She had been up all night. With sunken eyes and dark circles highlighting her gaunt face. She continued line after line of work. Math was one of the hardest subjects she had and with this one problem taking up pages of work she wondered...
why the hell am I was wasting my time here? what am I ever going to use calculus for anyway? Then she got up out of her seat and flopped onto her bed, exhausted. She decided that as soon as she got to school the next morning, she would officially drop out of calculous and sign up for...
a self-control class. If she needed anything, it was self control. For example, what if she became an engineer, but then completely lost control and pranced out of her office yelling, singing and spilling coffee all over everyone? It was a real possibility. She couldn't wait for self control class to start. How exciting. And how entertaining to watch other students try to control their impulsive behaviors. She had one concern, though. What if the other students had a bad influence on her? "Well, you have to take risks to succeed," she thought, as she faded into a deep sleep. The next morning, she was refreshed and frolicsome, and went straight to the counselor's office instead of Calculus.
"Counselor," she said, "I need a self-control class. I have a lot of concerns about my future, where I could lose a job from excessive frolicking, spilling coffee on people, including children and perhaps even lighting stuff on fire."
At this, the counselor's brow furrowed. "Call me Mr. Tracula, please."
"Sure, Mr. Tracula, sir. I'm dropping calculus, because I'm never going to use it. My biggest problem is self-control. I'm a huge berzerker, I sometimes try to kill people. Just the other day, a salesman came to my door, and in the middle of his sales pitch, I started strangling him! No self-control whatsoever! I also talk a lot, and as you can tell, I talk REALLY fast."
"I can see that," said Mr. Tracula. "I'm going to recommend medication. You don't need a self-control class."
"Why you son of a..." Before he knew it, Mr. Trac, as they called him, was slammed face down on his office floor getting his nose repeatedly rubbed and rug burned into the floor.
April smiled as she walked toward the open door of her new self control class, but then stopped as she noticed one of the students hunched over in his desk with shifty eyes. She could tell he was about to do something he shouldn't. When he thought the coast was clear, he pulled out his cherry chapstick, twisted it out as far as it would go, and bit into it. He closed his eyes and smiled with delight as he chewed and swallowed the rare treat.
Never one to be outdone, April reached into her purse and pulled out her makeup kit. As soon as the teacher turned her back, she took a swig of her liquid foundation.
Chapstick guy watched in amazement. With a twinkle in his eye, he reached into his backpack and pulled out a tiny bottle of White-out. He quickly drank the entire bottle.
April was a bit dumbfounded. That was WAY cooler than eating makeup! She rummaged through her purse, but alas there was nothing else. She turned her attention to the classroom.
Aha! April grabbed her waterbottle, and when the teacher stepped out for a bathroom break, she dunked her bottle in the aquarium. The tank had obviously not been cleaned in some time and the water was quite green. You could barely see the goldfish, but April still managed to scoop up a few with the bottle. Looking the guy right in the eye, she chugged the swampy water, goldfish and all.
the shifty-eyed guy shifted his gaze around the room, looking for something with which he could top April's last move. He fixed on the teacher's desk, shifted his gaze toward the door to make sure the teacher hadn't returned, and sprinted to the large desk at the front of the classroom. He grabbed a pink eraser and took a large bite out of it. He continued chewing as he raced back to his seat and gave April a smug, satisfied look, daring her to top his act of impulsivity. April was an old hand at this. There was no way Shifty was going to beat her at her own game. She strode confidently to the front of the class, grabbed the big, black chalkboard eraser and bit into it. She did her best to hide her shock at how chewy, dry and hard to bite through the eraser was... maybe she should have grabbed the box of pencils.. pencils were relatively easy to bite through... April was determined to follow through on her daring impulse. Maintaining her calm facade, she chewed her way through the eraser until she'd managed to saw completely through it with her incisors. She hoped Shifty wouldnt notice that she was beginning to sweat. She glanced over at him. Shifty was clearly impressed, if not a little dejected. He had nothing with which to top her and dropped his head in shame. Then another guy taking up the challenge, jumped up out of his seat, ran to the bookshelf and grabbed a thick encyclopedia. He opened his mouth as wide as he could and was barely able to fit the edge of the book into his mouth. He chewed for a while before giving up and slinking back to his seat, dejected.
Several comments echoed from the room. "Looser!" "Nice try dork!" The teacher interrupted,"Okay class,settle down Let's focus right now." As she turned towards the desk the class burst into laughter. On the the back of her shoe a long piece of tissue trailed behind her.
"You poo'd! You poo'd!" hollered the fat red-headed kid at the back at the class.
"Samuel, I did not 'poo'," the teacher said calmly. "I did use the bathroom, though, and it's inappropriate to yell such things."
"Poo! Poo! Poo!" Samuel yelled even louder. Some of the other students were starting to yell it, too. April was laughing at this.
"The guys in white coats will come back, if you keep yelling that." April wondered what Samuel had done to invoke such a response as being carried off campus to a mental institution.
Samuel seemed to lose even more self-control. "POOOO!" he yelled as he stood up and started trying to run with his desk still stuck on his legs. "POOOOOO!" he yelled as he tumbled forward, resulting in an utterly grotesque leg injury.
The teacher, rolled her eyes and shuffled to Samuel's aid, dismissing the class for the day. On her way out, April saw the ambulance out front, and thought to herself, this class is way better than calculus! Way more useful!
The next day, the teacher wasn't there but instead, Mr. Tracula sat at the teacher's desk looking over a lesson plan she had apparently laid out for him. "Mrs. Smith is out sick today, as she so often is. As always, I will be your substitute," he said.
April felt a little bad as she looked at the scab that had formed from the day before.
"The vampire's back!" yelled Samuel, who was wearing a large leg brace. The chapstick eating kid yelled, "I saw you drinking blood!" At this, most of the class started yelling, "Bloo'! Bloo'! Bloo'!"
"I do not drink blood. I was drinking V8 juice, and I had the can there, so the self-control class wouldn't think I was drinking blood. I knew you would jump to this conclusion. As I've explained, your thought patterns are distorted. Contrary to the principal's opinion, we shouldn't even have this class. All of you should be on medication."
"The vampire wants us to take medication!" someone yelled, "He's from Transylvania!" The class continued the obnoxious "Bloo'! Bloo'!" Samuel was flapping his arms like a bat and trying to get out of his desk.
I'm not from Transylvania. I'm from Pennsylvania. My name is not Dracula. It's Tracula.
"It still has a 'racula' in there and your from a place that ends in 'nsylvania'. You're a vampire!"
Mr Tracula threw his hands in the air and then covered his face, shaking his head in dismay.'Holy mother of crap.' He muttered through his hands. 'How do I keep getting roped into this?" Then Tracula stopped shaking his head. He dropped his hands from his face and a strange look came into his eyes and the corner of his mouth twitched as he tried to fight back a smile. "Yes, class... you're right. I am a vampire. I'm actually Dracula's brother, and if you don't all shut the hell up right now, I will drain you of every drop of blood in your worthless bodies!"
'But then you'd be too full."Samuel cried out. "You can't drink all of our blood!'
Then April added 'Yeah, I heard of a guy who entered an eating contest and he ate too much, and his stomach exploded, and then he died!' "Yeah!", 'Twitchy' interjected,"You'd explode if you tried to drink all of our blood; and then you'd die." Mr Tracula's face turned red. His knuckles turned white as he pressed his fists into his desk. "Then I won't drink everyone's blood, Arnold." He looked squarely at 'Twitchy'. "Just YOURS you freakin idiot!" At this point Tracula was shaking and waving his fists in front of him. It reminded April of that documentary she watched about Adolf Hitler. "Hey!" April called out. "You're like Hitler!"
Tracula stared at her for a moment, eyes wide and lips pursed together in fury. He visibly calmed himself before responding. "Only in that I am feeling rather homicidal at the moment..."
"Me and my friend saw a cat in a tree!" Another guy called out from the back of the room. He spoke haltingly and spoke as if each noun were a question. "My friend said cats grow on trees... he's dumb too." Mr Tracula just looked at him, dumbfounded. "is that so, Tommy?" "Yeah..." Tommy replied. Just as it appeared that Tracula was going to get back to his lesson, Tommy cried out. "Monkeys grow on trees too ya know." Another guy from the front of the class added. "And birds!!" then he shot his hand in the air as though he wanted to ask a question. Mr Tracula addressed him. 'Yes,Hobart?' 'What?' Hobart raised his eyebrows questioningly. "you had your hand up.. did you have a question?" "No" said Hobart. "I said birds.. cuz I saw a bird in a tree." "Hobart," Mr Tracula tried to be patient. "You're supposed to raise your hand BEFORE you speak.. otherwise, it's kinda pointless." "I did raise my hand." Hobart tilted his head, his mouth hanging open slightly. "I like eggs." another young man spoke from the far right side of the classroom. "What?" Tracula scrunched his face in bewilderment. "I just thought of that cuz when I passed gas it smelt like eggs and so it made me think of eggs and I like eggs."
Tracula sighed deeply. "Class, I need you to calm down. We're going to work on relaxation techniques. Some of you, if you can control your stress, will be less prone to violent outbursts." He looked squarely at April, who nodded in agreement. Wading through the random outbursts and ambient disturbing noises and comments, the teacher was able to teach to some of the more subdued students how to relax their muscles and calm their minds in the process. April was impressed. At the end of the lecture, she crushed after one of the kids who was making a lot of noise during the lesson and knocked him unconscious. Tracula looked disappointed.
"April..." he said sadly, shaking his head. He just trailed off and looked at the ceiling. The idiot boy April knocked out eventually came to and went back to his seat.
"Now," said "Count" Tracula, "we have a twenty minute break, and--" he was interrupted by a screaming kid with a big butt: "A break! A break! You're a vampire! Turn into a bat, Tracula! Do it!" he said, flapping his arms and ramming his head into Tracula.
Tracula grabbed the kid by the face and backed him to his desk. 'Sit down, Harpartap!' Tracula groaned. 'But I want to see you turn into a bat! Hey! do you know Batman?" Harpartap screamed. Just then April ran across the room and tackled Harpartap to the floor.
She wrestled him into a figure-four leg lock, something she had learned from the great Ric Flair. Harpartap yelled, "Get off! Get off!" He then farted loudly, and at this, all hell broke loose even more than it already had all day.
April, using one of her secret techniques, vomited on Harpartap in retaliation. Harpartap wailed in dismay, screaming at the top of his lungs, crying through vomit stained eyelashes.
Just then, Harpartap stopped crying and got a mischievous look in his eye. He started wiping the vomit off of his face and slurping it off of his hand. The competition had begun anew... or so Harpartap thought, until he grimaced, flared his nostrils, started sweating profusely and heaved all of his lunch in April's direction. Just as she jumped off of him, a couple other students started retching at the sight and smell. Taking their cues from April, they each found their least favorite classmate and relieved their stomachs on them. Pretty soon half the class was doing it. Mr. Trac yelled, "If you don't stop this right now, you will all be here for Saturday school!"
That Saturday, Mr. Trac woke up regretting his threat.
In class the next day, Harpatap sullenly approached Mr. Tracula a few minutes before class. "Mr. Tracula, April doesn't like me, because I tried to get you to turn into a bat."
"It's pretty clear she doesn't like you. She threw up on you!" he said. "April doesn't like a lot of people. Don't take it personally, Harpatap. You're a good kid and one of my favorite self-control students."
"A lot of kids don't like me."
"What makes you say that?" Tracula said, a concern in his voice.
"They told me... They said I'm not cool. They said they don't like me, because..." Harpatap trailed off.
"It's okay, Harpatarp. I think you're very cool."
"But you..." Harpatarp looked down at something in his hand.
"What is it, Harpatap?" Tracula said.
"They gave me this, and to prove I'm cool, I took it. But I didn't use it."
Mr. Tracula looked down at Harpartap's outstretched hand. In it was a shiny, purple rounded disk with an S in the middle. Harpartap's hand was sweaty and purple-stained.
"Harpatap, it's okay. You are cool. Go ahead and take the drugs."
"What?" he said, mouth agape and eyes widened.
"I'm kidding. It's a Skittle, not drugs. It's candy. The kids are teasing you."
April wondered why it had taken her so long to realize that there was no curriculum in the class. It was just a bunch of out of control kids yelling inappropriate things, attacking each other, and mocking the teacher. She decided that the class was really just a ploy to get disruptive kids out of the other classes. "Oh well," she thought, "at least it's more entertaining than calculus."
Just then, Chauncey waddled by with his pants down around his ankles, yelling, "Look at me, I'm a penguin!"
"At least he kept his underwear on," April muttered.
It was at that moment that Mr. Tracula walked by. She noticed his pale skin, his dreamy brown eyes and the vein in his forehead that seemed to protrude every time she tried to kill someone. She realized they were meant for each other and that not even Samuel, Harpartap, Chauncey, Tommy, Jerome nor even Hobart could stand between her and the teacher.
In her mind, she saw lips trembling and protruding in and out, kind of like the vein in Tracula's forehead, as she and the dreamy vampire drew nearer and nearer.
'April?' Mr Tracula was gazing at her with those dreamy brown eyes. 'Did you say something?' He asked, his lips softly forming each word. 'Huh?' was all April could manage as she gazed from beneath her heavy, protruding forehead, beneath her thick, heavy brows, back into his piercing, hypnotic eyes and imagined kissing his beautiful sexy lips. Mr. Tracula turned his attention to Hobart, who was licking what looked like chocolate off of Harpartap's desk as Harpartap protested loudly. April watched, transfixed as Mr. Tracula's broad chest heaved once with frustration and he straightened his magnificent shoulders as he strode toward Harpartap and Hobart. Tracula easily pulled Hobart from Harpartap's desk, sat him in his own seat and in that deep, sexy voice, explained how one cannot just go around sucking things off of another's desk. April sat mesmerized, her heart beating so hard that she worried Mr. Tracula would hear it. He was magnificent! April wanted to look her best for her new love. She opened her purse and pulled out her makeup case. She pulled out her mirror to check her hair and makeup. Her hair hadn't been brushed in a few days, so she ran a comb painfully through it, ripping out several sizeable knots and generating quite a static charge in the process. That turned out to be helpful as with her hair standing on end, she was able to see all of the dandruff. She flicked out the larger clumps until her hair no longer looked like she'd just come in from a snow storm.. much. Then she ran the comb through her unruly unibrow. It wasn't working, it just transferred dandruff to her eyebrows; so she grabbed some hand lotion, hoping it would help tame her unibrow. It just made it greasy... oh well, maybe the lotion would at least help tame her mustache. She applied a thick layer and was pleased that it did. She then took out what was left of her liquid foundation and covered the blotches and bumps on her face as well as she could. She then noticed that her sideburns were looking a little scraggly.. more lotion.. it helped... a little. She took out mascara to give her eyelashes that flirty volume that the models in the magazines flaunted; but as she was applying it, she found that she couldnt stop blinking and the mascara ended up in her eyes, under her eyes, on her eyelids.. but at least her eyelashes now had the full, flirty volume that the models had. She looked unhappily at her nearly nonexistent lips and practiced her sexiest pout.. it wasn't working. She checked her teeth and was alarmed to see how crusty her teeth looked. She couldnt remember the last time she'd brushed them. She took her house key and scraped off the thick, yellowish pastey sludge from her teeth, paying special attention to the dark, greenish stuff that could have been spinach; though she didnt recall having eaten spinach any time recently. She grinned at herself in the mirror to recheck her teeth. That would have to do. Now for the final touch. She pulled out a tube of bright red lipstick. No more thin lips for April! She slid on a thick layer of glossy, irridescent red lipstick, carefully drawing in lips where there were none. She frowned. It was a little uneven; kind of lopsided, but maybe Tracula wouldn't notice. She had heard somewhere that men love red lipstick.. especially vampire men. She was ready for her move!
Mr. Tracula had figured out how to distract the class by giving them a sex education booklet, and seeing as 95% of the class were idiot boys who didn't know the first thing about women, it kept them from yelling "Poo!" vomiting on each other, eating food off the floor, "flying" after Mr. Tracula or running full speed into walls, at least for the time being.
This was April's perfect opportunity. She lumbered up to Mr. Tracula's desk, filled with delight at the outcome she imagined in her mind, that trembling, sultry vampire kiss.
"Mr. Tracula," she said in the sexiest, non-raspy voice she could muster.
Mr. Tracula looked up from the paper work he was filling out, "Yes, April?"
"Mr. Tracula! I was just wondering..." she knew that if she screamed, "I love you," he would probably feel awkward, but after all, she was in a self-control class for a reason: "I love you! I love you, Mr. Tracula! Kiss me, you fool! You know you want to!"
"April, that's very flattering. You're a wonderful girl. That said, I'm married. You knew I was married. You also know I'm too old for you. Still, you're great."
She was mortified, but she didn't try to kill him. She didn't want to. She wanted to take him in her arms, lift him off his feet and... "Mr. Tracula, I just have to say... YOUR LOSS!"
Mr. Tracula pursed his lips and nodded. April, in turn began flaring her nostrils and grinding her teeth, turning away to hide the tears she imagined might be in her eyes. "YOUR LOSS!" she repeated.
"April, I'm glad your one of my students. I wish you had stayed in calculus, but..." He was interrupted by her face having turned back in his direction a mere inch away from his face.
Startled, he pulled back a couple feet and nearly fell out of his chair, her lips trembling, eyes closed, her mind immersed in the joy of the imagined coming kiss and her mouth pointing outward, searching and probing for the lips that had already moved much too far for hers to ever reach their intended target. Mr. Tracula eyes wide with fear, raised his arm to protect himself from the looming threat.
"We were meant to be Mr. Tracula." April said in a thick voice. She did her best to exude all the sexiness that a 24-year old junior in high school could possibly muster, but she sounded more like she'd been gargling peanut butter. She leaned farther, lips outstretched, still searching for Mr. Tracula's gentle kiss. Mr. Tracula's kiss, along with the rest of him, had since scrambled desperately to the other side of the room and had no intention of meeting April's 'psycho-clown from an impressionist painting' painted on pucker. Until the moment she had pressed her face so closely to him, he'd never noticed just how hideous she was. The way she pursed her trembling lips toward him conjured memories of Mr. Ed or Jamie Foxx's 'Wanda' character from 'In Living Color'. April, on the other hand, just knew that the sex-ed booklet he'd just handed out had to have been a subtle innuendo... perhaps even subconscious. He had to feel the connection between them. How could he not? She could see it in his eyes. How he made her want him. It could only be deliberate. She knew the internal battle he must be fighting between his loyalty to his lawfully wedded wife and the girl who stoked the fire that surely must be burning in his loins. The forbidden fruit that was his young student. April had read about such tabu romances in books and magazines. She had always dreamed it would happen to her, and now it had!
Finally, their lips touched. April's heart was filled with happiness and peace. She decided she would never kill anyone again, until she opened her eyes and saw it was Samuel she was kissing. "Son of a...!!"
Instantly, April seized Samuel by the throat. In her vice-like grip, he turned from pastey pale and freckly to deep red, to purple, to kind of bluish. His eyes bulging, lips swelling and tongue protruding. He couldn't make a sound as April's grip tightened around his throat. Just then, someone tackled her from behind. When she regained her bearings to see who it was who had her pinned to the floor, she was ecstatic to see that it was Mr. Tracula. April was impressed at the power with which he had slammed her to the floor; which, unfortunately for Tracula, further stoked April's passion for him. Unfortunately, poor Mr. Tracula was no match for the behemoth neanderthal woman. April quickly turned the tables on Tracula, grasping him by both wrists and pulling his arms outward, forcing him closer and closer. Finally she had him! April was seemingly oblivious to Tracula's horrified expression as she pulled him closer and closerto her eagerly awaiting lips. He struggled desperately, trying to free himself from her clutches. It was then that April caught him in a scissor hold which she'd learned from watching WWF wrestling; flipped him onto his back and pinned him to the floor. Tracula was completely helpless beneath her massive weight and brute strength. She gazed longingly into his dreamy brown eyes.. those horror-stricken, terror-filled, yet dreamy brown eyes... and moved in to claim her kiss. She closed her eyes as she closed in on him, asymmetrical psycho-clown lips parted and quivering as she voraciously anticipated the taste of his sweet mouth. If Mr. Tracula's disgusted grimace were not enough of a hint for April, his ghastly shrieks of protestation and revulsion also seemed to ply no mercy from the gargantuan gargoyle and her amorous assault.
Tracula, of course, was crying inside at this point. What's worse, he was getting nauseous, as her breath was... not good. So not good that he vomited a little.
April, learning what Harpartap had learned the previous day, did not like the taste of vomit nor the realization that her lack of oral hygiene had destroyed her chances to have her own romantic Twilight experience. Tracula ran out the door to go to the bathroom to wash his mouth out, while April turned to the class, trying to save face and said, "How do you like that? If any of you try anything, you'll be getting the same treatment!"
"I hope so!" Samuel said. April blushed, glancing over at the fat red head whom she had nearly murdered moments ago. She returned to her seat to mourn the loss of true vampire love but also ponder on potential fat red head love.
She looked over at Samuel; this time studying him for a long while. His wild, reddish-orange hair contrasted with his pale, freckled face which was now dotted with purplish speckles, especially in the delicate skin around his eyes, all as a result of the capillaries bursting when April had strangled him earlier. His beady, wide-set, greenish-beige eyes were also bloodshot and dappled with broken blood vessels from the earlier assault. She noticed for the first time how endearingly his left eye wandered outward and for a second, she thought he had caught her staring, but it was just his eye wandering... How cute! Samuel's too-short brown corduroy pants showed off his sagging, mismatched socks, the taupe one hanging just below his ankle and the green one slumping low over his fake Birkenstocks. His orange t-shirt slid half-way up over his undulating rolls of belly flab. She could see that there was something printed on the shirt, but she couldn’t read it at this angle. She was seeing him in a new light. He had stolen the kiss she’d intended for Mr. Tracula, which had initially infuriated her, but in hindsight, it was actually quite flattering. Samuel found her attractive. None of the other boys had ever shown an interest in her. This could be the love she had been waiting for! She was glad now that she hadn’t succeeded in killing him. Just then, he caught her gaze and they locked eyes…
Over time, as April and Samue's love blossomed, the teacher deemed them ready to graduate from self-control class, as their behavior improved greatly. April started taking care of herself, and her grotesque features seemed to be magically transformed to something less grotesque. Samuel lost some weight, too.
Mr. Tracula, after long day substituting in the self-control class pondered in this. Perhaps I was wrong, he thought. Perhaps they didn't need medication. They only needed love.
He stood up from his desk chair and faced toward the open window and transformed into a bat, a bat with a tear in its eye, and flew out the window.
why the hell am I was wasting my time here? what am I ever going to use calculus for anyway?
ReplyDeleteThen she got up out of her seat and flopped onto her bed, exhausted. She decided that as soon as she got to school the next morning, she would officially drop out of calculous and sign up for...
a self-control class. If she needed anything, it was self control. For example, what if she became an engineer, but then completely lost control and pranced out of her office yelling, singing and spilling coffee all over everyone? It was a real possibility. She couldn't wait for self control class to start. How exciting. And how entertaining to watch other students try to control their impulsive behaviors. She had one concern, though. What if the other students had a bad influence on her? "Well, you have to take risks to succeed," she thought, as she faded into a deep sleep. The next morning, she was refreshed and frolicsome, and went straight to the counselor's office instead of Calculus.
ReplyDelete"Counselor," she said, "I need a self-control class. I have a lot of concerns about my future, where I could lose a job from excessive frolicking, spilling coffee on people, including children and perhaps even lighting stuff on fire."
ReplyDeleteAt this, the counselor's brow furrowed. "Call me Mr. Tracula, please."
"Sure, Mr. Tracula, sir. I'm dropping calculus, because I'm never going to use it. My biggest problem is self-control. I'm a huge berzerker, I sometimes try to kill people. Just the other day, a salesman came to my door, and in the middle of his sales pitch, I started strangling him! No self-control whatsoever! I also talk a lot, and as you can tell, I talk REALLY fast."
"I can see that," said Mr. Tracula. "I'm going to recommend medication. You don't need a self-control class."
"Why you son of a..." Before he knew it, Mr. Trac, as they called him, was slammed face down on his office floor getting his nose repeatedly rubbed and rug burned into the floor.
ReplyDeleteApril smiled as she walked toward the open door of her new self control class, but then stopped as she noticed one of the students hunched over in his desk with shifty eyes. She could tell he was about to do something he shouldn't. When he thought the coast was clear, he pulled out his cherry chapstick, twisted it out as far as it would go, and bit into it. He closed his eyes and smiled with delight as he chewed and swallowed the rare treat.
Never one to be outdone, April reached into her purse and pulled out her makeup kit. As soon as the teacher turned her back, she took a swig of her liquid foundation.
ReplyDeleteChapstick guy watched in amazement. With a twinkle in his eye, he reached into his backpack and pulled out a tiny bottle of White-out. He quickly drank the entire bottle.
April was a bit dumbfounded. That was WAY cooler than eating makeup! She rummaged through her purse, but alas there was nothing else. She turned her attention to the classroom.
Aha! April grabbed her waterbottle, and when the teacher stepped out for a bathroom break, she dunked her bottle in the aquarium. The tank had obviously not been cleaned in some time and the water was quite green. You could barely see the goldfish, but April still managed to scoop up a few with the bottle. Looking the guy right in the eye, she chugged the swampy water, goldfish and all.
"Your move, jolly man..."
the shifty-eyed guy shifted his gaze around the room, looking for something with which he could top April's last move. He fixed on the teacher's desk, shifted his gaze toward the door to make sure the teacher hadn't returned, and sprinted to the large desk at the front of the classroom. He grabbed a pink eraser and took a large bite out of it. He continued chewing as he raced back to his seat and gave April a smug, satisfied look, daring her to top his act of impulsivity.
ReplyDeleteApril was an old hand at this. There was no way Shifty was going to beat her at her own game. She strode confidently to the front of the class, grabbed the big, black chalkboard eraser and bit into it. She did her best to hide her shock at how chewy, dry and hard to bite through the eraser was... maybe she should have grabbed the box of pencils.. pencils were relatively easy to bite through... April was determined to follow through on her daring impulse. Maintaining her calm facade, she chewed her way through the eraser until she'd managed to saw completely through it with her incisors. She hoped Shifty wouldnt notice that she was beginning to sweat.
She glanced over at him. Shifty was clearly impressed, if not a little dejected. He had nothing with which to top her and dropped his head in shame.
Then another guy taking up the challenge, jumped up out of his seat, ran to the bookshelf and grabbed a thick encyclopedia. He opened his mouth as wide as he could and was barely able to fit the edge of the book into his mouth. He chewed for a while before giving up and slinking back to his seat, dejected.
Several comments echoed from the room.
ReplyDelete"Looser!"
"Nice try dork!"
The teacher interrupted,"Okay class,settle down Let's focus right now."
As she turned towards the desk the class burst into laughter. On the the back of her shoe a long piece of tissue trailed behind her.
"You poo'd! You poo'd!" hollered the fat red-headed kid at the back at the class.
ReplyDelete"Samuel, I did not 'poo'," the teacher said calmly. "I did use the bathroom, though, and it's inappropriate to yell such things."
"Poo! Poo! Poo!" Samuel yelled even louder. Some of the other students were starting to yell it, too. April was laughing at this.
"The guys in white coats will come back, if you keep yelling that." April wondered what Samuel had done to invoke such a response as being carried off campus to a mental institution.
Samuel seemed to lose even more self-control. "POOOO!" he yelled as he stood up and started trying to run with his desk still stuck on his legs. "POOOOOO!" he yelled as he tumbled forward, resulting in an utterly grotesque leg injury.
The teacher, rolled her eyes and shuffled to Samuel's aid, dismissing the class for the day. On her way out, April saw the ambulance out front, and thought to herself, this class is way better than calculus! Way more useful!
The next day, the teacher wasn't there but instead, Mr. Tracula sat at the teacher's desk looking over a lesson plan she had apparently laid out for him. "Mrs. Smith is out sick today, as she so often is. As always, I will be your substitute," he said.
April felt a little bad as she looked at the scab that had formed from the day before.
"The vampire's back!" yelled Samuel, who was wearing a large leg brace. The chapstick eating kid yelled, "I saw you drinking blood!" At this, most of the class started yelling, "Bloo'! Bloo'! Bloo'!"
"I do not drink blood. I was drinking V8 juice, and I had the can there, so the self-control class wouldn't think I was drinking blood. I knew you would jump to this conclusion. As I've explained, your thought patterns are distorted. Contrary to the principal's opinion, we shouldn't even have this class. All of you should be on medication."
"The vampire wants us to take medication!" someone yelled, "He's from Transylvania!" The class continued the obnoxious "Bloo'! Bloo'!" Samuel was flapping his arms like a bat and trying to get out of his desk.
I'm not from Transylvania. I'm from Pennsylvania. My name is not Dracula. It's Tracula.
"It still has a 'racula' in there and your from a place that ends in 'nsylvania'. You're a vampire!"
Mr Tracula threw his hands in the air and then covered his face, shaking his head in dismay.'Holy mother of crap.' He muttered through his hands. 'How do I keep getting roped into this?" Then Tracula stopped shaking his head. He dropped his hands from his face and a strange look came into his eyes and the corner of his mouth twitched as he tried to fight back a smile.
ReplyDelete"Yes, class... you're right. I am a vampire. I'm actually Dracula's brother, and if you don't all shut the hell up right now, I will drain you of every drop of blood in your worthless bodies!"
'But then you'd be too full."Samuel cried out. "You can't drink all of our blood!'
ReplyDeleteThen April added 'Yeah, I heard of a guy who entered an eating contest and he ate too much, and his stomach exploded, and then he died!'
"Yeah!", 'Twitchy' interjected,"You'd explode if you tried to drink all of our blood; and then you'd die."
Mr Tracula's face turned red. His knuckles turned white as he pressed his fists into his desk.
"Then I won't drink everyone's blood, Arnold." He looked squarely at 'Twitchy'. "Just YOURS you freakin idiot!" At this point Tracula was shaking and waving his fists in front of him. It reminded April of that documentary she watched about Adolf Hitler.
"Hey!" April called out. "You're like Hitler!"
Tracula stared at her for a moment, eyes wide and lips pursed together in fury. He visibly calmed himself before responding. "Only in that I am feeling rather homicidal at the moment..."
"Me and my friend saw a cat in a tree!" Another guy called out from the back of the room. He spoke haltingly and spoke as if each noun were a question. "My friend said cats grow on trees... he's dumb too."
Mr Tracula just looked at him, dumbfounded. "is that so, Tommy?"
"Yeah..." Tommy replied.
Just as it appeared that Tracula was going to get back to his lesson, Tommy cried out. "Monkeys grow on trees too ya know."
Another guy from the front of the class added. "And birds!!" then he shot his hand in the air as though he wanted to ask a question.
Mr Tracula addressed him. 'Yes,Hobart?'
'What?' Hobart raised his eyebrows questioningly.
"you had your hand up.. did you have a question?"
"No" said Hobart. "I said birds.. cuz I saw a bird in a tree."
"Hobart," Mr Tracula tried to be patient. "You're supposed to raise your hand BEFORE you speak.. otherwise, it's kinda pointless."
"I did raise my hand." Hobart tilted his head, his mouth hanging open slightly.
"I like eggs." another young man spoke from the far right side of the classroom.
"What?" Tracula scrunched his face in bewilderment.
"I just thought of that cuz when I passed gas it smelt like eggs and so it made me think of eggs and I like eggs."
Tracula sighed deeply. "Class, I need you to calm down. We're going to work on relaxation techniques. Some of you, if you can control your stress, will be less prone to violent outbursts." He looked squarely at April, who nodded in agreement. Wading through the random outbursts and ambient disturbing noises and comments, the teacher was able to teach to some of the more subdued students how to relax their muscles and calm their minds in the process. April was impressed. At the end of the lecture, she crushed after one of the kids who was making a lot of noise during the lesson and knocked him unconscious. Tracula looked disappointed.
ReplyDelete"April..." he said sadly, shaking his head. He just trailed off and looked at the ceiling. The idiot boy April knocked out eventually came to and went back to his seat.
"Now," said "Count" Tracula, "we have a twenty minute break, and--" he was interrupted by a screaming kid with a big butt: "A break! A break! You're a vampire! Turn into a bat, Tracula! Do it!" he said, flapping his arms and ramming his head into Tracula.
Tracula grabbed the kid by the face and backed him to his desk. 'Sit down, Harpartap!' Tracula groaned.
ReplyDelete'But I want to see you turn into a bat! Hey! do you know Batman?" Harpartap screamed.
Just then April ran across the room and tackled Harpartap to the floor.
She wrestled him into a figure-four leg lock, something she had learned from the great Ric Flair. Harpartap yelled, "Get off! Get off!" He then farted loudly, and at this, all hell broke loose even more than it already had all day.
ReplyDeleteApril, using one of her secret techniques, vomited on Harpartap in retaliation. Harpartap wailed in dismay, screaming at the top of his lungs, crying through vomit stained eyelashes.
Just then, Harpartap stopped crying and got a mischievous look in his eye. He started wiping the vomit off of his face and slurping it off of his hand. The competition had begun anew... or so Harpartap thought, until he grimaced, flared his nostrils, started sweating profusely and heaved all of his lunch in April's direction. Just as she jumped off of him, a couple other students started retching at the sight and smell. Taking their cues from April, they each found their least favorite classmate and relieved their stomachs on them. Pretty soon half the class was doing it. Mr. Trac yelled, "If you don't stop this right now, you will all be here for Saturday school!"
ReplyDeleteThat Saturday, Mr. Trac woke up regretting his threat.
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ReplyDeleteBut before dealing with Saturday, he would have to get through Friday.
ReplyDeleteIn class the next day, Harpatap sullenly approached Mr. Tracula a few minutes before class. "Mr. Tracula, April doesn't like me, because I tried to get you to turn into a bat."
ReplyDelete"It's pretty clear she doesn't like you. She threw up on you!" he said. "April doesn't like a lot of people. Don't take it personally, Harpatap. You're a good kid and one of my favorite self-control students."
"A lot of kids don't like me."
"What makes you say that?" Tracula said, a concern in his voice.
"They told me... They said I'm not cool. They said they don't like me, because..." Harpatap trailed off.
"It's okay, Harpatarp. I think you're very cool."
"But you..." Harpatarp looked down at something in his hand.
"What is it, Harpatap?" Tracula said.
"They gave me this, and to prove I'm cool, I took it. But I didn't use it."
"You didn't use what?"
"Drugs."
Mr. Tracula looked down at Harpartap's outstretched hand. In it was a shiny, purple rounded disk with an S in the middle. Harpartap's hand was sweaty and purple-stained.
ReplyDelete"Harpatap, it's okay. You are cool. Go ahead and take the drugs."
"What?" he said, mouth agape and eyes widened.
"I'm kidding. It's a Skittle, not drugs. It's candy. The kids are teasing you."
April wondered why it had taken her so long to realize that there was no curriculum in the class. It was just a bunch of out of control kids yelling inappropriate things, attacking each other, and mocking the teacher. She decided that the class was really just a ploy to get disruptive kids out of the other classes. "Oh well," she thought, "at least it's more entertaining than calculus."
ReplyDeleteJust then, Chauncey waddled by with his pants down around his ankles, yelling, "Look at me, I'm a penguin!"
"At least he kept his underwear on," April muttered.
It was at that moment that Mr. Tracula walked by. She noticed his pale skin, his dreamy brown eyes and the vein in his forehead that seemed to protrude every time she tried to kill someone. She realized they were meant for each other and that not even Samuel, Harpartap, Chauncey, Tommy, Jerome nor even Hobart could stand between her and the teacher.
ReplyDeleteIn her mind, she saw lips trembling and protruding in and out, kind of like the vein in Tracula's forehead, as she and the dreamy vampire drew nearer and nearer.
"Say it," he said.
"Vampire."
She was then interrupted...
'April?' Mr Tracula was gazing at her with those dreamy brown eyes. 'Did you say something?' He asked, his lips softly forming each word.
ReplyDelete'Huh?' was all April could manage as she gazed from beneath her heavy, protruding forehead, beneath her thick, heavy brows, back into his piercing, hypnotic eyes and imagined kissing his beautiful sexy lips.
Mr. Tracula turned his attention to Hobart, who was licking what looked like chocolate off of Harpartap's desk as Harpartap protested loudly.
April watched, transfixed as Mr. Tracula's broad chest heaved once with frustration and he straightened his magnificent shoulders as he strode toward Harpartap and Hobart. Tracula easily pulled Hobart from Harpartap's desk, sat him in his own seat and in that deep, sexy voice, explained how one cannot just go around sucking things off of another's desk.
April sat mesmerized, her heart beating so hard that she worried Mr. Tracula would hear it. He was magnificent! April wanted to look her best for her new love. She opened her purse and pulled out her makeup case. She pulled out her mirror to check her hair and makeup. Her hair hadn't been brushed in a few days, so she ran a comb painfully through it, ripping out several sizeable knots and generating quite a static charge in the process. That turned out to be helpful as with her hair standing on end, she was able to see all of the dandruff. She flicked out the larger clumps until her hair no longer looked like she'd just come in from a snow storm.. much. Then she ran the comb through her unruly unibrow. It wasn't working, it just transferred dandruff to her eyebrows; so she grabbed some hand lotion, hoping it would help tame her unibrow. It just made it greasy... oh well, maybe the lotion would at least help tame her mustache. She applied a thick layer and was pleased that it did. She then took out what was left of her liquid foundation and covered the blotches and bumps on her face as well as she could. She then noticed that her sideburns were looking a little scraggly.. more lotion.. it helped... a little. She took out mascara to give her eyelashes that flirty volume that the models in the magazines flaunted; but as she was applying it, she found that she couldnt stop blinking and the mascara ended up in her eyes, under her eyes, on her eyelids.. but at least her eyelashes now had the full, flirty volume that the models had. She looked unhappily at her nearly nonexistent lips and practiced her sexiest pout.. it wasn't working. She checked her teeth and was alarmed to see how crusty her teeth looked. She couldnt remember the last time she'd brushed them. She took her house key and scraped off the thick, yellowish pastey sludge from her teeth, paying special attention to the dark, greenish stuff that could have been spinach; though she didnt recall having eaten spinach any time recently. She grinned at herself in the mirror to recheck her teeth. That would have to do. Now for the final touch. She pulled out a tube of bright red lipstick. No more thin lips for April! She slid on a thick layer of glossy, irridescent red lipstick, carefully drawing in lips where there were none. She frowned. It was a little uneven; kind of lopsided, but maybe Tracula wouldn't notice. She had heard somewhere that men love red lipstick.. especially vampire men. She was ready for her move!
Mr. Tracula had figured out how to distract the class by giving them a sex education booklet, and seeing as 95% of the class were idiot boys who didn't know the first thing about women, it kept them from yelling "Poo!" vomiting on each other, eating food off the floor, "flying" after Mr. Tracula or running full speed into walls, at least for the time being.
ReplyDeleteThis was April's perfect opportunity. She lumbered up to Mr. Tracula's desk, filled with delight at the outcome she imagined in her mind, that trembling, sultry vampire kiss.
"Mr. Tracula," she said in the sexiest, non-raspy voice she could muster.
Mr. Tracula looked up from the paper work he was filling out, "Yes, April?"
"Mr. Tracula! I was just wondering..." she knew that if she screamed, "I love you," he would probably feel awkward, but after all, she was in a self-control class for a reason: "I love you! I love you, Mr. Tracula! Kiss me, you fool! You know you want to!"
"April, that's very flattering. You're a wonderful girl. That said, I'm married. You knew I was married. You also know I'm too old for you. Still, you're great."
She was mortified, but she didn't try to kill him. She didn't want to. She wanted to take him in her arms, lift him off his feet and... "Mr. Tracula, I just have to say... YOUR LOSS!"
Mr. Tracula pursed his lips and nodded. April, in turn began flaring her nostrils and grinding her teeth, turning away to hide the tears she imagined might be in her eyes. "YOUR LOSS!" she repeated.
"April, I'm glad your one of my students. I wish you had stayed in calculus, but..." He was interrupted by her face having turned back in his direction a mere inch away from his face.
Startled, he pulled back a couple feet and nearly fell out of his chair, her lips trembling, eyes closed, her mind immersed in the joy of the imagined coming kiss and her mouth pointing outward, searching and probing for the lips that had already moved much too far for hers to ever reach their intended target. Mr. Tracula eyes wide with fear, raised his arm to protect himself from the looming threat.
"We were meant to be Mr. Tracula." April said in a thick voice. She did her best to exude all the sexiness that a 24-year old junior in high school could possibly muster, but she sounded more like she'd been gargling peanut butter. She leaned farther, lips outstretched, still searching for Mr. Tracula's gentle kiss. Mr. Tracula's kiss, along with the rest of him, had since scrambled desperately to the other side of the room and had no intention of meeting April's 'psycho-clown from an impressionist painting' painted on pucker. Until the moment she had pressed her face so closely to him, he'd never noticed just how hideous she was. The way she pursed her trembling lips toward him conjured memories of Mr. Ed or Jamie Foxx's 'Wanda' character from 'In Living Color'.
ReplyDeleteApril, on the other hand, just knew that the sex-ed booklet he'd just handed out had to have been a subtle innuendo... perhaps even subconscious. He had to feel the connection between them. How could he not? She could see it in his eyes. How he made her want him. It could only be deliberate. She knew the internal battle he must be fighting between his loyalty to his lawfully wedded wife and the girl who stoked the fire that surely must be burning in his loins. The forbidden fruit that was his young student. April had read about such tabu romances in books and magazines. She had always dreamed it would happen to her, and now it had!
Finally, their lips touched. April's heart was filled with happiness and peace. She decided she would never kill anyone again, until she opened her eyes and saw it was Samuel she was kissing. "Son of a...!!"
ReplyDeleteInstantly, April seized Samuel by the throat. In her vice-like grip, he turned from pastey pale and freckly to deep red, to purple, to kind of bluish. His eyes bulging, lips swelling and tongue protruding. He couldn't make a sound as April's grip tightened around his throat.
ReplyDeleteJust then, someone tackled her from behind.
When she regained her bearings to see who it was who had her pinned to the floor, she was ecstatic to see that it was Mr. Tracula. April was impressed at the power with which he had slammed her to the floor; which, unfortunately for Tracula, further stoked April's passion for him. Unfortunately, poor Mr. Tracula was no match for the behemoth neanderthal woman. April quickly turned the tables on Tracula, grasping him by both wrists and pulling his arms outward, forcing him closer and closer. Finally she had him!
April was seemingly oblivious to Tracula's horrified expression as she pulled him closer and closerto her eagerly awaiting lips. He struggled desperately, trying to free himself from her clutches. It was then that April caught him in a scissor hold which she'd learned from watching WWF wrestling; flipped him onto his back and pinned him to the floor. Tracula was completely helpless beneath her massive weight and brute strength. She gazed longingly into his dreamy brown eyes.. those horror-stricken, terror-filled, yet dreamy brown eyes... and moved in to claim her kiss. She closed her eyes as she closed in on him, asymmetrical psycho-clown lips parted and quivering as she voraciously anticipated the taste of his sweet mouth.
If Mr. Tracula's disgusted grimace were not enough of a hint for April, his ghastly shrieks of protestation and revulsion also seemed to ply no mercy from the gargantuan gargoyle and her amorous assault.
Tracula, of course, was crying inside at this point. What's worse, he was getting nauseous, as her breath was... not good. So not good that he vomited a little.
ReplyDeleteApril, learning what Harpartap had learned the previous day, did not like the taste of vomit nor the realization that her lack of oral hygiene had destroyed her chances to have her own romantic Twilight experience. Tracula ran out the door to go to the bathroom to wash his mouth out, while April turned to the class, trying to save face and said, "How do you like that? If any of you try anything, you'll be getting the same treatment!"
"I hope so!" Samuel said. April blushed, glancing over at the fat red head whom she had nearly murdered moments ago. She returned to her seat to mourn the loss of true vampire love but also ponder on potential fat red head love.
She looked over at Samuel; this time studying him for a long while. His wild, reddish-orange hair contrasted with his pale, freckled face which was now dotted with purplish speckles, especially in the delicate skin around his eyes, all as a result of the capillaries bursting when April had strangled him earlier. His beady, wide-set, greenish-beige eyes were also bloodshot and dappled with broken blood vessels from the earlier assault. She noticed for the first time how endearingly his left eye wandered outward and for a second, she thought he had caught her staring, but it was just his eye wandering... How cute! Samuel's too-short brown corduroy pants showed off his sagging, mismatched socks, the taupe one hanging just below his ankle and the green one slumping low over his fake Birkenstocks. His orange t-shirt slid half-way up over his undulating rolls of belly flab. She could see that there was something printed on the shirt, but she couldn’t read it at this angle. She was seeing him in a new light. He had stolen the kiss she’d intended for Mr. Tracula, which had initially infuriated her, but in hindsight, it was actually quite flattering. Samuel found her attractive. None of the other boys had ever shown an interest in her. This could be the love she had been waiting for! She was glad now that she hadn’t succeeded in killing him. Just then, he caught her gaze and they locked eyes…
ReplyDeleteOver time, as April and Samue's love blossomed, the teacher deemed them ready to graduate from self-control class, as their behavior improved greatly. April started taking care of herself, and her grotesque features seemed to be magically transformed to something less grotesque. Samuel lost some weight, too.
ReplyDeleteMr. Tracula, after long day substituting in the self-control class pondered in this. Perhaps I was wrong, he thought. Perhaps they didn't need medication. They only needed love.
He stood up from his desk chair and faced toward the open window and transformed into a bat, a bat with a tear in its eye, and flew out the window.