Young Writers Society

Saving James
Chapter One
“Where I Once Was”

I remember the day well. That was the day where everything would change and nothing would be the same. It was the first day of the second semester of my freshman year of high school. I was excited and utterly thrilled. I’ve always been a stickler for learning and I’ve had thirst for knowledge that I’ve never seem to be able to quench. I was prepared to learn as much as my heart could possibly stand. I approached the room of my next class…

I must have looked like such a dork with my chocolate brown hair pulled back in a low ponytail and my large honey-hued eyes heavily guarded y thick framed glasses. I was also wearing a very unflattering sweatshirt and baggy jeans…like I said…what a dork I was. I remember holding my books close to my chest…a habit of mine. I realize now that it was because of my own insecurities that I did that. It was my way of cutting me off from everyone.

Well I walked into the dimly lit classroom and was overwhelmed by the smell of blueberry markers. It wasn’t fowl or anything; it was just an obnoxious scent. I took my seat and observed my fellow classmates. I didn’t know anyone but I really couldn’t have cared less if I tried. I’ve always done my own thing…so I set my notebooks out on my desk and began to doodle in my usual carefree way of life.

The bell rang abruptly and the other students sat down though continued talking. There was then a very loud voice that entered the room, “Alright....” The masculine voice cracked my attention and sent my pencil flying across my doodle…and sadly ruining it.

“My name is James Grey; I’m 24, and highly qualified to teach this class so don’t you have any worries about that. So I bid you welcome to your first day of geography,” He spoke as if he loved run on sentences. His voice almost seemed uninterested as though he wasn’t exactly paying attention to what he was saying. He walked over to his podium and began looking through a few papers. The class just remained quite. He had light- brown hair and a rather eccentric way of dressing. He was wearing an olive colored button up shirt with a grass green blazer. He had on blue slacks with a brown belt and brown shoes…and to bring it all together he had on a yellow necktie.

Now if I had seen someone else dressed in this haphazard way I would have probably found myself laughing, but not with him. I can’t really put my finger on it but I think he intimidated me. He just seemed so different than anyone I had ever encountered before. He was most definitely odd but to be perfectly honest he made me down right nervous.

“Now then…I’m going to go down the rows and I want you to introduce yourself and tell me what the most important thing to you is,” He said as he removed his thin oval glasses and began chewing lightly on the stem. It was then that I realized how intense his eyes were. They were such a dark brown that they were almost black. I thought that there was absolutely no way I was ever going to be able to look this guy straight in the eye.

I watched as he walked around the room, skillfully gliding through desks as the other students introduced themselves. He didn’t seem to comment on what people were saying he just nodded as if making a mental note and then moved on to the next person. I felt myself sink slightly in my desk. I’m a shy person to begin with and well I really just wanted to keep my mouth shut. But before I knew it he was standing by my desk towering me. I looked up at his young face, which isn’t completely unheard considering he was only twenty-four. His soft brown hair was swept to the side and as he looked down at me his bangs were falling forward into those daunting eyes.

I suppose I hesitated because then he spoke up saying, “and you?”

“My…” I looked away from those eyes before finishing, “my name is Ashley Lynn and the most important thing to me is…my…” I saw my artwork and quickly said, “Artwork.” It was as though I couldn’t get the words out fast enough.

Then he did something odd. He laughed which made me look back up at him. He laughed and smiled. The whole picture seemed out of place. He slipped his glasses back on his face and smiled; he had dimples… “You know the only art contest I ever won was the one where my mother was the judge,” He said this as he walked towards the dry-erase board and attempted to draw a circle…I thought it was a square and then the whole class broke out in laughter.

As the days and weeks went on I got used to his eccentric mannerisms. I was inspired by his talk of propaganda and his thrilling tales of the darker sides on human nature. He was absolutely brilliant and like no one I had ever known. He was so carefree in his train of thought. His ideas were so off the wall and he didn’t care what anyone thought of him. But really all his efforts were based on the fact that he wanted us to think for ourselves. He didn’t want us to just regurgitate what other people told us. More than anything he wanted for us all to establish our own ideas. The majority of my classmates just thought he was weird, but I couldn’t help but to see something more.

He was more than just some wacky-job who was a poor dresser. He was a philosopher who spent all his time not telling his students what to think but teaching them how to ask questions…it was as simple as that. Just question everything. Why did we have to settle for the mediocrity of what the world was? “What if we didn’t settle…let’s just suppose that we didn’t...”

It was comments like those that inspired me to become a teacher. I’m now the ripe age of 22 and freshly graduated from college as the certified history teacher... So today I’m standing in front of my classroom door. My door…my name is just above the door and everything. I’ve worked so hard to get here and here I stand in front of my door. No my door isn’t made of gold or anything. It’s wooden but all the same it’s mine.

And just as I go to clutch the doorknob of my very own door a familiar voice sounds from behind me, “Well if it isn’t Ashley Lynn!”

I knew exactly who it was…It was my former witty French teacher Mr. Darren. He was another one of my greatest inspirations when I was in high school. He and I have always been really close, so close that I used to refer to him as my uncle. I whipped around to face him with the largest grin I could possibly muster, “Mr. Darren!” I leapt upon him with a large hug and he just laughed. Now you need to picture this…Mr. Darren is really tall…and I mean super tall, at least to me anyways. He’s about 6’4” and I am measly 5’4”. So my hugging him is like literally having to jump.

He was just as I remembered, since I had seen him only a few months ago. He was still just as tall as ever. His eyes were their usual kind and gentle blue. He still had light blonde hair and the softest complexion.

“Ashley, I think it’s about time that you started calling me by my first name,” He said as he set me back to the floor.

“Sure thing, Mark,” I answered back proudly. It was quite the honor to refer to him by his first name. Mark had always been this angel/ god-like character in my life. He’s always been a kind of voice of reason for me. I’ve always deeply respected him and well it really is an honor for me to call such a brilliant man by his first name.

“So do you want to check out your classroom Miss Ashley Lynn?” He said as he approached my door. I just nodded happily.

Chapter two
“Meet the Professor”


That day is slightly hazy to me now. Ashley Lynn, yeah I remember her. She was the very intuitive girl in my geography class. I don’t really remember the first year that I knew her, though. She was awfully quit back then. I just remember her being quite estrogen. It wasn’t ‘til her sophomore year that she made an impression on me. She was well…odd I guess you could say. I guess she became very fascinated with me and my teachings. So much so that she would come visit me quite often after school to talk to me about it. I never really had that many students so intrigued before.

Though the strange part was that she wasn’t even in my class that year but all the same she came and talked to me about what-ever was on her mind that day. It was mostly philosophical things but sometimes she would just blurt out some stupid question like, “Mr. Grey…do you like dogs?” It was questions like those that kept me slightly perplexed. She wasn’t annoying all the time…only when I found myself really busy and I felt I didn’t have to time to have a conversation about why I don’t like cats.

The only annoying thing about her was her annoying friends that rode her coattail. They were an odd bunch. One was gothic, another was lacking in self-esteem…the boy that had a crush on her was this brainy Asian fellow. They were an odd group and I had to wonder why Ashley associated herself with them, since she didn’t seem to have much in common with any of them. Of course the only reason I cared was because I had to deal with their obnoxious behavior and this was after school…when I stop getting paid… It’s enough to make a guy lose it.

It was her junior year that she had a class with me again. She was in my contemporary issues class. Now it was then and there that things became awkward. You see because that was the year where I got the suspicion that Ashley had developed a slight infatuation with me. Being the professional that I am, it was my duty to do nothing but ignore it.

Now Ashley never did anything out of line…In all honesty she was utterly harmless. She just liked spending time with me and when she did she was never inappropriate and I can assure you that neither was I! I may have been a single bachelor of 27 at the time but for goodness sakes alive I’ve never been such an outlandish slob like some of those football coaches who had no problem with taking advantage of innocent girls.

But here’s where it gets tricky…there was this other girl in the class and well for the life of me I can’t remember her name…but this girl was trouble. She was a senior that year and well this girl claimed that she was in love with me…and everyone knew it...Um talk about disgusting. I mean not only was this girl utterly out of line but even if she was of age I believe that I would sooner become the pope than date anyone remotely even like her. But like I said it’s my duty as a professional to just ignore the raging hormones of teenagers.

Now this is the day I’ll never forget…probably because it was the only day of my entire teaching career that I became so flabbergasted that I thought I really would crap myself. So in class we were all debating whether or not diamonds really are a girl’s best friend. I was arguing that if I were to propose to a girl that I would want her to find my words more meaningful than what I was sliding on her finger. That’s when Ashley agreed with me and the other girl said and I quote, “You don’t need to suck up…he’s too old for you anyways!” The whole class froze…my heart was pounding and I really thought that I was going to die…and for what? I couldn’t look anywhere…I couldn’t say anything and I certainly wasn’t stupid enough to defend anyone…even though that other girl had severely crossed the line. I just stood there in the center of the room staring at the back wall…oh but the wall wasn’t there…nothing was there…I don’t even think I was there.

Then I was brought back to reality when Ashley’s shy little voice spoke up. At of the corner of my eye I saw that she was turned looking back at her attacker with a dumbfounded look on her face. I was afraid that I was about to present to a catfight but instead Ashley just said, “Excuse me?” and not in a snotty manner either…just a confused tone. All the students were either looking at Ashley and her perplexed eyes or the other girl and her grin of complete an utter satisfaction. So I knew that I needed to intervene so I just said, “Well I’m happy that I’m just completely out of it today and it’s like I’m not even here…” Then the bell rang for us to go to lunch and I was saved. I mean it’s not like I could comment on the situation at hand…so I took the safe road and just wrote it off like it didn’t happen…but holy crap I prayed so hard that I would never be put in that position again. Talk about awkward!

And thank goodness that never did happen again… And well nothing changed between me and Ashley either. She still came and talked to like she always had and she was just friendly and witty as ever.

Ashley was always very close to me and the other teachers. Mr. Darren was my best friend and her French teacher and he just seemed to love her. I swear if he were a bit older he would have claimed her as his daughter but well he’s only five years older than me so... he would have had to have been 16 years old when she was born…which is highly unlikely. I think Mark Darren wanted her to become his prodigy. You see she always wanted to become a teacher so Mark got it in his head that she could take after him and be a French teacher too. Oh how proud he would be! All the teachers seemed to have their own plans for Ashley Lynn. Her European History teacher, Ms. Wheatley just couldn’t wait for Ashley to become a philosophy teacher so she always gave Ashley all of this special attention. Everyone seemed to put some sort of extra pressure on her. Some of her teachers were even letting her teach their class for a little while.

It’s not like she was particularly brilliant or just flowing with charismatic energy, I guess it was apparent to everyone that she really was a teacher at heart, and a good teacher too. That deep down even more than teaching her students she wanted to help her students. Really and truly she wanted to teach them about life lessons far greater than things you can find in a textbook and I guess that is why all her teachers were so interested in her.

She and I became friends that year…friends like she was with all her other teachers… That year my mother passed away after a long fight with cancer. And even though I was prepared that one day she’d be gone, when it finally happened it was still a shock. This was my mother, at the age of 48, just gone. I can’t really put into words just how devastating it was. But you see I’m not the kind of person who mopes around feeling sorry for myself. This was the time in my life where I in delved myself completely into my job. I guess you could say I became a work-a-holic. I wasn’t sleep and I wasn’t eating right. I was working at all hours of the day. I’d get read for work a 4 in the morning and be at school by 5…then I wouldn’t leave school ‘til six in the evening…then I would just work at home. I was exhausted but it was easier to work my rear off then to face my problems.

When teaching my classes it is important that I put all emotions aside. I can never let myself get personal. Ever. No one suspected me of anything. No one could see that I was tired…no one knew that I was sad…no one….but Ashley. She noticed…of all the people that could see through my façade it was her. Now she didn’t stop me from working constantly and she didn’t even really console me. She just made herself very present in my life. At first she made me mad…how dare she flash a smile at me like nothings wrong. But in all honesty that’s what I needed. I didn’t want anyone’s pity party I wanted them all too just leave me be. Ashley acted normal around me…while everyone else was tiptoeing. And that was exactly what I wanted.

When Ashley graduated I never thought I’d see her again…and I’ll admit that it was sad watching her go…it was said for everyone to watch her leave. Mark even cried. But there is method to my reminiscing…you see sure enough Ashley Lynn has graduated from college as a certified teacher. She’s the newest addition to our staff; her classroom is the one right next to mine…and well this is what’s got me reminiscing about the good old days.

So here I am in my classroom working on my computer while my brain is having a laugh at my own expense… Three more days and school will be in session but for now most of teachers are just getting their lesson plans ready and that classrooms cleaned up. I’m glad though I feel much more comfortable in my tee-shirt and jeans than my suits. But you know I’m a teacher, so I feel I have to look the part so you’ll never not see me in a suit when I’m working.

That’s when I here him…Mark’s loud voice echoing through the halls! Trust me, when his voice sounds you can’t help but hear it. And next comes the other voice…It’s hardly familiar to me anymore. I haven’t seen Ashley but twice since she graduated. She was at Mark’s house occasionally for dinner parties when she was home form college but that was all.

I got up from my desk and walked out into the hall with every intention to simply say hello. There they were about to enter into her classroom when Mark turned around and in a hyper voice said, “Hey James! Look what I found!”

And she was indeed there, much like I remember…only older. Her brunette hair was much longer now going down well passed her shoulder blades. I believe that she was slightly taller too. Her features were more womanly now but she was the same only different…if that makes any sense at all. “Ugh Hello,” I said in my usual dulled tone of voice as I approached them. She was wearing jeans too with sandals and she had on a long sleeved shirt that revealed just how thin she was. And let me tell you this girl has always been little! Sure she’s healthy but goodness is she little. She smiled up at me and said, “Hello Mr. Grey…it’s great to see you again.”

Chapter three
“Dinner for Four”

We were just about to enter my classroom, which was what I was trying to do for the last half hour when Mark called over my shoulder at Mr. Grey. I turned around quickly. It had been a long time since I’d seen him so I was excited. He walked up in his orange tee-shirt that had the word Tennessee written on it. He wore fades jeans and white sneakers, which was a typical outfit for him when he wasn’t wearing a suit. He said hello in that dry way he normally does.

And I answered back by saying that it was nice to see him, which it really was. Mr. Grey has always been a person to whom I favor after all he was the man that saved me from a life of a narrow minded puppet. Which I would have been a puppet if he hadn’t showed me how to think for myself and for that I owed him!

“Well James we were just about to go into Ashley’s classroom for the first time…so this really is a momentous occasion. Would you care to join us for the unveiling?” Mark asked as he began opening the door of the blackened room.

“I suppose…” Mr. Grey answered blandly with a slight grin.

“Are you ready?” Mark teased me by only slightly opening the door.

“Mark! Just open the door!” I answered with a large smile plastered on my face.

Mark shut the door saying his hand slipped…He then grabbed the doorknob and said that the door was jammed. Then he pulled on the door as hard as he possibly could until it just barely opened. Then he said that the hinges must be rusty. Now I know Mark and the best thing to do when he’s joking around is to just play along with him. So I rolled my eyes and laughed until he finally opened my stupid door!

He flipped the light switch and the lights flickered before they illuminated the room. We all stepped into the room. It was just an average classroom that was a bit worn since it’s an old room.

When the lights went on my face lit up. Imagine it…all my hard work finally paying off. I could see Mark sneering slightly at the condition that the room was left in. I didn’t car about the broken desks or the walls that were a nasty color due to water damage. Those things could be fixed. I saw the classroom with each desk filled with students ready to learn. The whole thought excited me and I felt eager to begin teaching.

“It’s beautiful,” I finally mustered out as I came back to reality.

I heard Mr. Grey cover his laugh with a cough. “I’d say you have you’re work cut out for you,” He noted weakly.

“Well,” I started knowing utterly well that he was right, “I don’t know…it’s not that bad.” I’ve always tried to be optimistic, though as soon as I spoke the words a desk at the back of the room collapsed to the floor due to it’s feeble legs.

Mark and Mr. Grey broke out into laughter at the irony. In spite of myself I laughed too. I loved the sound of the two men cackling. It had been something that I missed greatly about each of them. I missed watching Mark throw his head back and go hysterical like a mad scientist. And I equally missed seeing Mr. Grey with his face a beet red and trying to hold back the sounds in his throat.

“Well Ashley…I think you’re right,” Mark chuckled as he put a hand on my shoulder and began guiding from the room. I left with a sort of grimaced look on my face.

We stepped back into the hallway still trying to catch our breath. Mr. Grey flicked the lights off and shut the door. And just as he handed me my keys a voice called down the hall.

“Hey, Grey! Would you help me with my television?” It was Mr. Burst. He was yet another former teacher of mine. He was always such a thorn in Mr. Grey’s side, since he always seemed to need him to fix his television. Mr. Grey did it every single day and sometimes twice a day. It was rather annoying.

Mr. Grey nodded, “Yeah sure…” I saw him discretely roll his eyes. Mr. Grey nodded to Mark and I and then strolled off with his head bowed.

“Hey James; you’re coming tonight, right?” Mark called off after him.

Mr. Grey turned back with his eyes scanning his mental calendar at the back of his mind. “If I’m done with my papers…”
“Oh come on James… You got to eat,” Mark said as he crossed his arms.

That was the one line that always struck a chord with James, “I guess…” the male then strolled off into Mr. Burst’s room.

With that Mark turned back to me, “I’d like it very much if you’d come too.” Mark grinned his usual grin. It was the kind of smile that made you feel like everything was right in the world.

“Thanks Mark; I’d love to go,” which was utterly true since Mark was the best chef to ever be born.

I'm sorry that this is difficult to read in this format... I'll add more soon. ^_~

Try putting spaces in between your paragraphs. Then I'm sure some of us will take the time to read it.