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Thread: A Gentleman and a Scholarship

  1. #41
    "Hey."

    Hank's voice was equal parts stern and exasperated, though it was more for effect than anything genuine. He had learned, both from playing sports and coaching them, that a healthy level of competition between teammates was essential. Sometimes that expressed itself in the desire to outdo one another. Other times, it was banter, and bating, and butting heads. Sports were about ego, and aspiring to personal excellence, and sometimes that needed a little competitive fuel. Academia was much the same, though people were less willing to admit it: everyone was graded against an average, academic performance being judged as much on how well you did relative to your peers as it was on the criteria for whatever GPA or college entry requirements a particular student strove towards.

    Yet, as valuable as that atmosphere could be, in moderation, now was not the moment for it. Without a foundation of comfort and belonging, that banter could easily become bullying. The new kid didn't have that yet, and Coach Hall needed his words to carry weight and validity, not ring hollow and be instantly disproven.

    "What did I just say?"

    A moment of silence, and an almost restrained sigh passed, before Hank focused himself on Connor Kent once more.

    "Yeah, I teach sports," he confirmed, with a slow nod. "In fact, I'm the Sports Director, which honestly is just a fancy way of saying I teach Phys Ed, but without all the adults feeling like they need to talk down to me at parent-teacher evenings."

    "I specifically coach basketball, and also the lacrosse team," he added, glancing up at the other students again, "Where Mr Bromorton will be giving me an extra ten laps tomorrow afternoon for being an ass. Mr West and I will figure out his penance for being a smartass later."

    Those words hung in the air for a moment, before he spoke to Connor again.

    "All of that is why you'll hear most of the kids calling me Coach Hall, not Mr Hall; which is what I prefer, for the record. We have separate coaches for the soccer and volleyball teams, and a few others who come in for swimming, tennis, fencing, boat stuff -"

    He trailed off, a faint shrug manifesting itself beneath his jacket.

    "If it is a sport that doesn't involve people getting repeatedly hit in the head, we've probably got at least a few students who play it."

    Hank's brow tugged into a slight frown.

    "You play any sports back in Colorado, Kent?"

  2. #42
    For the most part, Connor kept his head down and his eyes low. The scene played out behind him, around him, with all of the subtlety of a traffic collision. A verbal pile-up of noise and ugliness with him, the new guy, at its epicentre. This was exactly the kind of attention he wanted to avoid. He closed up, sealing his thoughts, words, and feelings inside tense muscles and clenched fists. He'd come so close, he realised, the moment the resident asshole decided to open his mouth, he'd come so close to retaliating. What that would have looked like, he couldn't say, for his heart was racing far away from the implications. When he'd opened his mouth to speak, however, it had been Wallace's voice to come out.

    No. Come on. Don't do that. Fuck.

    By the time Connor had turned to address the newbie who'd elected to fight his corner for him, he'd found himself presented with... a map? There, on the page, every table in the room and every student that occupied them, named, and in some cases complete with Wallace's own colourful alternative aliases. To his despair, Wallace was talking again; he'd turned in his seat now, all confident smiles, as he challenged the asshole - designated The Bro on his handy map - and made reference to his butler. Wait, he had a butler? That was... Connor frowned in annoyance. 'Back where you're from.' He stiffened in his seat, overcome with a sudden and inexplicable sense of pride in his humble hometown of Middleton, Colorado.

    That was when Mr. Hall intervened; the simplest of interjections to diffuse the tension. Connor was grateful for it, for if his inside were to coil up any tighter, he would have tied himself into a knot. He listened intently to Mr- no, Coach Hall, as he talked about the various sports on offer at the school. At 6'2, he could play basketball. He'd be great at basketball. Hell, he could clear the entire court in a single bound. And lacrosse. Well, he didn't know what that was, but he could be great at that, too. He was stronger, faster, tougher than a whole team of Bromortons. His imagination took flight at the possibilities. He could come first place, win games, be the MPV in rowing, running, swimming... well, how hard could it be to learn to swim? All you had to do was float, right? It was just a shame, as Coach Hall confirmed, there was no sport for being hit in the head, because if anyone was going to win that, it was him. Soon, he found the smile starting to creep back onto his face. That was until the question came along.

    Connor hesitated, painfully aware that he was in the presence of a man who had made a career out of sports. He guarded his answer for as long as he dared, from the coach, from his classmates, until at last:

    "No, Coach Hall. There wasn't much to..."

    He stopped himself from saying it, the lie the was as true as it was false. Granted, at Cadmus, there were no sports halls or playing fields - at least, none that he could remember seeing as he ran for his life. So there was some truth to his, as yet, unuttered claim that there wasn't much to do back home. But then he remembered The Bro, and the things he had to say about back home. He couldn't do it. He couldn't feed the asshole with more ammunition. He couldn't bring himself to let the rest of his classmates believe that Middleton sucked. It was somehow important to him. So the lie was to be rewritten:

    "Uh... back home we didn't have... I mean, we had a football team." Fuck it. Commit to the fantasy, "A great football team, actually. There was basketball, baseball, uh, ice hockey. Yeah. And they were great. Huge stadiums, massive crowds. Sport is a big deal in Middleton. I just, uh..."

    He gave a shrug.

    "I was dedicated to my studies, Coach."

  3. #43
    Dedicated to my studies.

    Wally's heart skipped a beat. In truth, his enthusiasm had begun to subtly wane with each passing minute spend exposed to Connor Kent. He was of course still elated at the prospect of meeting someone new, and overjoyed at having been made responsible for their introduction to Brentwood Academy, but minute by minute the apparent common ground between them began to shrink. In one statement, those flood waters were parted like the Red Sea, and hope formed like a land bridge between them once more. A rejection of sports? A dedication to academia? Connor's eligibility as a new friend was restored.

    But what studies, Wallace began to wonder. Not the physical sciences, it seemed; or at least, not the applied sciences of which Wally himself was so fond. No one with an interest in such things could possibly listen to Professor Stein speak and not be utterly enraptured. Hell, anyone who knew anything about that branch of science wouldn't be able to hear Martin Stein's name without feeling a little bit weak at the knees, given all the papers and theorems that name was attached to. But what, then? If Connor Kent had dedicated himself to something, what field of learning could that possibly be?

    "What's your favourite subject, then?"

    The words blurted out of Wally's mouth before he even realised he was speaking, and it took all the self-control he could muster not to clap his hands to his mouth in abject horror. At least they were excited and intrigued, rather than accusatory, but still. It was one thing to indulge his personal curiosity, another thing entirely to throw Connor back under the bus of public scrutiny in the process. Fighting the rush of crimson that tried to surge its way to his ears, Wally stared at the desk in front of him, and hoped that no one had heard.

  4. #44
    "History," he said at once.

    It was a question he had prepared for, and anticipated, to the point that the moment Wallace blurted it out, his response came like a reflex. Too sudden, too... unnatural. So he stalled, dislodging the stiffness of his demeanour with a shrug.

    "I like to know about everything that came before me. Like the way politics can shape a nation, or how war impacts global relations; how scientific discoveries can change society, and how the course of history itself can be altered by just one person. Like, uh... Rosa Parks."

    The words were practised, but true. He'd given it some thought; weighed up where his intellectual strengths lay, and, in the process, discovered he had an above average comprehension of American history, European history, the details of significant wars over the last few centuries, the struggle for power, be it political, economical, commercial, or military, and that he could recall, with surprising ease, the dates of many major historical events. Where exactly this knowledge had come from was anyone's guess, but he liked it.

    He shrugged again, but this time there was a levity that hadn't been there before, "Guess I just got a good head for dates."

  5. #45
    "Do you hear that, Kippy?"

    From her corner seat - that is the corner opposite to Bromorton, of course - Eleanor Snow spoke out. Clearly, leisurely, and in a tone that at once both imposed itself upon her fellow students and excluded them at the same time, she addressed the nerd at the neighbouring desk. Kip Kettering, her favourite toy. And about the only person in the room worthy of a lazy half-glance. Still, she spared him, electing instead to remain adamantly focused on the same square inch of wall that had held her attention since the new kid started to inflict his personality upon them. Or lack, thereof. How could anyone be so... vanilla? But there he was: the vacant slobbering bloodhound to Walter West's tedious eager-to-please chihuahua.

    She sat with elegant poise, legs crossed, statuesque, and at just the right angle to afford Hank a glimpse of bare thigh. Now she considered the angular profile of the boy beside her, and rolled the words over her lips with relish:

    "Good head for dates," Her sculpted eyebrow arched as she learned forward, resting her chin on the tips of her fingers, "Shall I ask for his number?"

  6. #46
    "Poor, Eleanor. Even by your own wanting standards."

    Kipling Kettering was halfway down the 86th page of his third favourite notebook when Eleanor interrupted him. It was a Montblanc: hardback, Italian calfskin leather with Saffiano print; acid-free fine grain 100gsm ink-proof paper. He liked the scratching sound it made when he wanted people to know he wasn't paying attention to what they had to say. Namely, the peanut gallery. Plebs like Wallace West and his dullard new accessory, Kent; Bromorton was an ape, of course, but at least he had charisma, and a dash of style, which was more than could be said for tragic Hank Hall, the veritable poster boy of overachieving trailer park trash. He called him Coach Charity, and was in the middle of another scathing critique of his daily attempts to socialise with human beings. But Eleanor Snow had other ideas.

    Of all the students at Brentwood Academy, he found her the least intolerable. It was not that she was a shining beacon of wit in this gloomy wasteland of unutterable bores, but rather a curiosity, more than a mere distraction, but nothing half as engaging as an equal. Not at all. She had a sharp tongue, laced with venom, and he liked to watch her lash out with indiscriminate abandon, and see her victims flail from the poison. He called her the Black Widow, deadly and over-sexed in equal measure. She seemed to like that appraisal, and was intent on living up to it, even if it meant firing glancing shots in his direction from time to time.

    "The only number you should be asking for," he surfaced at last, and studied her bare thigh with distaste, "Is the number of teeth in his head. I don't imagine you will be needing your abacus, darling."

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