
“Okay. Everyone up. Out of your seats. Let’s go.” Daniel stood up.
The students looked around quizzically at each other. Some giggling. Some talking. All beginning to rise.
“Come on. Stand up. Just take your notebooks and one pencil each. Leave everything else here.” He laughed. “Come on ladies and gentleman. It’s a beautiful day. You don’t want to sit in this stuffy classroom all period do you?”
With that the students were up and loudly speculating. Smiles danced across the room. And each student was filled with curiosity.
“Come on folks, follow me. Outside with you all!” He opened the door and encouraged the students out into the empty hallway. As the last student exited, Daniel closed the door and locked it. He jogged to the front of the group.
“Okay now, be quiet until we’re outside. No talking. We don’t want to disturb the beasts in their lairs”.
Just as the giggles began to grow louder, a door to a neighboring classroom opened. An older lady emerged, hair almost blue it was so white and large spectacles hanging from her pointy nose. I think I had that teacher once. Two sentences and you have a character I know :2thumbsup:
“Mr. Nally. Do you mind? What on earth?”
The irony was almost unbearable. The students could hardly contain themselves.
“Mrs. LeBrie! Would you care to join us? The class and I decided we would play hooky!”
Mrs. LeBrie was clearly confused. “Hmph!” Slinking back into her cave, she closed the door to muffled laughter.
“Okay. Okay. See, I told you! Now try to be quiet and follow me.”
He led the students to the opposite end of the hallway, towards the door that led to the football field. Swinging the doors wide, the change in the air struck him again and he smiled in gratitude. The students followed him out, and just as quickly began chatting again in anticipation. He led them across the football field, past the baseball diamond to a remote hill that overlooked the school grounds. There, at the top of the hill was a large Maple, further behind was the edge of a light tree line, filled with honey suckles, birch trees, hollies and other assorted greenery. The wood was appealing, inviting adventure and imagination. But the large Maple was his destination, majestic, dark, and shady. He turned around and looked downhill at the students, and the school behind them. The walk hadn’t been far, perhaps a quarter mile at most, and still technically on school grounds. He invited his class to where he stood.
“Have a seat ladies and gentleman. Pull up a chair, er, some grass. Where better to study science then surrounded by science?”
* * * * * *
“Daniel Patrick Nally, how do you plead?”
“I plead not guilty Your Honor.”
The heavy oak doors slammed in the background. Abramoff Billings, the rocking chair salesman, felt pangs of shame and embarrassment rush through his blood. Just an observer, he slinked to an empty seat and away from the entryway as quickly and as quietly as possible. Amazingly, the disturbance barely registered in the courtroom audience. For them, it seemed almost divine accoutrement- uniform ambiance to the proceedings.
“Let the record show…”
Outside, the first signs of autumn had begun again. Late September, and the change had come early. A breeze rustled through aging leaves and the aura of a light rain hung in the air, more a feeling than a scent. Will autumn be a theme throughout?
* * * * * *
Daniel was almost finished with his lesson when he saw Teddy in the distance, marching towards Daniel’s adopted classroom, simultaneously shaking his head. Daniel wasn’t sure, but he though he saw a hint of a smile in the man. What he saw for sure was that Teddy was quite tired from walking the distance. It made no difference. Daniel continued his lesson.
“As you can see, the leaf itself has a direct relationship between the absorption of nutrients and the season. In many trees, such as our fine maple here, once photosynthesis stops, glucose is trapped in the leaves. Glucose is transformed into this red color by a combination of sunlight and the cooling temperatures of this season.” Against his better judgment, Daniel dared… You have a number of tools and traits that almost get overused, but don't. The use of ellipsis like this is one of them. A period would do it in another piece but would seem false here
“You can also see from the flushed red color of Administrator Johnson, a bit too much glucose trapped in the fat”. He winced to himself as he said it. The kids roared with laughter as Administrator Johnson reached the makeshift outdoor classroom.
“Mr. Nally, can I speak with you please?”
"Of course Mr. Johnson." Daniel placed his hand on Administrator Johnson's thick shoulder and turned to his class. "Kids, excuse us for the moment. In the meantime, I want each of you to find three maple leaves: One green, one dead, and one in transition." He knew the children would grow loud within seconds. And he was right. As he walked with Johnson to the tree line at the forest's edge, the squeals of pleasure were impossible to ignore. Daniel smiled to himself. This tool gets a little stale about here. Long sentence, long sentence, long sentence, short sentence as a paragraph pattern is used often. It is one of my favorite patterns but it gets old after a while.
Daniel turned to face Administrator Johnson. He realized that Teddy hadn't been smiling at all. In fact, Mr. Johnson looked almost pale. "What's up Teddy?" Good character development, we see Daniel as an informal pal. He asked while looking over Johnson's shoulder at the kids searching the ground each for the perfect leaf.
"Daniel... I don't know how to say this." Ted Johnson looked at the ground, and he suddenly felt sick to his stomach. He could feel sweat building on his cheeks and neck.
"I have to relieve you. We have a substitute coming over for now, but you'll need to head back over to my office."
"What?" Daniel spoke in astonishment. A few students looked over at the two adults with puzzled expressions.
"Michael. Conner. Go find some leaves guys!" Daniel called over. They shrugged and went back to their search, discarding the cracked and damaged leaves in pursuit of the perfect specimens. Daniel focused intently at his friend and colleague and whispered, "What the hell are you talking about Teddy?"
Johnson brought his voice to a whisper and looked up at Daniel. "There's been some allegations made. Dan..." Johnson reached for his handkerchief and wiped his brow. "Dan, I have no choice. This just came to me an hour ago. There are police in my office. Police! It was all I could do to preserve your dignity and request them to stay there. They wanted to come out here themselves!"
"Jesus Christ! What allegations?" Daniel restrained himself to a whisper. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Look, I don't what the hell is going on myself to be honest. What I do know is that a student has said some things about you which merited law enforcement attention."
"Things? What things? Are you kidding me?" Daniel was getting irate. He was frustrated. And hurt.
Johnson swallowed hard and nearly choked trying to say the words. "Sexual... things... Dan."
"No. No way. One of my kids said this? Who?"
"Daniel, let's take a walk down there and get this thing sorted out. I know its crazy." Johnson grabbed his friend's arm with both hands and was shaking it, looking straight into Daniel's eyes. "I know you." Johnson looked down at the ground. "I know you", he repeated almost more to himself. reword
Daniel's jaw dropped. His eyes watered. He looked up at the sky and brushed his hands back through his soft brown hair. He linked his fingers together at the back of his neck to support his head and closed his eyes.
"Here comes the sub", Johnson said.
* * * * * *
"You bitch! You stay away from my sister or I will cut yo black ass!" Spit flew through the air with each word from the teen's mouth. Hands on her hips, she leaned forward with eyes wide open and bloodshot.
Looking back up at the larger girl, Tysha Washington, although smaller and younger, refused to back down, emboldened with the support of her friends. "The next time your little punk sista looks at me like that again, I'm gonna do a lot worse than that!" Tysha lifted her chin and tried to look down on the taller girl.
Tysha's friends laughed and cackled in the background. "Tramp!" "Lil' skank!"
"Come on Tysha, enough with these two. Let's go find something worth our time." Ashanti pulled over the hood of her thick puffy jacket, and lifted up her baggy pants as she turned around. "I don't wanna waste no more time with two bitch sistas."
The six girls sauntered away with Tysha and Ashanti in the lead, each of them taking turns to look back at the bloody teenage girl cowering behind her larger sibling. Tysha spit on the cracked concrete sidewalk as she swaggered on and laughed as she remembered kicking the small girl in the stomach while she layed on the ground curled up and crying. Tysha took a deep breath and imagined herself doing the same thing to the older sister. She replayed the vision in her mind, convincing herself how much tougher she was. She felt like she was starting to belong here and the bars on the windows of the homes surrounding her didn't bother her quite so much anymore.
Meanwhile, the older teen helped her younger sister stand up. She picked up her backpack and helped her walk to the bustop. A gust came in strong and chilled both of them to a shiver. In the distance, a man and a woman were screaming at each other and the sound of glass breaking carried with the wind. Several dogs were barking, as they always did here, no matter what time of day.
This section is the weakest of the bunch. The characters don't stand out much at all and generally blend together. If this scene is meant to be murky in build up to a new storyline then disregard this. If not it needs to be seriously reworked.
* * * * * *
Moving across the field, Daniel shook his head in disbelief. He tried to argue with himself that there must be some type of mistake, some misunderstanding.
No way could one of my students say something like this.
Administrator Johnson had been walking beside him, and the two remained silent as if both in shock. Joshnson's walk became a bit of a run as Daniel stepped up his pace, eager to face down his accusers and convince them of the error.
Daniel reached the building and opened the door wide and fast, failing even to notice that Johnson nearly tripped over himself while trying to catch the door in time before it closed in his face. Their shoes echoed through the empty halls, the students still in class. The lockers paced by, as did the school spirit posters, and the Homecoming Dance announcements, until finally, Daniel reached the administration office hallway. Then his heart dropped. The world seemed to slow down. Two officers in uniform stood in Johnson's office and looked toward him as he turned the corner. A third officer, in dark blue jeans and a rough brown jacket, stood up from a chair, setting his coffee down as he turned to face Mr. McNally. The hallway seemed to go on forever as Daniel walked to this last office and its open doorway at the end. Johnson was further behind now. The three men stared at McNally, and the plainclothes officer pushed his right hand back along his waist, brushing his jacket back to reveal his badge as he placed the hand on his hip.
"Mr. McNally. I'm Investigator Baylor. Brooker Police Department. Would you mind coming inside please?" Baylor turned and pointed inside with his left arm, keeping his left side away from Mr. McNally. Close in age to the high school teacher, Investigator Kyle Baylor decided to take no chances, no matter what the school Administrator had said about the man. As Daniel walked in, Baylor closed the door behind him.
Administrator Johnson quickly found a locked door knob in his hand, and stood outside of his own office feeling more helpless than he ever had in years.
