The Detention Club Read Online Free PDF Page B

ones sitting at an unfilled table.
    After lunch everyone got let out into the main lobby of the school, where we stood in a big confused group, like cattle.
    â€œWhy aren’t they letting us out for recess?” I whispered to Drew.
    â€œMaybe they’re waiting for someone to take the lead?” he suggested, and I got all excited.
    â€œFollow me,” I said, and we made our way through the throng of students to the double doors. I pushed them open, and immediately a teacher shouted at me and charged over.
    â€œWhere do you think you’re going?” she demanded.
    Students looked over at us.
    â€œUh . . . recess?” I said.
    Sally and Angie were standing near the doors at that moment.
    â€œThere’s no recess in middle school!” Angie cried. She turned around and shouted, “Peter and Drew are trying to go outside for recess!”
    Everyone laughed at us.
    â€œAre you going to look for mica out there or something?” Sally asked.
    We slunk over to an empty corner of the lobby and stood against the brick wall.
    â€œNo recess? How do they expect us to calm down after lunch?” Drew whispered.
    â€œI have no idea,” I admitted. “You’d think someone would have told us about this earlier.”
    In our defense, a lot of the sixth graders also seemed pretty confused about not having recess, but they pretended to be cool with it. Turns out the school didn’t even have a playground anywhere on the premises, just a crummy soccer field outside of the teachers’ lounge, used by the sports teams and gym classes. Instead of having recess, we were expected to just hang out in the front lobby after lunch for fifteen minutes, where we could “talk” like adults or something.
    Aside from the short burst of laughter people had when we tried to go outside for recess, it was kinda quiet in the lobby that first day. The sixth graders stood around in groups, just looking at each other.
    â€œNow what?” Drew asked.
    â€œI guess we’re going to have to improvise.”
    â€œWhat does that mean?”
    â€œWe’re just going to have to find stuff to collect in our classrooms this afternoon.”
    â€œHow do we know they’ll like it? Maybe nobody collects stuff anymore.”
    â€œThat’s impossible,” I said. “It’s embedded in our DNA to want to collect stuff.”
    â€œWhat does that even mean?” he asked.
    It’s a phrase I learned from my dad during the summer when I threw a rock at the sliding glass door one day in plain sight of my parents, and shattered it.
    My parents gasped.
    â€œWhy on earth would you do that?” Mom cried.
    â€œDon’t bother trying to understand him; it’s embedded in his DNA,” Dad said.
    Anyway, because of this, I still figured collecting stuff was the key to getting people to remember that they used to worship us.
    â€œKids in our grade are just making fun of us because the Hemenway kids weren’t into collecting mica last year, so they don’t want to look bad, but we just have to show them how cool we really are,” I explained.
    â€œBut there’s nothing to collect in class,” Drew complained.
    â€œUse your imagination. Trust me—I’m sure the classrooms are full of stuff.”
    Drew had a point, though. Outside you were surrounded by all kinds of interesting stuff to collect, like clovers and twigs and broken glass, whereas the inside of a tiny classroom is slim pickings to begin with, never mind the fact that it gets cleaned every night by a janitor. At the start of social-studies class I searched the room for something to collect, but there wasn’t anything good, and I had to settle. I made sure everyone was watching me (by coughing really loudly for a couple of seconds) before I started emptying out the pencil shavings in the pencil sharpener and stuffing the shavings down my pocket. It made my fingers all sooty, so