Step One: Find a Teacher

Pashmina Colt was one of the most beautiful girls in sophomore year, if you know what I'm saying. Not only was she pretty and smart and oh so witty with the retorts, she made out with Darren Hamilton behind the staff room during lunch. Of course, Darren wasn't thinking too much of that; he was more preoccupied with the softness and the hair and the squirming, giggling lips that were right in front of him. Man, she was good (not that Darren knew what he was thinking, as he was more of an uneducated virgin than I presume you readers are.) and man, this felt fantastic.

Darren was one of those people who was used to thinking things would go right with him. He, unlike many of his peers, had enough good sense to know that this sort of cliquey, writhing mass of young and stupid bodies did not only did not last forever, but was in fact filled with metaphors and moments that passed beyond high school and permeated real life. And, therefore, he figured that once he got out of this one horse town and moved to the place where the REAL action was, he would have it made. Life after high school would be a breeze for him, or so he thought, what with his tech knowledge (which in all actuality was very minor) or his people skills (again, minor still) or his gaming ability (okay, this part was relatively true. Not everyone can play Settlers of Catan and win, every single gorram time, as David's friends would tell him, if he had any friends.)

And yet with all of this supposedly going for him, David was one of those freak unknowns in high school. Now we're not talking about your stereotypical American high school, where the cheerleaders are all dicks and the jocks are all either jerks or hidden sweethearts, and where the loser kid redeems himself in the end and gets the girl, and everyone breaks out into song, and it's all happy happy play time. No. This was one of those slightly weirder, harder to define Canadian high schools. One of those schools where the cheerleaders were not only NOT cool, but picked on, as only 'junior high' tried out for the cheerleading squad. One of those where the jocks were pretty much all over the place, and the only 'cool jocks' were the ones on the local hockey team. One of those where the hard core party crowd consisted of maybe one guy with pot in his locker, and anytime there was a school trip someone got taken home with the police. One of those where the 'cool' kids would be that one really talented hockey player dude, and his friends, or a group of stereotypically pretty girls that owned cameras and booze and every Monday morning was another photo album of 'awsum party photos!!!'. It was when these two groups of 'cool' got together that shit really got down down in dirty town, down down in party town. Of course, you've got your regular unknowns and weirdo loners junior high sluts who text out naked photos of themselves and then act all embarrassed and hurt about it. (Darren's guess was that those were the ones who didn't make the cheerleading team and so take it out on their parents and the world, I assume) So, besides being a bit weirder, all in all, public high school in Canada was pretty much the same as public high school anywhere else.
A few of the more adept readers may be asking, If this was a CANADIAN high school, as it is said to be, then what is with the use of titles such as 'sophomore' and 'freshmen' ? Well, dear readers, our Darren Hamilton was what one might call 'picky'. He did not like rice, he never used contractions, and above all he hated the fact that high schoolers were still called by grade name. Grade Ten, Grade Eleven, what was with all of that? would be his constant wonderment. And so, the summer before Grade Ten, Darren vowed to never again refer to any high schooler by their grade name. instead, grade ten would be 'Freshman', Grade Eleven, 'Sophomore' and Grade Twelve? 'Senior'. So now that we have all that terminology and backstory figured out, let's get back to our intrepid hero, shall we?

Pashmina had pulled back by know, and was doing that sexy 'oops did I just make out with you?' smile and hair rearrange thing, which almost made Darren collapse further. She winked at him, straightening out her ridiculously tiny top. Any sensible person would have worn a sweater today, but not her. She'd wear the tiny top and then complain about how cold it was in March in Western Canada. Many people hated her for this manipulative attitude, but at the moment, Darren sure as hell did not. "I'll see you in math, okay?"

"K," mumbled David, or something to that regard. He was, how you say, over the moon with... lust? Something like that.

Pashmina left, and David leaned up against the wall of the school building, loving his life at the moment. What was not to love? He had just made out with a wonderful girl, something that could even boost his social status. (not that Darren minded being a relative unknown, he just thought that, if he was closer to the In Crowd, he might get invited to the cool parties and from there he could find more people to Settle Catan with. Yes, our Darren is truly a geek at heart) He had pretty excellent grades, which ensured him a steady flow of cash from his mum and dad. He had friends (Well, he wasn't sure whether he'd call Michelle a friend, and Pashmina? She was just an Experiment) and he was living in one of the warmest places in Canada. Life was pretty good.

Or at least it was pretty good, until Darren's mind flashed back to that one guest speaker... Now what did she say...

-YOU CAN GET SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED INFECTIONS FROM ANY CONTACT WITH HUMAN SECRETIONS, INCLUDING BLOOD, SEMEN, AND SALIVA-

Saliva. Ohgodohgodohgod.

Oh calm down, there's no way you got chlamydia.

WHAT THERE TOTALLY IS, YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW! HUMAN SECRETIONS INCLUDES SALIVA!

Of course I know! She would never have made out with you if she was diseased!

What if she hates my guts and wanted to pass it on! Oh nonononononononoNO.

Man you're sure a neurotic head case.

Shut up! What am I gonna do!

I guess wait until it hurts to pee?

NO BY THAT TIME IT WILL BE TOO LATE!

Then you'd better get to the doctor's place and take a morning… er, make-out after pill

WHAT THAT IS NOT EVEN INVENTED YOU STUPID INNER SELF.

YOU ARE THE ONE THAT IS STUPID.

NO I AM NOT YOU ARE.

SHUT UP THIS IS NOT HELPING ANYONE.

As you can probably tell, David was a bit of a weirdo neurotic head case. Could explain why he had no in real life friends.

So. Poor Darren was in the middle of freaking out about maybe perhaps sorta getting chlamydia from an errant make out sesh behind the school when the lunchbell rang. (Well, not so much as rang and buzzed obnoxiously loudly) So then David had to go to class.

In a cruel twist of fate that only happens in real life (and some awful fantasy novels) David's next class was bio, and of course they were studying human genitalia. Currently being on the venereal diseases topic, of course. David got to sit and squirm uselessly as the teacher (a boring old man called Patrick Meus. People called him Mr Moose) droned on and on about the horrid side effects, like warts (wince) bleeding (ooh) and even, in some cases, death (WAT) or at least loss of, er, appendage (THAT'S SOMEHOW WORSE). And of course he couldn't SAY anything, because as far as he knew it wasn't the guy's job to tell people about make out sessions unless they were of the dick-ish sort, or if they really didn't like women. (Darren didn't really like women but at least he respected them enough to know what he was and was not supposed to do, even if that knowledge was totally delusional and not at all based on how real people operate.) No, as far as Darren knew, the GOOD guy's job was to sit and squirm and wait for people to gradually find out about how he totally had chlamydia and was, like, totally gonna die sometime.

In other words, Darren's plan to slowly become 'cool' was not going exactly how he wanted it to.
Because Darren thought of himself as one of those aforementioned GOOD guys, he sat and he squirmed and he did his bit. Good thing he sat near the back, in a corner sort of place, where few people were near. Only one person did comment on his squirmy ness, and all they got in reply was some mangled grunting and something about either underwear or haemorrhoids, either of which would make incredibly boring rumours and so the stranger pressed no further, merely wrinkling his nose in silent sympathy (and/or disgust) at Darren's discomfort, albeit misled on what discomfort Darren was actually in.

After biology was maths class, and in maths class was none other than the lovely Pashmina. She nodded in his direction as Darren walked into the room, totally unaware that he was sweating up a storm and mildly freaking out and everything. Blah blah blah blah blah went the teacher, let us learn about what punctuation has to do with numbers! The teacher opened up the chalk board, it was one of those stuck in the wall and hiding things, and started writing stuff on it. Darren of course couldn't pay attention, as Pashmina was sending him little letters of paper, and Darren couldn't concentrate on that too well either as he was still freaking out about maybe/maybe not having chlamydia.

--Heyyy bby I had fun at lunch today wat u doin for the weekend? Also gimme ur ph # I wants to text

Around the first note was a terrain of hearts and stars and smilies.

He wrote: =no phones! The teach will take them and crush them! I have got to help my mum go shopping for new bedding plants, sorry, maybe go to a movie Sunday night?

She wrote back: --but Sunday is church day and school is after that, I do not think my parents would be very pleased if I went out to a movie with some sort of boy creature.

=Some sort of boy creature?

--You know what I mean.

=I thought you talked in a valley girl tone. What was with that incoherent message before?

--Oh that was just to mess with you , make you think that you had hooked up with some dumb bimbo. I'm totally not, as you can see. She winked at him as he read this, and he smiled.

=Well there goes my plan. He smirked at her, wiggling his eyebrows.

He could see her, bent down over the paper, scribbling furiously. --What are you talking about do you just want me for sex O MI GAWD UR A HOAR

=No no no no no no no no no no no no no I didn't mean that that was a joke please don't hate me

--Naw I'm just kidding, I know it was a joke, what was the punch line though I didn't really get it.

=Oh uh I don't know I was just kinda speaking without thinking you know

--You mean writing.

=Oh gurl you too s mart fo meee

--Hee hee. So what time do you want to meet for the movie?

David looked at her, a bit surprised. Didn't she say that she was going to be busy that day, what with church and parents and stuff? She smiled at him, and he saw a glint of a tongue piercing. He started to sweat in all the wrong places. Obviously sneaking out was not out of the question, either that or Church was not that big of a deal after all.

He wrote down hastily 'I think 7 15 at the front doors of the theatre' right before the bell rang/buzzed, announcing that school was officially out for the weekend. Shoving the paper at Pashmina, he smiled, and gathered his books, starting to walk out the classroom door. He really really wanted to get home, and quickly, he had to message Michelle and say that it was over between them, whatever it was that was between them, and oh he also had to plan out what he was going to wear on Sunday-

These thoughts were interrupted by the teacher grabbing him by the shoulder, and handing him the handout for weekend homework. Oh. I guess I would have been already done with all this stuff if I had paid attention instead of talking to the girl, he thought, going to his locker. He opened the locker and grabbed his back pack, shoving his math binder in. On a second thought, he reopened the locker and took out his math text book and his calculator. He might as well do some homework tomorrow while he was 'helping mum out with potted plants'. (for in case you couldn't tell or guess, that who helping his mum thing was a big fat out lie)

So he grabbed his text book and he already had his back pack and so he went out to the front and got on his bike. His helmet was in his hands, he had grabbed it from the locker as well, and he unbuckled the bike from the bike rack, tying the lock around the base of the bike seat, and he started biking home. His school was right on the top of a rather steep and dangerous hill; there had been a few appeals to Town Council to pave a safer bike path down the hill. All appeals had been ignored, of course, and citizens were just recommended to 'avoid using the hill for anything but vehicular transportation'. But Darren liked going fast, so he pedaled hard and then let himself soar down the awesome hill.

Darren sped down the hill, trees blurring beside him, cars whizzing on the other side in the opposite direction, up the hill. Biking home was one of his favourite things about going to this school. Sure, the bike up was a bitch but biking down? Pure ecstasy.

He coasted through several streetlights until his momentum slowed down, and he pedaled the rest of the way home, thinking again about Pashmina, and how he would rather be with her then with Michelle, but how was he to go about breaking the news to Michelle? He didn't like hurting people, and Michelle would definitely be hurt. This would require extra finesse.

After a few minutes he was on his street, and he biked over the ramp his dad helped him build, the one that went over the shed and into the backyard, and he pedaled round to the shed and put his bike in the shed, remembering to lock it up. In a town this small you wouldn't think one would need to lock up a bike, as after all this was British Columbia and not Alberta, but there had been rumours again of some break ins nearby in other towns, and as Darren had a really nice bike he didn't want to take any chances, no he did not.  

After Darren finished locking up his bike he headed to his house, opening the screen back door, calling out a quick "Hi I'm home!" and dumping off his back pack onto a kitchen chair before going upstairs with the intention of playing video games. Oh, and mentioning that stuff to Michelle.
However, when he opened his bedroom door and saw a large, angry looking old man with grey hair that turned black at the ends, standing at the end of his bed, he knew he was in for a very very bad day.

"WHAT WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!" he screamed, jerking back and, in his panic, accidentally closing his bedroom door behind him.

"SHUT UP YOU MORON I AM SUPPOSED TO BE YOUR NEW TEACHER NOW SHUT YOUR YOB!" The old man roared back.

Darren could hear sounds in the house, sounds of people exclaiming with alarm, was that his dad coming up the stairs? He reached behind him and went for the door handle-

The scary old man was grabbing him back the back of the neck. "This is why I wanted to QUIT," the man muttered, roughly yanking open the bedroom window and causing a few figurines of Darren's to fall off their shelves. "But NO, apparently there is no other teacher as good as I am, hah, that's a load of bull crap, they're just cheap." The old man looked about the room one last time, apparently unconcerned with the vigorous pounding at the bedroom door (for when the old man grabbed Darren, he had sneakily locked the door as well) and stopped only to grab the quilt from Darren's bed. "Here, hold this, and close your mouth," he snarled, thrusting the quilt at Darren. Then he threw Darren out the open window and Darren continued screaming.

It was when he was about halfway from the window to the ground that he remembered his bedroom door didn't have a lock.

And then everything turned black and grey and pain, and Darren fell asleep for a long, long, time.


Or have a Teacher find you.