When PUSH Comes to Shove Back
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I can’t stay here much longer. I’m freezing. I can’t go home and I can’t go back to Joe’s. And I definitely can’t sit in class. I’ve got to find somewhere warm to be alone so I can think, so I can try to figure this out. The only place I can think of, where I could be totally alone, and warm, is in another of my hiding spots above the gymnasium. It is an absolutely secret spot. I discovered it one day after school when I wanted to see a basketball game and I didn’t have the dollar to get in. One of the janitors showed me how to have a private seat to see the game. Like I said, the school is old and the gym is, like, two stories high. Around the top is a metal walkway, like a catwalk or something. It has a bit of a railing and it goes all the way around the top of the gym, way up, two floors up, where absolutely no one bothers to look. From the amount of dirt up there, you can tell that no one ever uses it. It must have been used for lights or something years ago, but it’s nothing but a relic now. You can sit on the metal grating and get a bird’s eye view of the games from up there. The only way to reach this spot is through an old janitor’s storage room on the fourth floor. If there were other ways to get there, they have been sealed off over the years. If I want to go there, I have to get from the side door of the school to the fourth floor and then all the way down a long hall to the storage room door. The door might even be locked, I don’t know. If I get caught in the school while skipping classes, they’ll call my house and there will be hell to pay. Not only that, but I have to figure out what I’m going to do. Soon. I haven’t got time to fool around with phone calls and parents and teachers and rules that make no sense when your sister is fooling around with a drug dealer who has her brother by the balls. But I can’t stay here or all I’ll have is frozen balls anyway. I decide that the best time to try to get in without being noticed and make my run for the hiding place is right after the announcements. There are always a few stragglers who have been to the bathroom or to their lockers or delivering attendance sheets to the office, so I won’t look too conspicuous. The teachers will all be in their classrooms getting ready to start their classes and the principal and vice-principal usually head back to their offices once they feel that there isn’t going to be an uprising or a riot or a mass exodus or whatever it is they imagine happening if they aren’t out cruising the hallways in the morning. I go round to the side door and wait. The wind is colder here than it was up against the building and I am shivering uncontrollably. I just about scrap the idea when I hear the drone of morning announcements end. I wait for a few more minutes. I wait until I think Jordan and Tesiak have retreated to their offices. I wait for the calm of busy classes beginning behind closed classroom doors. Then I make my move. The door squeaks loudly as I try to open it carefully. Forget that. I pull it open, hurry in, and climb the stairs two at a time. By the time I get to the fourth floor, I’m panting. I stop to catch my breath. So far so good. I just have to get down the hall, past how many classroom doors? I peer through the window in the door that separates the stairwell from the hallway and count. Seven doors. Crap. With everyone now in class, the hall is quiet and deserted, none of the anticipated stragglers here. Damn. Although running up the stairs seemed to work, I can’t run down the hall. Someone would investigate feet pounding past a classroom door when everyone who might possibly be inclined to run should be sitting in class. I enter the hall and hold the door so it doesn’t slam shut. Slowly, I begin my quiet walk toward the door at the end of this very wide, very long hallway. Past one classroom door. Past two, three. I stay to the left side of the hallway because there are only two classroom doors on that side. I stay near the wall because it feels safer, even if I know that doesn’t make sense. I can hear the voices of teachers issuing instructions and the rustle of books and papers, as students settle down to work. Step by quiet step, I focus on the last door on the right. I reach door number five, my homeroom, and one of the two doors on the left. I speed up slightly to get past it fast when, suddenly, ...
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About the Book
Jeremy enjoys making Matt's life hell. Matt's an easy target and he knows it. Matt does everything he can to avoid Jeremy at school, but it is impossible. So when Jeremy becomes the target of the school's biggest drug dealer, Matt is the last person he would turn to for help. But when strange circumstances pull them together, they have no choice but to try to put their differences aside and work together to keep others from getting hurt, or worse... Through the voices of Matt and Jeremy, and that of a narrator, the author weaves threads of threats, turmoil, and deceit, trust and betrayal, violence and fear, victimization and empowerment that not only pervade school systems, but also societies... A NOTE TO READERS As a writer, I focus on the telling of a story – an action-packed adventure that will grab you. I want you to experience fast paced, unexpected events, and gripping suspense. I want the details and situations to be larger than life but I want them to ring true in the realities of your life. In short, I want “When PUSH Comes to Shove Back” to be a riveting read to the very last page. A NOTE TO PARENTS AND TEACHERS As a parent, I hope that teenagers, parents, teachers, and others who care about young people will think about the ideas and events in the story. I hope that all will see glimpses of themselves in the characters. I hope that, perhaps, a few will gain insights into being a teen, or being an adult in the life of a teen. I hope that some of those insights will give them pause. As a teacher, I urge other teachers and adults to use the story as a catalyst for communication and debate about the issues that face young people – issues that must not be ignored by distracted parents, dismissed by busy teachers, or hidden in embarrassment and shame by youth – because these issues lead to tragic consequences, often to disturbing headlines, and more often, to the quiet crumbling of a defeated spirit. TO CONTACT AUTHOR DIRECTLY re speaking engagements, workshops, or workbooks to accompany the novel, send email inquiries to alzwellthatenzwell@gmail.com
About the Author
This author has one of the top 10% most-viewed profiles @LinkedIn for 2012. http://www.linkedin.com Janet Irvine's career in education - as a teacher, a special education department head, a vice principal, and an advocate for teenagers - has won her the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation Provincial Award for “Distinguished Service to Education and Community.” She has a Master of Education degree, a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and psychology, specialist qualifications in reading and special education, principal’s qualifications, and postgraduate accreditations in both psychology and English. Janet has always been involved in school and community life, often working with teenagers and youth through music and drama. She has been a coach and an adviser to everything from volleyball to yearbook production to student travel. Janet has worked as both a member and chair of various crisis response teams, safe schools committees, special needs committees, gifted education groups, and school and regional ‘at risk’ task forces; she has also acted as liaison between local police departments and students. Currently, she is an Educational Consultant for a regional Children's Aid Society, serves on the Police Services Board in her area, and is Vice Chair of the Board for a thriving Community Counselling Centre. Through her own business, Alz Well That Enz Well, Inc., she conducts training workshops and speaks publicly on a number of topics concerning education, bullying, parenting, and care giving, In her spare time, she is an editor for an international editing firm. Her career, her extensive involvement in extracurricular activities, her community service, and her own family of four have provided her with insight into the many ramifications of bullying in schools and into the forces that create school terrorists and targets. As an editor and author, she writes about high school culture, bullies, and victims with accuracy and sensitivity. Always an admirer of “a good read,” Janet focuses her writing on the art of storytelling, the realism of the tumultuous teenage years, and the allure of mystery, suspense, and intrigue.