02 GAIDEN: CRITERION

The new school year started. Despite not liking school, there was a subtle hint of excitement about going back and seeing friends the twins hadn’t seen all summer. They met up with Steven throughout the summer for nights of gaming and movie watching but that was it. Wayne was busy working at his uncle’s garage and Vince had been quiet all summer. The twins hadn’t gotten one phone call from him at all. It was nice.

That nice summer came to an end when the new school year reared its ugly head. They had to go through the trouble of finding their lockers as they were switched to a new location. They were located down a hallway that held the wood shop class. The hallway itself wasn’t named like the others because it held classes of different subjects. It had a health class, a math class, a wood shop class, and a science class. It also held the in-school suspension room, or ISS, as it was called by those who were often in there. It was always the trashy kids, many of whom were in the work-study classes, OWA and OWE.

Freshman and sophomores were in OWA and juniors and seniors were in OWE. The twins didn’t know the difference aside from separating underclassmen and upperclassmen. From their understanding, students left school early and went to work. They got paid for it too. At first, the twins didn’t know why more students didn’t sign up for those classes but then they realized the reason it was only the lower-income kids. Those kids weren’t interested in going to college. The higher-income kids focused more on academics so they could go to a university and had a higher chance of going to a university, unlike the lower-income kids.

For the twins, going to a university appeared more likely for Riley than her brother. Her classes were on par with the sophomores. Ryan’s classes were mostly fine but some such as math and English were the lower level. He was terrible at math and this year he was in Math Two as opposed to geometry that all the other sophomores took. He didn’t understand why he was in a lower-level English class. His reading ability was higher than average and his comprehension was where it should be. However, he was still placed with the lower kids. To make things more annoying for him, Vince was in both of those classes and his history class. Ryan excelled at history. That was his favorite class. History wasn’t tiered like math and English. All the history classes were the same but it seemed like there was still no mixing between the upper class and lower class students.

In fact, the only person that was from the upper echelon of students that was in his history class was Jade Sparhawk. Despite her high status, she liked to hang around with some of the riff-raff. The Sparhawk family was one of the families held in high regard. The parents owned their own business. The Sparhawk twins, Jade and Jace, were liked by everyone at school. They were nice to everyone and didn’t look down on people. They were the first friends, aside from Steven, the twins had made when they moved to Liberty Falls.

Ryan sat in his first-period math class relatively away from the rest of class. The class wasn’t very big so it was difficult to be completely separated from the others. Ryan sat up front but not in the front seat. He liked to put his feet on the basket underneath the chair in front of him. There was one guy next to him named Eric who he didn’t mind. He rarely talked. Ryan wasn’t sure if he ever heard him talk. The two would just nod to each other when they sat down but that was as far as communication went. There was a group of guys in the far back corner of the room that Ryan knew immediately would be the troublemakers. Closer to the door was a group of girls who were loud and obnoxious. The type to demand respect but wouldn’t show any to anyone else. Ryan wondered if any of them were pregnant already. Last year, Ryan saw several pregnant girls around the school.

Vince sat on Ryan’s right, two desks away from the troublemakers, whom Vince also knew. Ryan hoped it would not cause the troublemakers to start closing that gap.

It was Friday and Vince hadn’t shown up to class yet. He hoped he was absent which was unlikely. Typically, lower-class students missed a lot of school. Despite this, Vince had good attendance. However, Ryan remained hopeful. Seconds later, Vince strolled in wearing a Liberty Falls football jersey with the number 20 on it.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Ryan said a little louder than he would’ve liked.

The first thing out of Ryan’s mouth, when he met up with Riley outside the gym, was about Vince joining the football team. Riley was skeptical and thought her brother was bullshitting her. That was until she saw him in the hall after gym class. He sported a giant grin on his face as if he was proud of himself. He walked with a subtle strut as if to let others know he was on the team.

“Must be a charity case,” Riley said.

“Either that or they’re desperate for players,” Ryan said.

Their third-period class was science. It was a mixture of middle-class and lower-class students, with a few upper-class tossed in there. The classroom itself had black-topped tables in a horseshoe formation. The tables could hold up to six people but in this arrangement, only two students sat at each table. However, with the current number of students in the class, not all of them could sit on the outer rim. Some had to sit on the inside of the horseshoe.

The twins sat at the table second closest to the door. Steven sat at the table on Ryan’s right with one of his old friends, James Barnes. Ryan was never much of a fan of James, but he tolerated him. He always felt James was pretentious. He didn’t come around to their lunch table often but when he did, he gave Ryan the feeling he was looking down on them. This wasn’t always the case. In fact, this started this year when James said he was going to be a better human being by not swearing and wearing a tie to school every day. It was how he said that is what gave Ryan that impression.

On Riley’s left was Lindsey Allen. Lindsey was one of the most attractive girls in the school. She played soccer and was one of the basketball cheerleaders. Ryan was attracted to her as were many other guys. Riley liked to tease him by describing Lindsey’s body, specifically her flat stomach when she saw her in the soccer locker room; something Ryan thought about often.

The guy sitting next to Lindsey was Aaron Reese. He was a loud-mouthed upper-class kid who couldn’t keep his mouth shut for ten seconds. Some teachers ignored it and some tried to punish him with detention. Obviously, the punishment never worked.

“Aaron! Detention!” the science teacher said after issuing several warnings.

“Why do only I get in trouble?” Aaron asked. “The Russian kid here is over here listening to some girly shit and nothing happens to him.”

It took a moment for Ryan to realize Aaron was referring to him. He wore his headphones around his neck which technically was against school rules but teachers never said a word about it as he wasn’t actually wearing them.

“That’s a detention too,” the teacher said.

“What the hell?” Ryan said. “I’m not listening to anything. They’re just around my neck so they don’t get messed up in my backpack.”

“It’s still against the rules.”

Ryan shot looks at Aaron as he walked up to get his detention slip. Aaron looked pleased with himself knowing he wasn’t the only one getting punished.

“In the Soviet Union, you’d be dead for doing something like that,” Ryan said in Russian. Aaron protested claiming Ryan threatened him, an easy guess, but the teacher told him to shut up or he’d get another detention.

Ryan walked out of detention still thinking he shouldn’t have ever received a detention. He had been fuming all day about how unfair it was. Rules are rules he had been told.

He walked down to the soccer field where a JV game was taking place between Liberty Falls and McGuffey. Friday was typically reserved for football games but it was an away game for the football team and that was still four hours away. Ryan couldn’t remember who the football team was playing. Regardless, it would still result in a Liberty Falls loss.

Riley had joined the soccer JV squad at the suggestion of her friend, Becca. She really liked playing the sport. It gave her something to do before basketball season started. Their mother didn’t really like it but she came to the games anyway. He entered the stadium and walked towards the field. He stood near the stands instead of going up to them. He didn’t want to hear his mother lecture him because he got a detention. Ryan knew he would get it later anyway and he’d rather get it later instead of now.

He scanned the field for Riley and found her number seven running around. She ran alongside an opponent and fought for control of the ball. There was some contact between the two. Riley was a fierce player and very competitive. It looked like she was going to get control of the ball, but her opponent was not going to allow her.

Suddenly, both went down and a whistle blew. Riley stood up and was immediately shown a red card. Her eyes went wide. Her anger flared. Protests came from the stands and some cheers came from the other team’s stands.

“Did you not see what happened?” she yelled. “She tripped me. This is bullshit.” Riley reached down and grabbed the ball.

“Oh no,” Ryan muttered to himself. He knew what was going to happen next and where that ball was going to end up.

Riley punted the ball into the stands which resulted in another whistle, not like it really mattered since she was ejected anyway. Laughter came from the stands, probably the same people who protested the red card. Riley stormed off to the locker room. While their mother wouldn’t have cared about the foul itself, she did care about how her children acted and Riley’s reaction to her foul was going to put her into some hot water. The twins were going to get it that night.