Upright Beasts Read Free

imagined the possibility of a connection between us?
    In front of me lie the crumpled pages of my assignment and an old teacher’s tie that I had saved from destruction.
    â€œWhat do you have to say about all this?” Bulger bellows.
    â€œHow did you get my locker combination?”
    Timmy chuckles. “Did you think I’d forget about your precious essay?”
    â€œYou know that worship of the false teachers is forbidden,” Bulger says. He stands up, holding an aluminum baseball bat as his staff. He picks up one page of my essay and smooths it out.
    â€œThe goal of our education is to afford us the skills needed to graduate and pursue further education at greater institutions.” He snorts. “What does that even mean? That our education never ends? That we’re trapped in a hell of infinite schools?” He crumples the page back up and tosses it on the floor.
    â€œThe concept of the teachers is absurd. What kind of teacher would leave their students? Such a teacher would be no teacher at all. So, we must conclude that the teachers are a false tale that students tell themselves to avoid facing the real struggles in their lives. They’re a myth, and a harmful one.”
    â€œIf that’s true,” I say, getting to my knees, “then who do you think is in the black lounge?”
    â€œSilence!” Timmy yells.
    Bulger merely laughs.
    I’m being held in the equipment cage. My guard passes me Gatorade and granola bars through the gaps. Clint Bulger comes to see me, to ask if I repent. I say nothing.
    â€œYou know,” he says, sitting on a kickball, “you look very familiar to me.”
    â€œYes!” I say, hoping to appeal to his sense of fraternity. I crawl closer to the wire grid. “We used to ride the bus together. We both sat in the back row. We were almost friends.”
    â€œNo,” Bulger says. He sighs and rises. “You still don’t understand. There never was any bus.”
    I’m napping on a pile of gym mats when I hear a voice softly say my name.
    â€œThey let me see you,” Beanpole Paula says. “I said I’d reason with you.”
    She slips me a chocolate chip cookie through the gap. Her hand brushes mine as she does.
    â€œThanks,” I say.
    Paula is silent as I take a bite.
    â€œDo you really want to leave the school so badly?”
    â€œI could stay,” I say, leaning against the cage. “I could stay with you.”
    She gives me a look that feels as if it is traveling to me from some vast, cold distance. Then she turns her head away.
    â€œI’m with Timmy now. You know that.”
    â€œI don’t know what’s true and what’s false. I only believe there must be a better, more important place than this.”
    â€œThen I hope you find it,” Paula says. She starts to say something else, but instead turns away with her mouth partly ajar.
    Past crushes, friends, rivals, and strangers alike jeer and shout as I’m dragged through the hallway. My head pulses as it hits the tile floor. A little stream of blood trickles out of my nose. When I raise my head, I see the dark teachers’ lounge towering over me.
    â€œThis heretical loser has turned his back on all of us,” Bulger shouts. The student body has assembled on the different floors overlooking the cafeteria. They are silent and watching. “But we aren’t unreasonable people. In fact, we want to give him a choice. He may repent and return to his clique, or he may live for the rest of his days inside his sacred lounge.”
    The shouts of the students fall around me. I look up at the different faces staring down. Some are sympathetic, some seem angry, but most are simply bored. The most venomous face belongs to Timmy. He spits on the tile floor.
    Paula is next to him, and her eyes are red. I look into them, hoping, perhaps, for some sign. I think that maybe she will leap forward and block the entrance,