* * *
Both boys stood a few meters apart in Mr. Pebblestone’s office. They faced the wall as punishment, and whenever the principal turned away, they quickly got some reprieve by swinging both arms. However, this wasn’t as often as they would have wanted and after a while, the swinging felt more like a different kind of torture than reprieve.
Matthew felt tired. The fight had taken more out of him than he’d ever imagined and he just wanted to go home. Sadly, Nora had been right all along. Every kid in school now knew his name, and what they were saying about him wasn’t good, either. Openly confronting Fat George when the bully decided to harass him before the class had been a very fulfilling venture, though. Matthew never knew he could throw in some punches while fighting the bigger boy, but he guessed his affiliation with Spider-Man had bolstered his courage, successfully enabling him to take on the bully now being punished with him.
“Alright, who started this?” Mr. Pebblestone suddenly snapped, bringing the boy back to the present. Appropriately called ‘The Hawk’ behind his back by his students, the British head teacher of Sleepy Lake Elementary Middle School definitely knew how to deal with rebels like the two in his office. Tall and gaunt with a long, curved nose almost hiding sharp, piercing eyes, Mr. Pebblestone appeared to have borrowed the features of an evil wizard from a fairy tale book. What was actually missing were the long ears of an elf and the children often added these whenever they were depicting him on their blackboards. “Well?” He waited.
“Matthew started it, sir,” Fat George began, all humble and respectful. He’d been brought down twice by the smaller boy and that was humiliating enough. “He’s always jeering me in class.”
“Liar,” Matthew denied, turning to the head teacher in anger. “Mary Ann started it, sir. She told him I’m a bastard and he came up to me with her.”
“That’s not true,” Fat George grumbled.
“I never told you to turn away from the wall, Mr. Quentin.”
“Sorry, sir,” Matthew apologized.
“Now,” the head teacher continued, turning away with his hands held together behind his back, “I think you both deserve to be more severely punished—and I intend to find a more deserving punishment for this act of . . . of rebellion and utter disregard for the rules in my school by the both of you.
“But first of all,” he added, reaching for the drawer below his desk, “I shall have to pencil down your names in my black book.”
“A black what?” Fat George demanded.
“What’s a black book, sir?” Matthew asked.
“It’s a book in which I blacklist names of misfits like you, Mr. Quentin,” Mr. Pebblestone replied. “People who hurt my work and . . . and indirectly hurt me by hurting my work.”
“Sorry, Mr. Pebblestone,” Matthew apologized, trying to appear distraught, although his excitement couldn’t hide itself. Here was the real job of a black book and he couldn’t have found out about this at a more appropriate time!
As they both left Mr. Pebblestone’s office, Matthew started thinking of ways he could retrieve his last find in the attic from Nora. Fat George was definitely a misfit, and Mary Ann, too. Their names he knew and could spell, so he just needed a pen.
“I read up a very interesting word in the dictionary yesterday,” Mary Ann began when both boys entered their class. “It means a child who is born to unmarried parents.”
Nobody laughed except Fat George.
He was trying to assert himself again.