CHAPTER TWELVE!
( CALL ME NUWANDA. )
"NO GRADES AT stake, gentlemen. Just take a stroll," Keating said as Knox, Cameron, and Pitts walked in circles in the courtyard. The rest of you stood in a line, observing the people walking. After a while, all three boys began to walk at the same pace. "There it is." As they walked the class began to clap to the rhythm of their steps. You looked at Charlie, confused. He only smiled and shrugged his shoulders, he was used to Keating's unorthodox methods of teaching and preferred to lean back and watch the lessons unfold, while you wanted to know what was going on in advance.
"I don't know, but I've been told-" Keating sang and the group repeated after him. "Doing poetry is old," he continued. "Left, left, left-right-left," he began to walk in sync with the three boys. "Left, left, left-right-left. Left, halt!" Immediately the clapping and walking stopped.
"Thank you, gentlemen. If you noticed, everyone started off with their own stride, their own pace," Keating began to explain. "Mr. Pitts, taking his time. He knew he'll get there one day. Mr. Cameron, you could see him thinking, "Is this right? It might be right. It might be right. I know that. Maybe not. I don't know. Mr. Overstreet, driven by deeper force. Yes. We know that." You chuckled at how fitting each person's stride was to their personality.
"All right. Now, I didn't bring them up here to ridicule them. I brought them up here to illustrate the point of conformity: the difficulty in maintaining your own beliefs in the face of others. Now, those of you - I see the look in your eyes like, 'I would've walked differently.' Well, ask yourselves why you were clapping." There it is.
"Now, we all have a great need for acceptance. But you must trust that your beliefs are unique, your own, even though others may think them odd or unpopular, even though the herd may go, 'That's baaaaad.'" The class all laughed at Keating's sheep interpretation, at this point everyone felt quite comfortable laughing in the presence of the teacher, and furthermore, laughing at the teacher.
"Robert Frost said, 'Two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.' Now, I want you to find your own walk right now. Your own way of striding, pacing. Any direction. Anything you want. Whether it's proud, whether it's silly, anything. Ladies and gentlemen, the courtyard is yours," Keating held his hands out, inviting you into the open space.
"You don't have to perform. Just make it for yourself," Keating added. You hung back for a moment, a slight fear of being judged crossing your mind. That's baaaaad, you thought and smiled to yourself before stepping out onto the stony grey courtyard. At first you were slowly strolling, but it morphed into a strange dance as you went on.
"Mr. Dalton? You be joining us?" You heard Keating ask.
"Exercising the right not to walk," Charlie replied.
"Thank you, Mr. Dalton. You just illustrated the point. Swim against the stream," Keating nodded.
You looked over at Charlie to see him snickering at you, shaking his head softly at your movements.
"Oh, knock it off, Dalton. You aren't even moving, so you can't judge," you said defensively, moving towards him.
"Sure I can, it's within my rights," he smiled before pushing off of the pillar and joining in on your weird dancing. After he had shown you a few awful moves, you gave in and smiled, mentally forgiving him for laughing at you.
❦
"To live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. To put to rout all that was not life," Neil read as you all sat in the cave, except Charlie and Knox. Now that you thought about it, you had no idea where Charlie was.
"Wait a minute guys, do you know where Charlie is?" you asked before anyone could say another word.
"I-" Neil began, but he was cut off by the sound of a girl giggling.
"Oh, my God!" Cameron said. You narrowed your eyes and listened closely as footsteps approached.
"Is this it?" A girl asked.
"Yeah, this is it. Go ahead, go on in. It's my cave. Watch your step," someone replied. It was Charlie. You sucked in a quick breath and tried to stop yourself from jumping to conclusions too quickly.
"We're not gonna slip, are we?" A different girl said. He brought two?
"Uh-oh."
Just then a blonde girl with a bright red shirt plopped down into the cave. She certainly got dressed up for the event, her hair was perfectly curled and her lipstick was applied seamlessly.
"Hi," she smiled,
Meeks stood up quickly and slammed his head into the low ceiling. "Hello," Meeks greeted. Your eyes darted to Violet who was glaring skeptically at the two girls. Violet was never really one to speak up or pick a fight, but you couldn't exactly say the same for yourself. You took in another deep breath and closed your eyes, trying not to get angry too quickly.
"Hello," Gloria nodded.
"Hi, you guys. Meet, uh, Gloria and--" Charlie started, forgetting the other girl's name. This gave you a small amount of satisfaction, but not enough.
"Tina," the girl in blue reminded him.
"Tina. This is the pledge class of the Dead Poets Society."
"Hello. How do you do?" the boys said politely.
"Hello," Neil said.
"Hi. Hi," Gloria said for the third time. You rolled your eyes, refusing to greet these new girls. Did Charlie even tell them he had a girlfriend?
"Guys, move. Move. Come on, folks. It's Friday night. Let's get on with meeting," Charlie prompted. Everyone made way for the girls and it took everything in you to not trip Gloria as she passed you.
"Sorry. Excuse- Excuse me," the boys apologized as they made room, which only made you angrier. It's not like they were royalty or something.
"Guys, I have an announcement to make. In keeping with the spirit of passionate experimentation of the Dead Poets, I'm giving up the name Charlie Dalton. From now on, call me Nuwanda," Charlie declared. Tina pulled out a tube of red lipstick and Charlie swiped it from her hands to draw red symbols on each of his cheeks.
You immediately scoffed, louder than you'd planned. You normally would've laughed at his antics, but jealousy clouded those feelings. Charlie's eyes flew to you.
"What? You don't like it? What about all that non-conformity stuff you kept talking about after class?" Charlie questioned, walking over to you. You looked at him in disbelief and turned away. Charlie stared at you for a moment in concern while Pitts and Meeks joked about Charlie's new nickname. You were sitting between Neil and Todd who were both looking at you and Charlie worriedly. Charlie tried to take a seat beside you but there wasn't really any room, and Neil wasn't sure he wanted to see Charlie hit one of your nerves. After a few moments Charlie returned to his former seat and cleared his throat.
"We gonna have a meeting or what?" he said.
"Yeah. If you guys don't have a meeting, how do we know if we wanna join?" Gloria asked innocently.
"Join?" Neil said in disbelief, he shook his head. You looked around the room and saw Cameron raise his hands up and look at the rest of you with an expression that seemed to say 'well look what Charlie did now'. You found yourself appreciating Cameron more than you ever had.
"Seriously? You come in here once and think you can just join?" you retorted, standing up. You couldn't tell whether you were angrier at Charlie or the two airheads he brought with him. You drew in another breath and stared Charlie in the eye, waiting for him to say something. "My god, Charlie. Did you even tell them you had a girlfriend?" you nearly shouted, desperately trying not to let any tears spill.
"What? No, Y/N, you got me all wrong. I brought them for the rest of these guys. You know you're the only one I want," he said quickly moving towards you.
"Wait, you two are together?" Gloria asked slowly. You shook your head at Charlie who opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out. He looked at you sadly. When he didn't say anything you sat back down and didn't look up at him again.
"Unbelievable," you muttered, eyes trained on the fire. You weren't going to cry for him, not here at least. Todd gently placed his hand on your shoulder but you refused to look at him, afraid that you would only find pity in his eyes.
Seconds later, Charlie ushered Neil out of his spot and sat down beside you.
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate," he recited as he turned your head to face him in an attempt to cheer you up.
"Wasn't that sweet," Tina mused. You turned your gaze and glared at her, causing her to tighten up. She looked away uncomfortably.
"Charlie knock it off," you said, pushing his hand off your face. "Did you think I would just be fine with you sneaking around with some college girls? I mean, are we dating or not? I thought you said that's what you wanted but there's no way I'm doing this if you're gonna run around with other girls all the time," you said angrily.
"Y/N, I told you, I only want you okay? It's just harmless flirting and I really only brought them for the rest of the guys," he said again.
"Forget it, Charlie," you sighed, turning back to the fire. You didn't want to let your emotions get the better of you. You grew up in a family where emotions were constantly swept under the rug, and any indication of sadness was thought to be weakness. Even Keating's teachings hadn't managed to change some of the things that your parents had ingrained deeply into your mind.
Charlie looked to Neil for help, but Neil simply shook his head. Charlie sat uncomfortably at your side and the meeting progressed. It seemed that everyone could sense the tension, nobody was speaking very much.
"We didn't mean to make you-" Gloria began but you cut her off.
"Y'know just shut up, alright?"
"Y/N-" Charlie started.
"No! Look, I really don't care. Can we just get on with this?"
Tina pulled a bottle of alcohol out of her purse and passed it to Neil. "Go ahead, pass it around," she said. Once the bottle got to you, you took a long swig, even though you usually preferred to keep your head clear. You grimaced at the bitter flavour, but after a while you decided you liked the burn. The awkward silence persisted as the bottle made a full circle.
"Me and Meeks are working on a hi-fi system. It shouldn't be that hard to, uh, to put together," Pitts explained to the new girls, trying hopelessly to flirt. "Uh, I might be going to Yale. Uh, uh, but, I, I might not," Pitts continued. You were glad to see that Meeks didn't seem to be as impressed by the girls as he did at first, but your mouth was still filled with a bitter taste, and it wasn't just the alcohol.
"I'd like to announce I published an article in the school paper, in the name of the Dead Poets," Charlie suddenly announced.
"What?" Cameron questioned.
"Demanding girls be allowed to eat lunch with boys at meals, and spend time in our dorm rooms."
"You didn't," Pitts breathed.
"How did you do that?" Neil asked.
"I'm one of the proofers. I slipped the article in," Charlie explained.
"Look, uh, it's, it's over now," Meeks said hopelessly.
"Why? Nobody knows who we are," Charlie persisted.
"Well, don't you think they're gonna figure out who wrote it? They're gonna come to you and ask to know what the Dead Poets Society is. Charlie, you had no right to do something like that," Cameron scolded.
"It's Nuwanda, Cameron," Charlie shot back.
"That's right. It's Nuwanda," Gloria smiled.
"Are you kidding? This might get girls completely kicked out of Welton!" you shouted. You were too mad to roll with his stunts right now.
"I only did it so I could spend more time with you," he said, grabbing your hand. Your eyes flitted down to it and you couldn't bring yourself to pull away this time.
"Charlie, it took years of negotiations and protesting for girls to even be accepted into Welton. We all know Nolan isn't a fan of it and he would be more than happy to take girls right back out of Welton. Besides, did you really think it was gonna work?" you looked at him incredulously.
"Y/N, don't worry. If it all goes to shit, I'll be the one taking the blame. Are we just playing around out here, or do we mean what we say? For all we do is come together and reach a bunch of poems to each other. What the hell are we doing?"
"All right, but you still shouldn't have done it, Charlie. This could mean trouble. You don't speak for the club," Neil stated.
"Hey, would you not worry about your precious little neck? If they catch me, I'll tell them I made it up," Charlie said.
You let yourself look into Charlie's eyes for a moment and felt a tear fall out of your eye. Before a second could even pass you wiped it away and stood up.
"I've gotta go," you stated and made your exit despite Charlie's protests.
❪ ⋆࿐໋ 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒑𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒆𝒎. ❫
AUTHOR'S NOTE.
I kinda played myself by changing the storyline so that girls were at Welton because I had no idea what to make the article about... but there's no way I could leave it out. I'm so sorry this took so long, I was just feeling really unmotivated. This chapter is quite a bit longer than usual to make up for it. Anyway, thank you all for the comments and votes, it means the world to me to know that people are actually reading this. I love you guys!
- s.