Kinley said a silent thank-you. Stratford was going to lose it on this kid. He didn’t tolerate tardiness. And hopefully, that meant he’d forget about Kinley’s little mistake.
“Say, Mr. Byrne? Mattie, is it?” Dr. Stratford said, pulling his focus away from Ivy. “Listen, young man. Since you haven’t sat down yet, I don’t suppose you’d do me a favor?”
“Um, sure.” Mattie waited at the door. The collar of his shirt was flipped up on one side, and his hair stuck up a little bit, like maybe he’d just woken up from a nap.
“Across campus, you’ll find my office. It’s temporary, and it has Mr. Tanner’s name on it. I’m afraid I left my coffee over there, and I could really use it right now.”
Dr. Stratford smiled, but there was something off about it. It was toothy and hungry and fell short on one side.
Mattie sort of smiled back, clearly relieved. “Sure, Dr. Stratford.” He opened the door and stepped backward into the hallway.
Dr. Stratford stared after the student for a half second, and stroked the few stray whiskers he had growing out of his chin.
He crossed the room, pulled a heavy ring of keys out of his pocket, and locked the door behind Mattie.
Kinley chanced another look at Tyler, and she knew exactly what he was thinking: thank God it wasn’t them.
There was something about Stratford. About the way he looked at you. It was condescension, sure. And no matter who he was looking at, there was a distinct and undeniable overtone of disgust. But beneath it all, barely lingering below the surface, was pure, unadulterated hatred.
It was clear to Kinley then. It was clear to all of them, really. Stratford hated students. All of them. In fact, it was pretty safe to say he hated teaching. He was probably only there because he enjoyed torturing students, one by one, as payback for some horrible way in which he’d been wronged in the past.
Kinley looked back toward Dr. Stratford, in case the professor thought she wasn’t paying attention.
“I trust that will convince the rest of you that being late is something of a capital crime in my classes. Now, where were we? Ah yes. Guilt. What a beautiful, pointless thing. Let us discuss the struggle between the id and the superego.”
And he went on that way for a few minutes, until suddenly the doorknob rattled and Mattie’s face appeared in the little window in the doorframe. He pulled on the door again, and knocked twice.
Kinley felt a little bad for him. She’d spoken to him, for just a second, outside the school on the first day, when he’d picked up a pen that had fallen from her notebook. He’d seemed nice enough.
“The id, of course, develops first, and, some argue, is humanity’s natural state.” Dr. Stratford crossed the room and, without so much as a glance at Mattie, pulled the shade down over the window. “The id is virtually incapable of guilt.”
The doorknob stopped rattling.
And that was when Tyler Green made a mistake.
He laughed.
Tyler
Friday, June 5
A pen sailed at Tyler Green’s face. He shifted, slightly, and it nicked him on the shoulder, leaving a faint blue mark on his Raging Idiots T-shirt.
“Laughing in my class, Mr. Green?” Dr. Stratford said. “Would you like to share what’s funny?”
“Nah,” Tyler said, casting a meaningful glance at the door, where that little punk, Mattie Byrne, was trapped outside. Mattie should have been smarter than that. Everyone who’d ever heard of Dr. Stratford knew he wasn’t the type of teacher just to let shit go.
Students had to pay.
Tyler had a grudging respect for the teacher. He didn’t screw around. He was a total asshole.
And he owned it.
Maybe Tyler would really try for Dr. Stratford. Maybe he owed it to him, and to himself. For once, here was a teacher who was a total D-bag, and he didn’t pretend to be anything else. Tyler could deal with that.
Plus, there was military school. And there was his father’s promise that if Tyler didn’t get his shit together, didn’t do something—anything—to show he was interested in his future, he wouldn’t have to worry about living at home. Then they could focus on Jacob, Tyler’s older brother. Jacob was a top swimmer at a local community college, and he was being recruited by three different Division One schools.
Tyler mainly got recruited to detention.
Stratford paused a second longer, staring at Tyler, and then resumed teaching. For once in his life, Tyler was actually sort of interested. According to Stratford’s theory, people had too much id. They just did stuff because it felt good. The superego was the little angel on your shoulder, and the ego sort of balanced it all out.
Tyler studied Stratford as he lumbered back and forth across the classroom, shouting inane questions and theories. “When was Freud born?” he thundered at Kip Landers, a blond guy sitting in the corner. Kip stuttered and looked at his desk. He didn’t know.
And then, once someone finally answered, Stratford would just come around to the same exact question a few minutes later.