One Moment - 4. Chapter 4

One Moment

Chapter 4

Within minutes of finishing his dinner, an exhausted Matt asked Mark if he could go to bed. He’d had his most active day in what seemed like months though he knew it was really only just a couple weeks. Between the tests and following Mark all over the place and learning chores and doing laundry and making his bed, he had all he could do to keep his eyes open.

“That’s no problem; do you want to take your shower tonight or in the morning?”

Though he felt too tired to take a shower, he knew chances were good that no one else would be in the bathroom at six o’clock at night, figuring it would be full in the morning with everyone getting up at the same time and everyone getting ready for class. He pushed off his exhaustion as best he could and opted for the evening shower. The way Mark had posed the question; he didn’t figure just not taking one would be an option.

After he had taken his shower, he returned to the bedroom, Mark as always trailing right along behind him.

“Let me see your card, I’ve got to tally up your points and see if you earned your day.”

Matt pulled the card from the pocket of the pants that were dangling in his arms, having put on his pajamas after the shower. He stood in front of the desk in the bedroom as Mark looked over the card, wrote something on it, and then put it in the top drawer of the desk. “You earned your day today.” He said handing over a brand new blank card. “Here’s your card for tomorrow. If you earn two more days you’ll go up to level four.”

Matt nodded and looked down at the card. He looked back up at him, “When do I stop getting followed around?”

Mark grinned, “You always get followed around here, just not so obviously. As for the three-foot rule, I’m really not sure. That’s up to Dr. Marshall and you.”

“Me?” Matt asked in confusion.

“Yeah, you not trying to escape and giving him reason to believe you no longer want to. Oh and a word of wisdom, just telling him won’t do it, he has to see it in your behavior.”

“But I haven’t been bad.” Matt pointed out, his confusion growing even deeper.

“Is that because you’ve been being watched so closely though, or because you don’t want to get away?”

Thinking it may help though he’d just been told saying it wouldn’t he said, “I don’t want to get away.” The half nod and look he got in response told him that chances were very good that Mark didn’t believe a word he said. He cursed himself and his lack of lying skills as he turned and walked to the hamper, deposited his clothes then climbed into bed, falling asleep almost immediately as he had every other time he’d crawled into that bed.

Someone nudging his shoulder and saying his name awaked him out of a sound sleep the next morning. He slowly opened his eyes to see the man that had sat by his bed over night for the past four nights.

“Time to get up Matthew, you start a regular schedule today. You showered last night so for now you just get up and make your bed and soon as that room is free,” he motioned over to the partitioned off part of the corner of the room, “you can go in there and get dressed.”

Still very drowsy Matt looked at the clock on the wall and swore under his breath seeing it was only six thirty a.m. He didn’t ever remember being up that early before, and even though he had gone to bed nearly 12 hours earlier, he still felt very tired.

He made his bed being careful to remember how Mark had showed him the day before so he would get it right. When he was through with that he went to his dresser and pulled out a pair of jeans and a dark gray sweat shirt glad that by that time the person that had been changing behind the screens was now done and he didn’t have to stand there waiting like a goon for it to be free.

When he was fully dressed, he walked back out into the room where most of the other boys now were either making their beds or standing around and he got the impression they were all waiting for something. After putting his pajamas under his own pillow, he didn’t have to linger long, being totally ignored, before he found out why everyone was waiting.

A woman, one he hadn’t seen before walked into the room and stood in front of the desk that was near the door. “Morning boys.” She said sounding as chipper as Matt remembered Mr. Rogers sounding on TV every morning. He was surprised when every boy in the room replied to her with a ‘morning’ of their own and figured that must be a requirement or something. He would look silly saying it 30 seconds after everyone else though so he kept his mouth shut.

Seeing everyone else was now standing at the foot of their bed, he moved himself as discreetly as possible to the end of his own bed. He furrowed his brow in confusion as the woman put her arms out to the side, then did it himself when he realized everyone else had followed her lead.

The next twenty minutes were absolute hell as he followed each and every exercise the way too energetic woman did. Exercises he figured normally wouldn’t be a problem but he was still very sore and moving into some of those positions jarred every healing wound he had.

About ready to collapse when she finally stopped, he stood at the end of his bed trying to get a deep breath as his hand clutched his chest. The other boys started trickling out of the room. One of them, the only boy whose name he actually knew, stopped in front of him and looked him over.

“Man it’s pretty pathetic you can’t even handle a few exercises.”

Matt looked up at him at the same time the man that was following him around cleared his throat. Andy’s eyes moved from Matt to the man before he turned and hurried out of the room.

When he got to the dining room, the table was already full of boys filling their bowls with cereal or buttering up toast. Matt sat down in the seat he had sat in the day before remembering to look over at the white board. He read down the list of names until he found his own, at the very bottom, then read across seeing his chore was watering the plants. He’d noticed dozens of plants as he’d gone through the house with Mark the day before and knew the chore would be time consuming but other than that he figured, as chores went, it would be a pretty good one.

He reached across the table and grabbed the box of Rice Krispies, poured it into his bowl then doused the whole thing in milk. When he was through eating, he took his bowl to the kitchen, rinsed it out, and then started to walk back into the dining room when Mary’s voice stopped him.

“I have your pill hon.”

He turned away from the dining room door not having noticed her in the room before she had spoken. He took the pill she held out to him in one hand and the cup of water she had in the other. He swallowed the pill happily his body still screaming over the work out that morning and looking forward for it to start working.

Back in the dining room the table was pretty much cleared yet all the boys were still sitting around it, he didn’t understand why until he sat down himself and Mary walked into the room and stood at the head of the table.

“Well we made it to another Friday,” She said smiling at the boys. “Just so you are aware Matthew we have a house meeting every Friday morning, mostly to go over the weekend activities.”

Matt nodded blushing as every eye turned to him until she started talking again.

“Tonight’s movie is Pirates of the Caribbean 2 Dead Man’s Chest.” The announcement brought a round of clapping before Mary continued. “All of you are on levels where you can watch it, so have good days today so you don’t lose the privilege.”

“The activity for this weekend is a two day project, and will require a lot of time and that you all work together closely. As usual, each room will work together as a team. This week you will need to write, produce, and put on a play that will be acted out on Sunday after dinner.”

Instead of clapping this time a round of groans erupted from around the table, which made Mary chuckle a bit. “It’s not going to be bad guys; you can make it a lot of fun. You have a lot of leeway on what you want your plays subject to be. There is no theme, no restrictions as long as the basic house rules, as in no swearing, are followed. The goal is mainly to get you all working together in a creative outlet. There’s no other hidden motive behind it.”

“I do realize most of you have visits tomorrow but that’s only an hour out of the day. While you are in a visit, your team can continue to work on the play and just catch you up when the visit is over. The play has to last at least fifteen minutes.”

Matt actually thought that doing a play could be a lot of fun, however he still wasn’t looking forward to it, as he didn’t like his team mates and knew they didn’t like him. Hours of working closely with them on any project turned his guts.

After the meeting was over all the boys left the table and made their way down to the classroom. They all stopped in front of the lockers pulling out their books and notebooks while Matt stood off to the side. While he stood there, he turned to see Mark coming into the room and hoped he was there to be his ‘shadow’ as he really didn’t like the other guy who hardly ever said a word to him.

To his great relief Mark did take the other guys place and smiled down at him the minute he got by his side. “How’s it going Matthew?”

Matt nodded indicating he was doing okay.

“Let’s go talk to Joanne and see where she wants you.”

Nodding again Matt was glad Mark was now there as apparently the other guy would rather he just stand around looking like a goon. He walked beside Mark across the room to Joanne who was standing near what had to be another teacher behind a big desk that was on the far side of the room.

She smiled at them both as they arrived. “Good morning.”

Matt smiled while Mark returned her greeting.

“Matthew your regular desk is going to be here.” She said moving out from behind the big desk and walking up to the second row of the twelve student desks that faced the bigger desk. She stopped by one near the wall and put her hand on it. “You can go ahead and take a seat and I’ll get your books and supplies for you. Your locker will be number nine. After the announcements and pledge of allegiance I’m going to have you move over to that table.” She pointed to one of the round tables over near the windows. “Barbara is going to help you with math.” She stopped talking and looked around the room. “She’s not in here yet, but I’m sure she’ll be here soon.”

Matt took his seat at the desk she had pointed out; he was surprised to see Mark not sitting right beside him. He looked around the room for him and saw him instead sitting in a chair that was placed just near the door. He rolled his eyes a bit figuring since he was in class he didn’t have to be three feet away but had to at least be at the escape route. He figured with the amount of teachers in the room he would be within a few feet of any one of them at any given moment.

It didn’t take Joanne any time at all to return to his desk with a pile of books, pens, pencils and two three-subject notebooks. After she’d deposited them on his desk, she returned to the front of the room and stood in front of the big desk.

“We don’t have much in the way of announcements this morning. Biggest news is that Matthew is now joining us for classes.” She gestured to him and smiled his way as his face once again turned a crimson red. “I’ll expect you all to make him feel welcome and help him to get used to our school routine.”

There was a murmur of acceptance though Matt wasn’t fooled by it for one moment. He knew not one of these boys had any plans to help him out at all and hoped he wouldn’t look needy enough for them to even think he did.

After Joanne was done embarrassing him, they all stood up and faced the flag in the corner of the room. Matt was surprised he remembered the words to the pledge of allegiance since he had not recited it in months but as soon as it started the words flowed out easily.

When it was over and most of the boys had sat back down, he gathered up his books and walked over to the table Joanne had pointed out earlier. Just as he was setting his books down a woman with short dark hair and glasses walked up to him. “You want to put some of those in your locker? You won’t need half of them until after the first break.”

He looked up at her figuring she was Barbara and shrugged.

“Well it’s up to you.” She said setting a file folder on the table and sitting down adjacent to where Matt sat. “I’m Barbara by the way.” She reached out and shook the hand that he’d reluctantly held out. “I’m going to help you catch up with your math. We’ll spend the first hour together every morning.”

Though he thought the woman was pretty nice he was ready to pull his hair out by the end of the hour. The numbers gave him a headache and no matter how much she talked, he couldn’t seem to grasp the concepts of what she was teaching him. He could get an answer if she walked him through it but the minute he was left to his own devices he couldn’t even begin to figure out what to do.

He got up and returned to his regular desk glad the first hour was over and already dreading the next math lesson even though it was a whole weekend away.

After two more classes they had a fifteen-minute break, Matt used the bathroom, which seemed to be everyone else’s idea too. Instead of going into the dining room where he saw most of the boys had gone he continued down the hall, Mark by his side and spent the rest of his break in the classroom.

When classes were finally over for the day he couldn’t have been more relieved. He was now certain that his hatred of school was not the fault of his last school; he seemed to hate it in any form. He just wasn’t a good student and being faced with that knowledge, minute after minute, hour after hour, was a completely miserable experience.

After using the bathroom again, he followed Mark back into the dining room where the other boys were all showing up for another meal. He knew he sure liked that aspect of this place. Three balanced meals a day was something he had never gotten on the streets, for that matter he’d never gotten them at home either.

As he ate his pork chops, mashed potatoes, and broccoli, he also had to admit that the place had pretty delicious food. After dinner, Mark followed him around while he watered every plant in the place and by the time he was through, he was again exhausted.

“Can I go to bed now?”

“You don’t want to watch the movie?”

“Not really, is it required?”

Mark chuckled and shook his head. “No, if you’re tired you can go to bed. I’ll live.”

Matt stopped walking and looked up at him. “You’ll live?”

Chuckling again, Mark grinned. “I was kidding; I was acting like I really wanted to see the movie.”

“So you don’t then?” He asked certainly hoping not as he didn’t want to sit in the living room with all the others. He imagined that even if he weren’t so tired he’d still pretend to be to get out of going in there and watching a movie.

Mark shook his head getting the feeling if he’d said he wanted to see it Matt would have done it and getting an indication that Matt wasn’t the unfeeling person that Dr. Marshall was growing worried he may be.

Matt was relieved when he got up the next morning to find that they didn’t do exercises on weekends, at least on Saturday. He was also pleased to see once he sat down to breakfast that you got more to eat than cereal on weekends. Spread out before him was a large platter of pancakes, some with blueberries and some without, and two big plates of sausage and bacon.

He stuffed himself thoroughly before he and the other boys returned to their shared bedroom. He had gathered from their comments at breakfast that they would start working on the play. Once back in the room the boys all sat on their beds.

“Okay what in heck we gonna do?” One of the boys whose name Matt thought was Brian asked.

Matt looked around the room where everyone was shrugging looking like they’d rather have a doctor’s visit or something than sit around and discuss a play. He couldn’t think of anything himself, but doubted that even if he could he’d dare speak up and suggest anything.

“We could do a scary one.” Another boy suggested who Matt remembered had been called Jason yesterday in class. “Like a murder mystery!” he finished excitedly.

“Oh yeah,” Andy spoke up sarcastically. “That’ll look really good on the reports to Dr. Marshall. We’ll all spend next week being questioned on our secret desire to kill.”

Matt, who happened to be looking at Andy while he spoke, cringed as Andy’s eyes bored into him on that last word. He quickly looked away before he saw the malicious grin that spread across the other boys face.

“I got it,” Andy continued. “We could do one about the poor boy that got a free ride in a place no one wanted him.”

“Andy that’s enough.” Mark quickly spoke up knowing where Andy was heading.

“What?” Andy asked looking up at him innocently. “We’d have the perfect person for the main character, can draw from reality here.”

“That’s two points Andy, for not listening to me after I told you to stop.”

Andy’s frowned deepened as his eyes bore into Matt and he whipped his card out of his back pocket wrote down his infraction, subtracted the points then handed it off to Mark to be signed.

“Now you apologize.” Mark said handing the card back.

Andy opened his mouth, no doubt to argue just as Mary walked into the room saying his name. “Your parents are here hon.”

“Aww,” Andy sneered. “Too bad I don’t have time.”

Mark stood in front of him as Andy got up, blocking his path. “Make time.”

Andy huffed, his fists clenching as he turned to face Matt’s bed. “I’m sorry.” He spat out the words as if it was just killing him to have to utter them.

Two minutes after Andy left the room Mary came in again. “Guys we’re going to have to move you. The men are here to shampoo the carpets. That means the living room is off limits too. The other boys have already taken over the dining room. I guess that means you guys get the classroom.”

With even more groaning, they all got up, filed out of the room, and headed down to the classroom. When entering the main hall Matt’s heart sped up and leaped into his throat as he actually saw the locked door he’d been carried through that first day open.

Without lingering too long to arouse any suspicion he was still able to see a couple walking through it then close it behind him. Seeing it close made his heart tight, the feeling of being trapped igniting itself more in his heart.

His mind was still racing as he walked into the classroom and took a seat around one of the two tables where the other boys were all sitting. His mind going a mile a minute with the knowledge that that door had to open and close every time a parent came or left, he didn’t even notice the dirty looks he got from the boy he’d happened to sit beside.

He spent the next hour completely distracted as he worked out in his head what he was going to do. What he had to do. The conversation went on around him as if he wasn’t even there, no one asking for his input, no one even acknowledging his existence in the room.

Though he was incredibly nervous, the minute he saw who he figured to be Andy’s parents pass by the door, he looked over at Mark. “I have to go the bathroom.”

Mark nodded and stood from the chair he’d been sitting in that was adjacent to the table and facing away from the door. Matt stood up vowing not to lose his nerve and walked out of the classroom willing his mind to make his body do what it had to do. Willing himself the strength to do what had to be done.

As he walked out into the hallway, just as he had suspected, the door was starting to open for Andy’s parents to pass through. Knowing he had to incapacitate Mark long enough to get a head start; he stopped where he was until Mark stepped up beside them. Then quickly bringing his foot up he brought it back down with everything he had directly onto Mark’s foot.

Mark let out a yell and Matt took off at a dead run, running as fast as his legs would carry him to the opened door. Halfway down the hall he began to hear Mark running behind him and heard him yell for help.

It only made Matt pick up his speed even more so that when he approached the couple trying to get through the door he couldn’t be polite about getting past them. He slammed into the woman who let out a yell of her own at the sudden impact.

He had maybe one foot actually past the door when he felt himself pulled back and an anguished cry of his own came out of his mouth as he struggled against the force pulling him back with all his might.

He felt like he was fighting a vacuum as he was pulled back through the door and he felt two strong arms wrapping around his chest holding his upper arms tight against his chest under their pressure. With only his feet left to fight with he kicked wildly behind him while a stream of obscenities flowed from his mouth and he wriggled his upper body as best he could to get free.

“Shut the damn door!” he heard Mark say roughly just above his ear. Despite his struggling Matt made out the face of the woman Mark had just yelled that order to. It was Andy’s mother and he saw that she looked plenty pissed as she looked back at Mark.

“Don’t you have these boys under control here?” she spat out, looking Matt over as if he was less than vermin.

“Just shut the door.” He heard Mark say through gritted teeth as Matt kicked harder; pulling his hands up to try and pry Mark’s arms from around his chest.

Mark turned his head not sure how much longer he was going to be able to hold the writhing boy as he heard other footfalls running down the hall. “Get his feet.” He growled to Gary, another staff member, his legs unable to take much more of the torrents of kicks that Matt was inflicting on him. He looked at Shawn, yet another staff member. “You shut the door, she seems incapable.”

He heard the woman huff and start sputtering about speaking to Dr. Marshall as he and Gary slowly carried a still wildly struggling and swearing Matthew down the hall.

Matt twisted his body in every way possible despite the pain it caused him. He was sure where they were taking him and damn sure, he did not want to go there which made his raging mind that much more desperate to get away at any cost.

He could hear the other boys laughing, could hear other staff trying to shut them up. He hated that he was being watched by apparently everyone but couldn’t bring himself to stop fighting, to stop trying to get away.

He felt yet more arms on him as they turned into the last hallway, these arms wrapping firmly around his waist so he could no longer twist from side to side to try and get free. With his body held so tightly, he could no longer physically fight. His mouth started in again cursing them all with every single bad word he’d ever heard in his entire life. He was screaming them as loud as he could as his mouth was the only outlet for the anger and feelings of failure that were coursing through him so strongly he felt like he was going to explode.

He didn’t stop yelling as he was laid down on the bare mattress in the small room just off the bathroom. Didn’t stop as he was rolled onto his stomach and held securely in place by several hands that placed themselves on his arms, legs, hands, and back. The hands even held his head, pressing the side of his face into the mattress, again making it so he could not move, or fight against them.

Mark’s ears felt like they were going to start bleeding several minutes later as his hands were starting to feel numb from holding so tightly onto Matthew’s sweat soaked body when the boy finally started to quiet down. His voice had gone from loud and ear piercing to weak and scratchy then just all of a sudden died out all together accompanied by one big very long sigh as it seemed the very last of Matthew’s energy escaped him.

Following procedure, he looked at his watch knowing they had to wait at least ten minutes of Matt being totally calm before they started to release him. He’d dealt with dozens of angry kids before but honestly didn’t ever remember seeing, hearing rage such as this kid had just displayed, and from the looks he was seeing on the other men’s faces he highly doubted they had ever seen it before either.

He looked to the door where he saw Dr. Marshall observing the situation, not able to tell much from his face as he always portrayed the typical shrink mask. One that gave little suggestion as to what he was thinking or feeling.

Ten minutes passed without a single sound or movement other than breathing from Matt. Mark cleared his throat, his ears still ringing from all the yelling and looked down at Matthew’s face where it was still pressed into the mattress, his eyes open giving the only indication he was even awake.

“Matthew are you going to try and get away again if we let you up?”

There was no answer, which didn’t surprise him much. “We are going to let go of your legs, if you don’t struggle after five minutes we’ll let go of your hands and so on.” He nodded to Gary who let up on the pressure on the boy’s legs slowly, wanting to keep control should Matthew suddenly start kicking. When he felt no resistance, he slowly pulled his hand completely away and stood up stepping back away from the bed and placing himself in the corner of the room in case he was needed again.

Matt lay there feeling himself being released a little bit at a time but too exhausted to care or even try to move to get away. His attempt at escape had failed, he knew when he was defeated; he would lay low for a little while then try again. The day’s experience only made him feel more desperate that he was never going to get away. He wished he could just tell them why he had to go, but he’d made a promise. He wasn’t perfect by any sense of the word but he kept his promises. He just wasn’t so sure that this promise wasn’t going to be fatal.