The solitary confinement room, given the mysterious acronym CBR, was sickeningly silent as usual. Something in the air reminded Jeremiah of how it feels being inside an airplane. Maybe the dryness and lack of humidity, and how if you didn't have a window seat you felt like a sardine. This was where the problem children ended up in St. John's Catholic High. This used to be a new experience for Jeremiah, called Miah by friends.
Now his little confinement cubicle practically had his name printed on the outside. He had certainly printed it enough inside due to boredom. Other kids had written random slogans and tags all over the place, but his name was beginning to stand out through the other scribbles. The best one he'd read so far said, "Sister Enola sucked my cock in here 1/12/98". It was now 8/9/03 and Miah had never heard of Sister Enola. Maybe these cubicles came from a different school, he thought.
This time he was in for telling Maurine Derricks to fuck off in the middle of class. Mr. Green asked what the problem was and Maurine blurted out that "Miah cussed at me! I only reminded him that poor hygiene built poor character, just like Mrs. Blanchard says." And now he was the problem. He wanted to yell, "Well, maybe everyone isn't as clean as sterile as you want them to be!", but he didn't. The truth is, he wasn't up for bathing every day anymore. When he didn't wash his hair twice a day, it built up a strong aroma due to his mounting hormones. So eat me, he thought.
There was a single, loud knock at his cubicle door, which signaled lunch time. Miah grabbed his jacket so he wouldn't die of exposure in the 32 degree cafeteria. He didn't have food or money with him, so he brought a book instead. It was one of the random Christian ones from the library. That was all they really had. This particular one was called Jeremiah Woods, and just so happened to be about someone losing their faith, and regaining it after some great miracle. He wasn't planning on reading it.
Mother Marie, the CBR teacher, led the "problem kids" down the hallway in single file. One word out of any of them and she'd send them back to the office for an even longer CBR sentence. Once everyone was either in line for the fart-smelling cafeteria food or was seated, Mother Marie went to eat in the teachers dining hall. Whispers erupted and Miah took out his highlighter. He began thumbing through Jeremiah Woods and highlighting all the parts where it said things like, "Corina felt like she was losing her faith piece by piece after Cassie died."
Miah heard the steady beat of drums in a hissing treble coming from beside hi and he looked over. Mark O'Dealy was listening to his headphones with his jacket hood pulled over his ears. The doors to the cafeteria opened and the unsteady shuffle of confused feet could be heard approaching. It was the special education teacher, whose name no one knew, leading the special kids in.
The teacher seated them all a table row behind the CBR kids. They were each being given trays of special food. One of them was acting up bad. It was a girl with a face screwed hard to the left and enormous breasts that made you want to vomit for looking. She knocked her food over and started crawling away. The teacher jumped up and ran to the other side of the table as fast as she could. The girl was making such an awful racket, bellowing like a spurned moose.
"Someone should shut that bitch up, ugh!", Miah heard one of the CBR girls hiss.
Miah watched as the girl made a dash for the back door, running on her hands and feet like a gorilla. Mother Marie stuck her head out of the teachers dining hall in time to see the girl dive at the back door and go falling out onto the sidewalk. The special ed lady grabbed her by the feet and Mother Marie ran to help. She held the girl down while the special ed lady grabbed a shot out of her fanny pack.
In minutes the girl was sedated and they carried her by her hands and feet, gargantuan breasts lolling off to either side in a disgusting spectacle. The CBR kids were killing themselves laughing. Miah felt sick. Maybe he was thinking too much, but weren't the CBR kids just as subdued as the nasty boob girl? He was glad he didn't pack a lunch this morning.
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