Scratch

This is chapter 2 of Space Academy so far:

There was a knock at the door. William carefully placed the soldering iron he was using back in its holder and walked over to the door. There was a screen on the door, showing who was outside. It was Jacob, with his robot dog sitting down next to him. William pressed a button next to the door, unlocking it.

“Hello Jacob,” William said as he opened the door.
“Hi,” Jacob replied, smiling.
“What are you doing here?” asked William, slightly confused.
“I was just on my way back from playing football, and thought I might pop in here for a moment, if that’s ok.”
“Sure. I’ve almost finished building my laser, actually. Do you want to see?”
“Yeah, I’d love to. Wait, so, it’s a real laser, is it?”

William nodded.

“A real, deadly, laser?”
“Well, it’s only deadly if I shoot it at something living,” William joked.

Jacob followed William into his room, and saw what he presumed was the laser he was building.

“It looks good,” Jacob said.
“Thanks.”

The laser was on small, metal table, with a soldering iron next to it. William sat down on a chair next to the table, and picked up the soldering iron again.

“So how does it work?” Jacob asked.
“I’ll explain after I’ve finished it,” replied William. “Would you mind helping me test it afterwards?”
“Ok. So anyway, I wanted to ask you something.”
“Go on.”
“Have you received your results yet? For graduation, I mean.”
“No, I haven’t yet.” William answered. “Have you?”
“Yes, I have,” Jacob said, with a smile.
“Let me guess. You passed?”

Jacob’s smile turned into a grin as he nodded in reply to William’s question.

“Awesome,” William said, grinning along with Jacob.
“So when do you get yours?” Jacob asked.
“This Monday.”

By this time, William had finished soldering his laser together. He picked it up, and showed it to Jacob.

“What do you think?” William asked.
“Very nice,” replied Jacob, rather impressed.
“Let’s test it now, shall we?”


The next day, Monday, William was back at school. Or, The Littlehampton Space Academy, as it was officially called. The Academy held exactly 2000 students, creating a bit of a problem for the lockers. The corridors in which the lockers were held were so vast they seemed almost like a maze.

William was hurriedly piling his books back in his locker, as it was lunch time and he was already late. The corridors were deserted, or so William thought. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something moving. He turned to see what it was, and just managed to spot someone as they darted into another corridor.

Curious, William closed his locker and, as quietly as he could, tiptoed over to the corner where he saw the person and peered round. He saw Adam, standing in front of Peter’s locker. Since Adam wasn’t looking in William’s direction, he continued watching, eager to see what Adam was doing.

From his pocket, Adam got out what looked like a latex glove. William instantly recognised what it was, and quietly got out his iPhone X4. He set it to camera mode, and began filming Adam. Adam carefully put the glove on, and placed his gloved index finger on the fingerprint scanner next to Peter’s locker. The locker opened, and Adam once again reached inside his pocket and took out a small canister.

Just as Adam was about to put the canister inside the locker, William moved all the way round the corner, and slowly began walking towards Adam, still filming. Out of the corner of his eye, Adam saw William, startling him. He dropped the canister on the floor, very quickly taking the glove off and stuffing it in his pocket.

“Oh, don’t stop there, Adam,” said William, teasingly. “I’m sure the headmaster would love to see what you were going to do next.”
“Oi, what are you doing?!” Adam yelled.
“I was about to ask the same question, actually,” William replied, still recording.

Adam ran towards him to try and get the iPhone, but William quickly stopped recording, shoved it back in his pocket. Adam swung his arm at him, but William grabbed it, spun him round, and tripped him up. After picking up the canister from the floor, William sprinted over to the hall where his class has launch.

When he got there, he spotted a free chair at the table where Peter and Jacob were sitting. He walked over to there, and sat down.

“Hello Peter,” William said, smiling. “Guess what I just saw.”
“What?” Peter asked.
“Adam breaking into your locker, trying to put this inside,” William replied, placing the canister on the table.
“What?!” Peter gasped.
“Don’t worry, I stopped him. I even filmed him doing it.”

William took his phone out of his pocket, and after getting the video up on the screen, he passed it to Peter. Peter pressed the play button and watched, with Jacob leaning over to watch as well. They watched the video intently, and then Peter handed it back to William after it finished.

“So what does the can do?” Peter thought out loud.
“It realises smoke, lots of it,” Jacob replied.
“How do you know?” asked William.
“Because I’ve got lots of these at home.”
“Have you now?” William said, with raised eyebrows.

Jacob nodded, grinning slightly mischievously.

“Anyway, I’m going to send this to the headmaster now,” said William, opening the email app on his phone.

He attached the video file to the email, as well as a brief explanation of what it was about, and that William had the canister in his possession. After sending the email, William finally began eating his food.

“So have you got your exam results yet?” Jacob asked, changing the subject.
“Not yet,” William replied. “I’ll get them this afternoon, when school finishes.”
“How well do you think you did?”
“Err… well the maths was quite easy, and so was the English, but I didn’t quite finish that in time…”
“No no no no,” Jacob interrupted. “I mean the important exam. The SCW exam.”
“Oh, that. Well, I think I did rather brilliantly, if I do say so myself,” said William, smiling. “I’m sure I’ve passed.”

A few minutes later, Adam was sitting at a desk in a room all by himself, with his lunch in front of him. He was in detention, thinking long and hard about how to get revenge on William. He considered just beating him up, but even if he was able to do that, it wouldn’t be as long lasting as he would have liked.

After some more thinking about it, he remembered that the exam results were being revealed today. Since Adam had been learning computer hacking for 3 years now, he reckoned that he could probably hack the school computer system, and change around the results of the exam.

If he did that, then as well as being able to make William fail the exam, he could also give himself a better score. The more he thought about it, the more he liked his idea. But unfortunately, the exam results were going to be revealed in a 2 hours, and Adam was going to be in detention for another hour, so that only left him with a short amount of time to do it.

An hour later, the lock on the door of the room Adam was in unlocked, activating a small green light next to it. He had eaten his lunch, and was waiting eagerly to get out of detention. As soon as he noticed the green light, and quickly got up and hurried towards the door.

When a student is taken to detention, they have to put all their electronic devices in a box inside the room, next to the door. That is then locked along with the door, and is also unlocked when the door unlocks. So as Adam walked over to the door, he lifted up the lid of the box, pulled out his iPhone ZS, and walked out the door.

Almost an hour later, the students in William’s class were all on their way to their lockers, eager to find at what score they got for their exams. Since he had already received his results, Jacob was walking alongside William to find out what he had got. They arrived at William’s locker, with Adam quietly watching from the other end of the corridor.

William placed his finger on the fingerprint scanner next to his locker, unlocking it. He had so many thoughts running through his head at once, the world seemed to slow down as he opened his locker. Inside, there was a small envelope. He took it, and carefully tore it open. Pulling out the contents, William scanned the page for his grade and score.

Within a second, he found it. William could hardly believe his eyes. It was a D! After a few seconds of making sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him, he looked for the score. He’d only got 45 points! William couldn’t believe it. He was 100 percent sure that he would pass.

Jacob was concerned. He hadn’t seen the score and grade yet, but judging by William’s expression, they weren’t good.

“What is it?” asked Jacob.
“I… I didn’t pass,” replied William, confused.
“What?!” Jacob exclaimed, shocked. “How could you not have passed?!”
“I don’t know,” William shrugged, still unbelievably puzzled about his failure. “It says I got a D, and only 45 points. But Mr Bradley said that I was excellent, and that I would definitely pass.”
“Maybe you should talk to him about it,” suggested Jacob.
“I will,” replied William, folding the piece of paper is his hands and placing it in his pocket.

Moments later, William was walking through the corridors as quickly as he could without give the impression of running. He was on his way to Mr Bradley’s office, to talk to him about his SCW exam result. A few corridors away from his office, William was stopped by Peter, who had spotted him as he was walking past.

“Hey, William,” Peter called, smiling. “Just the person I wanted to see.”
“And why’s that,” asked William.
“Well,” replied Peter, “I’m having a graduation party at my house on Saturday this week. Everyone who’s graduated is invited. At least, everyone in this section.”
“Sounds good,” remarked William, trying to hide the fact that he hadn’t actually passed. “What time should I be there?”
“It starts at 7, so you can come any time after then.”
“I’ll be sure to be there.”

William continued on his way to Mr Bradley’s office, and Peter continued on his way out of the school. William jogged down the last corridor, urgent to talk to his teacher before school closed. Just as he was about to knock on the door, it opened, and out walked Mr Bradley.

“Oh, hello William,” said Mr Bradley, surprised to see William standing just outside his door.
“Hi Mr Bradley,” William replied. “I just wanted to talk to you about my SCW exam result.”
“Ah yes, how did you do with that?”
“Well, this says that I only got a D, and 45 points.”
“Huh, that’s strange. I was sure that you would pass.”
“So was I. I thought I was doing fantastically during the exam.”
“I’m afraid I can’t really talk right now. I have to be home by 5. But I’ll be sure to look into it,” Mr Bradley assured William as he continued walking.
“Thanks,” replied William, waving goodbye.

He stood in the hallway for a few seconds, thinking about how he possibly could have failed, before heading off towards the nearest exit.

Last edited by calebxy (2011-11-01 18:18:35)