The Rejects Club

Chapter 46 - Little Boy Lost

"I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it's like to feel absolutely worthless and they don't want anyone else to feel like that." - Robin Williams

Friday 8th May

Three days after camping trip...

On the first day back after Easter break Jeremy didn't expect his students to get back into the full flow of things straight away. Being without a schedule for three weeks meant they were more likely to joke around and not take the lessons seriously. Mitch proved this theory by working through his list of impressions the whole first morning and in the afternoon Kevin refused to put his feet on the floor because he claimed he'd seen a spider scuttling around.

However the one he thought he'd have little issue with was definitely acting up the most. Scott was irritable and barely alert the whole day. Normally Jeremy would have put it down to it being the first day back but unlike most kids his age, Scott had always seemed to enjoy school. But now there was definitely something up with the kid, with the random surges of nervousness and the one point where he almost started crying when Avi had accidentally knocked against his chair and made him draw a line across his equations.

The whole class was confused by the youngest's change of behaviour, and their inability to calm him, even Mitch's sweet words did nothing, but Jeremy reluctantly just put it down to the boy still feeling the affects of their camping trip. Maybe he was suffering from an extremely long hangover or something. He knew he shouldn't have been so lenient with allowing the youngster to drink the alcohol. Scott might be used to it, that didn't mean he should let him.

But at the end of the day, as they were all packing up to go home, things did seem to perk up a little bit. Scott came over and apologised profusely, explaining he was just been acting up because he wished they were still on vacation.

It was very believable, the boy had put on a good show. And Scott was always honest and open, wasn't he?

Six days after camping trip...

It became clear he wasn't.

Midway through the week it became apparent that delayed alcohol effects and holiday withdrawal were not the issue here. The boy continued to be just as irritable, if not more, and had thrown a huge tantrum when he couldn't complete all his questions in time, getting so unreasonably worked up that he had been left out of breath and dizzy by the end, the others watching open mouthed as the youngster proceeded to rip up his work.

That was when Jeremy's worry really began to elevate off the charts. As he had taken the boy aside to try and calm him down he suddenly noticed just how skinny the boy was. He had been tiny when Jeremy had first started teaching him but now, as the teacher felt his shaking shoulder bones through the thin t-shirt, he was almost stick-man like. It had been so gradual, it would have to have been for him to only just now be picking up on the change, but looking at Scott's skinny frame now he was sure if he held up a photo of the boy now and one from the start of the year there would be a noticeable difference in weight.

As he stood waiting for the kid's breathing to steady he also noticed how his pale skin looked, flaky and dry on very close inspection and the blond locks were dull, almost straw like in appearance. It was like a knife to the gut as Jeremy suddenly realised how bad Scott's condition had got. How could he have been so blind? How could he not have noticed sooner? And why had none of the others picked up on it either?

There was a simple answer, as much as it sounded like an excuse it was true; because they all knew about the boy's home life they expected him to come in a little rough around the edges some days. Plus with the fact that up until recently the youngster had never acted like anything was wrong himself. But this kid before Jeremy was not just slightly worse for wear. It was clear to Jeremy now that Scott was being severely neglected and that was something that could not continue.