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Chapter One-Silent Sanctuary 9/17/2005 1:13:09 AM
This is Chapter One of my upcoming novel, titled SILENT SANCTUARY. It is the story of Frank Somers, a 14-year-old boy who is persecuted in school. He is very smart in the subject of science and helps a classmate improve his grade. The two become close friends and share a motorcycle, taking turns riding trails. Frank has an accident while riding, and goes into a coma for three days. During these three days, he enters an alternate existence where the past and present are juxtaposed in a very unusual fashion. When he comes out of the coma, his personality and livlihood have been completetly transformed. ONE
“Frank, I’m waiting.”
The teacher had just called on him to answer a question; specifically what year President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation into law. Frank had no idea. A few snickers and jeers could be heard nearby. It was the second week of eighth grade and he had not yet become accustomed to getting up at 6:30 AM. The classroom was hot and stuffy, and the fan that was located in a vacant chair facing the twenty-two other eighth-graders did little more than blow the already stagnant air toward them. It was simply amazing that in the twenty-first century, schools still refused to accommodate students with air conditioning. In September, Oklahoma could still be a very hot place. For this reason many of his classmates could occasionally be seen fanning themselves from time to time, either with spiral notebooks or actual paper fans like those seen in decorative motifs of restaurants specializing in Far Eastern Cuisine. Frank Somers wondered how many, if any, of his fellow eighth-graders realized that expending energy to shift air in order to make a breeze would actually make them hotter than they were before.
It was now obvious to Mrs. Schneider that Frank had not done the assigned reading last night. He had remained silent with an expression of anxiety written on his face. Just then, Rory Thompson, the person sitting behind him who also happened to be Garner Middle School's premier wide receiver, thumped him rather hard on the back of his head, and exclaimed, “Answer the question, dude!”
This of course was received with dispersed laughter, particularly from the females. Being a football player had its advantages. It made a person instantly popular. Looks weren’t that important as long as you caught a lot of passes and were winning games.
Rory had done so, and comfortably. In the season opener
against the Wildcats, the game had been tied with seven seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. Following the final snap, he had run his route with perfect timing, caught a thirty-yard pass, and then ran eighteen more yards into the end zone. Whether or not Rory was the top go-to guy for the Garner Hurricanes was irrelevant to Mrs. Schneider at the moment. She was not amused by his current antics.
“Rory, that was completely unnecessary and uncalled for. If I see you do something like that again you’ll be spending your after-school hours in detention.”
Frank’s face was turning red with embarrassment as some of the prettier girls covered their mouths to suppress further laughter. He was aware that they were laughing with Rory as opposed to laughing at him. Mrs. Schneider called on somebody else, who answered the question correctly. His next class would start in just ten minutes and he was looking forward to it. A girl named Kelly sat next to him and she had smiled at him yesterday. It seemed like just about everyone had a girlfriend except Frank. In the locker room during PE hour, a few guys had boasted about various conquests they had achieved. Frank hadn’t even held hands with a girl, let alone accomplish anything that the boys in the locker room had described. Unbeknownst to Frank was that these stories were largely fabricated.
Five minutes to go, and the bell would ring. His next class, the one with the girl named Kelly who sat next to him, was science. Two weeks ago, when school started up again for the year, he hadn’t paid much attention to the girl. Last Thursday, that had all changed. Kelly came into class that day with a new hairstyle that had transformed her from a plain Jane to a knockout. She had previously worn long, stringy hair parted in the middle that resembled Marcia Brady’s on the ever-popular reruns that would play in syndication until the person who
portrayed her character was either on Medicare or until time itself ended, whichever came first. When Kelly walked into class on that Thursday, her hair had been cut into a shorter, layered style, and now bangs covered her forehead at just the right length, on a level with her eyebrows. It brought out pretty features on her face that had gone unnoticed before. The much-improved change that she had undergone had reminded Frank of the makeovers on the Oprah show that he sometimes watched with his mother this past summer.
And yesterday, this girl who had transformed herself from a plain duckling to a beautiful swan had smiled at him. Now it would be sixty seconds until the bell rang. Frank was getting a bit nervous. He was extremely shy, especially around those of the opposite sex. Would she smile at him again today? And if she did, should he smile back at her?
He had tried to smile at girls in the past, but they usually responded in a cruel, cold manner in which some superficial eighth-graders excelled. Frank would be fourteen years old next month. He had stick-straight hair parted on the side that was held in place with gel, but he used so much of it that it more closely resembled grease like that used back in the 1950’s. If he had resembled Fonzie from Happy Days, he may have gotten away with it, but Frank was not “hot” in any manner, shape, or form. In this decade, he looked more like Larry King. Thick black glasses covered half of his face, which showed early signs of the dreaded plague that afflicted quite a number of teenagers. Soon he would resemble the “before” picture in a Clearasil ad. He knew that acne was caused by chemical changes in the body between childhood and adulthood and that it usually cleared up on its own before the age of twenty, but it was not comforting to accept the fact that he would probably have to endure this disfigurement for at least five years. As a result, the reaction he got when smiling at girls was always the same.
“What are you smiling at, zit face?”
“In your dreams, geek.”
“Were you hatched at birth?”
“Don’t come any closer. That’s far enough.”
Inevitably it was followed by much laughter. This type of treatment had reduced Frank to avoiding eye contact with girls; instead, he would look at the floor when he had to talk to one. In his next class with Kelly, he would have to overcome his fear of rejection and ridicule if he expected to get anywhere. Science happened to be his favorite class. He had a knack for it, perhaps an inborn ability, to completely understand anything from the construction of molecules to the latest accomplishments in technology. Even in recent years, when daydreaming often replaced homework, he still managed to get “A”s in science. This could work to his advantage with the girls in this case. Sooner or later they would realize that Frank was smart in this subject and maybe, just maybe, those who were not as proficient would approach him for help. Frank was so shy and desperate that he really didn’t care whether or not he would be used in this way. It would still be nice just once to be on the receiving end of a girl’s attention regardless of the reason.
However, this could also backfire in his face. With his slicked-back hair and black plastic eyeglass frames, the only thing missing was a pocket protector to complete the universally accepted stereotype of a nerd. He also hated the class with Mrs. Schneider and Rory Thompson; social studies. Frank didn’t care how people in other countries lived and he didn’t care about events in history. He was too immature to see the importance of every subject and how they were all connected and intertwined within everyday life. In this respect he was like the majority of fourteen-year-olds who would one day come to realize this.
Now he was nervously shuffling his feet along to fourth period; science. He had to try something or he would get
nowhere. While he walked, he kept his eyes and ears open for Luis Sanchez, a Mexican kid with a mean streak who would probably be in a gang if it weren’t for the fact that Tulsa or Oklahoma City was quite a distance from here. Luis enjoyed picking fights with anyone who appeared to be vulnerable to his threatening demeanor. It was also rumored that he was involved with drug-dealing, but if he was, he concealed it well, either by avoiding transactions anywhere near Garner Middle School, or by scaring the hell out of anybody into a vow of silence who knew of his activities. His older brother was said to be waiting for his turn to be lethally injected in McAlister for murdering a store clerk in an armed robbery five years back. The whole Sanchez
family was one best to be avoided. Unfortunately, they had to go to school somewhere. On Monday, Frank’s week began with Luis calling him an unflattering name. Frank had been close to the stairway that went to the basement floor for his first class when Luis approached him.
“Hey, you’re sure one ugly troll, aren’t you?” he had remarked.
Frank did not want a confrontation. First of all, he would lose the battle, and secondly, ignoring this rude individual just might work. It didn’t, however. As Frank tried to walk away from him, Luis said, “Hey, you’re not only ugly, but you’re deaf, too!”
Frank’s blood pressure was up, brought on by both fear of what would happen next as well as rage. Although he didn’t possess much pride or self-confidence, he was still capable of reaching a breaking point. He was angry now.
“Well, you know what? You don’t look so great yourself!”
Upon hearing this, Luis pushed Frank’s textbooks out from under his arms, sending them flying in several different directions. Then he placed his foot on Frank’s bottom side and gave him a swift kick, which sent him flying down three of the
steps leading to the lower level. He would have fallen much further but found purchase by grabbing the metal rail. Naturally, a crowd had gathered and they were laughing at him. Luis went on his way, whistling an unrecognizable tune. Frank ignored the crowd as he gathered up his books.
Fortunately Frank hadn’t seen Luis since then. That was two days ago. He was now trying to put that incident out of his mind
so he could concentrate on how to respond to Kelly. He entered the science classroom. Most of the students were already seated, except for a couple of girls taking turns looking at pictures of
some teen idol in a magazine. Mr. Clark entered the room and the two girls went to their assigned seats. Kelly was seated next to Frank, but at the moment Mr. Clark was reviewing Chapter Two of the textbook. There would be a test tomorrow. Frank was far more worried about how he could get Kelly’s attention than he was about the test.
Fifteen minutes later Mr. Clark finished going over the chapter and asked, “Are there any questions?”
When nobody answered, he announced that everyone would be paired with someone else to study together. Frank was hopeful that he would be put with Kelly, but he wasn’t. She was with another girl who sat behind her and Frank was with a boy who sat in front of him. His name was Rick and although he wasn’t a friend of Frank’s, he wasn’t one to ridicule and poke fun at him, either. He was one of the indifferent ones, and they actually made up most of the eighth grade student body. It seemed like nearly everybody was in the former group because that was the way it appeared when several people hurt you at once, both physically and psychologically. Rick would be all right to work with, he supposed. Mr. Clark allowed and in fact encouraged the kids to talk with one another during study sessions. Not everyone was talking about the subject at hand, however. While Frank and Rick were going
over the chart of Periodic Elements, Kelly and her partner were giggling about something. For a brief moment, Frank turned toward Kelly with an inquisitive look. The two girls both started to laugh again, presumably because he had overheard them. In a bold but apprehensive move, Frank slowly began to slide his desk toward Kelly’s. They seemed
to be including him in the conversation now, which had something to do with the other girl’s brother releasing a well-executed fart in a restaurant where their family had gone out to eat last night. While Rick was still trying to memorize some
atomic symbols, Frank continued to inch his desk closer to Kelly’s. Suddenly Kelly caught on to what Frank was attempting to do and said, “Are you trying to move closer to me? Get away before you make me vomit!”
Frank’s happiness was crushed in an instant as though he were an insect whose life was stamped out by a gigantic foot. He quickly moved his desk back to its original location, embarrassed and humiliated again. When school was over for the day a beautiful, cloudless sky greeted the eighth-graders as they stepped out the front door. For all Frank cared it could have been as dark as the inside of a cave.
When I copied this over to AD, the margins were screwed up. This is a rough draft. I thank those of you who took the time to read this, and hope you enjoyed it.....Pat
