New Turf

“Come on, now, sweetie.”

A sickeningly sweet voice seemed to trickle upstairs as I pack. I looked in my suitcase. I had a t shirt, a jacket and some casual pants with and three sets of horrendous clothes, also known as my new school uniform. Sweater vests? Really?

“Get down here you little shit!” another voice boomeed. Thank god I’m not related to that asshole.
“I’M COMING!” I shouted and zipped up the suitcase.

The piece of junk fell to the ground as I grabbed the handle and tugged. The wheels on the thing made a noise like nails running down a chalk board. I made my way to the main living area of the shack I like to call ‘home’, the suitcase clinking and clonking as I go down the stairs.

“How long does it take, honest to God,” my mom muttered.

That’s the thing with my mother. She wears tacky leopard print fur jackets, clothes too tight that I wish I had acid with which to burn my eyes and she sins day and night. She drinks, she smokes, and she goes out with the very douche that was standing next to her. She’s a whore who stole her make-up from a clown show – she’s probably slept with them all too. And she still calls herself a Christian.

Steve, the ape with the hairy arms, white vest and the stomach of a whale, grunts and grabbed my suitcase. He carried the tonne as if it weighed nothing and slammed it into the trunk of the piece of crap he uses as a car. I reluctantly followed and retired into the backseat of the car. Mom got into the passenger seat, pursed her lips and held her face out towards Steve.

“MY EYES.” I remind them loudly as their lips – and tongues – meet.

“Shut up,” Steve grunts.

“Don’t talk to my kid like that,” Mom said as if she cared. She turned back to me, “Shut up.”

Hallelujah. I’m getting away from these creeps.

* * *

The car screeched to a halt in front of Bullworth Academy. It’s a dump, too. So that’s how I got in here without a scholarship. My mom got out of the car with me and touched my shoulder. I shrugged it off. I could see a woman waiting for me behind the gates of the school. I turned back to my mom and her manwhore.

“Mom,” I nodded my head to her. “Steve,” I sneered.

I turned on my heel and pushed the gate open. This place had to be better than home. However bad it gets, it could never be as bad as home is. And that’s a fact.

I stomped through the empty schoolyard. I guess class was in session. For a dump, it was a pretty big and old place. At the front there was a path leading straight up to the school. Across that path was another path, on the left of it was the boys’ dorm, on the right was the girls’. In the middle of the crossroads there was a fountain. There was grass and trees everywhere.

Ok, so maybe it doesn’t look like a dump, but I heard the headmaster’s an ass and that he’s sleeping with his secretary. I also heard that the students here are violent as fuck. Home sweet home.

The woman who was at the front steps wore her shoulder-length brown hair so the bottom swept outwards. She wore a pink blouse with a navy blazer and pencil skirt. She was pretty hot, to be fair. I guess she was the secretary, then.

“James Hopkins?” she asked with her thin eyebrows raised upwards.

“I prefer Jimmy,” I sneered, “to be utterly honest.”

“Welcome to Bullworth Academy James…” she started. I didn’t bother listening to whatever she said next. What a bitch.

I followed her into the main school building. Again, pretty but dirty. The main hallway was square, with the doors at the front, the main staircase at the back, and blue lockers on either side. On the right was the cafeteria, I noticed, and on the left there was a teacher’s lounge and a reception, I guessed.

I could hear the tapping of her high heels against the wooden stairs like a pin dropping in total silence. She stopped outside of the door that was almost in my face as soon as I reached the second floor. Plastic chairs lining the wall told me it was the headmaster’s office before I could read the plaque.

Ms. Secretary, or whatever her name is, gave three firm knocks on the door. The door swung open almost instantly, as if the man who opened it was standing behind it the whole time. The man I assumed to be the headmaster. Seeing us, he turned swiftly on his heel as I had done not even five minutes before in the schoolyard.

The headmaster sat on his seat and did that weird thing that people do when they button up on of the buttons of their suit as they sit down. I sat down on a chair opposite him as the secretary brushed past the headmaster’s desk and tugged his tie ever so slightly.

“I’ll be in my office,” she said in a voice so seductive my face wasn’t the only thing that was rock solid.

The headmaster was unfazed, and he leaned forwards and clasped his hands on the desk as the door behind him, the one that led straight to the secretary’s office.

“So, James, I heard that you haven’t behaved very well at your last schools. You’ve been very naughty, haven’t you, James? Do you know what we do to naughty boys here? We teach them a lesson.”

Was he coming on to me?

“If you go out of line once, you’ll be punished. Maybe you won’t even do something wrong, I just might have to remind you of the punishment. I’m going to have to keep a track on you, James. Don’t think I won’t, because I’m going to have a lot of fun teaching you a lesson. Understood?”

“I guess,” I grunted. Oh great, another creep.

“Believe me, James,” he laughed, “you’re going to remember the name ‘Master Crabblesnitch.”

“Why isn’t it ‘mister’? Or ‘doctor’, ‘professor’ or some other fancy shit?” I asked, as if I cared.

“In normal circumstances it’s ‘Doctor’, but you, James, are going to recognise me as your master. Here at this school, you are going to please me. In more ways than one. You may leave,” he waved his hand vaguely towards the door.

“Thank you, sir,” I said automatically.

“Thank you master,” he corrected.

I replied by slamming the door. This school was going to be… interesting.