A New Week

The Place Where Promises Aren’t Kept [Chapter 15]

All that week in Mrs. Carpenter’s class we were just finishing up our stories. The work meant that there wasn’t much time for Kyle to talk to me. I saw him working on his own story, even though he had said that he didn’t want to or need to do it. I felt just a tiny, little bit bad for him since he didn’t have as much time as the rest of us.

In a turn of luck, I didn’t see him on Thursday or Friday in the computer lab. Jakey didn’t ask me where I had been that Wednesday when I had been with the councilor. We just did the same things as usual as if Kyle had ceased to exist. On that following Monday, I learned why I hadn’t seen much of him.

That was the day when the final drafts of our stories were due in Literature. Mrs. Carpenter had given us the weekend to put the final touches on it. I was very happy with the conclusion, with my Squire character taking care of the Knight after he had been injured. It wrapped up the conflict by teaching the Squire that he was important, even if he wasn’t able to fight as well as the Knight. My paper was just about five pages, which is probably the most I had ever written for one paper. A lot of people’s stories weren’t even that long. I was super surprised that even Kyle had a story to hand in.

Those stories got collected right away at the beginning of class. Just after, a miracle occurred when Mrs. Carpenter turned off the lights and turned on a movie for us to watch the rest of the period. I guess she wanted to start reading through all of our stories right away. A little ways through the beginning of the film, Kyle leaned in close to me and whispered.

“Hey, want to come and play football on the field today at lunch?”

“Football?” I whispered back. It was the game we had just started playing in P.E. I knew enough about football to figure out I didn’t like it and that I didn’t know any of the rules. When I was forced to play it there at school, I just ran around and hoped the ball didn’t get thrown at me.

I pulled away a little bit and looked at him. “Uh, no thanks.”

“It’s really fun,” Kyle said back lowly. He seemed too excited about it. “Me and some guys from my math class started playing last week. We have a couple of teams going. Come on, dude.”

“No!” I said almost a bit too loud. I glanced at Mrs. Carpenter’s desk to see if she noticed. I didn’t think she did.

“You can even invite Jake,” Kyle said, poking my shoulder with his arm. “Well, only if you really want him to tackle someone and kill them,” he laughed.

“Shut up!” I definitely shouted too loud that time.

I saw Mrs. Carpenter’s eyes in the light of her little desk lamp. “Does one of you need to step outside?” She threatened.

“No!” Kyle said before me. He sighed and laid forward on his desk, resting his head on his arms. I separated myself from his seat the best I could and just focused on the movie.

Even though I tried to get out before him, Kyle caught up to me leaving the classroom. “You know I’m just messing around, right? We aren’t allowed to tackle anyone. The yard duties get mad at us. We do this thing called a one-hand touch.”

I remembered what Mr. Adams had said to me about dealing with people like Kyle. At the same time, I was still upset at what he had said. “I don’t care about football or whatever! Why do you always have to say junk like that about Jakey?” I yelled back at him.

“Whatever, dude, he’s not here,” Kyle shrugged. “And you can’t say that he isn’t fat.”

“He’s my friend!” I said louder. A few people were looking at us. “Even if he is big and fat, he’s still a nice dude. A lot nicer than you. And you’ve said plenty of bad stuff right to his face. So just stop!”

Kyle huffed at me like it had been the first time he had been told to not be so mean. “Fine. Whatever. You’re gonna make me late for my next class.”

My legs were shaking. Several people from my literature class were looking at me. I took a deep breath and went on my way, happy that he was going to leave me alone.

The Picture on the Background

Kyle didn’t talk to me those next two days in Literature. It was actually pretty nice. I trained myself to not look at him or even in his direction. I thought that if we both ignored each other, he would forget about me. Then I would eventually forget about him and the not-so-great friendship we had together.

It was Wednesday then. Lunchtime, to be exact. I went on my way to the computer lab like I usually did. This time, I spotted Jakey and all the other guests of the lab out front. Obviously, something was stopping them from going inside.

“What’s up, Jakey?” I said. He noticed me. “It’s not closed today, is it?”

I was imagining (and dreading) the thought of having to go to the cafeteria to eat. Then having to play outside under the sun.

“There’s a class in there,” Jakey said. There was a sign on the door. I don’t know how I missed the white paper held up with magnets in the corners.

“A class at lunch?” I asked. “And since when is there a class in here?”

“I just poked my head in. They’re almost out,” Jakey said, reassuring me. “Teachers can sign up for a time in here and Mr. Tate can teach them a thing on the computers. Like how to find something online. Or type an essay.”

I think I remembered something like that. Mrs. Carpenter said that we would type our stories up after they were finished being read and graded.

The door to the computer lab suddenly sprung open. There was a sudden river of kids pushing their way out, all ready to get to the outside and eat their lunches and talk and run around. They were the opposite of us.

“Finally, freedom!” I heard a familiar voice. “Oh, dang, it’s Mike!”

Kyle had come out with the class. He stopped and pulled his backpack over his shoulder. Even though Jakey was there, he only said hi and talked to me.

“Hi,” I said back. I don’t know what Kyle was waiting for.

“The usual stuff, boys?” He said with a smirk, talking about our games in the computer lab.

“Yeah, the usual stuff,” I said back in the same tone that he had used.

“Cool. Oh yeah, there’s one thing you never told me, Mike!” Kyle said, pointing at me and nearly poking me in the chest. “My friends who I play football with said the cafeteria has pizza on Wednesdays. I got my mom to give me money for it today instead of eating the gross stuff she usually packs! I could have been eating good all this time.”

I shrugged. “We don’t eat in the cafeteria. How would we know what they have there?”

Kyle rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah, whatever. Well, good thing he doesn’t eat there, or they would run out of food. Hah!”

He was clearly talking about Jakey. I looked back at my friend. He seemed unbothered like he hadn’t even heard what was said. I had heard, though.

For the first time in my life, I felt like I wanted to punch something. I wanted to punch Kyle. I balled up my fist and held it by my side. I was ready to punch him. But I didn’t. Jakey suddenly walked between me and Kyle.

“If you don’t go now, they’ll run out of all the pizza, idiot,” Jakey said lowly.

“Shut up!” Kyle said. He began stomping down the hall. I could hear him still complaining. “Stupid Mr. Tate and keeping us in so late!”

Jakey went inside the lab without saying anything else. I wanted to say something to him, but I could barely keep up. We both sat in our same spots. We both typed in our usernames and passwords like normal. I kept looking over to Jakey.

“You should tell him you don’t like that,” I said finally. “I mean, I’ve told him that it’s rude. But you need to tell him, too.”

“I know I’m fat, Mike,” Jakey said back plainly. One of his hands was moving around in his backpack, searching for his paper lunch bag. “My dad is fat, and my mom is pretty fat too. She says it’s a disorder in my dad’s family. I don’t know what that means. But I don’t think I can do much about it. So I’ll just stay fat.”

“You’re… not fat, though,” I said as if that mattered.

“Dude,” Jakey sighed. There was almost the sound of a laugh in his voice, too. “Do you know how when you get a haircut, and everybody says ‘hey, you got a haircut!’ It’s like, yeah, I know. I went to the barbershop and had it cut. I saw in the mirror. It’s like that. Like, I don’t even care.”

I looked down at my knees. I think I was trying to find something to say to Jakey that was an actual compliment. I suddenly heard him laughing, and that laughing was getting harder.

“Dude, what the heck is on your screen?” Jakey said, his body shaking up and down while holding back his chuckling.

My eyes shot up. The computer had logged me in. The desktop background was changed from the default one. Instead, it was a horrible Paint drawing shining brightly in the dim light of the lab.

If you don’t know what Paint— the computer program— is, it’s the most basic art-making tool that every computer had back then. Anything that you made in Paint had to look terrible. I mean, there were only a few shapes and tools and colors you could use. Everything was pixilated, too. Even if you were a great artist on paper, you wouldn’t have been able to make something that looked good in Paint. Most things people created looked like you had eaten one of those colorful birthday cakes and then threw it all back up.

The picture on my computer’s background was horrible. It was horrible, first, because it was made in Paint. It was horrible, secondly, because it was made to look like a rude hand gesture.

The first time I saw this hand gesture was from the window of a car when I was out with my mom. I knew it wasn’t nice because my mom made a bunch of huffs and sighs at it. I won’t even tell you more about it so I don’t you don’t have to imagine it yourself.

I knew something had to be done about this horrible picture on my computer. I jumped up out of my chair. “Mr. Tate! Mr. Tate!”

The teacher stood up from his corner of the room. It was the first time I had ever seen him out of his seat. “What’s up?”

I was nearly jumping up and down. I suddenly realized that the picture on my screen could get me in trouble, even if I hadn’t created it. I almost turned off the monitor and ran when Mr. Tate approached my desk.

“Oh, well, look at that,” the teacher said, humming and covering his mouth. I think he was almost going to laugh like Jakey.

“I didn’t set it like that!” I said loudly.

Mr. Tate put his arms at his sides and sighed. “I get it, Mike. I know you wouldn’t do something like this. It must have been someone who was in that last class.”

I let myself flop back down in my seat. “Who was here before?”

Mr. Tate rubbed his chin in thought. “I can’t remember. But the same class is coming back tomorrow. Maybe the same person will end up in this spot. Then I can catch them in the act.”

I nodded. When I looked at the picture again, it didn’t seem as horrible as when I had first seen it. “I can change it back,” I offered.

Mr. Tate shrugged. “Eh, don’t worry about it. I don’t have any classes after lunch that will have to see it. Then all the computers get refreshed late at night, so they’re back to their original settings tomorrow.”

I nodded like I understood. I looked at all the icons on the desktop, each being a program that had to be installed. “Doesn’t that take a long time, getting all the stuff back on the computer every morning?”

Mr. Tate put his hands on his hips again. “Actually, no. It’s all automated. Something programmed into the operating system itself. Then there’s this thing called an ‘image’ that has all the settings and programs already built in. When the computer gets told to, it puts everything exactly how you want it.”

I understood most of what Mr. Tate said just then. I wanted to ask other questions before he went back to his corner. “How do you know so much about Computers, Mr. Tate?”

“Because he studied it in school,” Jakey spoke up. “College.”

“What he said,” the teacher responded. “Computers have changed a ton, especially since I was your age. They were massive things that took up whole rooms back then. They were mostly modern… mostly… about the time I chose what I wanted to study in college. If it interests you, they call it ‘Information Technology.’

“Information Technology,” I repeated.

“Or just I.T. for short,” Mr. Tate added. “But you guys will be able to follow the current technology as it keeps getting better. Soon, you’ll know more than me.”

I didn’t think I would ever know more than Mr. Tate, but I liked the idea.

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