Sean's New School Chapter Two
#1 of Sean's New School
Sean Williams:
Does he belong in Dempton?
By Sasha Skeeter
By now, we've all heard the big news: Sean Williams has joined our school's freshman class. However, the question remains in many minds, should he be here? A great majority of students would and have immediately denounced his presence here, but unlike many I decided to determine the answer to that question with facts instead of prejudice. That's why I went to his house last weekend to find out who Sean really is.
He lives in a rather more isolated part of town where everyone's house is at least the distance of two more apart. When I knocked, it ended up being Sean's father who opened the door. He wasn't at all impolite to me and was trusting enough to leave the door open while he went upstairs to get Sean. I assume it's when his bedroom doo opened that I heard a loud blast of heavy metal music, but very briefly, as it was soon shut off.
Sean seemed surprised to see me, but not unhappy. When I told him why I was there, writing for the Gazelle Gazette_, he graciously invited me inside and we sat down immediately. I didn't at all hesitate to start asking_ questions that satisfied my curiosity and hopefully your own as well.
First, I asked the general question of how he feels as Dempton High's first human student. Immediately, I could tell he was starting to feel awkward. "It's a little nerve-wracking, really," he responded, "I feel a little out of place." I would agree that his feelings are somewhat based in fact, but that was merely the beginning.
When asked about his first week here, Sean had naught but negative things to say; it seemed he had been bullied nearly all day every day by a great many students and very regrettably some teachers. One incident on his school bus, I later discovered, almost became violent! Speaking of this visibly upsetted the human, and for multiple reasons as well."It isn't too different from my treatment at Sherwood."
"Your old school?" I inuired.
"Yeah. At least there I knew why people hated me. I know this place hates humans, but I don't really get why."
This got me wanting to know, "Why were you bullied at your old school, then?"
I almost regretted asking that; the sorrow on Sean's face made me think I had gone too far. However, it seemed he was barely willing to bring what might be his biggest skeleton out of his closet. Actually, the closet metaphor is doublt adept for this scenario, as the human revealed, "I was bullied for being gay." There you are! It seems our human has past experience with prejudice.
My darn sympathy kicked in at that point, so instead of questioning him further about his past, I asked him more about him. I found out he loves nearly any sort of rock music, metal in particular, and video games. As he put it, "You don't have to befriend, make friends with, and risk rejection from video games."
"So you never spend a weekend with a friend?"
"What friend?" he sadly scoffed, "I have no friends." I almost wanted to tear up when Sean stated this so unhesitatingly and factually.
"How about a relationship, then? Did you perhaps leave behind a special girl- er- guy behind in Sherwood?"
"Look at it this way," Sean began to explain to me, "Start with everybody in the universe. First, take away the girls. Then, take away the straight guys. Follow that up by taking away all who remain but don't go to my school or live near me. Next, you have to subtract the ones I don't know. Finally, get rid of the ones who aren't openly gay or bi. Those who remain are the guys I have a slim chance at a relationship with."
I didn't really know where to go from there, so I just bid Sean goodbye and took my leave.
My conclusion: there is no sound reasoning to believe Sean Williams shouldn't be in Dempton nor our school. It seems he had made no trouble of his own, an his social goals are no different from all of ours: to fit in. In short, Sean Williams is a human. So what?
"So what indeed," Simon growled with great sarcasm after stopping me in the hall directly after history class. "So, not just a human, but a tailraiser as well!" Apparently, these anthros used the word "tailraiser" like one would use "fag" or "dyke." "Oh man," he relished, "talkin' to Sasha wasn't your smartest move!"
I pushed the substantially larger canine away. "I don't want to hear it. Back. Off." Being weak hadn't helped me at Sherwood High, so it wasn't the approach I intended to take here.
"Oho! The homo sapien thinks he's got balls, eh?" Simon responded to that, following it up with a punch to the gut. I crumpled, breathless. It was at least fifteen seconds before I could get up, and I'm pretty sure I got kicked by another passerby during that time.
Things got better by third period, algebra, at least a little. I hadn't really managed to learn the names of any of them, including the lion teacher, so I needed the reminder of "Mr. Serwinski" written on the whiteboard. Oh, did I mention that I suck at algebra?
This teacher took no nonsense. It didn't matter to him that it was the first week of school; last Friday, he had given us a quiz. This Monday, the first thing he did was pass them back. The only thing anybody might need to know about my grade is that it was subpar. "This was all just review," announced Mr. Serwinski, "so I was shocked that even one of you failed this quiz. To those who did- yes, Sher?" Yes, that is the same Sher that almost raked me with her claws the previous week.
She stood up, pointed at me, and announced, "Sean failed!" Gee, thanks, bitch.
"Mm-hm. And how, pray tell, did you perform?" refuted Serwinski. That made Sher shrink back into her chair, me grin, and the rest of the class chuckle even harder than they did during Sher's little declaration. Like I said, this lion took no nonsense.
As for Gasman, however, she took nonsense as long as it was against me. She was a German shepherd, my earth science teacher, and a total bitch (no pun intended). In that class, the seating couldn't have been worse. Simon on the left, Sher on the right. I knew for a fact that Mrs. Gasman saw one of the times they knocked my bag to the floor, and she told me, "Quit being so clumsy." I almost got up and hit her, but that would have been slightly illegal. I was really getting sick of it, though.
The same old routine went down on the bus that day. Simon, of course, sat in the seat across from mine, though before Ross sat beside me, Simon warned him, "Watch it, bud; this boy here's a tailraiser!"
The grizzly narrowed his eyes and stated flatly with some force as well, "I know," before deliberately sitting next to me. It couldn't be seen from my point of view, but I thought he was glaring at Simon. "So what?"
"So what?" the husky mocked, "Hey, if you want to sit by Buttfuck Boy, that's fine by me!"
Now that, it cannot be disputed, pissed Ross off. He leaned in towards Simon and growled, "Shut. The fuck. Up." I'll admit, the motives behind Ross' defence of me were a little confusing considering his typical coldness towards me. It made me feel goot, oddly, not just because I was being stuck up for, but because the grizzly was the one doing it.
"Oh, standing up for the little fag, are you?" Something seemed off; Ross didn't seem nearly so mad defending me against Sher. He stood yp and pointed a clawed digit towards the back of the bus, his message clear: go the fuck away. "Tch," the husky scoffed, but it seemed he had better things to do than fight for a friendship, so he moved.
"You're confusing me," I admitted to the grizzly in Simon's absence, "You try to act cool towards me, yet you're the first to jump up when you see me bullied. You might have just screwed up your friendship with Simon, even."
"I don't need that bastard!" he pouted. After a few minutes flew by, a new idea occured to me.
"You don't care about me, do you? You've got your own little secret!"
"I don't have to explain myself to you," Ross unhesitatingly refuted. However, he didn something he hadn't done for a week: he looked at me.
"Not this time, bud," I somewhat cockily asserted, "I'm not taking the mystery act anymore. What are you hiding?"
"That isn't your business or anyone else's."
"Mind if I take a wild guess, then?" Ross glared, but didn't verbally object. "I think you're like me!" I knew that he knew what I meant, meaning that his silence was an indication of simply not wanting to tell. In this case, however, the silence was deafening. "Why did you ever hang around with someone like that?"
"Why should you care?" the grumpy grizzly grumbled, no longer looking at me.
"Well, because you deserve better than that. Everyone does."
"Sort out your own social problems before butting into mine!" Ross growled. However, both our faces suddenly switched to a shocked expression of sudden revalation; we must hhave come to the same realization simultaneously: we'd each had a hand in the other's problems. Then, he said exactly what I was very much hoping to hear: "I'm sorry."
That time, it was I who could no longer look at him. "I guess it's okay, bud. Just... just don't be so concerned with how you look, okay? It's a hard to regret doing the right thing." I then gave him by best attempt at a friendly smile.
What Ross did next, though I couldn't quite identify why, lifted my morale like a crane lifts gurders; and a newfound farm, fuzzy feeling that I would have assumed the grizzly's fur would seem something like arose in my. At that point, it almost didn't matter if the entire rest of the world hated me in that moment.
Ross smiled back at me.