Your Dangerous Game

Chapter 3. English Classroom

(Alain Elwood’s Perspective)

The first classroom began when a male lecturer knocked his desk firmly. Soon, the students sat down properly and stared out at him.

“Good morning, class!” He greeted everyone with his shiny white teeth. He dressed up in a rolled-up sleeve white shirt and an argyle plaid sweater. He looked like a geek by wearing big round eyeglasses. And the way he was half smirking looked kind of annoying though.

Some students sounded cheerful, and others sounded lifeless when greeting him back.

However, he didn’t seem as annoying as he looked when he spoke again. He looked rather witty though. “Welcome to my Creative Writing classroom. My name is Edwin Saltzman.”

He opened his book to see the name list of his students here. His eyes sometimes stole a glance at the students in the room. Then he grinned widely at everyone. He looked kind of weird when he suddenly made a silly face.

And then he said, “Let’s start our freshman year with a fresh introduction, shall we?”

Some male students who sat in the back chuckled out. Soon, the blonde guy that dressed in a blue-red leather jacket raised his hand.

Mister Saltzman instantly looked at him and nodded his chin at that boy. “Would you like the honor to be the first student to introduce yourself, Mister…?”

“Hello, my name’s Brandon Davis, Sir,” he said as he tried not to laugh at the lecturer.

“Okay, what’s so funny? Why are you laughing?” Mister Saltzman confronted him.

Brandon still made a funny noise as he held his voice from laughing out. “No-Nothing, Sir. I can’t wait to see our fresh introduction in the class.”

Mister Saltzman smirked at him, but then he giggled. Soon, he clapped his hands again and shouted after, “Alright, listen up, students!”

Everyone in the room immediately paid attention to him.

“Since our class is about creative writing, I want you to write an essay about yourself. Write something interesting about your life in three short paragraphs,” he demanded.

And when his eyes suddenly caught a familiar face in the room, he bulged his eyes out.

“Wait a minute,” he grinned wittily. “Isn’t this Alain Elwood?”

Every pair of eyes quickly looked at his direction, who sat in the back of the classroom.

“Gosh, I didn’t know you repeat the same class in your Sophomore year,” Mister Saltzman muttered wonderingly.

Alain grinned and told him, “I’m just madly in love with repeating the freshman year, Sir. I hope you won’t get bored seeing my pretty face here.”

Some girls giggled. While the boys made strange noises to tease Mister Saltzman. He was an easy prey for some students to make fun of him. Alain even giggled along with the others.

“STOP GIGGLING!” He exclaimed. His eyes were half bulging out at everyone. And then he added, “Your very first task besides writing an essay is that getting to know each other. Meet your new friends here. And be nice!”

Afterward, Mister Saltzman only gave them ten minutes to write down the essay and another ten minutes to have a little chit chat with each other.

When everyone was writing their essay, Alain didn’t write a single word on the paper. He kept playing with his pen. Sometimes, when he looked around, he caught the reddish-brown long hair girl kept on stealing a glance at his direction.

He wondered why she kept secretly looking at him after talking with the braided light-brown hair girl that sat in front of her.

But then he just remembered. It could be the rumor from the frat house she heard that made her kept giving him a defensive vibe. Maybe she had heard that he joined the illegal motorcycle club that sometimes had to deal with the cops.

However, he didn’t give a damn about what she thought and what everyone would say about his reputation. He was the owner of his life. He could do anything he wanted in his life without anyone’s prior consent. It was not such a big deal for him anyway.

After twenty minutes had passed, Mister Saltzman finally clapped his hands again. He asked each student to stand up and read their essay.

Alain almost fell asleep as he boringly listened to half of the students reading their essay. He was just not fond of writing a personal introduction on a piece of paper.

“MISTER ELWOOD!” A loud tap on the desk and a thunder voice of Mister Saltzman finally woke him up.

While Brandon threw an airplane paper at his head and shouted out, “Wake up, you cow!”

Alain almost drooled himself while slightly falling asleep. Once he realized that Mister Saltzman looked at him peevishly, he apologized, “Ugh, sorry.”

“Okay, let’s continue, please,” Mister Saltzman let the next student to read her essay.

This time, the reddish-brown long hair girl with an army parka jacket stood at her desk. Then she held her paper confidently and spoke, “My name is Mindy Esmond—”

Alain noticed she was the girl that kept glancing at him earlier. He was well aware that other girls also liked to glance flirtingly at him, but that one girl had been giving him a weird stare.

The girl continued speaking with a firm voice, “I like reading romance books and watching romcom movies—”

Brandon shouted out to tease her, “Including an opera soap that your nana like to watch?”

Everyone instantly giggled at his joke. While Mindy glanced at him and immediately struck him with a smirk and a cynical stare.

“I like study hard. I won some trophies for writing various short stories in high school. Now, my goal is to graduate with the GPA of 4.0 from UPenn,” she said proudly.

“Ugh, smarty pants student, I feel something crawls under my skin—” the dreadlocks hair Nigerian guy who sat behind Brandon shouted out to tease her as well.

Some other bad boys laughed out loud at his joke. And then Brandon added while laughing along with them, “Ugh, give me the creeps.”

“Hey! Give it a rest! Respect her!” The braided light-brown hair girl defended Mindy.

Meanwhile, Alain giggled as well. She kept bragging about looking like a smarty pants student when she just got here. Something about Mindy made him tickled though. He immediately noticed how nerdy that girl was.

And Mindy finally said something to them, “Shut up, losers!”

Brandon giggled again and made fun of her, “Nerdy Mindy is angry. Ugh, I’m scared!”

And the classroom immediately filled with the unstoppable laughing noises.

“What a bimbo,” Alain muttered as he looked at Brandon and his new bad boy gang enjoyed teasing Mindy. And the students also had fun watching them made stupid jokes.

Mister Saltzman tried to stop them from making noises. Then he clapped his hands and exclaimed firmly, “Next! Alain Elwood! You can stop laughing and let’s introduce yourself—”

Alain got surprised when Mister Saltzman suddenly snapped at him. All pair of eyes quickly glanced at his direction.

“It’s your turn. Let’s see what you have to say to your juniors here,” said Mister Saltzman.

Alain scratched his head for a second. And then he raised lazily and stood by his desk.

His eyes glanced at the empty paper on his table. He didn’t write a single thing on his paper yet. He was just too lazy to do it. He was not in the mood to write about anything. And he would rather introduce himself in an impromptu way.

“I’m your senior, guys. But my spirit is as young and free as you are all here,” he grinned widely as he spoke, “My name’s Alain Elwood. My hobby is boxing by day and racing by night. But honestly, there’s nothing much to tell about me, except that I’m pretty much a full-time procrastinator—”

“Well, not so impressive, huh? A full-time procrastinator?” Mister Saltzman muttered. “No wonder why you have to relive the freshman year again.”

Most of the girls in the room watched him lovingly, adoring him. Almost everyone was charmed by him, except Mindy. She still gave him a weird stare as if she despised him a lot. He surely didn’t know what was her problem in the first place.

Brandon suddenly shouted out, “Girls, you have to wait in line to get his phone numbers!”

The dreadlocks hair Nigerian guy added, “Maybe I can help opening his stall for you all!”

As everyone in the room laughed so hard, Alain immediately sat down again and let the next student continued the introduction.

***

After the class was over, Alain didn’t have more schedule on Monday. He was finally free to go anywhere he wanted to.

Around ten in the morning, he went straight to the Wharton Boxing Club. It had been his routine to work out there. The place was still located in the campus area. He didn’t join there to be enrolled in a local championship or to be a serious athlete. He just wanted to waste his free time.

If there was money gambling involved, sometimes he would enter an illegal underground boxing competition that was held every week.

As soon as he entered the gym, he was greeted by his trainer, “Son, how are you?”

Alain smiled and nodded his chin at him. “I’m fine. Nothing’s changed yet in my life. Just tell me if I can make more money from the underground kiddos!”

His trainer was Mister Randall Grigori. He was always cared for Alain. He had been treating Alain caringly like his own son.

And thus why, every time they met, Randall always told him the same thing over and over, “Come on, Son. Why don’t you just try to apply yourself as an athlete? You will get proper recognition, although I can’t promise you earning good money from there in your newbie year.”

“Well, Randall, I choose money over recognition. I don’t need to be a celebrity of the year,” and as always, Alain refused his suggestion.

“You can get a stable career by being a professional boxer. Plus, it’s legal and legit for you,” Randall reminded him.

Alain rolled his eyes as he changed his clothes into a sleeveless shirt. And then he shouted back lazily to him, “Whatever you say, Randall.”