Patty rushed towards the classroom to the fastest of speeds that he could muster. Rushed may not be the right word because what Patty considered ‘fast’ was just a normal walking pace for most people. His face was sweating and contracting as if he was running a race, but his steps were nothing more than speed walking.
[Energy: 79/100]
But before he reached the classroom, Patty stopped to catch his breath. He had been speed walking for longer than his lazy body could take. He needed to take a seat and have a small break before he rushed back to the classroom.
Searching for a place to lay down, Patty walked towards a secluded hallway that led to the stairs up the rooftop of the building. No one ever used these stairs except for the janitors or custodians when it was the annual deep cleaning of the whole school.
But when Patty arrived, he saw that he wasn’t the first one there. He heard a commanding voice that seemed to be lecturing someone with a serious tone.
He only heard bits and pieces from the conversation as the authoritative voice was the only one to speak. The other guy wasn’t even given the chance to say anything.
These were the only words he heard;
Work hard…test…expel…
The moment he heard those words, a connection formed in his brain. Those keywords, that authoritative words, the incessant lecture about working hard—yep, that was none other than the Professor himself or Prof Ortez as Patty liked to call him.
He heard that same repeating lecture too many times for him not to recognize it. That was basically Prof Ortez’s catchphrase at this point.
Sure enough, when Patty looked over the corner, he saw Prof Ortez with his impeccably clean long white polo shirt tucked under his belt and his shiny hair lathered in gel. And opposite him was Grammo who was looking down on the ground and with his red hair covering his expression.
“Grammo, have you thought about what I said?”
“…”
“I’m going to be frank. You will only reach a dead end with singing. I strongly urge you to change courses before it’s too late.”
“…” Grammo clutched the straps of his guitar case even harder.
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“Sigh. I understand that you think that this is your one and only dream, but what you don’t understand is that you are still young. It is just a phase. Once you get older and experience more of this life, you will understand that singing is not your only dream. You’ll thank me once you’re older.”
Professor Wraithborne put his hand on Grammo’s shoulder and tried to pry the guitar away from his grip. But Grammo didn’t let it go.
“…” Grammo gritted his teeth. Why can’t the Professor and everyone understand, he inwardly complained.
Seeing Grammo unwilling to budge, the Professor knew that there was no way he was going to convince a kid as stubborn as this.
“This is a mistake,” the Professor said as he retracted his hand just for him to cross it against his own chest. “But if you still want to make this mistake, then I can’t stop you.”
Grammo took a deep breath thinking that the Professor finally gave his dream a chance. But his next words chilled his blood down to his bones.
“I think it’s better for you to leave this school. I cannot teach you anything if you don’t want to learn from it.”
This was the harsh reality that the Professor gave to Grammo. In a world where even geniuses and prodigies who work harder than everyone else were not guaranteed to succeed in achieving their dream, a deaf tone Grammo had no chance to become a world wide singer.
Even Grammo was second guessing himself after the Professor laid it all out with no filter. Would it be better for him to give up? Should he voluntarily leave the school?
“I wamm pu beiji”
Prof Ortez was startled by the sudden scream coming from down the hallway. They were supposed to be alone. And judging from Grammo’s face, it looked like even he didn’t expect someone to interrupt them.
“I wamm pu beiji”
The scream repeated. At this point, the Professor was both angry and curious as to who was making such an annoying sound. The voice sounded like a broken recording of a chicken being slaughtered with a bat continuously.
“Who is that?” the Professor replied back. But the answer remained the same.
“I wamm pu beiji”
Filled with both anger and annoyance, the Professor couldn’t help but take a step towards the source of the voice to satiate his curiosity as to who was the one interrupting him. He was ready to give him detention for a week and an unending lecture on how to stay silent in the hallways. At the end, he would wish that he stayed silent.
Grammo had no choice but to follow behind the Professor as he also wanted to know where that voice was coming from.
And as they got closer, the voice got clearer and clearer.
“I wann to bee raichy”
That annoying voice and that word ‘raichy’—a familiar face opposed up in the professor’s thoughts.
“I want to be lazy!”
They were close enough to finally hear the true words being spoken. The professor’s steps quickened and his face contorted into a fury that Grammo had never seen before.
There was only one student who dared to use that word in front of him. Lazy. It was a word that he detested most of all, and his students knew better than to utter that in his classes, much less shout it in the middle of the hallways where it would echoe to other hallways!
“Patrick!” Prof Ortez shouted as he turned the corner and faced the culprit.
“I will be lazy!” repeated Patty as he saw the Professor and Grammo standing in front of him.
He smiled and ignored the rage and wrath plastered on the professor's face. Instead, he looked at Grammo and spoke to him with the utmost confidence as if he just won a massive battle.
“I will be lazy! That is my dream. The Professor and other people will say that I can’t achieve my dream by being lazy… but I disproved them all!”
Before the Professor could interrupt Patty, he pointed at him. “I heard about the confrontation between you two and I wanted to stop it.”
“But I didn’t want to walk all the way there because I’m lazy. So, I shouted to the top of my lungs to get his attention. And it worked like a charm!”
“I want to be lazy. And if I can get the Professor to walk towards me by just standing here and being lazy, then I have proved that my dream can come true!”
“If I can do that, then Grammo, you can sing to the world!”
The professor’s mouth was wide open in shock. He was speechless.
“Ku…”
Grammo tried hard to hide his laugh but he couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“KUHAHAHAHA!”
He couldn’t believe that Patty would do that humiliating trap call to a professor just to prove a point. He couldn’t help but laugh at Patty luring a teacher to walk towards him because he was too lazy to walk. There was no one insane enough who would do that but Patty. He was a different breed of lazy!