Danny wiped the sweat from his furry forehead and stared at the note lying on his desk. “Mr. Ferrell, I—”
“Give me that paper,” Mr. Ferrel marched down the rows of desks, “there’s no note-taking in math class.” He swiped the note from the desk and held it up to the fluorescent lights.
After he stared at it for over a minute, he crumpled the paper and shoved it in his mouth. He gulped it down and in a low voice said, “A dark day is upon us. Go to the dean’s office, Danny. Surely you’re responsible for this tragedy.”
Chapter Two
The bell rang, announcing the start of second period.
Danny fidgeted in the chair across from Dean Hellfrost.
The dean clasped her icicle fingers and cracked her knuckles, releasing a cluster of damned souls that floated out of her translucent hands and popped on the stucco ceiling.
“I’m sure half the school heard about Moose during passing period, but I still must break the news officially. You realize what this means, don’t you?” she said.
Danny scratched at the fur beneath his jersey. He itched all over. His tongue felt like a wad of cotton.
Dean Hellfrost rapped her nails on her desk. “It means you’ll have to play in tonight’s conference game against Old Time. This has me in a fret, Danny. We’ve beat the Country Vampires for many consecutive years. Even if Moose Elwood is dead, losing this game would be a huge letdown to him. A real disservice to his memory. So keep him in mind while you’re on the field tonight, will you?
Which brings me to my next concern. As per league rules, all starters must have engaged in at least one legitimate accident at some point in their high school career prior to taking the field. To the best of my knowledge, you’re the only upper classman on the team with zero accidents on your record.” She narrowed her cold eyes at Danny.
“You’re not afraid of getting hurt, are you?”
“N-no mam,” Danny said.
“Good,” she said. “Life demands pain because pain gives us meaning.”
“Y-yes mam.”
“You’ve got until five o’clock to stage a horrific accident, something even Moose wouldn’t have dared. Can a werewolf like you accomplish that?”
Danny’s head bobbed up and down.
“Then get out of my office. We have a conference to win.”
Danny stood and left the dean’s office, his shoulders slumped. His eyes welled with tears.
Danny pulled a tissue from the box on the secretary’s counter and left the school office.
In the gymnasium, the school band was playing Iron Maiden’s Number of the Beast. The noise was quiet in the office, but deathly loud once Danny stepped outside.
The October heat pelted him, but it was nothing compared to last month, when the temperature never fell below 115 degrees. The scorching weather actually relieved Danny now. He could pretend those weren’t tears in his eyes. Just sweat.
He saw no sign of the skelecops in the main hallway.
They’d probably gone off to smoke pot. Dabbing at his eyes with the tissue, Danny pushed through the door of the men’s bathroom. He walked to the far stall and locked himself inside, where he sobbed quietly until a gong sounded. Second period would end in five minutes. He had to collect himself.
His time to stage an accident had pounced upon him like a thunder cat that lashed out more fiercely with every passing minute. He needed to plan something brave and tragic, something splendid and totally metal… something greater than the benchwarmer he would always be.
Chapter Three
He made it to history class on time. The other students refrained from their usual taunts. In fact, they completely ignored him as the metalbot, Mr. 666, took attendance and reminisced about the crucifixion of Alice Cooper, which was October’s central history lesson.
Ten minutes into third period, feedback reverberated from the intercom. Dean Hellfrost’s voice crackled over the wash of static. “Staff and students, I regret to inform you that Moose Elwood, our heroic quarterback, is dead.
He passed away this morning after his monster truck collided with two military carriers hauling napalm. This is a sad day for everyone at Heavy Metal High. Benchwarmer Danny has vowed to be ready for tonight’s game, so if you see him, give him a swift kick in the ass. Nobody will get in the way of our conference title. The Old Time Country Vampires are going down!”
Mr. 666 unleashed a string of profane beeps and whirrs.
Nerbert Neeb, the team kicker who always sat in the seat closest to the podium because he had an android fetish, slammed his forehead against his desk. “There goes our season,” Nerbert groaned.
Hushed banter filled the room until Mr. 666 punched a hole through the dry erase board. “Take this news as a history lesson, class. By the end of the period, I want you to turn in a two page paper on how Alice Cooper would have acted in the face of such adversity.” The metalbot kicked the clipboard to a corner of the room and wheeled to its desk.
Danny hung his head. He pinched his furry thigh to distract himself from all his worry. He feared he would start crying again.
He fished a notebook out of his backpack and opened to the first blank page. Pen in hand, he considered all the ways he could approach this paper. He doodled a caricature of himself in the margin and then scribbled a pack of redneck vampires preparing to suck his blood.
A spitball pelted Danny in the face. The class sniggered as he wiped it off. He lowered his head, choosing to put all his energy into writing so that he could ignore the teasing.
He wrote:
The accident comes in many forms. I have never been crucified, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t experienced my share of mishaps. What Alice Cooper never told us is that some of us who are considered lazy or dumb or cowardly for abstaining from real accidents are actually none of those things. For the ones like us, life is just one big accident. Anyway, Alice Cooper’s real name was Vincent Damon Fournier. Fuck him, and fuck his crucifixion. Ronnie James Dio never died, so why did Alice? His real name was Ronnie James Padavona, but that is such a better name that Vincent Damon Fournier.
Ronnie James is immortal. He knows what it means to be the underdog. In the music video for Holy Diver, he teaches us more about life than Alice Cooper’s crappy crucifixion ever will. In Ronnie, I find strength. I know that someday I will also ride the tiger.
Overexcited and absorbed in his work, Danny raised both hands in classic devil horns and shouted, “Dio, motherfuckers!”
For this, he was promptly dismissed from the classroom. In the small-minded world of Heavy Metal High, everybody hated Dio. The history books brainwashed students. They claimed Dio’s entire career was a scourge to metal history, especially his time as Black Sabbath front man. Danny knew better. Heaven and Hell, Mob Rules, and Dehumanizer were all classic albums. In fact, he hated most non-Dio Sabbath material. He thought Ozzy Osbourne was an ass goblin.
He stood outside the classroom, counting cigarette burns on the black door. Somebody had graffitied a poor rendition of Skeletor. After USA Network stopped airing He-Man and the Masters of the Universe in 1990, Skeletor took a demotion from Evil Lord of Destruction to head honcho of Heavy Metal High’s security staff. He was a wrathful tactician, often tempting students to commit crimes that would have otherwise gone uncommitted.
Dean Hellfrost had already threatened to fire him three times this year for the brutal punishments he frequently dealt to innocent students. Rape and pillage may have been effective in his quest to conquer Eternia, but they provided a less than ideal backdrop for the academic environment.