Introduction
Hello, my name is Martin Kenner, and I’d like to ask a favor of you. I know it’s not traditional for writers to ask their readers any sort of favor other than to enjoy their book, but I think you’ll find that I am not a traditional writer, and this is not a traditional book.
The favor I ask is while reading these stories, keep one thing in mind. This information does not falsely pour from my mind, for I have acquired factual Intel from others, as well as my own accounts. This book is about a boy named Andy Lewis, and because I was not with Andy every hour of every day, I would not be able to give an accurate account of his time at Thomas Worthington High School without the help of others.
Also, keep in mind that I am writing this for the reason that Andy Lewis is no longer with us. His death was an unfortunate tragedy, and it sickens me to think about the events leading up to his death. But I feel I owe it to Andy to tell the story, his story. Truthfully, the biggest reason I even bother to spend hour after hour tediously typing is for the simple fact that no one has ever had a larger impact on me than Andrew Frederick Lewis.
The End
Warmth. That was the first sensation he felt. The second was numbness. His vision began to blur as tears crept over his half-closed eyelids. As he fell to his knees, he looked at his crimson covered hands, not believing what had happened. His head slowly drifted back and forth, searching for the assailant.
He heard the harsh clang of metal hitting the linoleum floor. Andy faced in the direction of the noise, and there he spotted him.
Growing oblivious to the pain in his chest, he tried to utter a single word of forgiveness, but the dryness in his throat forbids it. The boy had been his friend, and through a strange twist of events, had become his killer.
Now, the old friend dropped to the ground across from Andy. His hands were shaking, and he, too, began to cry. Two men emerged swiftly from the crowd of spectators and grabbed him by either arm. Andy watched as they lifted him and dragged him away to his new home of solitude and iron bars.
Bright red lights flashed in a steady rhythm. Two more men wearing all white rushed to Andy’s side and hoisted him onto a stretcher. As he looked back, he could already see law enforcement officers spreading caution tape around a pool of blood and smoldering pistol. A crime scene just like any other.
The last thing visible to him before the doors of the ambulance closed was one girl, standing out from the rest. Her face was slightly more morbid than others, and she shook slightly more fierce.
Now everything began to go dark for Andy. The world’s problems no longer seemed to matter. Even though everyone he knew was at war, he was finally at peace. The medical unit shoved an IV in his veins, but it was too late. Andy Lewis was dead.
The First Day
From The Perspective of Martin Kenner
“Try the door again.” I told Rashim. His full name, or at least all that I know, is Mohamed Rashim Ibrahim. Everyone calls him Rashim, probably because Mohamed isn’t a very fitting name for a tall, pasty white, red-headed boy. If you ask me, neither is Rashim.
“It’s locked, Mart. It’s always locked.” He said, jiggling the handle.
The door, the one that’s always locked, is the door to Mr. Franklin Gerome’s classroom. It was first period, the bell had already rung, it was Friday, and Mr. Gerome was still nowhere to be seen. This was the case every morning, and because of this, the entirety of Mr. Gerome’s Enriched English class was forced to wait outside the room for about five minutes.
But on this day, this seemingly ordinary day, something happened that was not in our ordinary morning routine. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a boy walking in the hallway. Now ordinarily, it was quite usual to see kids roaming the halls, searching for their class, especially during the first minutes of first period.
So what made this boy so unusual? Well, I’ll tell you why. The thing that made this an unusual occurrence was the fact that this boy was heading for our classroom, and he had a pink slip in his hand. What’s the significance of the pink slip? The school secretaries only give a student a pink slip on one occasion, and that’s when he’s a new student.
“Hey,” I nudged my friend, Jake Henderson, standing next to me, “you recognize that kid?”
“Nope, I’ve never seen him before in my life. Why?” He asked.
“Look at what he has in his hand.” I pointed.
“Hmm, fresh meat huh?” Zeke Brown chimed in from behind.
“Yeah, that seems to be the case.” I replied.
Just then the boy arrived at our group, so silently that no one else in the class had realized he was there. The boy had dirty blonde, shoulder length, shaggy hair that flipped out at the ends. He was about 5’9’’ and I guessed was somewhere around the age of fifteen. He was fit, but from what I could tell wasn’t very muscular. He had a plain black t-shirt on and loose, baggy jeans. On his feet he wore a pair of black Vans. He was white. The three of us previously talking about him turned our heads, pretending to be as oblivious as the rest of the class.
“Uh, is this Enriched English with Mr. Gerome?” The new kid asked, a sense of fear and nervousness in his voice.
It was this sense of fear and nervousness that drew the entire class’ attention to the newcomer.
“Yeah, it is.” Rashim answered after a brief moment of silence. This was followed by an even less-brief silence until the boy spoke again.
“The bell rang, is the door locked or something?” He asked, trying his hardest to break the awkwardness.
“Naw, it’s not locked.” Cam Barrow, a girl with a very sarcastic look on life, spoke up. “We’re all just standing out here because we hate this class!”
“God, Cam, why do you have to be so mean all the time?” Jesse Jones said next to China.
“It’s locked dude, just ignore her.” I said.
“So, what’s your name?” Lizzy Baker, an over-energetic blonde asked him.
“Oh, yeah, my name’s. . .” he was interrupted by the loud, deep bang of a slammed door.
We all turned to find that the noise came from a man about 5’7”, carrying a large stack of papers in one hand, and a small white coffee mug in the other. A tuft of short, curly, brown hair stuck out from behind the papers.
“Oh hey, Gerome’s here.” Jake announced.
“Sorry I’m late everybody.” Mr. Gerome said as he approached the door, most of him hidden behind the large tower of parchment. We moved as one to the other side of the door, making sure to give him enough room.
As he attempted to balance the tower of paper on his knee, he began to fumble inside his pocket for his door key. The fumbling caused his knee to shake, which in turn caused the papers to wobble. The wobbling led to more shaking, until the stack of papers in his hand became a pile of papers on the floor. Being freshmen in high school, the group couldn’t help but laugh quietly until Ashley Rosin, a girl who was either really helpful or a huge kiss-up, and I rushed over to help him.
“Here, Mr. G, let us help you with that.”
“Why thank you Prof. Rosin, Dr. Kenner.” That was one of Mr. Gerome’s quirks. When he spoke to you and he thought you were exceptionally bright, or just when he was in the mood, he referred to you as either doctor or professor. I wasn’t sure if he was somehow predicting our future profession, or just being his normal Gerome self, but I always liked it when he called me doctor. To tell the truth, it was one of the reasons I would help him so much.
Gerome walked through the door and the entire class followed. The new kid was the last one in.
Shutting the door, Mr. Gerome turned to the kid, just noticing his presence.
“Oh, hello.” He said, extending his hand in a fashion implying his expectation of a handshake. “You must be our new student. I’m sorry, what was your name again?”
“Uh, it’s. . .”
“Good morning Cards.” The voice of the principal blared through the intercom. “As you all know, today is the anniversary of the day this school was built.
“By tradition, we celebrate this day, known as Cardinal Day, by letting you all have a fun, carefree time full of activities and free of classes. Because of this nice weather, Cardinal Day will be spent outside as planned. Please note that students are at no time permitted to leave the school premises unless previously authorized. Lunch will be served at 12:00 for seniors and juniors, and 1:00 for sophomore and freshmen. Enjoy your day Cardinals.”And with that, the intercom clicked off.
“Have a nice day guys, I might see you around.” Mr. Gerome said, and with that, we rushed out of the room.
“Hey kid, you’re with us. I’m Mart Kenner, this isJake Henderson, and that’s Evan Shelman.” I said to the new guy, naming off the group of friends I was with.
“So, where’d you move from?” Evan asked as we walked out of the school, viewing the various games and activities.
“I actually have lived in Worthington all my life, I’ve just always been home-schooled.”
“So, what, does that mean you’re some kind of social-retarded freak?” Evan and Jake high-fived, laughing at the surprisingly immature joke.
“Nice.” I said, letting out a small chuckle.
“Well, I guess I can’t really say.” The kid’s ears became red at the embarrassing comment. “I’ve never really had friends for that long. I go to baseball games, summer camps, stuff like that, but the friends I make are always only temporary.”
“Hey, don’t sweat it. You got friends now, as long as you don’t act retarded all the time, not like Evan here.” Jake and I laughed.
“Ha, shut up Kenner.” Evan shoved me harmlessly.
“So, what’s it like here?” The kid asked, looking at me.
“Well, first of all, like every school, we have our cliques and social classes. There are the very popular kids. These are the kids that only hang out within their own clique. They date popular kids, befriend popular kids, and have parties with popular kids. If you’re not popular, they’re not interested.
“Next we have the semi-popular kids. They are different from the popular kids because they can hang out with whoever they want. They are accepted by the popular kids, adored by the average kids, and worshipped by the unpopular. Now, although they can hang out with whoever they want, they normally stay within the confines of the high-average kids or the very popular kids.
“Then there’re the average kids. That would be us. We are actually high-average, which means we’re not really popular but we are definitely cooler than most of the kids at this school.
“You’ve got your losers and nerds. Then your untouchables, the kids that basically have no friends and no one but teachers speak to them. After that there are individual groups within the social classes. The skaters and druggies. The theatre kids and art geeks. Jocks, cheerleaders, and tomboys, we have them all here. Your job is to find out where you belong. Just remember not to place that much importance on being popular, it’s just not worth it.” The kid looked confused, but he would catch on eventually.
“Speaking of popular, why is Christina walking over here?” Jake asked.
We all turned our heads to the girl walking towards us. Christina Kirks was one of the most popular girls in the ninth grade. She held the biggest parties of all the freshmen, and was invited to biggest parties in the whole school. Every girl wanted to be her friend because she had money, popularity, and connections. Every guy wanted to be with her for one simple reason; she had curves in all the right places, and I mean all the right places.
Jake had a point though, she was one of the very popular girls, therefore was not “permitted” to hang with the likes of us. Then why was she walking straight toward us, you ask? Specifically, why was she walking towards the new kid?
Jake, Evan, and I stared in amazement as Christina walked straight to the new guy, grabbed the back of his neck, her long painted nails gently scratching, and pulled his face close to hers. Then, with subtle swiftness, she kissed him.
“Holy. . .” Evan couldn’t finish his sentence. Jake and I couldn’t even start one. We were all speechless. The silence began to spread.
One by one, the students around us stopped what they were doing to turn and look at this unbelievable sight. People stared as Christina continued to push the kid into her, holding him there as if by sheer will. Finally she let him go.
“Thanks for that.” She said with a smile. She looked back at the group of people she was previously with, then walked away.
I, too, looked to the group. One guy seemed to stand out, his mouth gaping slightly more than the rest of them. As Christina walked into the school, the whole group seemed to turn as one, their gaze following her gait.
Just then, the jock that stood out broke from the pack of populars and headed for the new kid, anger in his eyes. Reaching us, the tall, muscular guy in a very cliché sports jacket grabbed our new friend by his shirt and raised his fist.
“You think you can kiss my girl, do you?” The jock yelled. By now, a circle of violence-hungry students had formed around us, eagerly awaiting the first punch to be thrown.
“Hey, come on man,” I said, stepping between the steroid pumped football player and his confused target, “he didn’t do anything. She just, you know, came up and kissed him.”
I wasn’t sure of the exact moment his right fist connected with my left cheek because the next thing I knew, I had stumbled a few feet, my cheek feeling as if it was filled with sand.
“No one calls my girl a slut and gets away with it!” He shouted.
As I tried to recall when I had called Christina a slut, Evan and Jake charged at the jock from both sides, knocking him to the ground. Unfortunately, being as ripped as he was, it was an easy feat pushing my friends off of him.
He stood, walked to the new kid, raised his fist, and . . .
“Hey!” The jock’s head turned to the voice, as did the rest of the student body. The children that had been watching began to separate, forming a path in which the teacher could walk down. The five of us that had been involved in the fight stood up to face whoever was walking down the long aisle.
When I saw the large, hulking figure of the ex-body guard, otherwise known as Mr. Lloyd Graham, my spine shivered. Even though I had technically done nothing wrong, I knew this was going to be quite an ordeal.
Mr. Graham was large, incredibly muscular, and if you scratched him the wrong way, mean as hell. He was the very definition of brute force. Rumor had it that he used to be a body guard for several “big-name” celebrities, but which ones changed with whoever told the story. Others say he used to play professional football, a line backer to be specific. And still, some say he was an ex-cop who retired after being shot three times in the stomach.
Whatever he was, it is true that now he is head of school security at Thomas Worthington. That means he’s the guy who subdues those who have been in fights and carts them down to student services.
As he reached us, I noticed out of the corner of my eye the jock slightly stumbling backward. He knew he was in for it. The new guy and I were in the clear, considering we hadn’t done anything, but I felt bad for Evan and Jake. They probably didn’t care, but they would get at least two days of suspension. Why? Because they were standing up for me, they were protecting the new guy.
As Mr. Graham walked us into the school, I glanced over at Jake and Evan. To my relief, they both had huge smiles on their faces, and their chests seemed to swell with pride. I’ll never understand those two. I looked back at the new kid, whose name still remained a mystery. Even though he wasn’t going to get into any trouble, he seemed nervous, shaky.
Great, I thought to myself, he’s going to hate it here.
We reached the office and Mr. Graham sent the jock to Ms. Hamilton, one of the deans. The rest of us took seats around the waiting room. I sat next to the new guy.
“Hey, cutie.” My head snapped up. Had that been directed at me? No, I realized who had said it and a sudden anger flared inside of me. Christina Kirks sat on the other side of the new kid, and it was him she was talking to.
“What is your problem?” I whispered, mad at her for putting us all through this.
“Yeah, you just walked up to me and kissed me!” The boy said, a thin layer of sweat forming on the back of his neck. “I mean, not that I’m complaining or anything.”
“Well, what was I supposed to do. That guy was totally creeping me out.” She looked away.
“So you mean you guys aren’t together?” I asked, confused. “That’s not the vibe I got from him.”
“You don’t get it.” She began, looking back at us. “He was following me around, calling me his ‘girl’. I got so fed up that I lied and told him I had a boyfriend.”
“Oh,” the new guy said, finally realizing what had happened, “He wanted proof, so you just came up to some random kid and kissed him, well, me, to prove a point.” He sounded somewhat disheartened.
“No, it wasn’t totally random.” She stated, standing up and walking to the door. She looked back, flipping her golden brown hair. “I turned around, looked for the cutest guy I could find, and saw you.” And with that, she was gone behind the doorway.
As the new kid and I left the office about an hour later, having told the story about five times to three different people, I turned to him.
“So, you never did tell me your name.”
“Oh, I guess every time I tried I got cut off. The name’s Andy. Andy Lewis.”
“Well, Andy, I’m pretty sure by now you have a pretty bad image of Thomas Worthington don’t you.”
“Hmm, well let’s see. I was kissed by a hot popular girl, and almost beat up by a huge jock. I got two of my three new friends suspended, scared out of my wits by a giant bodybuilder of a cop, and the same popular girl that kissed me told me she thought I was cute. This day has been one emotional roller coaster after another. And let me tell you this,” Andy said, a small grin spreading across his face, “I can’t wait until Monday.”
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