Author’s Note: You can read the previous part of this story HERE.

In Need of Serious Correcting

Rude Rudy squirmed in the chair in the office that smelled like sterile, dusty discipline. Across from him seated at the big important desk sat the stodgy principal, Mr. Simon Falcone, and he was staring at Rudy through round rimmed glasses lightly tinted green and he was rhythmically tapping the tip of a pencil against a pad of yellow paper as he considered his next words.

Beside the principal, standing and with thin arms crossed against her narrow frame, was the school counselor, Miss Clementine Grady. She was blonde like Marilyn Monroe and dressed tight like a mummy in its bleached white bandages. She appeared stern, but at the very same time she appeared light and airy as a feather loopily falling through the wind. She was nervously tapping her right toe clad in a glossy red shoe.

Mr. Falcone glanced at her rigid stature and then tossed his pencil aside like he was sick of life, and he got up and sat on the far edge of the desk nearest the boy. He took a deep breath and began to speak in that intellectual professor-type kind of tone he had. “Inciting a riot on school property is a very serious offense, Rudy. Are you aware of that?”

Rudy scoffed and shook his bushy orange head at them both. “I can’t help it if my people get excited. They have a right to be upset.”

Miss Grady leaned forward and blew the hair out of her face. She was always blowing the hair out of her made up with makeup face and people always wondered why she just didn’t pull it back and clamp it down to her head. “Your people?” she replied as a cluster of hair fell back down across the tip of her nose like a tail.

“That’s right. My people. They’re great people and they look up to me. Everybody knows this. These kids need a leader who doesn’t mess around.” Rudy grinned like an orange devil. “They need someone to direct their frantic youthful energy.”

“And that includes bullying poor Adam Longo?” Counselor Clementine Grady replied. “Why? Why would you taunt and tease him like that? You should be offering a friendly welcome, not sadistic rebel rousing.”

Rudy leaned forward in the chair and his lizard-like eyes bloomed wide and clicked. “It’s not my fault the new kid can’t take it. He needs to toughen up and quit being such a baby.”

Mr. Falcone broke in. “What do you mean when you say your people have a reason to be upset?”

“What?” Rudy said. “I can’t understand you. You talk like you have shit in your mouth.”

Mr. Falcone shot up off the desk. “Young man!” he scolded, visibly distraught by the words. “You will not speak to me in that manner.”

“A thousand pardons, master,” Rudy said in a salty, mocking tone. “Continue.”

Mr. Falcone eased back down onto the edge of the desk and wiped the nervousness from his face with a slowed, carving hand. “As I was asking, why are they upset?”

“Because school sucks. It’s boring,” Rudy said. “There’s not enough proper stimulation of our young minds. We have energy to burn and there’s no kindling.”

Mr. Falcone scratched at his face and spoke in line with his manufactured authoritative status. “What I’m hearing is that you want more options, more activities, a bigger sky in which to spread your wings… Have you ever considered getting involved with student council? It would be a wonderful opportunity to plant the seeds for positive changes that deliver results.”

Rudy laughed out loud at him like Bart Simpson. “I’m not hanging out with those nerds. They don’t ever do anything that matters. They’re limp wristed and idle. They’re horribly ineffective in their roles as so-called leaders of this school. Who gives a crap about some stupid school dance or what’s on the lunch menu or pep rallies for the so-called popular crowd. People want real-life action… And I give them real-life action.”

Miss Grady laughed back at him. “Well, young man. I’m afraid your real-life action has earned you a week of detention.”

“And you’ll be expected to help clean up the mess,” Mr. Falcone added.

“And another thing,” Miss Grady said in turn. “You’ll be required to attend anger management sessions with me once a week for two months.”

“What!?” Rudy yelled. “You can’t make me do that. I have rights. This is America! I have way better things to do after school.”

Mr. Falcone rolled his eyes at the foolish boy. “What things could you possibly have to do after school? Let me guess… Masturbate to underwear pictures in the JC Penney catalog and play video games?”

Miss Grady tossed a queer look of interested disgust in his direction.

“And it might be America out there in the silly world,” Principal Falcone continued. “But in here you follow my rules. That’s non-negotiable. You will do what we expect of you. Understood?”

The boy chuckled. “You’re so damn weird… And gross.” Then Rude Rudy rudely got up out of the chair and pointed at them. “Guess what,” he said. “This is happening,” and he turned around, yanked down his pants and wriggled his pale, freckled backside in their direction. “You can both bite my orange ass!”

Mr. Falcone took grave offense to the disgusting display and growled like an angry man-animal and leapt from his spot on the edge of his desk and put the whole of himself smack down on top of Rudy’s bent over body, roughly flattening the boy to the floor. “Oh yeah! How do you like that young man!? How does it feel to be pinned to the ground, to be helpless and with nowhere to go!?” he seethed into his ear. “I bet you feel like a prisoner, huh… Sort of like how you must make Adam Longo feel when you fill his world with nasty bullying. Not too fun, is it.”

“Get off of me you pervert!” Rudy yelled out; his breathing compromised.

Miss Clementine Grady was stunned, shocked, bewildered. She clamped her feminine hands to her powdery face and screamed out. “Mr. Falcone!” She rushed to where they were pressed together on the shiny school tile and grasped the man by the shoulders. “You’re hurting him! Stop it!” She tried to pull him off, but he was too large and strong, and she was too small and weak.  

Young Rude Rudy was trying to buck him off like how a horse does to a cowboy, but it only tired him more and he relented. “Help! Help me!” Rudy screamed out to the counselor.

Miss Grady quickly scanned the room for something, anything she could use to dislodge the brute of a principal from the boy. She spotted a spinnable globe sitting on a table near the window. She snatched it up and then crashed it down on the principal’s head as hard as she could, leaving a cavernous dent in the continent of Africa.

Mr. Falcone made a grunting uummph noise and fell to the side allowing the boy to scramble up to his knees, his pants still down around his ankles. Rudy was panting like a thirsty camel and his face was flush and his wide lizard eyes nearly filled with tears. He looked up at Miss Grady in ultimate dismay as she stood over the moaning Mr. Simon Falcone. She was till holding the globe. “You stay right down there on that floor, Mr. Falcone,” she said in an uncharacteristic threatening tone. “Don’t even twitch, or I’ll put your lights out for good with the Earth’s core!”

She looked over at Rudy. “Go on now. Get your pants up and get out of here! Go to my office and wait there. Stay there. Don’t go anywhere else.”

A humbled and frightened Rudy nodded his head, embarrassingly fumbled around to get his pants back up and fastened, and hurried out of the principal’s office.

MORE TO FOLLOW

---