Lesson Four

As the day was slowly coming to an end and Scott and Jim were heading back home, Jim was really happy about his recovery.

"Hey Scott, is this your first time riding a motorcycle?" Jim holding on to Scott. 

"Well technically no. Before Ashley died, I just looked at how she drove her motorcycle and once I got to memorize her moves, I then got the chance to ride a motorcycle."

"Wow Scott, that's so cool."

"So Jim, we only have a few days now until the midterm exam. When are we going to have a chance to study?"

Jim was questioning himself. "How about the school library?"

"I don't think that'll work. There are a bunch of annoying guys just messing around there. Besides for some reason, the school is holding another pep rally for midterms."

"Why would they do that Scott?"

"Well in Principal Dover's words it's to 'increase our luck on the exam.' I think that's just going to make the student's studying strategy worse."

"Yeah Scott, I agree."

As they were finally back home, they both went inside the house.

"So Scott, after the doctor fixed me up, where should I live now. I mean I can't live with you and your mom forever."

Scott looks at Jim. "Yeah. We'll try to find a place for you to stay at. That shed you call home is nothing but piled wood connected with nails." 

"Alright Scott. I'm going to head to bed early."

"Aight. Rest well." 

Jim went upstairs to the attic.

"I swear to you Jim. You are going to have a place to stay."

Meanwhile, back at John's mansion, Troy was washing his car as he had a rag washing the windows.

"Oh man when I finish cleaning you, you still shine as bright as the sun."

While cleaning, Troy thought of something. "What was Scott and Jimmy doing outside of the football field?"

"Doing what on the football field?" John appeared near the car.

"Oh geez John. You keep appearing out of nowhere!"

"Hey. I can't help to see what is going on with my best man!"

John putting his hand on Troy's car. "So Troy, how do you like Jimmy's or I mean your car?"

"Oh. I think it's great. I'm just cleaning her right now!"

"And how about what is going on with Scott and Jimmy?"

Troy started to get a bit nervous. "Oh well um. You see. I recently saw them outside of the football field walking together and I think they are hanging out."

"They...are...…hanging...…out?" John pulled his switchblade out of his pocket.

He then pulled the blade out. "So you think that Jimmy can be with him, but not me?"

John pointed his blade at Troy. "And you don't even know what they're doing?"

John was pointing the knife closer to Troy's throat until it was a centimeter near his throat.

"You better see what they are doing tomorrow or else…." John used his knife to scratch the paint of his car. 

"That will be your throat next." 

Troy took a big gulp as the knife was near his throat.

"Well that's settled. I hope to see you tomorrow at the pep rally. If you can do your damn job." John left the garage.

Scared shitless, Troy was breathing heavily as he also met with death.

It is now the next day and Scott and Jim are ready to find a place for him to stay in. They both got on the motorcycle and headed out.

"Alright Jim. Let's hope to find somewhere for you to stay."

"Yeah."

They rode around the town as they tried to find a place for Jim to stay in as the town was getting ready for another pep rally for the school.

Meanwhile, Troy was heading to school inside his car until he saw a motorcycle passing by.

"Is that Scott and Jimmy?" Troy looked closer at the motorcycle.

Wanting to find out, Troy followed the motorcycle to where they were heading. 

For half an hour, Scott and Jim were driving around all over the town, but it seems like they couldn't find a place for Jim to stay.

"Scott, it's been half an hour and it looks like there are any houses for me to stay at."

"I know Jim. But we gotta keep trying."

They kept riding around until the motorcycle soon ran out of gas. Disappointed, they both got off the bike near a store that seemed like a video game store.

"Damn it. We ran out of gas." Scott looking at the motorcycle

"What are we going to do Scott?" Jim looked at Scott.

"I don't know."

Scott started to get frustrated. "Damn it. DAMN IT!"

Scott hit the wall of the video game store. However, there was something suspicious of the store. It seems that the video game store wasn't a video game store. Something peeled off the window. It was a poster that pretended that it was a video game store. The poster that showed a whole shelf of video games fell off the window and showed something even more interesting. It was instead an abandoned book store with shelves that fell off with dusty floors. What was even more interesting was that it had a second story building which could possibly be a new place for Jim to stay in. 

"Jim. Look at this."

Jim looked at the "video game" store. "What the."

"Why does this store try to pretend to be a video game store even though it isn't a video game store?"

"I don't know Scott. I thought this store was a video game store, not an abandoned book store."

Scott started to think about what the hell is going on in the town that he went to.

"I don't know why, but after hearing about what happened to you and Ashley's murder, I think this town is trying to hide something that they don't want the public to see. But what are they hiding?"

Scott looked at the abandoned book store. "I guess we should go in and see what this place has."

They both went inside the bookstore and it turns out this place has been abandoned for a long time. It seemed that the whole place was falling apart. There was a dusty checkout table, a bunch of bookshelves fallen down with old books on the floor, and an abandoned area that used to serve coffee.

"I can't believe this place used to be an old bookstore. Let's try to look upstairs."

Scott and Jim went upstairs and what they saw was very surprising. 

It was a one story apartment with a dusty couch, old television, a kitchen, and an old bathroom. But like the first floor, it seems to be old and dusty.

"Jim, it looks like we found a place for you to stay in."

Jim looked about the place. "Yeah this place seems like a place I can stay in."

Scott smiled a little bit. "Alright I guess we need some cleaning supplies if we want to make this place livable."

Scott looked around the apartment room. However, he couldn't find the cleaning supplies in the house.

Scott went back to Jim. "Well shit. There are no cleaning supplies anywhere."

Jim started to get worried. "What are we going to do now!"

Suddenly, a door opened from the bottom floor. Both Scott and Jim went downstairs to see who that was.

"I heard somebody needed some cleaning supplies." 

When they looked at his face, it was actually Dwayne.

"Dwayne. I'm so happy to see you!" Scott hugged Dwayne

"But what are you doing here and how did you find us?"

Dwayne was holding the cleaning supplies. "Well I live near here. When I saw you guys going in here. I decided to bring my own cleaning supplies as I saw how dusty the place was behind those posters."

"Also Scott, you helped me process through what happened on the football team and I want to pay you guys back."

Scott nodded his head yes towards Dwayne.

"Alright Dwayne, if you want to help us, then I guess we should work together and clean this place up!"

"YEAH!" Dwayne and Jim screaming together.

Since then, they started to clean the whole place up together. Scott sweeped the floor, Jim sweeping the dust on the old tables, and Dwayne started to organize the coffee shop. For the whole afternoon, they were all working together to organize this place.

At one moment, they all had to work together to push up the old bookshelves that came down before and they all made it up.

As it started to turn into the evening, they were all done and Scott went to the store to buy themselves a gallon of lemonade and food that Jim would need to survive at least a whole month.

Scott got home with two big bags of groceries on him. "Alright guys I'm back."

"Scott!" Jim and Dwayne happy to see Scott 

"So Jim, I got you some groceries which I think can cover you for at least a month. So can you at least try to find a job during that time?"

"Sure Scott."

"And Dwayne since you helped us clean this place, I got us some lemonade for us to share with."

"Thanks Scott."

Scott put the groceries in Jim's new refrigerator and opened the gallon of lemonade. Using plastic cups, Scott poured a good amount of lemonade for those to consume.

He then passed it out to Dwayne and Jim. "To our Midterms!"

"To our Midterms!" They all cheered and drank lemonade.

"Since we finished cleaning my new home, I think we should also use this place to study for our midterms."

Dwayne looked at Jim. "Yeah I agree. I really hope to do well on this midterm exam so I can have a shot to have good grades."

"Same here Dwayne. I'm just hoping that I can do well in my precalculus class so I can at least pass the class."

Dwayne and Jim looked at Scott. "So Scott. While I was being bullied by Troy in the classroom, how come I didn't see you in class for a while?"

Scott looked a bit upset. "Well I don't know how to explain this."

Scott put his cup of lemonade down. "On the day after homecoming, I was going back to school to try to pick up Ashley's motorcycle until I saw the door open. I was suspicious of what happened to her, so I decided to head into the building to see her whereabouts."

"And then what happened."

"And that was when I realized John, Laura and Troy weren't the people they really are." 

Scott continued his story. "I saw a blood trail to the upper floor and when I followed it, I saw her dead body. They were the ones who murdered her as they just looked at her dead body. Laughing and pushing her rotten corpse to the floor, they cared nothing but their own reputation."

Scott looked down. "Till this day, I'll never forgive them for murdering her. And they would think that the school would always adore them for who they are."

Dwayne and Jim looked at themselves.

"Scott, I can actually understand you. I still can't forgive Troy for framing me for stealing a bunch of energy drink mix. I don't think Troy deserves to be the leader of the football team"

Jim agreed "Yeah Dwayne I can understand that. I still can remember the day when John decided to staple a pair of glasses on my head and glue fake braces on my teeth. Not to mention try to starve me so I can have the body of a nerd. Not to mention, Troy can't get away after he uses me as a punching bag."

"What are you guys trying to say?" Scott looked at Dwayne and Jim.

"What we are saying is that we never liked those guys for what they did to us." Both Dwayne and Jim said at the same time.

"Scott, before you came to Sunshine High, I was tortured by John. He only wanted me to be someone that he expects me to be, but I don't want to be. Yeah I'm a smart kid, but I shouldn't be taken advantage of due to my gifted mind."

"Scott, we've been in the same place as you were and we swear that no student in the school will be treated the same way they treated us."

Scott thought about it. "Guys, you are right. Although many students don't know the atrocities they commited, I'll find out why they are doing this and end their madness not only for the students, but for the town."

Scott, Jim, and Dwayne are now in an agreement to end the dystopia John and his friends have built.

Meanwhile outside of the bookstore, Troy this whole time was watching Scott and his friends cleaning up the place they were in while chilling in his car.

"So you decided to destroy a video game store, just to turn it into a nerdy bookstore." Troy uses his binoculars to watch then do the work.

Later, Troy went back to the high school parking lot to meet John and Laura three hours after spying on Scott and his friends. 

As Troy parked his car in the school parking lot, John and Laura approached him. "So Troy, what is Scott and that nerd doing and not coming to my pep rally?"

"So John, I saw that they sabotaged the video game store and turned it into a bookstore. I-I mean what are they trying to do?"

"So Scott found a place for Jimmy to live in." John thought to himself.

"Not only that John, but Jimmy looks different, as he looks a lot cooler than before."

"UM WHAT! Nerds aren't supposed to be cool. Aren't they just like you know, so dorky!" Laura polishing her nails.

"That's what I was thinking Laura, but it looks like Jimmy isn't the Jimmy we made him to be."

So you think that you can mess around with my pieces." John talked to himself and started to get angry.

"And miss my PEP RALLY!" John punching Troy's car.

"Scott Smith. What are you trying to prove? That you're better than me. Or is it just that you don't want to commit to being in Sunshine High."

Laura massages John's back. "Oh don't worry my sweet boo! Even if Scott tries to steal your thunder, I still think you're better than him!"

"Yeah John, I think you're better than that douchebag. You're the King of High School for God's sake!"

John started to calm down. "You're right guys. I think I'm just overthinking things. Isn't that right Sunny?"

Sunny was behind John and his friends just standing on the entrance of the school pretending to laugh.

"Okay guys, let's go home." John got in the car and Laura sat in the back seat. They then drove out of the school and headed to their mansion.

Standing there, Sunny was just all by himself as he watched John and his friends drive away from him.