This is a bonus chapter of The Out Crowd which I originally posted online in October 2020, around half a year after the book was released. It's not in the print or ebook version, but it was fully incorporated into the audio version in 2021.
Twas now Winter at Gates High School. Snowflakes filled the air. Flu season was underway. With the events of the Fall behind them, Gates High Schoolers were now able to move on with their lives. Each boy and girl found a way to live on, and a new normal took root.
Isaiah, like most students, was happy to accept any form of normal: new, old or otherwise. After depositing his backpack securely into his locker, he strolled across the halls, past a few classrooms. Then he climbed over a large pile of rubble and entered the cafeteria.
Karen was waiting for him, her neck wrapped in a scarf and headphones. After greeting her boyfriend, she wiped some dust from the rubble off her jeans. Nowadays, Isaiah and Karen always met up for coffee before the first bell rang. Isaiah was late, as usual. Fortunately for them, the line was always short. Karen got her coffee first. While Isaiah was ordering, Karen promptly went back to playing a game on her phone.
Isaiah took a sip of his latte, cringed and promptly spat it out. "This coffee is disgusting!" It tasted about a week old.
At Isaiah's outburst, Karen looked up from her phone. "Oh yeah," she said. "They're still using soy milk in the cafeteria." Gossip columns in the school newspaper earlier in the year had claimed something was the matter with milk. Of course the gossip was false, but Principal Terrence avoided controversy by decreeing the Gates High School cafeteria would only allow soy milk.
"Why?" said Isaiah. "I thought we were past all of that."
"Maybe," said Karen, her eyes back on the screen of her cell. "But they don't want it to all go to waste, so they're not ordering regular milk again until all the soy runs out. I'm surprised you didn't know, Isaiah. It was in the Restored Gates Sentinel yesterday."
Isaiah groaned. "I don't want to wait for all the soy to run out. We might graduate before then."
Karen shrugged. "Get black next time," she said as she put her phone away.
"I just thought the new normal would be more, well...normal," said Isaiah.
"Nothing can ever truly be the same again," said Karen. "You of all people should know that." It was true. Even the freshmen would be burdened by it until their own graduation.
The pair brought their drinks over to one of the tables in the cafeteria which was still intact. Before sitting down, they both checked to make sure their chairs were stable and unbroken.
"Craig texted me last night asking if I had time to game with him," Isaiah said as he turned around to make sure no one was too close. Luckily, the cafeteria hadn't been crowded in weeks. "I don't think he's really sick."
"You're probably right," agreed Karen. "Whenever I'm sick, I don't even spend much time on my phone, let alone play video games online for hours every evening. I don't think he has it, either."
Flu season came every year, but this time something far worse plagued Gates High. Super Flu. It was unheard of. According to reports, Super Flu was twice as bad as ordinary flu and ten times as contagious. First it came for the Language Studies Club. The club's president and treasurer were each struck with the mysterious illness. The rest of the club decided to take a few days off just to be safe and sure enough, some of them got it. Gossip columns stormed the school with different theories on where it came from and who had it first. Since all the theories were so different, no one really knew what to believe.
The wave of panic was as vicious as the Super Flu itself. Principal Terrence announced that anyone who was worried could stay home until they felt more at ease. Many students immediately took him up on his offer. Some of them, including Craig, were never worried at all, but jumped at the opportunity for a vacation.
"So what are you doing after school?" Karen asked Isaiah.
"I promised Craig I'd run a few errands for him," said Isaiah. "And then leave the stuff on his front porch."
"Oh," said Karen, disappointed. "I was hoping you could come to the Western County Mall with me so we could shop for Winter Formal." Winter Formal was the biggest event at Gates High aside from Prom and Homecoming. "I know it'll suck this year with half the school missing, but I still want to make the best of it."
"I don't even know if we'll still have Winter Formal," said Isaiah. "Even P.E. was canceled, and just before Capture the Flag, too." Capture the Flag was the most popular unit in gym class since it was one sport regular kids could compete with popular kids at.
"Well I sure hope not," said Karen. "Principal Terrence promised us it would and that we could elect the Chair of the Winter Formal Committee ourselves." In past years the basketball players and their cheerleaders had organized it by default. After screwing so much up in the Fall, the principal tried to show his students he was turning over a new leaf and seeking their input for how to proceed with the rest of the year.
That was all before Super Flu. Apart from canceling P.E. until further notice, the principal had restricted practices for all sports teams and required any students showing symptoms to either stay home or transfer to new classes so they wouldn't infect any more of their classmates than they already had. Instead, they infected their new classmates.
Teachers were overwhelmed with some students falling behind due to staying home and others transferring into their class in the middle of the year. The teachers simply couldn't keep up. Mr. Smith and Ms. Eden both complained to the administration, but were ignored. Regardless of what was done, everything seemed to make it worse.
Since P.E. was canceled, many students started to gain weight. A Gates Times gossip column said that those who were more obese were more likely to catch Super Flu, so everyone got even more panicked than they already were. Instead of Sensitivity Assemblies, Principal Terrence now held regular Super Flu Assemblies.
As Isaiah took a sip of his soy latte, he noticed a slender girl with long black hair walk by in a Winter cheerleading outfit. "Looks like Tammy White's off to campaign somewhere."
Karen shook her head. "She's not Tammy White anymore. She identifies as Tammy Bear."
Isaiah gawked. "Since when?"
"Since yesterday," said Karen. She opened up the Gates Times app on her cell phone and held it up for Isaiah to see. Above the front page story was a picture of Tammy White clutching a stuffed animal, showing she had a "warm and fuzzy" side. The headline was "Winter Formal Chair Candidate Reinvents Herself."
"Why does everything need a mascot?" said Isaiah. "First it was toads, then it was humanoid iguanas and now its Tammy White is asking to be called Tammy Bear."
"No," said Karen. "She's not asking us to call her that, Isaiah. She's demanding it."
Isaiah scoffed. "Tammy White, Tammy Bear, whatever. I wish that she would get Super Flu."
"What? Plenty of nicer kids have gotten it already. Besides, what's she going to do? Try to convince Antenor, T-Bone and Farouk to do her bidding? I think they're too busy tearing apart the school."
Antenor, T-Bone and Farouk disappeared for a while after the football season. Gates High School got to enjoy a brief period of peace. Eventually the prevailing gossip was that they were the first victims of Super Flu.
One day, the terrible trio reemerged. It turned out their parents had grounded them for their antics earlier in the year. Antenor, T-Bone and Farouk's teachers then said they had to catch up on all their missed homework. Each of the three disgraced miscreants erupted into tantrums, breaking chairs, ripping pages out of books and smashing anything they could get their hands on.
Other students, already anxious over Super Flu, soon joined in and began vandalizing things themselves. Before long it was not uncommon to find over a dozen kids participating in a Destructive Tantrum at once. The infantile tirade was even more contagious than Super Flu. Wherever any of the three former football players went, the Destructive Tantrums followed. When a weightlifting set was vandalized, the Boys and Girls Wrestling Teams decided to spread out and guard school property all over Gates High to protect it from the Destructive Tantrums.
After fights broke out, the principal asked the Wrestling Team to stop. "Now we have to deal with both fights and Destructive Tantrums," Principal Terrence explained. "Better just to have Destructive Tantrums."
The principal had his own strategy for solving the problem. He asked all the school security guards to stand down. At a PTA meeting he requested donations of old furniture and books so they might get ruined instead of the actual school property. Principal Terrence had explained his plan to the parents in great detail, but still had not found any willing participants.
In addition, the principal had asked students during a Super Flu Assembly to bring their own chairs to school if possible. No one knew whether this was in response to the Super Flu or the Destructive Tantrums. It was a bit unclear.
Chaos reigned at Gates High School even more than it had during the Toxic Conflict. The best that most kids could do was get on with their high school lives as best they could under the circumstances. And find a distraction from a distraction.
As the bell rang, Isaiah got up from his seat. "Maybe we can shop tomorrow after school instead," he suggested to Karen.
"I can't," Karen said, following Isaiah. "My study group for computer science is meeting."
"Ah," said Isaiah. "So have you learned to code?"
"Not yet," said Karen. "But I'm getting better. Perhaps I'll start my own school publication once I master it. Mobile format only."
"Let me know if you do."
Karen pointed behind the register of the cafeteria line. "Look." Antenor, T-Bone and Farouk had broken behind the railing and were seizing as much food as they could get their hands on.
Isaiah laughed. "Maybe they'll steal all the soy milk. That would be the best thing they've ever done." He felt at ease until he saw the front of the cafeteria. "Oh no, what's Tammy White doing now?" She had climbed up onto a table and a horde of students in all four grades swarmed around the area.
"Tammy Bear," Karen corrected. "She's giving a campaign speech."
Tammy White - or Tammy Bear - cleared her throat. "My classmates and friends," she began. "I am honored to be nominated as a candidate for Chair of this year's Winter Formal Committee. Serving you will be my privilege, but today, I'm afraid, that means bringing some bad news. Because of Super Flu, there is now serious talk about canceling the Winter Formal."
"No!" shouted a petite freshman girl in the audience. "They can't do that."
"It hasn't happened yet," Tammy reassured her. "Winter Formal can only go on if Super Flu is no longer an issue, so I need everyone to call out sick until then. We're all in this together."
A chubby junior boy scratched his head. "Ummm...won't we catch it at the Winter Formal?"
"The important thing is that the Winter Formal still happens," Tammy explained. "What happens afterwards doesn't matter. I also want to talk about the so-called Destructive Tantrums. Some of you have participated and many didn't like them at first. I didn't either, but now I understand better. Students are in a panic, and these outbursts are part of a movement. They must be respected."
"Is she nuts?" Karen asked Isaiah in a hushed voice.
Isaiah nodded. "Craig had the right idea," he said. The vacationers were lucky not to be at school for this chilling spectacle.
"It's really insensitive to call them 'Destructive Tantrums,'" said Tammy. "Don't you think? Especially if they might be part of the solution. They might neutralize potential outbreaks. For instance, I heard there was a new one in the weight room the other day."
"There'd better not be a Destructive Tantrum in there," said a boy in a wrestling outfit. "We lost one good piece of equipment already." Murmurs of agreement ensued.
Tammy Bear backtracked. "Did I say the weight room? I meant to say the library. Sorry - slip of the tongue."
"I don't want it to be there," said a sophomore girl. "That's right next to the student lounge."
Tammy scratched her head. "Now that I think of it, it wasn't the library either. It was the computer science classroom. Yes, that's right. Now what's more important? Some room full of computers or getting rid of Super Flu?"
"Getting rid of Super Flu!" several students shouted in unison.
"Well there goes learning to code," said Karen. She exchanged a sorrowful glance with Isaiah. Both of them saw the situation getting from bad to worse.
"Set fire to the computer science classroom," said a sophomore boy in the audience.
Tammy blinked. "What's that? Set fire to it? Actually that might be a step too far. But if you have to bang a few things…"
Another voice in the mob interrupted her. "Set fire to it."
"Well," Tammy gulped. "Fine, but be careful. If you set fire to something it has a tendency to spread unless you-"
"Wait," said another voice. "Can we really eradicate Super Flu just by setting fire to the computer science classroom? What if there's an outbreak somewhere else?"
"Set fire to the other classrooms!"
"Set fire to the halls!" The sound was now deafening.
"Burn down the school," said someone. "That's the only sure way to eradicate the Super Flu!"
Tammy was now panicking. "No, no, no. I definitely don't think burning down the whole school is the answer. I was only trying to say that-"
But she was drowned out. "Burn down the whole school!" the mob erupted.
"Could you at least spare the gymnasium?" Tammy pleaded. "That's where the Winter Formal is going to be held."
"Burn down the Winter Formal!"
"Now you're not making any sense," Tammy told the crowd.
"Burn down everything!"
"Burn down everyone!"
"Burn down ourselves!"
The crowd thrashed the furniture around them. In a moment the table Tammy White had been standing on snapped in half and she fell to the floor, losing what little control she had. As her impromptu stage collapsed, so did the last semblance of order in the cafeteria. Now circumstances were grave.
Isaiah turned to Karen. "This is really bad."
"That's an understatement, Isaiah," Karen told him. "It's not going to get better unless someone does something."
"Right now I think that someone is you and me," said Isaiah. "Any keen ideas?"
"Hmmmm." Karen pondered for a moment. "The fire alarm," she said. "That'll get everyone out of here quickly."
"Right," said Isaiah. The closest fire alarm was a hallway and a half away. "I'll run take care of that."
"And I'll try and stop a fire if they manage to start one," said Karen. They exchanged a nod and darted off to complete their respective missions.
Isaiah pushed and shoved his way out of the crowd and away from Tammy White's failed campaign exploit. Rapid movements were all around him as the mob had begun hitting against each other in the deranged confusion. With difficulty he dodged all the unrecognizable figures whom he had known as his peers mere minutes earlier. As soon as he broke out into the clear, he dashed into the adjacent hallway, ran around two giant piles of rubble that lay in his way. Then he pulled the fire alarm, and the shockwave shattered the scene.
Meanwhile, Karen rushed behind the register where she had and Isaiah paid for their coffee earlier. Luckily, Antenor, T-Bone and Farouk had moved on from stealing food to join the current mayhem. She snatched the hottest cup of coffee she could find and hurled it toward the ceiling. Fortunately it was good enough to activate the school's sprinkler system. The entire cafeteria was doused with indoor rainfall, preventing any substantial flame from forming.
Neither Karen nor Isaiah had ever been more happy to see one of the Gates High School security guards. "Fire!" he shouted. "Everyone out." He began ushering everyone to the exits of the cafeteria.
Isaiah panted and sighed in relief. "Our school is saved," he declared. "For another day at least.
Karen laughed without any trace of humor whatsoever. "So what happens now?"