Misfits of Carnt

2 - Things to Do in Detention When You're Dead

Beaverton High School, Mid-October

Petra couldn't believe that Principal 'Snorkel' (Sokol) had seen through her scheme, well mostly. The part that could land her some prison time, he completely missed. The dweeb didn't know the difference between TikTok and text messaging, yet somehow figured out that she and her customers had been using 'Beavertown' (Beaverton) High School's Instagram page to send out coded messages to alert all the kids about the locations of the campus narcs.

The bust couldn’t have gone better for her considering the circumstances. The principal, who was not a pal, and his cronies burst into the gym and almost caught her selling weed to an underage kid. Sokol hadn’t seen the merchandise because the kid was quick to stash it and said Petra had caught him ditching school to play Magic the Gathering. He even had palmed a deck with his other hand. The kid got Saturday cleanup for skipping class. Petra, the upstanding teaching assistant, got to help Mr. Jackhole (Jackson) with the delinquents on Saturday forced servitude.

Sokol hadn’t realized that it was all part of Petra’s get out from the thumb of her mother scheme. She was twenty-two and failing most of her community college classes. She figured that she could use her age and her part time teaching assistant job to resell pot to teenagers that would get it laced with fentanyl otherwise. By her estimation, she was doing a public service.

One weekend day acting as a role model with Mr. Jackson was better than what could have happened, considering that she was the mastermind of the student hooliganism at Beaverton High in the first place. Her Instagram alert system was supposed to be her coup de grâce and earn her a ticket out of her mom’s house. It wasn’t like she had planned to sell pot her entire life. Just long enough to get her out of her crap job at her old high school that was given to her because the high school administrators rightly feared her mother.

The Instagram scheme was a simple system. Ne'er-do-wells shared a post from the school’s profile about a particular location if they wanted to know about the movements of a teacher, cop, or the jerkwad students who would get them in trouble. Then friends in the know would like the post if the coast was clear and comment if it wasn't. If 'Baking' Aiden wanted to smoke weed under the bleachers, he could share a post about the gym and watch for comments.

It was almost too perfect. Sokol was happy because it looked like people were really engaged in their school. That was, until he realized that it was the derelicts who were the most active on social media. If it wasn't for that new, young, and good-looking history teacher, Mr. Jackson, Sokol would have gone on believing that people gave a crap about the school. Mr. Jackson had to come in and ruin all their fun by being even more active online than she was, and she had practically grown up with a smartphone clutched in her hand.

Her mom, Claire, pulled the Lexus up to the front of Beaverton High. The campus looked eerily quiet on a Saturday. It was like the apocalypse had happened and wiped out all the people but left the building intact.

"You have to make better choices, Petra," Claire said. “The next time you wreck the car, I’m not paying for it.”

"I’ll stop people from running red lights too…" Petra muttered.

"You shouldn’t have even been out in the first place! You have responsibilities now. You can’t keep acting like a teenager," her mother said.

There was no point in arguing. Her mother was a lawyer and a successful one, at that. However, Petra figured she inherited the proclivity to bend or break the rules whenever the situation called for it. Her mom always defended corporate interests when they wanted to pollute a river or screw over their employees. It was an incredibly unPortland profession, in this metro area that seemed to attract kombucha-drinking, sandal-wearing activists considered too hardcore for San Francisco.

The worst part about it was that her mom won more cases than she lost and was paid gobs of money to do so. Claire would say that it was to protect companies from frivolous lawsuits, but Petra sometimes saw the briefs. Real people suffered injuries or damages, and her mother safeguarded the people who did it.

Petra didn't want anything to do with it, thus her pink, purple and blue hair color choice. If the hair wasn't enough to send a statement to her mom, then her riot grrrl-inspired clothing themes should do the trick. She didn't leave the house unless she looked like she was about to be in a roller derby or the post-apocalypse.

She hopped from the car and slammed the door. She slung her backpack, emblazoned with a comical rabbit with its tongue sticking out and x's for eyes, over her back and trotted up to the front door. Strangely enough, it was the same one she had when she was a student at the school, now she had used it for her essentials.

A family sedan pulled up behind her mom, and ' Magic: The Dorkening' got out of his mommy's car. He was a thin, little Steve Urkel-type kid who had probably gotten his underpants hung on the flagpole at a summer camp on more than one occasion. If the kid hadn’t taken the heat for her, she would have ignored him entirely when he said, "Hey, Petra. Wait up."

She didn't turn, but just stopped in her tracks. He huffed his way up to her and said, "I can't believe we are here on a Saturday. I don't know if that's worse or that my mom grounded me for a month."

She didn't even turn her head. "You did me a solid, so I'm going to spell it out for you. There is no ' we' . I’m getting paid to be here, and you are a dork in your last year of hell. You’ll be much better off keeping your distance from me. Do yourself a favor and go play RPGs in the library or something."

"But I do play RPGs in the library."

Before she was forced to be mean, a car roared into view. It was a black Impala with gold trim and a set of speakers in the trunk that would incite rage in elderly people when it rattled their windows as it cruised down the street. The musclebound 'Jock' (Jack) 'McItch' (McDougal) and his girl toy Sissy Buttworth (Petra didn't make that one up) piled out of the car. They must have been caught on the day of the great Instagram reckoning. The janitor closet was apparently no longer a safe place to have premarital sex.

The final victim in the day that Instagram died was none other than 'Baking' Aiden himself, her favorite customer. The guy was a living stereotype. If the long hair and perpetually-worn Metallica T-shirt weren't enough, the guy actually drove a VW minibus. The smell of pot wafted all the way to the front door of the school when he jumped out of his vehicle.

If the police needed to fill their minor-in-possession quota for the day, all they needed to do was follow him around. She briefly contemplated asking what Aiden had done to join the ranks of the Saturday-damned but realized any conversation would invite Urkel to join in. She dialed up her perpetual scowl and went for the front door to the school. However, it was locked, and TAs weren’t important enough for a key.

Before she could figure out what that meant for the students assembling, another car pulled up. It was her dad, Barry. The prick was in his convertible with the top down, and his girlfriend, who Petra could have sworn was going to the same community college as her, was in the front seat. Petra's three-year-old was strapped in the back. She slung her backpack off and shoved it into Urkel's hands.

"Okay, I'll watch it for—" The kid's voice trailed off as she stomped over to her father.

"What the hell are you doing, Dad?!"

"Your mother didn't tell you?" Barry asked. "Bets and I are going to rent a cabin for the weekend."

"No, I'm talking about Jonathan!" She screamed and pointed to the kid in the back seat. "You don't drive with your top down with a kid in the back!"

Her father laughed. "What? He likes it!"

Petra scrambled to remove her son from the car seat. Even though she felt way too young to be the mother of a toddler, she sometimes felt more responsible than her own father. Her dad was an idiot with an idiot girlfriend who always tried to act like the cool mother despite being the same age as his daughter.

"He's a three-year-old boy. Little boys need to laugh," Beatty ' Stupidsalot' (Schneider) said, but Petra ignored her.

As soon as Jonathan was safely in her arms and the diaper bag slung over her shoulder, her dad revved the engine.

"You make sure you feed that boy properly and get him his nap. Got to go. Check-in's at 3," he said, before speeding off.

"I guess you're not picking us up afterwards." She added under her breath. "Whatever, dick."

"Dick!" Jonathan said and giggled like he had uttered the funniest thing ever.

"Don't you say that," Petra scolded her child.

"Dick! Dick! Dick!" Jonathan said over and over, laughing with glee.

"That's going to make Great-grandma Petra very sad. You don't want to make her sad, do you?" Petra said, as she brought her kid towards the door. If it weren't for her namesake grandma, Petra didn't know what she would have done when she had gotten pregnant. She was lucky that nothing seemed to stop the woman. She was a babysitting machine even at 85 and had practically raised Jonathan from birth.

The worst part about being a mother with no financial stability because the school system paid TAs like serfs toiling the land was that Petra's actual parents were useless at parenting. Her mom always had her laptop on and wouldn't notice if the climbing-obsessed toddler had scaled to the top of the fridge (which he had on more than one occasion). Her dad wasn't reliable either because he was more concerned with the things a college student should be concerned about, like partying and driving fast cars. That left Grandma Petra, who was happy to watch the kid when Petra went out with her friends. (Which didn't even involve any drugs or alcohol, even though she had masterminded the scheme that facilitated the buying and selling of it. Her outings were more to feel normal for an hour or two).

The bottom line was that even though Petra would sell a bag of weed here and there and give her middle finger to the authorities whenever she could, at the end of the day, she knew it wouldn't be forever. Her grandmother would be dead, and the only person in the world at that point who would give a crap about Jonathan would be herself. That was the thought that kept her up at night.

By the time she got up to the group assembled at the school's front door, they were already talking about going home for the day. Jack grabbed the door handle and attempted to muscle it open. When it wouldn't budge, he turned to the others and said, "Oh, well, fifteen-minute rule. Right?"

"I don't think that's a thing," Urkel ventured.

Sissy said, in her high-pitched nasally voice, "Come on, Jack. Let's go. We're missing the game."

Petra rolled her eyes and said, "Everyone, just chill out. You obviously don't know how this works. You cut Saturday detention, and that's two more Saturdays for you and maybe another for speaking out of turn. Just enjoy the fact that we get to spend it outside on the grass, because the clock is already ticking."

"That's right," Mr. Jackson said from the threshold of the school, startling all of them. He must have come from inside while they weren't paying attention. While the guy was a good-looking twenty-something with longish brown hair and thick hipster glasses, there was something off about him. He looked as if One Direction had to kick one of the members out of the band for being a serial killer.

Usually, Petra would be Hot for Teacher , but there was something a little too intense about his personality. Maybe it was the way he always seemed to be staring into the distance or how he'd sometimes seem to talk to someone who wasn't there when he was alone in his room. Regardless, he was disconcerting, at least to Petra. The dumb girls had a crush on him. She was so glad to be outta this place, well kinda. But at least she could quit the job when something better came along.

That didn't stop her from attempting to get out of her obligation.

"Mr. Jackson," she said, while he ushered them into the building, "as you can see, I could not secure daycare. Do you really need a TA for today?"

Mr. Jackson ignored her. He slammed the door behind them, and Sissy jumped. He strode forward, not even bothering to turn on the lights to the school and led them down a dark hallway. Nothing but emergency lighting illuminated the way.

"Maybe this is a good opportunity to teach your son about responsibility, Miss Zaslavsky," Mr. Jackson said over his shoulder.

Petra gave him the middle finger, and Jonathan did the same while shouting with excitement. The others laughed while she tried to get her son to perform some other hand gesture. Mr. Jackson didn't seem to notice or care. He brought them further into the building until he stopped at the basement stairs.

"Can't we just clean a classroom or something?" Sissy squealed. "There are spiders down there!"

"The custodial staff keeps this place quite clean and pest-free," Mr. Jackson said. "Now, I need you to help me with a little project. It will take an hour of your time, tops. Then you'll be free to go."

"But Principal Sokol said it would be six hours!" Urkel said, and Jack kicked him. Petra was pissed too. An hour of pay wasn’t even worth the gas. Not that she paid for her own gas or had driven her own car. However, something wasn’t right, and she’d be happy to leave as soon as possible.

"I know what the principal said, but it's my prerogative to administer punishment as I see fit," Mr. Jackson said.

"What does this project involve?" Petra asked warily.

"Nothing," Mr. Jackson replied. "You'll just need to sit there."

"Dude!" 'Baking' Aiden exclaimed. "Sign me up!"

The others nodded in agreement. Petra didn't like it, but she didn't really have a choice. It was either go in a basement with a psycho teacher or spend the following Saturday with Coach 'Justice' (Justin). His detentions always involved toothbrushes and locker room floors, and the TAs always got stuck with bucket duty. At least there was safety in numbers. If Mr. 'Jack-off' pulled out a butcher knife, she could throw Urkel in the way and get to safety.

Mr. Jackson smiled in that weird staring-into-the-void way and said, "Don't worry. I'll be with you the whole time."

That was precisely why she was worried.

A half hour later, they were all sitting on wooden benches around something that could only be described as a three-dimensional piece of Celtic art, with crisscrossing metal ribbons weaving up to an apex where a crystal ball glowed like the moon. It looked like a mad scientist and a Wiccan had decided to create an apparatus that would make both Gandalf and Nikola Tesla proud. If 'Creepy McCreepson' hadn't been the artist, Petra would have found it to be beautiful. Instead, it was a little terrifying.

"What are we supposed to be doing, again?" Sissy asked, glancing into the darkness at their backs, as the only light source was the object.

"We wait," Mr. Jackson said, and smiled. Then in a moment of awkwardness, he began to hum. It was a melancholic song that sounded like the soundtrack an ancient evil would play while cruising for souls to devour. The students glanced at her, and she shrugged.

Jonathan tugged at her sleeve. Her son was getting bored with just sitting around and would want a snack any minute now. Petra hoped her dad packed some applesauce in the diaper bag or there would be hell to pay.

"Bro," 'Baking' Aiden said. "Can I go have a smoke?"

"You know you can't do that on campus," Mr. Jackson said.

"But I have a prescription!"

The globe at the top of the art sparked, and they all jumped back. Mr. Jackson said, "It's time!" He continued his Creep Folk Fest performance. This time, he sang words in a language Petra had never heard, and she watched a lot of Netflix with subtitles. It sounded like if Satan and Cthulhu decided to sing a terrible 80’s love duet. She could swear someone else was singing…

The crackling intensified, and a draft in the room turned into a breeze.

"I'm out," Petra said, and grabbed her son. She walked towards where she thought the door was. A thick gray mist had filled the room. Mr. Jackson grasped her arm. He belted out demonic lyrics, and the breeze turned into a gale. The sphere spewed sparks into the air.

Petra yanked her arm free and made her way through a vortex that engulfed the room.

"No!" Mr. Jackson yelled between breaths. There definitely was another voice. "The seating arrangement is important!"

The wind was full hurricane-force now, blowing everything around that wasn't nailed down. Mr. Jackson could barely take two steps toward her. Sissy held onto Jack with one hand and attempted to keep her skirt from flying up with the other. Urkel held onto the bench. 'Baking' Aiden giggled and said, "Whoa."

Petra could barely hold onto her son but attempted to muscle her way through the force. The gale was just shy of sweeping her off her feet. Mr. Jackson belted out the song’s crescendo.

The cyclone howled with intensity, and right at the peak, lightning shot from the crystal ball and zapped Jack and Sissy. Their eyes glazed over, and they slumped to the ground. The lightning came for Mr. Jackson next, and then Baking Aiden.

Petra held her son to her chest. Her son clapped and said, "Again! Again!"

Her legs were about to give out. Urkel was stuck on the bench. He managed to utter, "Please, help me."

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!" Petra said and turned back to get Urkel.

Jonathan grinned and spouted, "Shit! Shit!"

A bolt of lightning took out 'Magic the Dorkening,' and before she could turn away, one came for her and Jonathan next.

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