CHAPTER TWELVE!
( CALL ME NUWANDA. )

   "NO GRADES AT stake, gentlemen. Just take a stroll," Keating said as Knox, Cameron, and Pitts walked in circles in the courtyard. The rest of the class stood in a line, observing the people walking. After a while, all three boys began to walk at the same pace. "There it is." As they walked the class began to clap to the rhythm of their steps. Joan looked at Charlie, confused. He only smiled and shrugged his shoulders, he was used to Keating's unorthodox methods of teaching and preferred to lean back and watch the lessons unfold, while Jo wanted to know what was going on in advance.

"I don't know, but I've been told-" Keating sang and the group repeated after him. "Doing poetry is old," he continued. "Left, left, left-right-left," he began to walk in sync with the three boys. "Left, left, left-right-left. Left, halt!" Immediately the clapping and walking stopped.

"Thank you, gentlemen. If you noticed, everyone started off with their own stride, their own pace," Keating began to explain. "Mr. Pitts, taking his time. He knew he'll get there one day. Mr. Cameron, you could see him thinking, "Is this right? It might be right. It might be right. I know that. Maybe not. I don't know. Mr. Overstreet, driven by deeper force. Yes. We know that." Joan chuckled at how fitting each person's stride was to their personality.

"All right. Now, I didn't bring them up here to ridicule them. I brought them up here to illustrate the point of conformity: the difficulty in maintaining your own beliefs in the face of others. Now, those of you - I see the look in your eyes like, 'I would've walked differently.' Well, ask yourselves why you were clapping." There it is.

"Now, we all have a great need for acceptance. But you must trust that your beliefs are unique, your own, even though others may think them odd or unpopular, even though the herd may go, 'That's baaaaad.'" The class all laughed at Keating's sheep interpretation, at this point everyone felt quite comfortable laughing in the presence of the teacher, and furthermore, laughing at the teacher.

"Robert Frost said, 'Two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.' Now, I want you to find your own walk right now. Your own way of striding, pacing. Any direction. Anything you want. Whether it's proud, whether it's silly, anything. Ladies and gentlemen, the courtyard is yours," Keating held his hands out, inviting everyone into the open space.

"You don't have to perform. Just make it for yourself," Keating added. Joan hung back for a moment, a slight fear of being judged crossing her mind. Then she saw a couple of boys and girls walking like they were chickens and she realized that nobody really cared what the hell she did. She just began to walk, not really paying attention to her movements.

"Mr. Dalton? You be joining us?" You heard Keating ask.

"Exercising the right not to walk," Charlie replied.

"Thank you, Mr. Dalton. You just illustrated the point. Swim against the stream," Keating nodded.

❦

"To live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. To put to rout all that was not life," Neil read as you all sat in the cave, except Charlie and Knox. Now that Joan thought about it, she had no idea where Charlie was.

"Wait a minute guys, do you know where Charlie is?" she asked before anyone could say another word.

"I-" Neil began, but he was cut off by the sound of a a high pitched giggle.

"Oh, my God!" Cameron said. Joan narrowed her eyes and listened closely as footsteps approached.

"Is this it?" A girl asked.

"Yeah, this is it. Go ahead, go on in. It's my cave. Watch your step," someone replied. It was Charlie. Joan sucked in a quick breath and tried to stop herself from jumping to conclusions too quickly. Todd looked over at her and put his hand on her shoulder to try to reassure her.

"Maybe there's some explanation, maybe there's something else to this," Neil whispered, staring nervously at Joan.

"We're not gonna slip, are we?" A different girl said. He brought two?

"Uh-oh."

Just then a blonde girl with a bright red shirt plopped down into the cave. She certainly got dressed up for the event, her hair was perfectly curled and her lipstick was applied seamlessly.

"Hi," she smiled,

Pitts stood up quickly and slammed his head into the low ceiling. "Hello," Pitts greeted. Joan's eyes darted to Violet who was glaring skeptically at the two girls. Violet was never really one to pick a fight, but Joan couldn't exactly say the same for herself. She took in another deep breath and closed her eyes, trying not to get angry too quickly.

"Hello," Gloria nodded.

"Hi, you guys. Meet, uh, Gloria and-" Charlie started, forgetting the other girl's name. This gave Joan a small amount of satisfaction, but not enough.

"Tina," the girl in blue reminded him.

"Tina. This is the pledge class of the Dead Poets Society."

"Hello," the boys said politely.

"Hi. Hi," Gloria said for the third time. Joan rolled your eyes, refusing to greet these new girls. Did Charlie even tell them he had a girlfriend?

"Guys, move. Move. Come on, folks. It's Friday night. Let's get on with meeting," Charlie prompted. Everyone made way for the girls and it took everything in Joan to not trip Gloria as she passed.

"Sorry. Excuse- Excuse me," the boys apologized as they made room, which only made Jo angrier. It's not like they were royalty or something.

"Guys, I have an announcement to make. In keeping with the spirit of passionate experimentation of the Dead Poets, I'm giving up the name Charlie Dalton. From now on, call me Nuwanda," Charlie declared. Tina pulled out a tube of red lipstick and Charlie swiped it from her hands to draw red symbols on each of his cheeks. His effortless charm was more infuriating than ever, especially now that it was being used on someone other than her. Joan immediately scoffed, louder than she'd planned. Charlie's eyes flew to her.

"What? You don't like it? What about all that non-conformity stuff you kept talking about after class?" Charlie questioned, walking over to her. Joan looked at him in disbelief and turned away. Charlie stared at her for a moment in concern. Joan was sitting between Neil and Todd who were both looking at her and Charlie worriedly. Charlie tried to take a seat beside her but there wasn't really any room, and Neil wasn't sure he wanted to see Charlie hit one of Joan's nerves. After a few moments Charlie returned to his former seat and cleared his throat.

"We gonna have a meeting or what?" he said.

"Yeah. If you guys don't have a meeting, how do we know if we wanna join?" Gloria asked innocently.

"Join?" Neil said in disbelief, he shook his head. Joan looked around the room and saw Cameron raise his hands up and look at the rest of the group with an expression that seemed to say 'well look what Charlie did now'. Joan found herself appreciating Cameron more than she ever had.

"Seriously? You come in here once and think you can just join?" Joan retorted, standing up. She couldn't tell whether she was angrier at Charlie or the two airheads he brought with him. She drew in another breath and stared Charlie in the eye, waiting for him to say something. "My god, Charlie. Did you even tell them you had a girlfriend?" she nearly shouted, desperately trying not to let any tears spill.

"What? No, Jo, you got me all wrong. I brought them for the rest of these guys. You know you're the only one I want," he said quickly moving towards her.

"Wait, you two are together?" Gloria asked slowly. Joan shook your head at Charlie who opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out. He looked at her sadly. When he didn't say anything she sat back down and didn't look up at him again.

"Unbelievable," Joan muttered, eyes trained on the fire. She wasn't going to cry for him, not here at least. Todd gently moved his hand to her knee, still trying to calm her down, but she refused to look at him, afraid that she would only find pity in his eyes. Seconds later, Charlie ushered Neil out of his spot and sat down beside Joan.

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate," Charlie recited as he turned Joan's head to face him in an attempt to cheer her up.

"Wasn't that sweet," Tina mused. Joan turned her gaze and shook her head at Tina, causing her to tighten up. She looked away uncomfortably.

"Charlie knock it off," Joan said, pushing his hand off her face. "Did you think I would just be fine with you sneaking around with some college girls? I mean, are we dating or not? I thought you said that's what you wanted but there's no way I'm doing this if you're gonna run around with other girls all the time," she said angrily.

"Jo, I told you, I only want you okay? I really only brought them for the rest of the guys," he said again.

"Forget it, Charlie," she sighed, turning back to the fire. Joan didn't want to let her emotions get the better of her. She grew up in a family where emotions were constantly swept under the rug, and any indication of sadness was thought to be weakness. Even Keating's teachings hadn't managed to change some of the things that her parents had ingrained deeply into her mind.

Charlie looked to Neil for help, but Neil simply shook his head. Charlie sat uncomfortably at Joan's side and the meeting progressed. It seemed that everyone could sense the tension, nobody was speaking very much.

"We didn't mean to make you-" Gloria began but Joan cut her off.

"Y'know just shut up, alright?"

"Jo-" Charlie started.

"No! Look, I really don't care. Can we just get on with this?"

Tina pulled a bottle of alcohol out of her purse and passed it to Neil. "Go ahead, pass it around," she said. Once the bottle got to Joan, she took a long swig, even though she usually preferred to keep her head clear. Joan grimaced at the bitter flavour, but after a while she decided she liked the burn. The awkward silence persisted as the bottle made a full circle.

"Me and Meeks are working on a hi-fi system. It shouldn't be that hard to, uh, to put together," Pitts explained to the new girls, trying hopelessly to flirt. "Uh, I might be going to Yale. Uh, uh, but, I, I might not," Pitts continued.

"Hey, man, don't bring me into this," Meeks chuckled, shoving his arm. Joan was glad to see that Meeks had his priorities straight for one, but her mouth was still filled with a bitter taste, and it wasn't just the alcohol.

"I'd like to announce I published an article in the school paper, in the name of the Dead Poets," Charlie suddenly announced.

"What?" Cameron questioned.

"Demanding girls be allowed to eat lunch with boys at meals, and spend time in our dorm rooms."

"You didn't," Pitts breathed.

"How did you do that?" Neil asked.

"I'm one of the proofers. I slipped the article in," Charlie explained.

"Look, uh, it's, it's over now," Meeks said hopelessly.

"Why? Nobody knows who we are," Charlie persisted.

"Well, don't you think they're gonna figure out who wrote it? They're gonna come to you and ask to know what the Dead Poets Society is. Charlie, you had no right to do something like that," Cameron scolded.

"It's Nuwanda, Cameron," Charlie shot back.

"That's right. It's Nuwanda," Gloria smiled.

"Are you kidding? This might get girls completely kicked out of Welton!" Joan shouted. She was too mad to roll with his stunts right now.

"I only did it so I could spend more time with you," he said, grabbing her hand. Her eyes flitted down to his hand and she pulled it away.

"Charlie, it took years of negotiations and protesting for girls to even be accepted into Welton. We all know Nolan isn't a fan of it and he would be more than happy to take girls right back out of Welton. Besides, did you really think it was gonna work?" Joan looked at him incredulously.

"Jo, don't worry. If it all goes to shit, I'll be the one taking the blame. Are we just playing around out here, or do we mean what we say? For all we do is come together and reach a bunch of poems to each other. What the hell are we doing?"

"All right, but you still shouldn't have done it, Charlie. This could mean trouble. You don't speak for the club," Neil stated.

"Hey, would you not worry about your precious little neck? If they catch me, I'll tell them I made it up," Charlie said.

Joan let herself look into Charlie's eyes for a moment and felt a tear fall out of her eye. Before a second could even pass she wiped it away and stood up.

"I can't do this, I'm gonna go get some air," Joan stated and made her exit despite Charlie's protests.

AUTHOR'S NOTE.
❪ ⋆࿐໋ 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒑𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒆𝒎. ❫

I kinda played myself by changing
the storyline so that girls were at
Welton because I had no idea what
to make the article about... but there's
no way I could leave it out. Thank you
all for the comments and votes, it
means the world to me to know that
people are actually reading this. I love
you guys!