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Paul knew it was going to be a bad day the second Mrs. Wyndham pointed them in the direction of the dirty yellow bus pulled up outside the school. Other students cheered, of course, glad to miss out on their fourth and fifth periods. This too was an ill omen. Paul flinched as the hooting and hollering erupted around him and quietly began tucking his things into his bag.
Mrs. Wyndham began to shout over the chaos, giving a spiel about how the students of Hatchetfield High had been putting a lot of work into the production of their musical, and that the Sycamore students should be on their absolute best behaviour for the rest of the afternoon. Paul was sure none of his classmates heard a word of what she said. And if they had, he was sure they didn’t care.
Paul gave a small sigh. Sycamore was a terrible school, and everyone knew it. But the one thing it had going for it, at least in Paul’s eyes, was that it was walking distance from his house. That had been one of the main reasons Paul’s parents had argued for it against Hatchetfield High. The idea that Paul could walk to school. His parents had mostly been thinking about it in terms of convenience, but Paul had backed the idea on the grounds that walking meant he never had to take the bus.
Paul hated taking the bus.
Paul’s fellow students swarmed as they marched out of the building. In spite of how badly Paul wanted to hang back and avoid the inevitable pushing and shoving that would result from the other students trying to get the best seats on the bus, he knew he would have to at least make an effort, or he’d be forced to awkwardly ask a stranger if they were okay with him sitting next to them, and then he’d be forced into the aisle seat, unable to lean away from his seat partner without leaning into the aisle, and unable to lean away from the aisle without leaning into his seat partner. So Paul glanced up one last time at the yellow deathtrap looming outside, and pushed forwards.
Fortunately, the rowdiest kids beelined for the seats at the back of the bus, knowing that they’d be furthest from the teachers and therefore safest from reproach. It made the seats at the front of the bus both the quietest (ideal) and the last to fill up. Unfortunately, Paul’s class was one of the last to board the bus, and as soon as Paul passed through the door he could clearly see that no seats were left empty. Dread curled in Paul’s stomach.
He made an attempt to slide into the seat next to one of his teachers, hoping they’d let him. He miscalculated, however, as in his panic, the teacher he chose to sit next to was Mr. Albrecht.
Mr. Albrecht was, at least according to Paul’s peers, a “cool teacher”. He was well known for being remarkably lenient, his class being an all but free credit, and he made a habit of befriending the “problem kids” and often becoming their most avid supporter. Unlike his other teachers, Mr. Albrecht didn’t ignore Paul. In fact, Mr. Albrecht did his damnedest to get Paul to talk to and befriend other students, going as far as to ask some of his friendlier classmates to seek out Paul and talk to him.
Mr. Albrecht was Paul’s least favourite teacher.
Mr. Albrecht took one look at Paul sliding into the seat next to him and shook his head. “Nuh uh, buster. I know there are still some seats open. Why don’t you go find one of your classmates to sit next to?”
Paul tried not to glare at Mr. Albrecht. “Okay.”
“Hey! Here’s an idea! Why not sit next to Shawn over there?” Mr. Albrecht pointed to a student a few seats back wearing a dark jacket and twisted around in his seat, chatting with two of his buddies in the seat behind him. Shawn turned his head when he heard his name, eventually locking eyes on Paul. The boy gave a casual wave.
“Okay,” Paul said.
He shuffled forward awkwardly. Shawn scooted over as Paul gingerly sat down. The boy was watching him with an expression that Paul couldn’t read but thought was probably friendly? Paul looked back at him, unsure if he was supposed to say something.
Paul was 90% sure he’d never met Shawn. But names were hard for Paul, and faces harder, so it wasn’t as much of a shock as it could have been when Shawn loudly exclaimed, “Hey, Paul!” and clapped him on the shoulder.
Paul did his best not to recoil in disgust. “Hi.”
Shawn gave him a big, probably fake (Paul could never tell), smile before turning again to his friends in the other seat. The bus began to completely fill as the last students shuffled on. Paul kept as much of himself out of the aisle as possible without encroaching on Shawn’s space. It worked for the most part, though at one point another student’s backpack clipped him in the shoulder and Paul couldn’t quite hide his sharp intake of breath. Thankfully, no one around him seemed to notice.
The seat across from Paul filled, apparently with another of Shawn’s friends, because Shawn physically leaned over Paul to greet the guy. Paul quickly plastered himself as flat as he could to the back of the leather seat and tried not to breathe. After a few seconds of shouting over Paul’s lap, Shawn turned to Paul again.
“Hey, Paul, do me a favour and swap with me?” Shawn said, gesturing to the window behind him.
A little of the pressure building behind Paul’s eyes lessened. “Okay.”
He scooted eagerly over to the side while Shawn crawled over him. In his scramble, Shawn’s hand momentarily landed on Paul’s knee.
It’s rude to wipe yourself off where someone’s touched you, Paul reminded himself with a grimace. He waited until Shawn was definitely looking the other way before rubbing the feeling out of his leg.
The bus jolted suddenly into motion and the ruckus of conversation around Paul rose to a cacophony. Paul leaned into the window as much as he could whilst Shawn talked loudly with the people around them.
Paul knew it was pretty rude to just randomly plug your ears in public, but it was so loud and nobody was paying attention to him anyway, right? He gave a quick glance around, relieved to see no one giving him a second glance. No one except— Oh. Dammit.
Mr. Albrecht was looking directly at him with a small frown on his face.
Fuck.
Paul sunk further into his seat.
I fucking hate Mr. Albrecht.
Paul pulled his backpack up into lap and curled around it like a pillow as he leaned his head against the window, hoping that pretending he was napping would be enough to be left alone. Plus, Mr. Albrecht probably wouldn’t get on his ass about not making friends if he claimed he hadn’t gotten enough sleep the night before. Probably.
It was in this position that Paul rode out the rest of the bus ride. He did his best to block out the sounds around him. He couldn’t. He never could. And the more he tried to ignore it, the louder and louder it seemed to get.
Something red and angry bubbled just under the surface of Paul’s skin. He’d been right. This was about to be a terrible day.
Paul opened his eyes as the bus slowed, pulling up to the curb in front of Hatchetfield High’s big front gates. The other students pressed their faces to the glass as they stared at the other school in a mixture of envy and longing. Any of them would have killed to go to Hatchetfield High instead of Sycamore.
Mrs. Wyndham stood as the bus came to a stop. She addressed the clamoring students, trying in vain to impart instructions as to where they were supposed to go. The students, naturally, ignored her, and began forcing their way into the aisle so they could shuffle off the bus. Paul waited patiently in his seat for almost everyone to be off the bus before he even bothered standing up. As such, he was one of the last students off, and he exited into a milling crowd of students trying to figure out what to do next. He did his best to stay at the back of the crowd, and in so doing bumped once more into Mr. Albrecht.
Fuck.
“Hey again, Paul,” Mr. Albrecht said. “Here, we’re headed this way.”
And just like that, Paul was being forcibly escorted to the theatre.
Eventually, the confuddled crowd gained some sense of order and began slowly trickling through the front gates. Paul begrudgingly followed Mr. Albrecht’s stride as they made their way forward.
“So, Paul. Excited to see the show?”
Paul shrugged. He’d never actually seen a musical before, but he’d seen movies in the theatre. And theatres were bad.
“Oh, chin up, pal! I’m sure you’ll have fun if you let yourself.”
Mr. Albrecht patted Paul on the back. Paul stared resolutely at the ground, keeping his upper body still and his face and voice carefully neutral. “Okay.”
“Atta boy!”
Mr. Albrecht finally let him be as they passed through the halls of Hatchetfield High to the auditorium. Paul fell into a line with his fellow students. As he headed through the doors, a girl sitting at a table handed him a folded paper playbill. Paul glanced at the title boldly displayed on the front.
Brigadoon.
Paul had no fucking clue what that meant.
He shoved the playbill in his pocket as the person behind him tried to shuffle forwards. Glancing around, the auditorium was already packed with Hatchetfield High students, which left slim pickings for seats. Paul eventually found himself squeezed uncomfortably in between two students he (probably) didn’t know and once again found himself shrinking down as much as he possibly could, trying to avoid brushing either of their arms.
The volume around him only rose as the students of Hatchetfield High began loudly shit-talking the Sycamore students. Paul shrunk further in on himself, hoping to avoid notice. The student sitting to his left, a boy probably a year or two older than him, turned around his seat to join in, cursing out a handful of Sycamore students who were still trying to find seats. Then the guy turned to Paul, nudging his arm.
“Fucking Timberwolves, am I right? Fucking hate those guys.”
Paul tried not to visibly panic as he processed what was being said to him.
Does he… does he think I’m not one of them?
“Uh… at least they’re not Chemists?” Paul tried hesitantly.
The other kid laughed. “Damn right! Fuck Clivesdale!”
“Fuck ‘em.”
The kid shouted again, “Fuck Clivesdale!”
Shouts rang out in response, the auditorium becoming a chorus of students and teachers alike cursing in disdain and detestation.
Paul leaned back against his seat. In his pocket, his hand found the now crumpled playbill. The paper tore in his grip.
Eventually, a woman— one of the Hatchetfield High teachers— made her way onto the stage and began trying to calm the chanting crowd. After a few minutes, silence fell, and Paul could finally breathe. It was a short lived peace.
The teacher gave a brief introduction to the show, congratulating her hard working students for putting it on and demanding the crowd’s respectful attention before making her way off stage. The lights dimmed.
The show began with music. Soft, choral music that sounded a bit like church music if Paul was honest. This was okay.
What came next wasn’t okay. People dressed in elaborate period costumes dancing and singing and shouting about some square and selling things in it. Paul had a hard time understanding people at the best of times, and with all of them talking and singing at the same time… noise over noise. Add terrible fake Scottish accents into the mix, and it was no wonder Paul had no fucking clue what any of them were saying.
But the worst part was by far the singing and dancing. Even without any sense of the words it just… it made Paul mad. Normally he’d be upset that he couldn’t follow the story, but the story didn’t even matter to him now, couldn’t matter, because why the fuck are they singing?
A girl danced a jig as she sang a song about waiting until she fell in love to get married and Paul wanted to march up onto the stage and throw her off of it.
That… was a violent thought. Why… oh.
Shit.
Paul hated a lot of things. The bus, Mr. Albrecht, theatres, Clivesdale. But none of that compared to the hatred he felt for this.
This thing that grew under his skin, red and angry and boiling. Growing and pushing, too big for Paul’s body and desperate for escape. Begging to scream or punch or kick or anything to just get it out, get it out, get it out.
Paul itched. The boy next to him was nudging his arm and Mr. Albrecht was patting his back and Shawn had a hand on his shoulder and his knee. The thing wanted to scratch, to dig his nails under his skin and peel until the feeling went away. Get it off, get it out. Whatever it took to get them to stop touching him.
Paul shook his head, trying to even out his breathing. The girl on stage gave a particularly high trill and it screeched like a nail into Paul’s ear.
The thing in Paul needed to burst out, needed something, anything.
Paul’s hands curled into fists as a force of habit as he began pounding them together, one on top of the other.
This was the one that had stuck. It was quiet and relatively non disruptive, so Paul had latched onto it, something that made the thing calmer without making people around him upset.
But it only really worked when the thing was small and bubbling. This was a raging boil, and it needed more.
He pounded his fists together faster, harder. Whatever he needed to stop the thing from forcing itself out of his skin. Get it out, get it out, get it out.
The kid sitting next to him elbowed him in the side. “Knock it off, I’m trying to watch the show.”
Paul flinched. He forced his hands under his legs to stop them moving. The thing in him screamed in protest. Paul felt ready to throw up.
He was captive in his seat. Time slowed to a crawl as every sound pierced his skull and every bumping, jostling movement left him another burning itch. Unwillingly, he absorbed every detail of the performance happening in front of him.
He watched as two high school seniors pretended to be strangers falling in love within a few hours of having met each other, and then as another girl performed a long winded number about her failed love life. All the while, Paul could only think, why are they dancing? Why are they singing?
Paul’s hand slipped out from under his leg and found the torn playbill in his pocket. Paper. Paper is good. Paper is quiet.
The thing wanted him to tear it to shreds with as much force as he could muster. Paul compromised by slowly ripping it into small strips instead. The thing began to settle. Still raging, still boiling, but something Paul could withstand, at least for a little longer.
The playbill came apart in his hands as a boy begged his “fiancé” to come out and kiss him before their wedding. The girl refused and the scene went fucking nowhere. So what was the point of that goddamn song? What’s the fucking point of any of this?
And then the two new lovers song another fucking song about being in love, again. And then finally the story did something by letting the American boys learn about Brigadoon’s “blessing” and implied that the one guy was definitely going to abandon his life to live there forever with the girl he’d literally just met. What the fuck is this show?
The playbill in Paul’s pocket had become little more than shredded strips of paper. Paul took one of those strips, and began tearing it into small square pieces. Sweat dripped down his face.
It was time for a wedding. The bride and groom, played by an awkward gangly boy and… okay, the girl playing the bride-to-be was actually really pretty. The cheap costume wedding dress wasn’t doing her any favours, but she was a good enough actor that Paul could almost buy that she was genuinely smitten with the boy playing her new husband. And her fake Scottish accent wasn’t as bad as everyone else’s. By all accounts, she was killing it and— Paul ran out of strips of paper.
Paul scrambled through the fresh confetti in his pocket for something large enough to tear apart as his heart rate spiked. He began trying to rip apart the squares, but it wasn’t enough. The thing boiled up, pressure building to a fever pitch under his skin, and Paul’s vision began to unfocus.
The pretty girl screamed as a jealous suitor kissed her against her will. The jealous boy, who looked as angry as Paul felt, declared his intention to leave, dooming Brigadoon to darkness in the process.
And then the lights, finally, came up.
Paul barely restrained himself from running out of the theatre then and there. Instead, he shuffled and pushed, forcing his way out of the theatre alongside the rest of the audience. The itch burned across his skin in each place he was touched, but it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered except getting the fuck out of there.
Paul gasped in relief as he finally emerged into the light of the hallway, head spinning. A teacher took the lead, directing students to the bathrooms, and Paul feigned going along with it until he saw an opening and took off, disappearing as quickly and quietly as he could down a deserted hallway.
Paul, dizzy and short of breath, stumbled to a quiet corner out of sight of any teacher or other student, and the thing raged inside him to let it out.
Paul found the wall, feeling it out with the tips of his fingers before slamming his fist into the brick. Then again. And again. Again, until the pressure eased, the thing released, and Paul finally felt like he fit inside his own body once more.
Paul let himself catch his breath as he wiped sweat and tears he hadn’t realized he’d been crying from his face. He still itched. The thing still simmered, ready to rise to a boil again at a moment’s notice. But for now, it was calm.
Paul’s hand ached sharply, and he glanced down only to realize he had split his knuckles. He wiped off the welled up blood on the inside of his pocket and was abruptly reminded of the pile of torn up paper he had in there.
He glanced around for a trash can but found none, so he stumbled along the hallway in the direction he thought he’d come from. Eventually he came upon the school’s front gates, luckily with a trash can nearby. He emptied his pockets into the receptacle and glanced around.
The area was empty. No teachers and no students. Down one hallway he could hear the chatter of a crowd slowly making their way back into the theatre. Paul glanced at the door.
Nobody would notice if he didn’t come back for act two. He could just… hide outside, wait for the show to end. It would be trivially easy then to sneak back into the crowd as they climbed back onto the bus. He could do it.
He didn’t have to go back in there.
“Mr. Matthews!”
The shrill voice of Mrs. Wyndham cut through his fantasy just as he took a step towards the gate. He halted in his stride. Fuck.
“Hey, Paul!” And that was Mr. Albrecht.
Fuck!
Paul turned, shoving his bloody hand in his pocket.
“I was just wondering where you went, buddy,” Mr. Albrecht said. “What’re you doing all the way out here?”
“I uh… I was just looking for the bathroom,” Paul said. It sounded like bullshit even to his own ears, but then, Paul had been told he sounded like he was lying even when he was telling the truth, so maybe it wouldn’t matter.
“Uh huh,” Mr. Albrecht said. “Well, bathroom’s this way, pal. But you’ll have to be quick. There’s only two minutes left of intermission.”
“The Hatchetfield High students have worked very hard to put on this production,” Mrs. Wyndham said. “We wouldn’t want to miss any of it, would we?”
“No, ma’am,” Paul muttered.
Mr. Albrecht gestured for Paul to follow, and Paul, though every part of him protested, did so.
Paul didn’t bother pretending to go to the bathroom. Under the watchful gaze of Mr. Albrecht he marched back to the theatre. Back to his own personal Hell.
The table outside the theatre door was no longer manned by the teenage girl from before, but there were still some playbills strewn across it, so Paul reached out and snagged two of them before re-entering the auditorium.
He found a new seat, squeezing between two new students, and resolutely began tearing the first playbill into strips.
The lights went down. The audience quieted. Paul closed his eyes and steeled himself. He was going to make it through the rest of the show. He had no choice but to. So he was going to make it. Even if it meant leaving with torn up paper spilling out of his pockets and one of the worst headaches he’d ever had.
And at the end of it, at the very least, Paul could add one more item to the list of things he hated.
Above buses, above theatres, and just barely eking out Mr. Albrecht though not quite beating Clivesdale, Paul could say with absolute certainty going forward— he did not like musicals.