Naked in School
Tom’s Troubles
Chapter 6
The Armstrongs decided to celebrate their success, and since it now was the late afternoon, they decided to pick up Tom and Lynette and go to dinner.
On the way to the hotel where Tom and Lynette were waiting, they discussed restaurants.
“Angie? We need to see if Andrew can come, too.” Duncan said.
“He’s at soccer—no, it’s called football practice. I’ll try him.”
The call went to voice mail so Angela left a message for him to call back; telling him where to meet the family for a restaurant dinner. After parking in the hotel’s parking ramp, they went to the kids’ room and knocked.
“Lynette? Tom? It’s Mom and Dad,” Angela called.
Tom threw the door open and hugged her. “Oh, I’m so glad to see you guys,” he breathed, then hugged his father. “Am I going to jail?”
Lynette had come over and taken Tom’s hand, looking at her father with concern.
“No, kids, everything is good. Really good, in fact,” he said grinning at them. “But first, we have our civic duty.”
The kids looked puzzled as Duncan pulled out the card the officer had given him.
“I need to call and let the police know you’re with us now.”
He made the call and identified himself. “I have Thomas Armstrong with me now.”
“...”
“They did? Okay, thanks for the news.” He disconnected and looked at Angela. “The school dropped the complaint. So they don’t need to talk to Tom.”
Angela clapped her hands. “Excellent. Our celebration is in order.”
The youngsters looked at their parents, puzzled.
“Okay, guys, here’s what happened after Mom sent Lynette off in the Uber car...”
After he finished describing the day’s events and summarized what happened at the conference at the school, he told them about the signed agreement.
“This is what the agreement says, and it’s absolutely essential that you don’t breathe a word of it to anyone or even mention what Tom did to the office. The school’s keeping it quiet too, as if nothing ever happened,” Duncan went on.
“Yeah, Dad, I won’t say anything.”—“I promise to keep it a secret.” they said, speaking together.
“The school officials agreed to several things. Tom, you won’t be held responsible for trashing the office and they won’t ask our family to pay any of the costs to clean it up.”
A big smile of relief flashed over Tom’s face.
“Now here’s the fun part. We asked that you, Tom, be isolated from that nudity circus, as in doing a sort of in-school independent study, so you won’t be faced with those distractions. They’re gonna come up with a specific plan, but for tomorrow, Tom, you need to go to home room and then for the first period to the end of the day, you’ll go to the library. Someone will make sure you’re kept up to date with the work and your teachers will drop by to answer any questions. Meanwhile, the school will figure out how to keep that study program going. Sound good?”
Tom had a broad smile. “Awesome, Dad! But... um... most classes... in my classes, part of the grade is for participation...”
Duncan turned to Angela. “See, honey, Tom’s back with us! He immediately saw the major problem.” He turned back to Tom. “Yes, we actually discussed that issue and Dr Taylor is working on it. Grade-wise, anyway, it won’t count against you.”
“Cool, Dad. The classes go so slow, anyway. Maybe working by myself, I can go faster and learn more.”
“That’s the spirit, sport! Show ‘em what an Armstrong can do!” Duncan grinned.
Then he turned to Lynette. “The final part of the school’s agreement concerns you, honey.”
“Me?” she squeaked.
“Yeah, Mom can tell you about that one.”
Angela smiled. “Lynette, you won’t have to worry about ever being chosen for the Program. As part of our deal with the school, they’ve agreed to take your name off the list of pupils to be selected.”
“SQUEAL! Ohmygod, Mom!” she rejoiced, hugging her mother. “How... what... how did that happen?”
She released her hug and looked at Duncan.
“Our lawyer used a bit of blackmail on them is how, sweetie,” Angela said. “You don’t need to know the details, and you-can’t-tell-a-soul-about-this or all bets are off! You hear? They were really reluctant to exempt you but Mr Morrison gave them no choice.”
“Oh, I’d never take the chance that the head teacher would change his mind, Mom,” Lynette exclaimed as she threw her arms around and hugged her mom again and then her dad.
Duncan grinned. “So do you think that celebrating this news is in order, kids?”
“YES!” they both shouted.
~~~~
With a fair amount of trepidation, on Tuesday morning, Tom rode to school with his sister.
Program kids in their morning stripping naked performance in front of the school
Like Monday, both were deep in thought and didn’t say much. But when they arrived, the activity around the school appeared normal, if one considers that it’s normal having a bunch of rowdy kids watching a small number of embarrassed kids stripping naked in front of the school building.
But Tom paid no attention to that crowd; he concentrated on keeping his eyes averted while the two rode to the bike rack at the building’s rear near the staff parking.
Lynette was also deep in thought. “It’s starting to get chilly; wonder where the kids will strip when it’s really cold outdoors?” she muttered, but Tom heard her anyway.
Tom snorted. “Right. Glad that won’t be our problem.”
“So true. Oh, I remember, they’ll use the commons. That’s not such a great idea either—there’s not enough room for the crowd I’ve seen around the Program kids in the morning strip show. I guess they can’t use the gym either because of early team practices. Well, you’ll need to remember to stay away from the commons. Okay, let’s go in. No Program kids in home room this week.”
“Yeah,” Tom agreed. “Wonder if the Head will call for me today.”
On the way to their classroom, Audrey, one of their classmates, hailed Lynette.
“Hey Lynette; oh, hi, Tom—haven’t seen you in classes all that much, Tom—say, weren’t you sent to the office yesterday morning right after the new flock of Program kids was hatched? We all heard that somehow the entire office got trashed right after that. There’re sheets covering the windows. Broken window outside too. No one can figure out what happened. I figure you must have been there just before it happened. Do you know about that?”
Tom shrugged. “I heard about that too. Can’t say anything about it, myself.”
“Oh. Okay...” Audrey chatted with Lynette for a minute and then ran off to put some books in her locker.
Lynette looked at Tom and smirked. “Way to go. Just like a lawyer—a literally true but totally misleading answer for Audrey.”
“Well, I try to keep you entertained,” Tom grinned, and they joined a bunch of kids entering their home room classroom.
When home room period was over, Tom hurried to the library so he’d get out of the halls quickly; he had noticed that the Program kids delayed leaving their classrooms for as long as possible to minimize the time they had to be in the halls and be subject to doing those “reasonable requests.” He went into the library and the librarian called to him.
“Are you Tom Armstrong?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Okay, I was told you’d be coming in here today. I expected you earlier.”
“Well, I thought I was to go to my home room first this week. I believe that was the arrangement.”
She nodded, “That’s all right. The custodian brought that screen in here a few minutes ago,” she said, pointing at it; “the head teacher said you were to use it to screen off your study area. I wasn’t sure where you wanted to sit, so I had him leave it till you got here. I’m thinking about that carrel in the far corner; is that okay for your study station?”
Tom looked at where she indicated. “That looks fine. Wherever you want me to be is good.”
“Certainly. The Head didn’t tell me what this was all about, just that you were trying some independent learning. As well, I have some work for you that your teachers sent.”
Tom took the materials and helped the librarian position the screen so that his station was somewhat visually isolated from the rest of the room. He saw that he’d have plenty of work to keep him occupied for the remainder of the day. But when the time for lunch came, Tom realized that his plan had a major shortcoming. He had forgotten all about what he’d do for lunch and now his stomach was growling.
Shit. There are always naked kids in the caf, he thought, as he looked at his watch when the bell for his lunch period rang. Oh well, starving for a day won’t kill me.
He went back to reading an assigned chapter, taking notes as he read. About fifteen minutes later, he heard a familiar voice asking, “Is that Tom Armstrong’s hideout?”
He peeked around the screen and there was Lynette, with a big grin, carrying a tray with several sacks on it.
“My smart brother forgot all about lunch,” she grinned. “I asked the lunch lady if I could get a care package and explained that you were assigned to a special program in the library. She called the office and they said it was legit, so I got a bag lunch for me too—and so here we are, me and the lunches!”
“Oh thanks, Lynnie, you’re a life-saver! You take such good care of me...” He grabbed her and kissed her on the cheek but she turned her head suddenly and his kiss landed on her lips. He tried to pull back but Lynette held his face while she kissed him back.
“Mmmm...” she sighed and then pushed him away. “Let’s cool it; even with the stupid Program running I’m not sure about the PDA rules, and you don’t want to mess up our great deal, right?” she whispered.
“Sure. Let’s party now, sweetie,” Tom proclaimed, sweeping his arm at the tray with its two lunch bags.
Lynette giggled and began unpacking some styrofoam containers and plastic utensils.
While they were eating, Tom asked Lynette, “Say, have you made any friends from your classmates yet? Obviously I haven’t,” he grinned. “No mates in here, you see. But you know that I’m more of a loner, I guess; I never really had a lot of friends. You’re my friend and you’re all I need.”
“Oh Tommie, how sweet. Well, there are these two girls I like; you met Audrey. There’s Janice too and we usually have lunch together. I might have them come to the house; not sure though. Oh, several guys’ve asked me for a date.”
Tom smiled at her. “And?”
“Shot them down. They weren’t you. You’re my standard for what a boy should be like and I haven’t found anyone to match that standard yet,” she fluttered her eyes at Tom.
“Now you’re embarrassing me,” Tom muttered.
After they ate, Lynette mused, “I don’t think I can do this every day so you’ll have to find out what you should do for lunch.”
He agreed with her. “I haven’t heard from the Head about anything yet, but I’ll ask. Maybe tomorrow I’ll bring in lunch from home.”
She nodded, “Good idea. Well, I gotta run. See ya after school.”
Right after lunch, Tom got a message to meet the head teacher after home room on the following day.
~~~~
On Wednesday, Tom headed out of home room to his meeting with the head teacher. He walked into the main office; what a difference from his visit here only two days earlier! There were tarps hanging from the ceiling that were shielding parts of the room from view and the broken window was boarded up. There were piles of paper stacked on various surfaces and a heap of random computer parts lay in one corner. The office ladies scowled at Tom when he entered the room and one simply pointed wordlessly to the Head’s office.
Taylor looked up when Tom knocked at his open door and told him to come in and close the door. The mess in this room had been all cleaned up. He was relieved to see that there wasn’t anyone else in the room; as he thought back to Monday morning, he felt his heartbeat quicken and took several deep breaths to calm down. Taylor motioned him to a chair.
“So you saw the condition of the office, Tom?” he said mildly, then he noticed Tom’s pale face. “Are you feeling all right this morning?”
“Yes, sir. I’m all right. A bad memory is all... I... I guess I need to tell you that I’m truly sorry; I just...”
“It’s really okay,” Taylor interrupted. “Well, not okay that you did it, but your folks explained what happened to you to cause that... erm... reaction. And for that, I need to apologize myself, for how my staff and I handled your problem. We made some assumptions and we were wrong. Anyway, we need to deal with the current situation as best as we can. For this to work going forward, Mr Armstrong, you will have to be on your best behavior, is that clear?”
“Yes, sir. I promise,” Tom said meekly.
“So we need to set up a kind of remote learning for you to keep you out of the classrooms and the... erm... distractions... ah, you find so disturbing. What we’ve decided to do is based on a plan that we’ve actually been working on for the past year; we’ve simply accelerated its schedule somewhat to accommodate your situation. I’ve asked the technology teacher and the audio-visual systems technician to help set up the classrooms you’re supposed to be in by mounting a kind of webcam—a WiFi-enabled video camera in each classroom. We’d already planned a distance-learning program so we’d already purchased a number of the cameras; we have enough of them now to be able to put one in each of your classrooms this term, don’t we. They’ll be mounted on the video projectors on the ceilings of each room and they’ll be connected to the school’s network with wireless access.
“We’ve gotten the work started today and we should have those cameras operating by Monday. To view a class, you’ll need to log into the school network, select the proper classroom camera feed, and then you’ll be able to see the whole front of the room, mainly the whiteboard and the teacher too if he or she is in the camera’s range. As well, you’ll be able to hear the classroom sounds and to speak and participate in the class, but we don’t have the funds to put video monitors in each room or rig the projectors to allow the class to see you—but we don’t think that will be that much of a problem. Another thing; we don’t want to let the entire world know that you’re, well, averse is a mild word—to nudity, so if anyone should ask why you’re doing this modified classroom work, the cover story is that Tom Armstrong will be helping the school to do an extended test of the technology system we’re setting up to allow distance learning for homebound students and for recording classes for athletes on teams traveling away from school.
“Now here’s how you’ll get access to the classes. The library has several wireless-enabled computer tablets with large screens. They have adjustable stands to hold them so they can stand on a table, making it convenient to watch the classroom video while you take notes. You’ll sign out a tablet each day and to hear and speak, you’ll need to wear a wireless earphone and mike combo but that device seems easy to use too. Voices will be transmitted both ways; the classroom mike and speaker will be located at the webcam. Now for today, tomorrow, and Friday, you’ll continue working in the library as you did yesterday. Sound okay?”
“Yes sir. I think that this setup will work fine. I did have a question about what I should do about lunch.”
“Ah yes. And I know how important food is to a teen—especially a boy. The lunch lady yesterday didn’t know what to make of your sister’s request. Well, I’ll work that out with them. Are you okay for today?”
“Brought my own lunch, sir.”
“Good. I’ll let you know what the cafeteria can do, going forward. Have any other questions?”
“No sir. And thanks again.”
“Good. You can go. And remember, you’ll be on your best behavior, won’t you.”
“Yes sir.” Tom left.
The technology plan worked as Taylor described, with only a single problem: the sound pickup of student voices in classrooms was marginal; there was a fair amount of echo and to Tom, the kids’ voices seemed like they were coming out of a barrel. He could hear them, but he had to concentrate. The teachers’ voices came through much more clearly.
~~~~
Two weeks after Tom began to attend classes by video in the library, he was leaving the school and was walking to his bike, when two guys called to him.
“Hey, you’re that Tom Armstrong bloke, right?” one called.
“Yeah, I am.” He recognized the two as members of a couple of the classes he wasn’t attending anymore, at least not attending in the flesh.
“Some of us’ve noticed that you’ve got shot of all the classes now.”
Tom started to reply but was cut off by the second guy.
“You was th’ bloke who ran out o’ the auditorium on th’ first day an’ my mate ‘n’ I saw how you avoided all th’ bollock-naked stuff going on in classes an’ in th’ halls. What’s wi’ you, y’r thick or somethin’?”
“I’m... um...” Tom tried to think of a reply. “No, just helping with a school project...”
“Slag off, we’ve sussed ya out,” the first sneered. “Somehow you’re scared of people who’re starkers. You gotta be a clot or a nutter! You...”
Tom looked baffled. “I have no idea what all that slang means. What d’ya guys want, anyway?”
“Looks like y’got somethin’ t’hide,” the second boy said in a low voice. “We’ll keep it hushed if y’make it worth it t’ us.”
“Damn!” Tom exploded. “You jerks tryin’ to extort me? Go to hell!”
He turned and angrily strode away as he called back, “I don’t give a fuck what you say about me!”
He saw Lynette dart out of the school and run toward him.
“Mrs Wilson stopped me as I was leaving our last class. She had graded the work you handed in and gave to me to give you—and gave me a heads-up that the two of us’ll be assigned to work on a group project she’s planned for next week. Who were you yelling at?”
“Oh, couple of jerks,” Tom said. “They were trying to shake me down.”
“What happened?”
Tom related the encounter to her.
“Crap... well, if they start spreading lies or try to stir up things against you, don’t do anything to them—you’ll get in real trouble. I know—you tell Mom what happened; she can call the Head and maybe he can alert the teachers to keep a lookout for gossip like that.”
“Good idea, sis,” Tom smiled at her.
At home later that evening, Tom was going over the papers Lynette had given him. He came to one sheet, it was work he had turned in early in the previous week.
He walked to his sister’s room. “Lynette? I don’t understand what Worthington’s note on my paper means. Think you might know?”
He handed her the paper and sat on her bed next to her. She looked it over.
“Yeah, right,” Lynette wrinkled her brow. “That’s the week you were totally zoned out.”
She went on to explain the work he missed in class and what she thought the teacher’s comment meant; now he knew what the teacher wanted him to do. He looked at Lynette’s face and grinned.
“Lynnie, you look so cute when you do that.”
“Do what?”
“You screw up your face sometimes when you’re thinking. It makes you look so cute.”
He reached out and stroked her cheek. She took his hand from her cheek and then kissed it, looking Tom in the eyes. Their eyes locked; then she blushed.
“Um... thanks. I... um...” She slid closer to him, still holding his hand, and kissed Tom’s cheek. She looked longingly into his eyes as she moved her head back toward Tom’s face; then she shook herself and stood up. “Ah... was that all you needed, Tommie? I still have work to do, so...”
“Yeah, that was it.” He looked at his step-sister searchingly; her face was a rosy pink. “Yeah, thanks for the help, sweetie.”
He walked back to his room, bemused. Tom loved his step-sister deeply. Did she love him in return? But if she did, what then? He had no answer and his mind was whirling.
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