Eckert/3

Travis Eckert

Wentworth, Lindsay

English 101

7 May 2006

Silence, but with noise

One day at Copy High School, everything is fine, nothing amiss. It’s A suburban town, and with that, fairly rich. With the commonalities of high school, there are cliques, even prejudices. But I will focus on Anthony. He is an A, B student. Anthony works very hard but doesn’t fit in. A loner you could say. He has very few friends but he keeps them close. It is time for seventh period and he hears about a shooting. It is all rumors, and people say it is all over the news. He seems to be thinking hard about it, almost like it could be justifiable. So after school, Anthony goes to a bathroom stall and writes down on it, “ I will be compensated”. Compensated for what? No one knows. He now realizes he will miss the bus if he does not hurry. He catches the bus just in the knick of time. He sits in his lonesome corner in the front of the bus for the entire thirty minute bus ride. Not a sound from him, not in the slightest. Once Anthony gets home, he has nothing better to do, so he decides to do his homework. The homework asks, “What does e equals mc squared stand for?”. Anthony gets mad even though he knows the answer and closes the book and then he throws it into the new plasma television his father just got. He goes to the safe in the garage, which has ammunition and guns. He opens up the safe with the combination that his father gave him. He then prepares his act tonight for what will come tomorrow. He stays up all night, so much so that he just gets everything he prepared and goes to school on the bus. Everything fit in his normal backpack. He gets dropped off, he plans to commence his act right at the start of fifth period. He turns in his paper that was due during that class. Anthony then sits down to open his backpack, and prepares the most he can. To Anthony’s dismay, the teacher did not call him up to read his paper, so his plan did not follow through. Anthony was disappointed by this, and he is also mad for the remainder of the day. His friends do not want anything to do with him since he is so awkward today. He just sits alone at lunch and such and talks to no one. At the same time though, he seems to have no self-control. Eventually the school day ends, and he gets home. He just goes straight to bed. Nothing, just solid sleep, no homework to do, he doesn’t even go to the bathroom. Anthony wakes up at four A:M. He feels antsy and anxious. He sits at the front door until it is time to go to school. He just seems to be thinking all of time up until about fifth period. It’s fifth period, and the teacher tells him right when he walks in that he will be next to present his paper. Anthony is handed his paper that he handed in yesterday to present. He waits until the bell rings to start presenting his project. Right after the bell rings he explains his paper. At the end of the presentation of his paper, he goes to his backpack and reaches inside of it. He pulls out a plastic toy gun and shoots it at the floor. It bounces off and he catches the tiny pellet. Anthony then just simply puts it back up. Right then, just dead silence. Even by the teacher. Some would think that everyone would freak out. Which is what should have happened. But that did not occur. After Anthony being afraid of what would happen a light applause came. Then a heavier one noise and people praising him for his good work. After class, a kid named Ian walked up to Anthony and handed him a ten dollar bill. Anthony looks confused for a moment. Then he looks like he recalled something. To make sure his assumptions were correct, Anthony asks Ian why he gave him the money, he said, “Well you said you wanted to be compensated for what you lent me, right?”. Anthony seems very thankful, he probably would not have remembered that he owed money in the first place. This money brightened up his already good day. Anthony then heads to sixth period, and eventually, makes it through the entire school day. Eventually, even the year, nothing bad happened, ever. Anthony’s actions may not have made things seem the way they really did seem, but he was not a bad guy, remember?