Astronaut

Chapter Twenty-Two: Detention

"Oh, don't remind me! I feel bad as it is!"

Eventually, the two of them find themselves outside of Miss Jones's classroom again; Harvey enters into the room again and he sees that all of his classmates are all outside playing in the playground and Miss Jones is sitting at her desk paper marking. She looks up from the page she is reading through and notices Harvey and Kenny standing waiting on her to acknowledge them, she says to the redheaded boy:

"I see you've decided to join us again, Harvey. Have you got something that you would like to say to me?" he says nothing, but then Kenny gently elbows him in the forearm which makes him blurt out:

"Yes. I'm sorry for the way I acted earlier, I was feeling overwhelmed from what happened this morning in the bathroom with that boy in seventh grade, I shouldn't have taken it out on you,"

"Apology accepted," she says understandingly, "what happened in the bathroom this morning, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I needed to go to the bathroom, so Kenny took me along. And once I got in, I noticed him over at the sinks where he was washing his hands; once he noticed me, he called me a retard, but when I told him to stop calling me that he then decided it would be funny to throw cold water down the front of my pants and call me a baby and ask if I needed a diaper. I ended up shoving him against the tiles and was about to punch him in the face again but Kenny stopped me," Harvey recalls as he gives his version of events from this morning. Miss Jones looks at him with a slight horrified expression once he finishes speaking.

"That's completely out of order! And was it the same boy who was picking on you on Friday too that was bullying you this morning?"

"Yeah, but because I've fought back at him it's me that's getting handed a detention later on at three o'clock this afternoon, which is so unfair! It should be him that's getting into trouble, but no it's the victim that's getting the blame for it because the system's broken,"

"You're right, that's so unfair! It's a completely unfair position that you've been put in, Harvey. Was it the principal that gave you the detention?"

"Yeah. That's sure going to go down well once my parents find out(!)" he says sardonically

"I can imagine,"

"You don't have to imagine, ma'am, they already know," Kenny adds

Dammit! Harvey inwardly says.

To his chagrin, three o'clock rolls around a lot quicker than he would like as he sat staring at his desk in Miss Jones's classroom, he gets up out of his seat and bends down to pick up his bag from off of the floor, then puts it over his left shoulder. He walks up toward Kenny at the back of the room as he stands and watches his classmates leave the room, he turns his head to the right to look up at the agent, then says to him apprehensively:

"I'm dreading this," Kenny looks down at the boy and tries to come up with something that will maybe put his mind at ease.

"The detention or facing your parents?"

"What do you think?" Harvey asks feeling more anxious than agitated

"I would hazard a guess and say it's the latter,"

"Yeah, obviously!"

"I wouldn't worry about it too much, bud," Harvey scowls at the man

"That's easy for you to say, you're the one who told on me!"

"Well, they were going to find out eventually," Harvey takes in Kenny's words and ponders for a few seconds

"I suppose." The two then make their way into the corridor after saying goodbye to Miss Jones, Harvey looks up at Kenny and asks him: