8/19/06

“Self-Control”

(Part II of II)

The following Monday, after administration had had the whole weekend to mull over the incident involving the third-year girl and the three young men who meant to do her harm—and subsequently, Annette Baudelaire—they decided something must be done to keep the girl’s parents from suing Rathbone Private Academy for everything it was worth. And so, Annette arrived at her first class of the day—which was a world history class consisting primarily of second-year students and third-year students who hadn’t passed it the year before—she found the desks all pushed into the back of the room and the chairs had all been lined up into two groups of four rows (three chairs each).

Annette took a seat in the front row; next to third-year student she was a friend of by the name of Jerry O’Reilly. She looked up to the front of the room. There she saw a small, foldout table and chair with the headmaster’s assistant—a Mr. Eugene Hagerman—sitting at it.

“… The hell’s up with this?” Annette asked, motioning towards the setup at the front of the room.

“It’s a week-long course in anger-management and etiquette.” Jerry replied.

“What for?”

“Hmph. Well, from what I hear, some crazy-ass second-year girl gave some guy a concussion and then she fucked up his friend even worse. Broken rib among other—more personal—injuries. This is all her fault.” He smirked at her.

“Hey! Shut up.” She retorted, taking a seat next to him. “It was a matter of morality! You wouldn’t expect me to just leave those douche bags to rape some girl, would you?”

“I guess not.” Jerry said. “You’ve got a way of letting yourself be ruled by your emotions.”

“Whatever.”

“Holy oh-my-gosh! Just the girl I was looking for!” Exclaimed a plump, auburn haired girl who dashed into her room and into the seat to the left of Annette at the speed of light.

“Morning Ruth.” Annette greeted.

“So, is it true?!” Ruth questioned her. “I heard you knocked the crap out of three second-year boys in the courtyard last week!”

Annette smiled proudly. “Yep. Whatever you’ve heard is true.”

“Actually, she only beat the crap out of one of them. She knocked one out with a brick when he wasn’t paying attention and the third one ran off after she repeatedly kicked the second in the crotch.” Jerry clarified.

“Hey! … I thought I told you to shut the hell up.” Annette hissed at him. “If they all wanna believe I beat up three second-year guys then I say let ‘em believe it.”

“That is so cool, Annette!” Ruth exclaimed. She had been Annette’s roommate the year before and the two were still good friends, in spite of the fact that Ruth was rather brightly wound and a tad on the irritating side. Their relationship had become even stronger due in part to their no longer living together.

“I know, it is, isn’t it?” Annette was obviously very pleased with herself for creating such a stir.

“So uhh… what happened?” Jerry asked. “I mean, I wouldn’t put it past you to just fly off the handle and beat the shit outta somebody for no real reason, but—”

“You really think highly of me, dontcha?”

“Oh! Yeah, please, do tell! I haven’t heard it yet!” Ruth begged.

Annette laughed. “Fine then.” She cleared her throat. “I was on my way here on Friday—it was raining that day and—”

“We’ve got about thirty seconds ‘til class starts.” Jerry interrupted. “Let’s have the abridged version this time.”

“Jesus God, you’re picky!” Annette replied. “Okay… in short, I saw three guys tryin’ to gang-rape some poor third-year girl, so I threw a piece of sidewalk at one of them and attacked the other with a picnic table umbrella.”

“Wow!” Ruth exclaimed. “But wait… what happened to the third one?”

“Oh he ran off after he saw me make his friend into my bitch.” Annette explained.

“Awesome!” Ruth had a gleam in her eye; it was a kind of admiration for Annette, who may very well have been the single-most brazen girl at Rathbone. “So, who was the girl you saved?”

Jerry snapped back into attention. “Yeah, who was she?”

“I donno; I’d never seen her befo—” Annette stopped in mid-sentence, taken aback by a beautiful third-year girl with long, straight, light-brown hair that hung all the way down to her knees. She was very tall—nearly six-feet tall—and her sheer presence in the room captured the attention of everyone present. All conversations halted until she took a seat in the back of the class and took out a book and began to read. She really was stunning.

“Wow…” Jerry muttered incoherently.

“… Did you guys see that girl?” Annette asked.

“You mean that one that’s freakin’ gorgeous?” Jerry asked, staring at the girl from across the classroom.

“They’re so big… and perky!” Ruth commented. “I’m jealous.”

“Yeah, her.” Annette said. “That’s the girl I saved!”

“Her?” Jerry questioned. “She’s gotta be like eight feet tall; you mean she couldn’t take care of herself?”

“Well no! She was just one girl against three sex-starved men! No girl can stand up against that!” Annette argued.

“You did.” Ruth retorted.

“Like I said, it really was just the one.”

“Still.”

“Is she really in our class?” Jerry asked

“I guess. She’s here isn’t she?” Annette replied.

“I can’t believe I’ve never noticed her before.”

“Maybe she’s new?” Ruth suggested.

“Everybody quit creamin’ over the new girl and shut the hell up; class is starting.” Their starkly politically incorrect world history instructor—a Mr. Rob Macduff—ordered as he trudged into the room with a Styrofoam cup of coffee from the teachers’ lounge. He looked very poorly rested, as Annette did on most days.

“Because of certain, uhh… incidents last week, everybody’s gotta take an anger-management course during their first-period class and there’s nothing I can do about it—even though I think it’s bullshit too—so don’t bitch to me about it… ‘cause I don’t wanna hear it.” Macduff explained. “But when it’s done you get extra credit.”

“How much extra credit are we talkin’ here?” Annette asked.

“How’s ten points sound?”

“Sounds like it sucks.” Jerry said. “Make it twenty or I’m walkin’.”

Macduff glared at him momentarily. “… Fine. Twenty it is.” Jerry was Macduff’s favorite student in every sense of the phrase; had anyone else made such a statement he would have given him or her a detention.

“Now then… Please turn your attention to Mr. Hagerman. I hope you show him as much respect as you show me… which, ya know… isn’t very much.”

Mr. Hagerman was not the headmaster of Rathbone Private Academy, but he would like to believe he was. He was a former Marine and now a councilor with control issues who got a pay raise for picking up the real headmaster’s slack—of which there was a lot to pick up. No one had really ever seen the real headmaster (whom they all only knew as “Headmaster Jim”), but his wife—playfully nicknamed the “head-madam” by the students—was active within the academy and whose bohemian ways made her popular among the students—especially those who felt the school was too uptight and stuffy.

“Good morning students.” Hagerman greeted; his voice harsh and unemotional. Only a few students replied. Annette and Jerry stared at him with contempt, but most students paid him no mind and just went about what they were doing beforehand; like beautiful in the back row, who continued to read her book.

“Ah, I see. We can stay after class if that’s how you’re gonna be. You’re only hurting yourselves.” Hagerman threatened.

“This is such a bunch of crap.” Annette mumbled just loud enough for everyone to hear. From his seat behind his desk, Macduff could be heard snorting back a laugh as he read his guitar magazine.

“Excuse me, Miss Baudelaire, but if I’m not mistaken, it was your violent tendencies that landed everyone in this situation.” Hagerman chided.

“That’s a load! I am not a violent person!”

end

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