01
"You're joking, right? Blame it on her! She's the one who started it!"
I honestly couldn't believe it. Here I was, Bartleby Honeycomb, inside the Dean's office. All I did was get into a "incidental fight" and boom! Now I have to see this guy.
The girl who was beside me, Sadella Shrayman, glared and mouthed the words "b***h" right to my face.
I'm sorry, what did I do to make you feel this way?
The Dean looked at both Sadella and I. "Sadella, you're free to go. Bartleby, you can stay here."
Sadella chirped happily as she moved the brown chair she was sitting in, got up, pushed the chair in, and thanked the Dean. "Thank you so much! I'll make sure to not get into another fight again!"
She walked on over to the back end of the office where the door was, opened it, and left. Sadella closed the door behind her with a quiet slam.
"Miss Honeycomb, do turn around to see me." The Dean's voice went low as I moved my head back to see him. He looked pissed off. At that moment, I started to get quite scared.
Just what was he going to do?
"Y-yes Sir? What do you want me to-"
"Because of you getting into the fighting incident, I'll sadly have to give you a punishment." The Dean stood up and walked on over to me. "The reason being is because you need to learn from what you just did, or rather, have been doing often. You've been here at Crossburrow Academy getting into fight after fight. This is the 4th time during your final year here that you've been sent to my own office. If this happens again for a 5th time, then I will unfortunately have to expel you. Don't mess it up for the remaining school year right now, okay?"
I nodded my head in agreement. The Dean patted me on the back as I moved my chair back and stood up.
"So, what exactly is my punishment?" I was curious, but also scared, to know as to what I'd be doing.
The Dean was walking on over to the door as I followed him along. He placed his hand onto the door handle as he looked at me with a grin on his face. Talk about a bit creepy.
"Oh, you'll love it," The Dean twisted the door handle and pushed the door open with ease, "my son is a part of this club and they need all the help they can get. You can help them become better people."
"And what club is this called, exactly?" I went out the door with him as The Dean closed it from behind. He looked right me with a small grin.
"Say, Bartleby Honeycomb, have you ever heard of the G.E.N.T.L.E.M.E.N's Club?"
***
I haven't." I replied to the Dean as we were walking down the stairs. The handles were colored black, and the stairs themselves were coated in a velvet red. Talk about expensive.
By the time we had got down and landed onto the hardwood floors of the school, we kept walking.
The Dean explained that he was taking me into the West Wing of the school. Usually I'd go to the North, South, or East Wing, but I barely went through the West Wing. I only walked though their once in ninth grade, and that's about it.
We kept going straight and I couldn't help but look at the numbers and see that the windows placed onto each of the classrooms.
"Right turn!" The Dean made a right turn and I quickly caught up to him. I really needed to stop looking at these doors.
I kept looking and noticed that we were in the 140s. I spoke in a hush tone as I read the numbers aloud.
"145.....146.......147......148.....149-"
"We're here!"
Already? I was about to count to 150!
I stopped where the Dean had stopped an took notice of the door. It was unlike other doors. No, seriously. It was.
All the other doors in the West Wing looked the same: Brown, hardwood, all of them had a window on it.
This door, no, this room, 153, it had a black door. There was no window at all, it was a black door with a shiny golden door handle on the right side. There was a paper on the front that stated "The Bad G.E.N.T.L.E.M.E.N's Club". The words "Bad" were written in red, while the remainder of the words were written in black cursive writing.
The Dean pat me on the back and looked at me. "Well then, I'll leave you to it. Do, be careful in there. Also, help my son and these other gentlemen become better people. Okay?"
I nodded in agreement. The Dean whispered "good luck" as he moved past me to walk out of the West Wing.
I took a moment to look at the doorknob, and the door itself. This is the Bad G.E.N.T.L.E.M.E.N's Club. I never heard of these guys at all, and I'm getting nervous.
What if they don't like me? What if they want me to leave? All these questions keep stirring in my head as I stare at the golden doorknob.
I took a few deep breaths, calming myself down. I placed my hand onto the doorknob with care, closed my eyes, and opened the door as I walked inside.
••••
"Who the f**k are you?" Those were the first words I heard by the time I got inside the club. I closed the door from behind and opened my eyes.
I was in awe. Nine guys were all staring at me, they were all sitting in small group tables instead of desks, each of them with a clear champagne flute, and a gold studded chair. Just how rich were these guys?
I quickly blinked and snapped back to what I was doing. Guess I got distracted for a moment.
"Well," I started walking across the front of the room, "you see I-"
It was then that I accidentally tripped and fell onto the ground.
"Yeah, don't expect us to fall and catch you okay?" One of the guys stated in a rather rude tone.
I quickly got up and dusted myself off. "Right, so sorry about tha-"
"Why are you here anyway?" Another one of the guys, a redhead, looked at me whilst asking the question.
"You see, I'm here to take care of all of you! Convert your ways to become good!" I happily stated this, but the other gentlemen laughed at my statement.
"As if you can do that-"
"The Dean brought me here because of that. Also, I heard his son is part of this club, if I'm not correct?" All the gentlemen in the club went silent when I made my statement.
"You never told us why you were here? Why?" The redhead gentlemen asked as he and the others looked at me.
"Punishment, unfortunately." I leaned myself back against the caramel colored front desk, looking ahead at the guys. "I got into a fight with this girl, it's my fourth fight here at this academy. Because of this, the Dean stated that if I get into a fight again, I'll have to be expelled from here for good."
"Wow, you should see how many fights I've been in." One of the gentlemen grinned as they looked right at me. "I could teach you some fighting moves if you need me to-"
The gentlemen got interrupted as another one, a guy with light brown skin, looked at me. "Sorry to interrupt your guy's conversation, but you said something about the Dean's son?"
"Yep!" I pulled myself up from leaning back against the desk to walking on over to see the gentlemen. "He is here, right?"
"Right here."
I looked to the left of the gentlemen I was talking to and saw the Dean's son. He was quite cute. Light skin, short curly black hair, and green eyes.
"Pssh! You're really nothing but a fag, man. Just ad-"
"What did you just say and how do you know?" The Dean's son got up and walked towards the other gentlemen, he was pissed.
The other guy got up and spoke in a low tone. "Don't think that I know what you did in the hallway the other da-"
The Dean's son punched the guy across the right cheek, hard. The other held his hand against his cheek and c****d his head back into normal position. He wipe his thumb across and saw what it was: blood.
"Son of a bitch." He whispered. The other laughed and glared right at him. "You're f*****g dead man."
"I'd like to see you tr-"
The other guy quickly grabbed the Dean's son's neck in a chokehold and threw him onto the ground. The other eight gentlemen were cheering and howling with laughter, telling the other to kick his ass, hit this, his that, all these other things.
I was in shock with how everything escalated quickly. Just that simple taunt went into a full out fight into the club.
"I need to stop them! I need to-"
"No."
That "no" sent a shiver down the back of my spine. I turned around the see someone holding me back. He had dark blonde hair, light skin, and his eyes were shadowed by the strands of dark blonde hair, making it hard for me to see what color they were.
The guy let go of my shoulder. He turned to go up to the front of the room and went over to the white board. He was drawing something onto that board.
The drawing was crude, but ridiculous to the point where I was laughing out loud like crazy.
The fighting was suddenly put to a stop as the other gentlemen noticed and they started laughing too. The other guy, who was fighting the Dean's son, was quite embarrassed by the crude drawing that the dark blonde boy drew of him in front of the others.
"Pretty funny right?" The dark blonde smirked as the others agreed with him.
"It sure was!" The Dean's son replied, laughing.
"Heh." The dark blonde grabbed the eraser and erased the drawing. He mouthed to the other guy that he was sorry, and the other guy was quite pissed off.
The dark blonde motioned the other gentlemen to get back into their respective seats, I leaned against the wall as dark blonde pushed himself up to take a seat on the edge of the front desk.
"First off," he began, "what the actual f**k is wrong with you. No, all of you! All because of one derogatory term used, it caused this f*****g fight. I'm disappointed in all of you right now." The room went silent. The dark blonde boy was pissed off, hard.
"I mean, for Christ sake!" He got down from the desk and pointed across to where I was. "This girl is suppose to help us revert our ways to go from bad to good! And this is what you do?! Plus, none of you gentlemen introduced or even said your own f*****g name to this girl! Did you not?"
The other gentlemen all nodded in agreement. Dark blonde sighed as he motioned me to come see him. I pulled myself away from the wall and walked on over right next to him.
He asked the other to stand and line up in their respective order. All of them shuffled around until they got into the right order.
"So," I casually asked, "why are you guys called the Bad G.E.N.T.L.E.M.E.N's Club?"
"No comment on the Bad." The dark blonde replied. "However, we are called the G.E.N.T.L.E.M.E.N's Club, the word 'Gentlemen' being abbreviated, because the first letter in each of our names make the word 'G.E.N.T.L.E.M.E.N'. Got that?"
I nodded in agreement. "Oh! That reminds me!" I stated. "I never got to say my name! It's Bartleby Honeycomb!"
There was some stifles of laughter in the room when I had said my name, but they quickly went away.
"Huh, not a bad name." The dark blonde replied. "I might as well introduce you to each of us!"
The dark blonde asked me to move to the front desk as he went to go stand in the front of the line. All nine of them were walking towards me as I backed a bit towards the front desk.
The dark blonde went first. "The name's Gravsny Hitton. I'm the leader of the Bad G.E.N.T.L.E.M.E.N's Club and thank you so much for helping us. Nice to meet you!" He held his hand out and I shook it.
Next guy came up. He had dark brown hair, light skin, and hazel eyes. "My name is Enclark Rhodes. Sorry for cursing at you when you first walked in, I can't help but think that you deserved it, which you did. I'm a Bad G.E.N.T.L.E.M.E.N's Club member. Pleased to see you!" He held his hand out and I shook it.
What an asshole.
Third guy came up. It was the redhead who I talked to earlier. He had red hair, light skin, and dark green eyes.
"Ello! My name is Nivelton Sprewberr. You know is quite interesting talking to you Bartleby! Glad to see you're here!" That was all he said as he took out his hand and shook it.
Fourth guy came up. He had dark brown skin, black hair, and dark brown eyes.
"The name is Titus Coggs. I don't get what a women like you is doing here, please le-actually, sorry about that! Nice to meet you!" He held his hand out and I shook it, quite peeved off. Can't believe a women hater was part of this Bad G.E.N.T.L.E.M.E.N's Club.
Fifth guy came up. He had white blonde hair, light skin, and blue green eyes.
"The name is Leander Mosstree. Honestly, I'm not really into fun, is rather chill and relax you know? I'm a Bad G.E.N.T.L.E.M.E.N's Club member by the way." He took his hand out of his pocket and I shook it back. What a relaxed Englishman.
Then came the sixth guy. The guy who fought the Dean's son. His dark black hair was scraggled everywhere, clothes were tattered, and his hazel eyes looked blurred.
He smirked. "The name is Eliezer Oteon. I know, weird name. But, Honey, I'm the most dangerous guy in the Bad G.E.N.T.L.E.M.E.N's Clu-"
I cut him off. "First off, don't call me honey. And are you sure that you look like the most dangerous guy here in your Bad G.E.N.T.L.E.M.E.N's Club? You said you were a fighter, but I need the proof. I've been in 4 fights so far. What about you?"
The guys in the back chuckled as Eliezer looked back at them, then looked towards me once more. "10 fights from grades nine to part of twelve. I got suspended six times during grades nine through eleven."
I was shocked. He never got expelled from school. I was surprised. "Well then, nice to meet you!" This time I held my hand out, and he shook it.
The seventh guy came. I also talked with him earlier. Light brown skin, dark curly brown hair, and lightly brown eyes.
"Hey. My name's Marquis Wumt. I'm pretty the much the nice guy here within the Bad G.E.N.T.L.E.M.E.N's Club. It's pleased to meet you Honeycomb!" His chuckle was adorable. We both gladly shook hands with one another.
Then in walked up the seventh guy. He had light olive skin, some dark green eyes, and short slick black hair.
"The name is Ezekiah Walkinhs. I'm a Bad G.E.N.T.L.E.M.E.N's Club member and can be quite flirtatious. One moment you'll find me doing something else, then the next is I'm right in between the legs of a girl in bed! Pleased to meet you." I shook his hand, called him a pervert, and he left.
Finally, the eighth, or rather, ninth guy came into the room. It was the Dean's son. Light skin, short curly black hair, and green eyes. Except he look rough and beat up because of his fight with Eliezer. "The name is Netmun Crossburrow. I'm the son of the Dean here at Crossburrow Academy and I'm a Bad G.E.N.T.L.E.M.E.N's Club member. Pleasure of meeting you, Mistress Honeycomb." He shook my hand and I shook his. I told him to feel better since he still looked quite hurt after what had happened.
Gravsny liked the name Mistress Honeycomb that Netmun stated, and asked if I don't mind be called that. I told them that I didn't mind at all.
••••
I was outside of the academy building sitting on the bench, thinking about what had happened today after school.
I met the Bad G.E.N.T.L.E.M.E.N's Club, witnessed a fight, got into a small argument, and was cussed at. And it was in the Bad G.E.N.T.L.E.M.E.N's Club itself today. I still can't believe I have to help all nine of the guys revert to become good!
One thing I know for sure, it's not going to be easy.