The school of Thought part 2

 

An alarm sounded throughout the hall as most of the students ran for the exit door. The door and windows barred shut, trapping them all in. One of the students, a boy, ran at the microphone lady, but the cloaked man stepped in front and kicked him, sending him tripping back off of the stage. Harold was at the exit door, being shoved by the other students into the steel bars blocking it. The cold metal bars pressed against the side of his head as he yelled at his classmates to stop.

  “All students stop what you are doing and sit back down in your seats now!” the woman yelled, her voice from the speakers piercing through the alarm.

  Next to her, the hooded man pulled a gun from his cloak and fired into the ceiling. The loud shots shut everyone up and slowly, they walked back to their seats in silence. 

  “All of you have earned yourselves a detention at eight PM tonight in room thirty two,” the woman said.

  At eight PM? Not at lunch time? Harold thought.

  “And it will go until eleven,” the woman continued.
 Three hours! This must be illegal, Harold thought. But they don’t care about the law, obviously. They literally just murdered Connor.

  “Maybe you should use that time to get to know the students who are in your care, Ms. Finnley,” came a voice over the speaker.

  “Y-yes principal. That is a wonderful idea," said the woman, trembling.

  The bars retracted and the doors opened allowing a crew of three janitors wearing grey, single pieced outfits to walk in. Harold couldn’t take his eyes off Connor's head as they picked it up off the stage and threw it into a trashbag along with his body. Two of the janitors had squeegees which squealed as they guided the pooled blood off the stage and into a bucket.

  Harold pulled his attention away from the janitors as Ms. Finnley spoke again. “I believe you should all be making your way to your next lesson in room ten. We have eyes on you at all times so don’t dawdle.”

  One student tried to raise his hand to ask a question but the boy next to him grabbed it and held it down. 

  Everyone walked to their next class in silence. Along the way they saw armed guards which were posted around the campus. The guards had been there since the students first arrived at the school but nobody thought twice about them until now.  They were dressed in black suits and red ties and they monitored the students as they walked by. 

  Harold, now scared of the guards, didn't dare to even make eye contact with them. He kept his head lowered even as he entered the lab for his first science lesson.

  Inside the lab there was a tall woman sitting on her desk wearing a pink jacket “Come in,” she said, adjusting her circular lensed glasses. “Take a seat wherever you want.” 

  Harold sat in front of a bench with a metal basin and faucet. Someone sat next to him. It was the boy who ran onto the stage during the panic in the hall. Harold ignored him and looked ahead to the teacher. The class sat in silence, waiting for her to speak. She took a moment to look at all nine of her students.

  “Well you’re a quiet bunch. I’m Ms. Marol,” she said. “I’ll start by marking the role. That way, I can get to know all of your names.”

  She went through the role, calling out each name and receiving a response from each student until she got to Connor's name.

  “Connor? Is Connor not here today? This is a boarding school and it’s his first day. Does anyone know where he is?”

  “How could you!” shouted a girl from the back of the class. She had responded when the name Natalia was called out.

  “Oh?” the teacher said, surprised. “Are you alright? What’s wrong?”

  Natalia jabbed her finger towards the teacher. “You! Acting like this after wha-”

  A guard walked into the room shutting Natalia up in an instant. “Ms Marol,” he said. “I’ve been told to inform you that one of your students will not be coming in. Connor, I think, was his- sorry, is his name. The principal has deemed him unfit for this institution and has since expelled him.

  “Oh my,” said MS Marol. “Didn’t even make it through his first day? He must be experiencing such awful dread right now.”

  Yeah, without the R.

  “The boy’s fine ma’am. Just scratch him off the role if you wouldn’t mind,” Said the guard”

  “Ok, will do. Thank you.”

  The guard left the room and Ms Marol closed the door after him.

  “It’s so sad to hear about your classmate,” she said. “But you shouldn’t think about any of that right now. Just look to your future and all will be well. I'm sure he will be fine in another school.”

  Harold was confused. Did the teacher not know about the school’s capital punishment? Will I be asked about this lesson in the next assembly? What if I forget something? 

  “Now, without further distraction, let's start our first lesson,” Ms. Marol said, turning to the white board. “The curriculum that I've been told to teach is pretty strange. All the topics seem to deviate drastically from one another, so today we’ll be going over little thermo dynamics but tomorrow we’ll probably be doing a completely different topic.”

  Do I have to memorise everything?

  “Heat, what is it?” asked the teacher.

  Nobody raised their hand, or spoke, or breathed. 

  “Anyone?” 

  No response.

  Ms Marol snapped “Ok, I don’t know what ‘manners’,” she air quoted. “You have been raised to display, but in my class! We talk, we share and we discuss, not just about science, but personal matters. I will not be teaching robots!”

  The guard from before peeped in from the door. “Is everything all right in here-

  “Piss off!” Ms Marol shouted, kicking the door shut on his fingers.

  Harold could hear the guy yelping from the other side of the door. We’re never going to be prepared for the next assembly at this rate.

  “People learn best when they know and are known by the person teaching them,” Ms Marol said. “So if I need to scrap the lesson so we can all get to know each other, so be it!”

  “Ms. Marol, please,” said Harold. “We can talk about our hobbies after. Just teach us the lesson.”

  The whole class stared at him.

  “Yes, ok, sorry,” said the teacher. She turned back to the white board.

  After Ms. Marol gave a lecture about the nature of hot and cold things, she got them doing an experiment. Harold was holding a clear, plastic cup full of warm, red dyed water. It was covered with a flat, metal sheet, keeping the water in as he tipped the cup upside down. Harold placed the cup on top of another which was filled with cold, blue dyed water. Carefully, he removed the thin, metal sheet and observed as the red water made contact with the blue water but didn't mix.

  “Yes! Good work boys,” Ms Marol said, clapping gleefully as she observed from the other side of their bench. “Roland and Harold was it?”

  “Yes,” they both said.

  Ms Marol lowered herself until she was eye level with the cups. “Do you see how they don’t mix?” she said, pointing to the water. “Can you tell me why?”

  “Because the cold water is heavier,” said Harold.

  “Because the cold water is denser meaning that it has a bigger mass to volume ratio making it sink below the lighter, hot water,” said Roland.

  Is he trying to one up me? Prick!

  “Yes! Correct! correct! Correct!” Ms. Marol said.

  Harold watched the rest of the students struggle. He watched Natalia at the bench in front of him as she lifted the cup of hot water. Her hands trembled as she lowered the cup of red water onto the cup of blue water and just as she was about to let go and finish the experiment, Ms Marol turned around to see how she was going. As soon as she noticed Ms Marol observing her she squeezed too hard causing the water to eject and spill all over the bench.

  “No! No no no no no. Please Ms!” She got on her knees and tears started to stream down her face as she groveled. “Please! Just one more chance. I won't stuff it up.”

  When Natlia started crying Ms. Marol gave herself the job of consoling her, leaving Harold and Roland alone with one instruction, to make conversation.

  “So… What do you think of the school,” said Harold. Surely he’s got to be thinking about what happened at the assembly this morning.

  Roland pierced Harold's soul with a fierce glare.

  “Sorry,” Harold said

  “What are you apologising for?” Roland said, still glaring. 

Roland’s demeanor confused Harold. Does he want to talk or not?

  “My question annoyed you,” Harold replied

  “But that’s not your fault,” Roland said. "Had you asked it knowing how I felt about a question like that, I would’ve knocked you off your stool.”

  “Oh, well do you mind if we talked about what happened this morning?”

  “What do you think I have to say?”

  “I don’t know. Aren't you scared? Don’t you feel like you're in danger?”

  “Of course, everyone does. Look at them all trying to hide it. They're all too scared to tread over invisible lines.”

  Everyone was ‘occupied’, looking at their experiments though Harold caught some of his classmates glancing over to the teacher who was still comforting Natalia.

  “And you?” Harold asked

  “This is just how I express fear.”

  “By getting defensive? I saw you go after that crazy hag at assembly. You’ve got courage in you.”

  “Yeah, my dad pronounces courage in a weird way, you know. He says it like stu-pi-di-ty. Reactions like that is why he built this place. He said I need to learn how to think.”

  “Your dad built this place?”

  Roland nodded. “My dad is principal Liam Kahl.”