Read Online Chill by Colin Frizzell - Free Book Online Page A

move himself along the ground like a lame toad.
    â€œWho’s Hoppy now?” I yelled.
    This got a laugh from everyone—except Chill.
    When I turned to congratulate him on his victory, he’d already disappeared around the corner.
    I found Chill tucked out of sight with his sketchpad in the far doorway of the school.
    â€œThat was cool!” I excitedly told Chill.
    â€œNo,” he told me, coldly and firmly, looking up at me from his drawings. “It wasn’t.” He lowered his head, returning to his sketching. We never spoke of it again.
    Well,
he
never spoke of it again. I told anyone who’d listen. I know violence is wrong, but that kid had it coming. Well, maybe not the six weeks on crutches and the endless teasing until he finally got a transfer—but still.
    Chill got two weeks’ suspension and was on probation when he got back, but that wasn’t much of a problem. Chill never caused trouble, not real trouble, anyway.
    The story—with as much help as I could give it—went through the school and the county, and by the time we got to high school it was told with the kid getting two broken legs—both broken in three places. Nobody bugged Chill about his leg again. That is, until the new teacher came. WhatChill did to that teacher would be a story to shadow the other one into obscurity.
    It was the second year and the second semester of our four-year high school sentence, and we lucked out and got art for homeroom. I wasn’t much of an artist, but it was an easy way to start your day if you didn’t take it seriously and worry about things like color and contrast, light and shadow, lines and perspective—and I didn’t. Chill did, though, so to get through I’d just mimic him as well as I could.
    It’s all right because in art it’s not called cheating, it’s called being heavily influenced by another artist. According to Chill, all the greats did it. It’s like in film when everyone copied Tarantino after he copied the Hong Kong and Japanese directors. None of them were cheating or stealing. They were being “influenced by” filmmakers that they admired and respected. And I admired and respected Chill. (I also admired andrespected Susie Jenkins’ math skills, but we’ll keep that between us.)
    The teacher, Ms. Surette, couldn’t tell that I was copying anyway. My projects looked nothing like Chill’s no matter how heavily he influenced me.
    Ms. Surette was the other reason that art was a great way to start your day.
    There are three types of teachers. First, there are the teachers who just want to do as little as they can and go home. These are the ones who give you an assignment at the beginning of class that will take you the whole class to complete. They sit and mark work from their other classes so that they will have their nights and weekends free. They’re easy teachers to have. As long as you’re quiet, you can do just about anything you want with that hour—after you get the assignment done, of course. We’ll call them type A.
    Then there’s type B. They’re the ones who
end up
teaching, who think themselves better than it and are bitter at everyone for having to do this job that’s so obviously beneath them. These teachers pick theirfavorites, who are always the students who are most easily controlled, and grind the rest down, crushing every dream you’ve ever had before the “real world” does it.
    Type Bs are the ones who sparked the stereotype “Those who can’t do, teach.” They’re not the majority, but they do the most damage, sticking with you as a little voice that cuts you down every time you dare think yourself worthy.
    Finally, type C. Ms. Surette. A teacher who loves teaching.
    A teacher who talks to you, not at you. A teacher who tells you that you can do whatever you want to if you put your mind to it. A teacher who understands that the