Astronaut

Chapter Nineteen: Me Against the World

"Afternoon, everyone! I'm sure you're all looking forward to hearing from our Student Committee and the class presidents from all seven grades, so without further ado, let's get this show on the road!" The head teacher goes to an empty seat in the front row that's occupying all of the class teachers from first to seventh grade; it's been decided that the students will go in numerical order of their grade, so Harvey watches as the brown-haired, brown-eyed boy from his brother's first grade class gets up out of his seat and makes his way to the podium to deliver his speech to the waiting audience. Harvey listens intently at the speech the young boy is giving, whilst dreading about his own speech he's to give in a matter of minutes.
At last, it's his turn as he hears his head teacher announce:

"And now lets hear it from one of our second graders, Harvey Oswald-Kennedy!" He gets up out of his seat and diffidently traipses toward the podium with his heart pounding in his chest and his hands clammy with sweat, he looks out at the crowd of people waiting to hear him speak. His eyes glance down at Miss Jones as she gives him a reassuring smile; he lets out a deep breath and goes on to address his awaiting audience:

"H-hi, everyone, I'm Harvey and I'm representing my class in second grade. I've been made aware of some things that my classmates want to be solved, firstly, a friend of mine would like the school board to have the oppor – opportunit – opportunity, sorry, to get rid of homework completely! I doubt that would be possible! Secondly, I would—"

"Do we seriously need to listen to this spastic?!" He hears quietly from behind him. He feels his eyes start to water with tears.

"Secondly, I would..." he trails off as he tries to fight back his tears, he turns his head to the left hand side at one of the older boys - a seventh grader about 10 to 11 years old sitting in the last seat in the row of chairs and Harvey glares at the boy with his face contorted into a frown, he begins to speak again but no words come out apart from the quivering declaration of:

"I can't do this," he wipes at his eyes with his hands and storms towards the seventh grade boy with a face of fury. He stands in front of his taunter and yells at him:

"I'm not a spastic! I'm autistic! Ever heard of it?! I'm sick of people like you calling me names! I hate it!" He looks at the slightly taller boy, waiting for him to answer him

"And what are you going to do about it, faggot?!" His heart drops in his chest and his eyes well up with tears as he realises that it's his dads that the boy is talking about

"That's right! You're nothing but a disgusting little faggot! Just like our so-called president! He should've been killed three years ago!" Harvey feels the overpowering feeling of rage within him as he balls up his right fist and swings it in the direction of the boy's left cheek, it makes contact and his taunter goes falling backwards and almost makes contact with the hardwood flooring of the stage; he towers over the older boy and says to him matter-of-factly in a threatening tone:

"Try making fun of my dads again and see what happens!" The boy doesn't respond, just looks bleary eyed. Harvey stands breathing heavily as the adrenaline starts to wear off, he looks and notices his head teacher coming towards him and the seventh grade bully has now went back to his seat with the other students; the head teacher glares at the redheaded boy in front of him and shouts out:

"Oswald-Kennedy! My office now!" Harvey glares at the man, then storms off stage and out of the hall to the corridor outside to get to the head teacher's office; getting there, he enters the medium sized room, goes over to sit in one of the chairs in front of the desk and waits for his head teacher to arrive. Hearing the door open, he turns in slight fear of the visitor but sighs in relief when he realises it's just Clint and Kenny who've came in; he looks at the two men with watery eyes and says to Clint:

"I don't know why I'm getting into trouble. All I did was defend myself and my family! If anyone should be getting into trouble it should be him!" Clint looks down at the redhead and explains to him:

"I know you did, bud, but you can't just go punching people because they're saying horrible things to you. I know what he was saying was wrong, but you just have to try and ignore it," hearing this, Harvey frowns at the Secret Service man above him

"He was calling me a spastic and calling my dads faggots. What else do you want me to do? Just let him talk about my parents like that?! I get called all of these horrible names all of the time and I'm sick to death of it! I had to do something!" After saying this, he sees his head teacher entering the room from the corner of his eye; he watches as the man goes over to the desk and sits down, he then starts to say to the boy in front of him:

"I'm going to have to call your parents about this," Harvey frowns and glares at the man

"Good. I don't care. I'm not going to apologise for defending myself," he says tartly with a frown and his arms folded. He ends up sitting outside in the corridor in one of the chairs and waits for one of his dads to arrive, Clint and Kenny sit on either side of him as well. After waiting for about 10 to 15 minutes, Harvey turns his head to the right and sees his dads coming towards himself, Clint and Kenny; he feels the tears coming again as he runs towards them and puts his arms around his daddy who's nearest him, Lee picks up the redhead and looks over at Jack with a worried expression as the two of them make their way into the office of the school's head teacher. They enter the room and notice the man sitting at the desk with a stern, but welcoming expression as he sees his visitors arrive.

"I'm really sorry for calling you both in, but as you know there was an incident this afternoon between Harvey and another student," the man explains to the two men sitting in the chairs in front of him with the boy in question in his daddy's arms. Jack is the first of the two to say to him:

"From what you've told us, it looks as though Harvey isn't the one at fault. All he did was defend us for the most part, but also his family, so what he raised his hands to this kid; a 10 year old picking on a six year old? Surely, a 10 year old should know better?"

"I understand your concern, Mr President, but we have a no violence policy for our school and we expect all of our students to abide by it," at this, Lee interjects:

"What about policies on homophobia and ableism? Does that not count for children like Harvey who have parents like us? Or those who are seen as "mentally incompetent"?" He explains to the man in front of him

"W-well... I-I don't know about that, a lot of people are still against your "situation" but I can assure you both that this will never happen again; I will have a strong word with the seventh grader involved and I'll make sure he understands that what his actions have done will get the appropriate consequences." Jack and Lee look at each other and then down at the redhead between them, then they look at the man in front of them; Jack says to him:

"I hope he does realise what he's done, because Harvey shouldn't be subjected to that; we have to put up with that on an almost daily basis but I'm trying to pass a bill through Congress to erase homophobia throughout the country," the man nods in agreement at this. Once the meeting wraps up, Jack, Lee, Harvey, Clint, and Kenny leave the room and head out into the corridor to go and find Caroline and John so they can be took home to Georgetown; getting the two children from their classroom, Caroline hands Lee Harvey's bag that got left behind earlier in Miss Jones's classroom; the group heads out of the school and go into the separate cars that are parked outside. Jack, Lee, Harvey, and Caroline go into Jack's car and Clint, Kenny, and John go in Clint's to drive back home to their Georgetown address and let Mrs Shaw go home, who is watching the three younger children.