After School Activities

Copyright

Published by

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

After School Activities

© 2015 Dirk Hunter.

Cover Art

© 2015 Paul Richmond.

http://paulrichmondstudio.com

Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

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ISBN: 978-1-63216-541-1

Digital ISBN: 978-1-63216-542-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014920694

First Edition March 2015

Printed in the United States of America

This paper meets the requirements of

ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

After School Activities

CHAPTER ONE

SO FAR, today was shaping up to be a rather ordinary Tuesday. First

period had barely begun, and I was already in the principal’s office. Adam

Anderson, my sworn enemy since kindergarten, sat in the chair next to me,

arms crossed, staring sullenly at the floor. Me? I was grinning.

“All right, Mr. O’Connor,” our principal, Theodore Hayes, said,

looking at me from over steepled fingers. “Why don’t you tell me what

happened this time.”

My grin widened, turned mischievous. “Theo. Darling, how many

times do I have to tell you to call me Dylan?”

TEN MINUTES before the bell rang, the halls of Oak Lake High were

swarming with kids. Even so, I couldn’t help but overhear an

unfortunately all too familiar sound: small-minded douchebaggery.

“Why, if it isn’t a brand-new fairy boy for us to have a little fun

with, right, boys?”

This, wafting from a less-traveled side hall where all the language

classrooms were situated—empty this early, ’cause, you know, no

language classes before third period. I couldn’t help but sigh. Sure, I could have ignored it—and seriously, Mr. Hayes, I almost did—but honestly? I

was a little hurt my nemesis was cheating on me with some unknown

freshman. It stung.

So I took a stroll down the hall and found that—surprise surprise—

dear old Adam here, along with two of his buddies, had cornered some

poor kid I didn’t recognize. Now, Oak Lake is a pretty small school; you

get to know everyone, if not by name, then at least how they look. So I

figured out pretty quickly that it was probably this kid’s first week, else he might have thought twice before wandering alone down the language hall

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Dirk Hunter

at all, much less with a bedazzled backpack. A My Little Pony backpack,

to boot. Rookie mistake. I couldn’t help but feel for the kid, you know?

“Come on, Adam.” I said, interrupting a mess of giddy snickering,

“didn’t anyone tell you how uncool it is to date a freshman, no matter how

much
fun
it is?”

The three bullies turned, with spectacular coordination—did you

guys practice that, Adam? Spinning in sync?—but only Adam kept

smiling. His buddies, at least, had the good grace to look ashamed. Now I

won’t name names, I don’t do that, but let’s just say one of them only

passed math last semester ’cause I tutored him, and the other has an older

brother who used to date my sister. But Adam, bless his heart, pressed on,

not noticing his backup dancers were slowly inching away.

“Oh look. If it isn’t King Queer, come to rescue one of his subjects,”

Adam said.

I sighed and shook my head. “Personally I would have gone with

‘Queen Queer.’ Not only for the whole, you know, gay thing, but also for

the alliteration. Seems like a real missed opportunity.” As I spoke, I

stepped past Adam to talk to the new guy. “Hey, kid. Name’s Dylan.

Sorry about my man Adam here. He’s got some issues with his

masculinity.” I brought my hand up to my mouth and whispered, loud

enough for everyone to hear, “
Impotence
. You know how it is. Well, you probably don’t. Anyway, welcome to Oak Lake High. I’d love to give

you the tour, but I seem to be a bit preoccupied at the moment. Don’t let

that stop you, however, from running off and familiarizing yourself with

any halls
other
than this one.”

The new kid squeaked a thank-you and ran. Man, self-confidence,

we should really teach that in school. Wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Hayes?

“Alright, faggot,” Adam growled, spinning me around and slamming

me against the wall. “I guess it’s just you and me now.”

Now, at this point I started to get a little concerned. Adam here has

done a lot of things to me in the past—good memories, every one—but he

had never actually
grabbed
me like that before, you know? We mostly just traded clever insults back and forth. Well, mine were clever. I still

couldn’t believe you missed that “Queen Queer” gem, Adam. And by this

point Adam’s companions in crime had made themselves pretty scarce, so

I couldn’t even count on them to step in should things start to spiral

downward. Honestly, I was a little concerned for my personal well-being.

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After School Activities

Not that I was gonna allow that to stop me.

“Oh, Adam, you brute, you! You know how I like it when you take

command like that. Such strength! Such power!”

Adam’s cheeks colored. It was clear that I was getting to him. “We’ll

see how you like this power when it’s punching you in the gut.”

“Why, Mr. Cortez! Is that shining armor you’re wearing? Tell me,

do all English teachers have your sense of timing?”

“AND MR. Cortez said, ‘Alright boys, break it up,’ and Adam was like

‘Not until my fist teaches this faggot a lesson, ’cause I’m a big strong man

and I have to prove that every day. Arrrgghhhh.’”

“I didn’t say that.” Adam spoke up for the first time since being sent

to Mr. Hayes’s office.

“It was implied.”

Adam opened his mouth to reply, but Mr. Hayes cut him off with a

gesture. “Well, Mr. O’Connor—”

“Dylan.”

“—that was very… thorough.” He turned to Adam. “Mr. Anderson,

you know we have zero tolerance for bullying and violence. I’m afraid I’m

going to have to give you detention.”

“But—”

“No buts, Mr. Anderson. You’re dismissed.” I stood up too, but Mr.

Hayes wasn’t quite finished with me. “And Mr. O’Connor, you could try

provoking Mr. Anderson a little bit less. I’d give you detention also if I

wasn’t absolutely convinced it would be a huge mistake to keep you two

in the same room. Next time, though, it’s you who will be staying after

school.” Adam gave me a smug look. “Now go, both of you. There’s no

point in going to your first class. You’d disrupt more than it’s worth.

There’s another ten minutes until second period, so I expect you to behave

yourselves.”

I SUPPOSE I should consider myself lucky—in a lot of schools,
I’d
have been the one getting the detention. They’d say I deserved what I got for

“provoking” the other students, when it would really be because I was gay.

At least when Mr. Hayes accused me of provoking Adam—and I suppose

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Dirk Hunter

I did provoke Adam, a little—it was because of the insults, not my

sexuality. Oak Lake, despite being such a small town, was actually pretty

open-minded. Sure, it had its pricks, like Adam, but most of the

homophobes were like Adam’s friends from that morning. They’d pick on

you for being gay, but not if they, like, knew you or anything. And as far

as Adam went, he didn’t really get any social points for picking on people.

The other popular kids didn’t really hold it against him either, but I’d take apathy to outright hatred any day. Baby steps, right?

As it was, Adam sat comfortably at the level of a duke, maybe an

earl, in Oak Lake’s popularity kingdom. For one thing, he was on the