Insidious Prophecy

by JH Terry

VII: The Attraction of Food

  After a while the various new boys were separated into their houses. Those picked last into each group had to wear a sign saying, “I’m Darwin’s Missing Link - Please Evolutionize Me!” The Brown Brownies gained Theodore Simpson (grade nine), Henry Fields (grade eleven), Paul Smith (grade ten, who unfortunately was wearing the sign), James Deer (grade eleven), and Thomas Reed.

  After everyone was seated at their houses, Mrs. Carchy said, “Now, that the draft is over, let’s go to the final copy!” She then laughed out loud again with no one laughing with her. “All right, I understand. You do not like my simple jokes. Now you may orderly get into line and fetch your free food. Remember, orderly!”

  Suddenly, many of the boys ran over to the food counter to stand in line. The line was so large that many had to stay at their tables since they had no room to stand in it. These included Tom, Peter, Porting, and other Seniors in the Brown Brownies.

  “Did you see those Snakes go!” laughed Porting. “You would think they were slithering with their speed. They are always the first in the line.”

  “I hope there is food left for us,” said Peter.

  “Do not worry Peter,” said Porting. “Soon your stomach will be hungry no longer!”

  “Oh, Tom,” said Peter, “I did not introduce you to the others. This,” said Peter pointing to a boy with blond hair and black eyes in front of him, “is Frederick Henry, or Fred.”

  “Hi,” said Fred to Tom, who gave back the same greeting.

  “He lives on Herald Lane too. His father works at Pete Primary for Boys, and his mother at the Susan Swansbury Public Library.”

  “Oh yeah,” said Tom. “Your mother is Mrs. Henry. She is really cool.”

  “Yeah, I know,” said Fred with a voice of happy recognition.

  Pointing to two other boys to the left of Fred, Peter said, “This is Dylan Winston and his brother David. They are twins.”

  “Hi,” said David and Dylan at the same time, but immediately afterward they gave each other the ‘evil’ eye.

  “You just had to copy me, didn’t you,” said David vexed.

  “What are you talking about?” asked Dylan also angry. “You do not get this mad when Jill or Patrick do the same. What is it, because I look like you?”

  “You just do it on purpose, that is all. They do it accidentally.”

  “Whatever,” said Dylan. “At least I did not get the paranoid genes in Mom’s womb. Thanks for sparing me.”

  “No problem,” said David angrily.

  “Don’t worry about them,” said Porting. “They’re always like that.”

  Pointing to another boy to the right of Fred, Peter said, “This is Quincy Fielding. His brother is that boy I told you about, Marvin.”

  “Oh,” said Tom. “The one who had to run up all of the staircases?”

  “Yes,” said Quincy slightly blushed. “Everyone remembers that.”

  “Oh,” said Peter as he pointed to the right of Quincy, “This is Nero Renner.”

  “Hi,” said Nero with a sedate voice.

  “What’s wrong with you?” asked Quincy of Nero.

  “Just learned something really bad yesterday.”

  “Like what?”

  “I hate school. Can you believe that? Just the day before. What a stroke of luck. The only thing I want to do now is go home, and when I go home the only thing I want to do is go to school.”

  “Nero and his parents do not get along that well,” said Peter to Tom.

  “That’s not good,” said Tom, thinking about how he would feel in the same situation.

  “Of course it is not good,” said Nero. “Those two, they are always partying and not taking me along. That is what we fight about. It’s not fair, I should have fun too even though I am seventeen.”

  “Then there is Porting,” said Peter pointing to the right of himself as Tom sat to his left, “whom you have met, and to the right of Porting is Riply,” said Peter as he pointed to a thinly framed boy, “but he is indisposed at the moment figuring out a new mathematical system to replace that of Sir Isaac Newton, the great physicist, or someone or other.”

  Suddenly Riply’s head shot up from what he was writing, “Did someone say Newton?”

  “Do not worry Riply,” said Porting. “Your name will be just as great as his someday – we hope.”

  Everyone laughed at this. “Where are you at Riply?” asked Quincy.

  “I do not know, I tried this logarithmic function, but it was not working, so I placed it back into the basics using exponents, but I think I took a wrong turn somewhere,” said Riply concerned.

  “You will find your way soon,” said Porting. “Just think of ice cream and free food, and then you can think about that. My word, I think we are the only table with one who actually will be a rocket scientist!”

  “Perhaps,” said Riply, “but it is going to take a long time for that to happen, and if I cannot understand the simplicities of this then I can just call myself a failure and do a simple job like accounting.”

  “Riply,” said Peter, “are you joking?”

  “You are right,” said Riply, “accounting is too low, I must say it would be engineering. At least I will be in the same field.”

  “Look,” said Tom, “the line is smaller.”

  “Yes it is,” said Porting. “Let’s get up there to at least get the scraps!”

  Tom, Peter, Porting, Riply, Dylan, David, Fred, Nero, and Quincy went into the lunch line. As they were waiting they saw several with food heaped on their plates. The smell of the food reached Peter as his stomach growled.

  “Down boy!” exclaimed Porting at Peter’s stomach. “You have to keep that thing under control.”

  “It is a wild beast out to eat the entire faculty,” said David.

  “That would be cool,” said Dylan with a smile. “No school for a while!”

  “That would be horrible,” said Riply. “Do you know how much back work we would be left with. Think of all that knowledge unlearnt. It would be devastating.”

  “You are thinking too much, Riply,” said Fred. “What we need is a break.”

  “It is only the first day of school,” said Riply. “We have not done any school work yet.”

  “That is what I mean,” said Fred. “That is what I need a break from before it destroys my already fragile brain. I need to keep as much nonsense in this brain as is possible and all of this learning is ruining it.”

  “When are we going to ever use French again,” said Dylan with a smile. “I do not remember what parlez-vous francais1 means, let alone where France is.”

  “Are you joking?” asked Riply.

  “When we have to cram such useless stuff in our youthful heads as that then it is not a joke!”

  Soon the nine boys were nearing the lunch counter. As they were here Ric Hampton, Sean Williams, and Harold Miller passed by them with their trays filled with food. Seeing Tom and Peter, Ric Hampton stopped, causing the other two to bump into him. Looking behind him he looked angrily at the others, and then looked at Tom and Peter.

  “Look boys, it is Peter’s girlfriend who does not want to be with the winning team, our winning team,” said Ric.

  “You are in the Silver Dragons?” asked Tom.

  “That is right,” said Ric with a smile. “The winning team, and you are a brown brownie, a born loser.”

  “I asked only because it is noticeable that you are one because you’re arrogant and extremely stupid,” said Tom as others near them laughed inside at this.

  “What did you say to me?” asked Ric.

  “You have just proven my point,” said Tom as the others tried to conceal their laughter.

  “Boys, this Junior is acting as if he is so special. I think that is not so. What do you boys think?”

  “He is wrong,” said Harold.

  “Yeah,” said Sean.

  Looking to Sean, Ric said, “You cannot say any
thing better?”

  Thinking, Sean said, “Yeah, Harold’s right.”

  “Dumb, dumb,” said Ric to Sean. “Can you say that perhaps he is a yellow pussy cat because I think even something as lame as that is better than what you just said.” Looking to Tom, Ric said, “You think you are pretty smart Reed, well we’ll see how smart you look with this!” Ric threw his jelly at Tom only to have Tom move out of its path as the jelly hit Riply, who stood behind Tom, in the face. Ric, Sean, and Harold laughed as the jelly slid down Riply’s face. Riply remained calm though as he wiped his face with a handkerchief.

  “Look at the big dork,” said Harold.

  “Yeah,” said Sean.

  “Shut up dummy,” said Ric to Sean. “Look at the nerd, he ate his jelly the wrong way! I guess that is how a genius-wanna-be acts, they do everything the hard way. You have to eat the food first before it can be used by your brain dummy! Even Sean knows that!” Sean laughed, not understanding what Ric meant.

  “What is going on here?” asked Kevin Quinsley, a school prefect and the head of the Brown Brownies, of the boys.

  “Nothing,” said Ric, “Riply had a little accident with some jelly.”

  “With your jelly, Hampton?”

  Feeling bolder as Gregory Tund, the head of the Silver Dragons came near seeing the commotion, Ric said, “Yeah, my jelly. You have a problem with that Quinsley?”

  “Watch your tone Hampton, I am a prefect.”

  “What is going on?” asked Tund. “Trying to coach a winning team, Quinsley? Work with your team first, they are the ones who truly need the help.”

  “Tund this is not the time for rivalries. Hampton has broken the code of conduct of the school by throwing food at someone else and speaking rudely to a prefect. He must be reprimanded, even you know that.”

  “What I know,” said Tund. “Is that Riply has jelly on his face and no proof that it was Hampton that threw it. I guess you should mind your own knowledge of the code of conduct before you judge mine.”

  “But he did throw it at Riply,” said Tom.

  “Who was talking to you?” asked Tund. “The only thing you are is a troublemaker.” Looking to the jelly on Hampton’s tray, Tund picked some up with his hand and smoothed it along Quinsley’s face. “Now that is against the code of conduct.”

  After wiping his face, Quinsley said, “You better watch yourself Tund, or you might see yourself in a very embarrassing position.”

  “Embarrassing position?” asked Tund. “The most embarrassing thing after being a brownie would be being you, Quinsley.”

  Ric and the others laughed as Quinsley cooled his temper. As Ric walked forward, pushing past Quinsley, he slipped on a piece of jelly on the floor. His tray fell out of his hands onto the boy in front of him. Everyone gasped at what had happened.

  Looking at the calm from everyone, even the prefects, Tom asked Peter, “Why is everyone so quiet?”

  “Hampton is in for it now. He just let his food fall on Big Ben, the toughest person in the school who is on the Black Snakes. I have to watch this.”

  Big Ben, who stood at six feet seven inches and weighed nearly two hundred eighty pounds, turned around to see the dwarfed Ric Hampton scrapping up the remains of his tray from off of the floor and Ben’s robes, but it was of no use. Ben took his tray and threw it at Hampton, but Hampton moved out of its way, causing the tray to land on the head of one of the lunch ladies.

  Angry, the woman said, “I have had enough. Everyone told me in my old country of Italy that America was not the place to go to, but did I listen, no. So, you want a food fight, I will show you a real food fight, not some boyish tray throwing!” Picking up a large spoonful of potatoes with melted cheese the lunch lady hurtled it at Ben, Hampton, Tund, and Quinsley. They were covered as she continued to throw. To the other cooks, she said, “Come on girls let’s show these boys what women are made of!” Suddenly all of the other lunch ladies started to hurtle food at all of the boys, their frustration after all of the years of such trauma was finally being revenged!

  However, the boys, seeing the great opportunity for a food fight, began to throw food from table to table, house to house, friend to foe, and person to person. Laughing was heard from all as Mrs. Carchy screamed for them to stop.

  “Boys, it is not worth it, can we not just sit down for a little joke or two?” asked Mrs. Carchy pleadingly.

  Laughing, Nero, who was covered with food, said, “Now this is funny!”

  Porting, still a spectator as Tom and Peter were throwing any food they could find on the floor, said, “I do not know about you, but my coat cost me quite a bit of money. My Dad will kill me if he finds I have been groveling in a food fight. Perhaps we could leave out the doors quickly before anyone notices.”

  “You do not want to throw food?” asked Peter as he was covered with a mass of potatoes on the back of his head. “We will not have another chance at it.”

  “No,” said Porting. “Besides, once Baldeye finds out we will all be in trouble. I think it would be best if we left before Lutid discovers that the hall has been redecorated.”

  “Agreed,” said Tom.

  “Agreed,” said Peter.

  “Let’s go,” said Porting.

  First Tom, then Peter, and then Porting left in a line to the doors leading into the hallway. They moved through the vast amounts of food flying in the air, on the floor, walls, and other items in the hall. Soon they were at the door when suddenly it was opened by Lutid. Seeing Lutid coming in, Porting turned in the other direction as if he was not following Tom and Peter at all. Everyone seeing Lutid stopped throwing food. Suddenly a whizzing noise was heard in the air, looking up Lutid saw that is was a ball of potatoes flying at him! Before he could do anything it hit his face, covering every part visible. Everyone was quiet as Lutid wiped the potatoes off of his face.

  “Well gentlemen,” said Lutid with a smile. “I see that you were not that hungry today. Who started this mess?”

  Out of nowhere, Harold Miller stood out and said, “It was those two,” said Miller pointing to Tom and Peter as they stood near Lutid. “They were making their escape when you came in.”

  Sean, seeing an opportunity to help out, said, “Yeah.”

  Looking to Tom and Peter, Lutid smiled, “This was worth it!” Pinching Tom and Peter by the ears with his right and left hand, respectively, Lutid said, “Do not worry kids, we will not be long. We are out to see everybody’s best friend, Mr. Baldeye, and believe me I will enjoy that!” Out into the hallway Lutid dragged Tom and Peter by the ears to Baldeye’s office.