IA: Initiate by John Darryl Winston Read Free Book Online

like the boy was writing in a notebook, maybe taking notes, thought Naz. Naz noticed him in the class just before Fears’ class. He had been doing the exact same thing and had also been sitting in the front row. Naz wondered why no one, including Fears, found this boy’s behavior odd, unacceptable, or even interesting. Except for Naz, it was as if no one in the room noticed the boy just writing away and not looking at Fears. Naz then realized, if he continued to focus on the boy in the front row, he would be hearing it from Fears real soon again so he turned his attention back to Fears.
    Fears, now standing in the middle of the room, turned around and began to walk slowly backwards. When he reached a large, round boy with dark, curly hair, he stopped. It was as if Fears had eyes in the back of his head. He wheeled around and put out his hand. The boy looked up, and realizing he had been discovered, he pulled a half-eaten candy bar from underneath his desk and put it in Fears’ hand.
    “I can try to convince you to eat right and exercise,” Fears continued as he looked at the boy. “But most of you will not.”  His voice was slowly getting louder with each phrase as if he were a preacher in church and about to reach a crescendo. “I can ask you … no, implore that you say ‘no’ to drugs, but some of you will inevitably say ‘yes.’ And for my guys … and girls, the gangs of the Exclave are not your family. Your family is at home where you live, and here with your classmates and teachers. Gangs are to be avoided at all cost. They are for the weak-minded follower, and here at Lincoln we are all leaders.” He had a flair for the dramatic that captivated his students.
    Fears’ last words caught Naz’s attention and sent him elsewhere again. Gang, Naz thought?
    “But let me make this perfectly clear,” Fears continued. “While you are here at Lincoln, you will respect the rules of this classroom and this school. You will respect yourselves and everyone else for that matter. And when I say Risk Reduction, it will do you good to know that your very life depends on it, Mr. Andersen!” Fears bellowed. “Is there a problem?”
    Naz, snapping back to reality once more, realized he had just been staring out the window and replaying the morning’s events in his brain again. On this first day of class he had been caught breaking Fears’ biggest rule about not paying attention not once, but twice.
    “No, sir, I mean, Mr. Fears.” Naz reached up to feel the blood now leaking from under his bandage.
    The girl next to him saw it and turned away, as if she didn’t want Naz to notice she saw it.
    “May I be excused, sir?” asked Naz.
    “By all means … sir, ” Fears replied in a sarcastic, yet conciliatory tone. The students muttered to each other, as Fears was silent while Naz hurried out of the classroom into the half-deserted hallways of Lincoln.
     

CHAPTER EIGHT

    LINCOLN
     
    He looked in the mirror in the dimly lit bathroom and thought everything seemed washed out—not as vibrant or colorful as before, even his own appearance. Is it my imagination ? he wondered. It didn’t help that he always wore dark or drab colors, his ongoing attempt at anonymity. I’ve changed somehow, he thought. How could I have gone through that and not have changed?
    He removed the bandage and changed the dressing with the ointment and new bandage the paramedic had given him. The man told him the wound wasn’t that bad and would heal in a week or so, if he kept it clean and dressed.
    After the fight that morning, Naz snuck back home to change his bloodied shirt. While climbing out of his bedroom window, he’d half torn off the first bandage. Miss Tracey didn’t trust him with a key yet, and he wasn’t sure if she ever would. He waited until he knew she was gone before he went back. He didn’t want any trouble, and a knife wound on his neck, serious or not, along with a bloodied shirt would certainly spell trouble. He made