"Charles!" I awaken to find my English teacher's face two inches from mine. He glared down at me with those sharp eyes of his. His pointed nose would have pricked me if he was any closer. The class called him pointy-nose on account of it. Honestly, the nickname was lazy and unimaginative, but for some reason, it stuck.
He stands up straight, with his eyes still focused on me, and says, "I hope you enjoyed your nap." The class snickers and I hide my face in my arms. Mr. Lakewood turns to them and says above the noise, "That's enough!" Everyone goes silent and I peek up from my desk at my teacher. He notices me and smiles down at me. Then he turns back to the class. "There will be no nitpicking of any kind in my classroom. I hope you all will be a bit more considerate next time," he tells them.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, Mr. Pointy-Nose," I hear someone whisper. Mr. Lakewood rolls his eyes and turns back to the chalkboard where he was writing out all the vowels.
"Now," he says, continuing the lesson, "the vowels that we are talking about today are A, and E-"
"Really, me?" the same voice asks. This time it's me who rolls my eyes. That would've been funny if the vowel was U...
Mr. Lakewood continues, ignoring the voice. "These vowels are used in everyday life. You use them when you ask your friend to trade lunch or when you ask your dad to play baseball with you. I'm using them right now just talking."
"No duh," the same voice muses.
Mr. Lakewood slams the chalk he's holding onto his desk and says stiffly, "Randy, since you want to talk so much, why don't you come to the front of the class and show them how to use vowels." I hear some snickers from my classmates.
But I hear even more after Randy says, "I think you're doing a pretty good job on your own, you don't need my help."
"Now, young man," Mr. Lakewood says sternly. I hear Randy shimmy out of his seat and shuffle to the front of the class. As he walks by my desk, I can see the back of his black bad-boy jacket.
Mr. Lakewood reaches behind his desk for something and when Randy is standing in front of the class, our teacher wraps a purple cape around his shoulders. He looks confused for a second, but then he asks, "Super E, really?"
"It's a crowd-pleaser," Mr. Lakewood says defensively. He was right, the whole class erupted into cheers when Randy was given a purple mask as well. He puts it on and the class begins laughing hysterically.
I look over at the girl sitting next to me. She was laughing, too, but it was different than the rest of the class. She wasn't laughing at him, she was laughing at the class. She was turned around in her chair and whenever someone would stand up or yell, "Go Super E!" she would giggle.
"Hey," I say, tapping her on the shoulder. "What's Super E?"
She laughs and says, "That's right, you're new." I give her a look and she says, "Sorry, Super E is a superhero that Mr. Lakewood made up. He tells vowels to say their name. He'll give some kids letters to stick on their shirts and they'll align to form a word. Then Super E will rush to the rescue, and make the vowel say its name so we can pronounce the word correctly."
"Oh," I say, leaning away and sitting back in my seat.
The class quiets down and Mr. Lakewood says, "Where are my consonants?"
A few hands fly up in the air and Mr. Lakewood picks two kids to be T and K. They stick the paper letters to their shirts.
"And now," Mr. Lakewood gives a dramatic pause and continues, "where is my vowel?"
All hands shoot up and Mr. Lakewood plays a game of eeny, meany, miny, moe. Eventually, he points at me. My hand wasn't even up! "Charles, why don't you give this a try?"
The class cheers for me, but I don't move. "I don't even know what's going on," I tell my teacher.
Then the girl beside me speaks up. She says, "C'mon, it'll be fun!" I guess I look really nervous because she swears, "I promise you'll love it." Finally, I get up and turn to face the class. They had been chanting my name, but now the noise they made couldn't be made sense of.
"Alright, just stand between Thomas and Suzie," I'm told. I do it and I'm given the letter A. I stick it to my shirt and the class begins to quiet down. "Thomas!" Mr. Lakewood calls out.
The boy standing on my right makes a "Teh" sound.
"Charles!" Mr. Lakewood calls. I look over at him, not understanding. "Make the sound an A makes," he explains.
"Oh, uh, ah," I say, thinking of the word apple. I hope I made the right sound, I think to myself.
Apparently, I did, because Mr. Lakewood says, "Brilliant! Now, Suzie!"
She makes a "Kah" noise.
"Say it with me, class!" Mr. Lakewood gets the whole class to sound out the letters. "Teh-ah-kah!" In the end, it sounds something like "Tack."
"Hmm," says my English teacher, sounding very much like a drama teacher, "that doesn't sound right..."
The class begins murmuring, "What did we do wrong?" I hear some giggles from a group of girls in the back. I wonder if they're giggling at me...
Then the whole class erupts into calls of "We need the A to say its name!" And at that moment I realized what was going to happen next.
Apparently, Randy had gone out into the hall while we were performing for the class because he burst through the door and yelled, "Does a vowel need to say its name?" The class cheers long and hard and Super E makes his way toward me. He had said it just as a superhero might which frightened me. I might as well have been playing the villain, I was in such shock.
Super E walks right up beside Suzie, who seemed to be blushing at our main protagonist. Clearly, Randy had played Super E on many occasions and knew how to do it better than any of the other kids. I learn later on that after his first few performances, he became the main Super E. He was basically a comic book character to these kids, and I could see why. He played the part flawlessly, and everyone wanted him to make them say a vowel's name.
Super E winks at Suzie and makes his way around her towards me. He gives a quick smile and winks and me as well. The cheers grow louder when he stops right in front of me. "Now, Mr. A," he says, saying my name to give me a hint, "I'm going to need you to say your name!" Then he turns and walks back to Suzie, who grabs onto his arm when he stops beside her.
"Let's try this again," Mr. Lakewood tells the class. He begins calling out names all over again. "Thomas!"
"Teh!"
"Charles!"
Before I can speak, Super E taps me on the shoulder from around Suzie and whispers, "Say your name." The cheers grow loud again.
"A," I say over the cheers.
"Suzie!"
"Kah," she says, eyes still glued on her hero.
"Say it with me, class!" Even I join in this time. We all sound out, "Teh-A-kah!" We finally created the word "Take," and the class erupts into cheers. I even hear a few "Thank you Super E," 's.
After that whole charade, I begin to feel more connected to the class. I even start to help Randy with his studies. Turns out, he's more of a drama club geek than a bad boy, as I had previously thought. He just didn't get much attention at home, so he looked for it at school. But after we started to hang out I saw that side of him less and less.
Then, one day, he just disappeared. He didn't come to school, didn't call, didn't text. He was just gone. There are rumors that he got in a fight with a kid because he had wanted to play Super E and was expelled. Or that his parents had him drop out of school to continue the family business and be a real superhero. Or that the principal was really a supervillain and had kicked him out because he kept playing a superhero. But none of these really explain why he wouldn't speak to me. After a while, I just kinda forgot. The things I'm telling you are all I can still remember of him. Maybe you know where he is, or why he won't respond to my texts or calls. Randy, if you're reading this, I miss you. Please call me back...
Author Notes: I hope you enjoyed this! This is based on a true story, actually!
I created this new OC to become a villain (Not Charles, sorry). I might get into his interactions with the others later.
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