c h a p t e r 4
r e a c t i o n
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BLAZE'S POV

"Blaze, Milo wants to see it, too." Adam nudged me with his elbow while I completed doodling Mr. Shalom, our chemistry teacher's caricature with his big nose, his even bigger ass and belly, while he was totally oblivious and busy examining a test tube.

"Just a sec. One last thing," I whispered back, drawing a fart cloud behind his ass and drew long wavy hair, and scribbling Mrs. Shalom on top of it. Once done, I looked at my artwork and tossed the paper to Adam. He chuckled and passed the drawing on the creased paper over to Milo.

Milo and his benchmate Josh took one look at the drawing and burst into laughter, drawing Mr. Shalom's attention. Luckily, the two quickly composed themselves and the teacher turned his back to us again.

The classes at St. Joseph were always dull. The teachers would talk nonstop, and the subjects were preset and organized in a timetable. The whole 365 days of my life, down to the very minute, was written down on a piece of paper by someone who knew nothing about me. The thought of that made me grit my teeth.

I didn't mind them slotting me in the house or making me sit through classes I had no interest in the subject of. What did set my spine aching though was when they expected me to fall in line. To be someone I was not. To not only follow rules and be disciplined, but to do so willingly. To be like the rest of the guys here.

Complacent. I was anything but  complacent.

After three rounds to the headmaster's office—listening to my uncle yap about his pride towards the discipline that the school and most importantly the boys carried—I soon learned that I alone could not do anything that would hurt his pride. This place, the people in it were all like him, and if I wanted to breathe freely, I needed to change the very air of this place.

Disrupt their discipline.

I leaned back in my seat and stretched my legs under me, while purposely kicking Div's legs; he was sitting in the desk in front of me. I casually placed my arms behind my head. Adam took in my relaxed state and cast a glance at Mr. Shalom's back. Then Adam shook his head at me, while I threw him a wink.

In the short period of a week, I found my roommates to be quite easygoing fellows who were friendly enough when needed be and also knew when to let me be and when to not mind my business.

The four of them had an interesting mix of personalities, which, oddly enough, was quite balanced with mine. Even though they had been here longer than me, they didn't make me feel like a newbie.

Adam, however, was a bit suspicious at first, especially when he caught me sneaking out to the roof two nights before. But when he still didn't push on the topic and shrugged it off, I found myself enjoying his company more.

I watched as my four roommates had their fill of laughter and scribbled some crude comments on the drawing, and then passed it on to the next guy until the whole class ended up snickering and making more jokes.

Needless to say, I didn't have to make much effort to get them to act more like themselves than how my uncle had made them to be in only under a week. Which made me realize that everyone here was dying to be free and just too scared to take the initiative and get in trouble, but would gladly follow suit.

I watched as one guy three seats down my row held up the paper and compared Mr. Shalom's ass. The guy even gave me a thumbs-up.

Giving me an idea to make it even more fun for all my classmates and to spark more ruckus in the ever disciplined class, I waited for Mr. Shalom to turn back around to the board. Once he did, I got up from my desk to get everyone's attention and made a gesture of cupping his hips. I let out a whistle and quickly sat down.

Mr. Shalom turned back around with an angry face, thinking that it would shut us all up, but the laughter going around the class was like an uncontrollable wildfire—one I had no intention of letting him bring at a halt.

"Silence at once, boys! This is a class. Stop it...stop it!" Mr. Shalom kept on urging the guys to stop.

When  he was busy controlling one side of the classroom, I again gestured to his big, round belly and enacted a scene of him being pregnant, while I looked to the boys of the other side, making them holler with laughter. Milo was wiping away tears of joy while Adam and Parker loudly clapped.

"That's it! For the last time...I am warning you all. Silence!" Mr. Shalom screamed seconds later. 

Evidently almost all of them did shut up, but, I could see everyone still had the telltale sign of twitching smiles on their faces.
"Is there a joke going on around here? If that is the case, do share so that I can join in, too." Mr. Shalom spoke sarcastically, looking around with his beaded eyes at us, challenging everyone to dare speak. His eyes then found me and narrowed. "I sense that you are at the center of this commotion." He pointed a finger at me.

I remained in my seat.

"Please, Mr. Warner, tell me this hilarious joke of yours that has gotten everyone so wrapped up," the teacher snapped from the front of the class.

I saw David from the Julius House throw the drawing in the dustbin, getting rid of it. I also gave a small smile to Mr. Shalom and leaned forward in my desk.

"I could tell you the chemistry joke, Sir, but I don't think I would get a reaction," I said with a straight face.

Beside me, Adam could not contain himself and burst out laughing, making others join him too while the poor Mr. Shalom stood and tried to figure out what was so funny about my comment—obviously not getting my chemistry pun.

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After two days of attending nothing but boring classes, finally it was time for some physical activity. I was all up for a good round of basketball with my friends and fellow housemates.

"Did you hear the news?" Parker inquired as he dribbled the ball, then tried twirling it on his fingertips.

"About?" I snatched the ball from his hands and started spinning it on my little finger, making him roll his eyes at me.

"Next week is selection for a place in the team. There’s even talk about an in-house match to find the best players for shortlisting." Jack, while doing some hand stretches, shortly joined in on the conversation.

"What about the captain?" I inquired, chest-passing the ball to Adam as he and Milo walked towards us after changing into their tracks.

"Nah. That post was already given to a senior, Bill Trivol. He was captain last year. Just like his brother was before he graduated. That Trivol family is obsessed with the game," Milo commented as he tied up his shoelaces.

"Yeah? Well, not anymore," I remarked back, catching Mr. George, our coach, talking to his teammates with Bill Trivol running his hand through his blond locks.

"What do you mean?" Adam asked, sounding worried, his brows creasing.

I ignored him and made my way towards the group, burying my hands in my track pockets. "Excuse me, Coach," I said loudly to get their attention. "I want the captain’s spot in the team." I confidently look the coach in the eye when I had all of their attention.

Bill Trivol snorted, and his teammates looked at me like I was being funny.

"Ah…well, the tryouts are next week, and I admire your spirit, Warner, but the captain is already selected. You can prep for next year, though..." Coach placed a hand on my shoulder as a sign of encouragement.

I shook my head and unzipped my jacket. "Well, Coach, I want to be captain this year—not next—and I can whip your captain's ass in this game right now to prove it that I’m way better." I smirked, throwing the ball on the bench at Bill Trivol.

The guy only scoffed.

"What, you up for it, Captain? Let’s see if you really are fit for leading this team," I challenged Bill.

He gave Coach a worried look, and the Coach nodded his head in agreement with me and crossed his arms, giving me a once-over.

"Alright; let’s see if the boy is right or just too confident." Coach gave Bill the permission in a quick hand gesture, and then gave the students an order. “Clear the court, guys.”

I grinned, excited to kick Bill Trivol’s ass.

"Alright, boys, half court—" the coach began.

But I cut him off. "Full...it’s full on or nothing. Right?" I teased Bill, enjoying watching his eyes flicker here and there. Out of nervousness, I assumed.

"Alright. Full court, then," coach muttered. He got ready to toss the ball in the air.

Keeping my eyes hooked, I watched as the ball was airborne, and then leapt for it.

Bill beat me to it and grabbed the ball. He threw me a smirk and started dribbling the ball around me to reach for my basket.

I let him have the benefit of the doubt by throwing my hand all over the place in silly attempts of getting the ball—all just to boost his ego.

“Show him, Bill! Kick his ass!” Everyone started cheering on his name and my friends just stood by, silently watching.

No doubt, not wanting to cheer a looser, but also not wanting to seem cold towards me. Which made me feel a new sense of respect towards them.

I saw through my peripheral vision that Bill was already half in my court and so I let him make the first basket. I let out a grunt and pretended to look hurt as he bathed in the glory of cheers from the crowd.

The ball skidded off in the direction of the crowd, and Adam grabbed it, then chest-passed it to me. He then gave me a thumbs-up, maybe as a sign for “best of luck”.

I threw him a wink and smirked. He frowned, seeming confused, and fell back in line with rest of the onlookers.

I passed on the ball to Bill to dribble, feeling satisfied from knowing he played straight in my hand by becoming overconfident. So wrapped up in one single win, he forgot to block his ball, like I knew he would.

I didn't even pretend to give him a fight and easily snatched the ball away from him. I dribbled it all the way to his half of the court, while he made lame attempts at taking back the ball. Not bothering to get closer to the basket, I threw the ball after blocking him so he would not snatch it mid-air, then watched with satisfaction as it went through the loop in a clean swipe.

My friends cheered for my first score by yelling my name and bumping their fists.

"Hey, Captain! Guess you forgot the most import rule of the game...never underestimate the opposite player." I spoke loudly so all could hear me. When the coach whistled to continue playing, I took back my form and got my head in the game.

We fell in a nice rhythm after that. I let Bill have the ball once or twice, and then still got a basket every time. The game was playing out just as I wanted it to. At first, I made him overconfident, and then completely nervous. Now as we neared the end of the game, he was so jittery and out of his wits that it became easy for me to score.

Once or twice he tried for a basket, but I still caught his ball mid-air. The crowd quickly changed sides after I scored the next three baskets in a row. “Dayumm…Blaze,” one of the guys hollered. However, it was the end shot that got my devoted fans when I tricked Bill to turn behind while I back-tossed the ball without looking into the net.

Sure, I could have played it proper instead of showing off, but where would be the fun in that?

Even the coach was impressed after the game was over. “Nice, kid,” he praised me for scoring all the points except the first one.

Bill did his sportsmanship act by shaking my hand, and not arguing with the coach when he announced me as the new captain. But I still saw how badly I had kicked his pride to the curb by the way he glared at me.

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All the boys from junior to senior were gathered in the prep room, trying to complete their homework or studying for the upcoming test. Yet we all kept on distracting one another by chatting about the game or Mr. Shalom. Milo was retelling the details of the fun chemistry class to our seniors, who then praised me and demanded a drawing for them to see.

The guys were quick to make me their hero, seeing as they never had such an eventful day in St. Joseph before I had come. And I was enjoying every bit of the attention.

After prep hour and dinner, I took my bag of cans and again sneaked out of the room. This time, though, instead of going to the roof, I went to the backside of the gym building.

In order to get there, I first went to the bathrooms on the ground floor and jumped out the window. Then I slowly tiptoed around the sleeping watchman to the backside of the gym building. Once there, I took out my red spray can and continued working on the giant eye graffiti.

I sat down on the ground and studied the details of the eye. It would take me yet one more day to finish it, but when it's done, it would look really cool.

I had carefully observed that no one went around the backside of the gym house as it was surrounded by wild bushes, and so I found it an ideal place for my graffiti.

Done for the night, I decided to walk through the back of the office building and directly took the flight of stairs to the roof, just to sneak back into my room. God forbid the ward was on rounds.

I walked fast to avoid lingering but at the same time kept my pace soft to avoid making noises. I kept my eyes and ears alert.

I saw the headmaster’s office still had the lights on. So I dropped down and crawled around and under the window, but paused for a second when I heard Uncle's violent coughs.

I took a quick peek inside and saw him pop a pill in his mouth, then gobbled it down with water. I worried for a second but then watched him immediately get back to the papers on his desk; hence I, too, resumed my walk to reach the stairs.

Back on the roof a minute later, I stretched my arms and yawned before falling on the ground. I adjusted my bag and laid my head on it, quickly falling asleep.

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A half eaten pizza for you thought?

Peace Out Bitches💋