It was a cold winter day in December, and as usual in Indiana, you could feel the icy chill freeze your breath in front of your face before you had the chance to get away. I was in my old 1967 Mustang, painted cherry red, and as I turned the corner into the school, I knew I was late as Mr. Pratt tapped his foot on the cold walkway in front of Creek High School. He waited there every day just after the bell rang, to catch all the unsuspecting tardies that he could hand out to all the kids who were unfortunate enough to be late to class. I stepped out of my car and approached him with dignity, not wanting to say a word, but knowing it had to be done sooner or later.
“Hello, Mr. Pratt, how’s everything going today?” I said as he tapped his foot harder, staring me down like an old western movie, “Well, gotta get to class.”
“Hold it right there Mr. Bailey.” chills ran down my spine as I knew I was going to get reaped from this one, “you have been late four times this month you know what that means don’t you Mr. Bailey?”
“Ahh…Oh yeah, I get that free trip to Florida, right?” I replied, hoping to make him laugh, which would have most definitely loosened my punishment.
“Wrong!” he shouted with a large vein beginning to pop out of his forehead. I lurched backwards just from the unexpected yelling, but managed to pull myself together. “This means you have detention, the rest of the day and if you keep this up you are surely going to end up a bum on the street.”
“Oh come on Mr. Pratt you don’t really mean that.”
“But I do, you’re a slacker and the world doesn’t tolerate slackers.” I should have said something vulgar to somehow get back at him but the stupidity that my faced was wiped with seemed to cloud my judgment for a moment, while I regained my dignity and readjusted my backpack on my shoulder. Now Mr. Pratt was right on the fact that I have been late four times this month, but really was the comment about me going to end up a slacker really necessary. I mean this is high school, I’m supposed to goof off it’s a rule of nature and if I did work myself to the bone now. The best I could expect from myself in the next ten years was to become a Dean of Students, oh did I say that out loud…hope I didn’t otherwise I would be looking at detention for the rest of my life. Well I do spent much of my time in there, but only twenty days out of a month, which isn’t too bad right.
Me and Mr. Pratt weren’t the best of friends like most of the people I knew at school, I guess you could call it a sheep herder against a wolf relationship, I had my wins but I also had my losses where he practically ate me alive, which I think landed me with two weeks of detention in a row. Somehow that could have been a record, but I was just glad it didn’t last three weeks otherwise I would have exploded from boredom. Now that our quarrel had finished, Mr. Pratt busily wrote the paper which would send me to my second home, and as I turned to look at something else, I saw Emily my girlfriend in a window off the main hall. Waving and giving me a look as if I had done something wrong, which I did, but I try not to think of it as my fault, I mean why do they put the snooze button on the clock anyway if we aren’t supposed to use it once in awhile.