24A/N: Am I the only one that thought of this? I hope not. I mean, doesn't anybody else feel sorry for Pony's English teacher? I think his name was Mr. Syme, but I'm not sure. Anyway, didn't anybody else realize that SOMEBODY had to grade Pony's English essay? Something that's over 100 pages long? I think that's a bit more than 5 pages. Anyway, here's the little one-shot:
Ponyboy Curtis walked up to Mr. Syme, his English teacher, and asked if he could turn in his report after school. "It's a bit long," was his explanation.
Mr. Syme blinked in surprise, but was otherwise glad that Pony had come up with something. Hopefully it wasn't about a trip to the zoo. "Of course you can," he replied. "Just make sure it gets to me before the end of the day."
Pony nodded and went to his seat. The bell rang shortly after, signaling the start of class.
If he has to turn it in to me later because it's too long, Mr. Syme thought, then it should be 15 pages, at most.
OoOoO
Mr. Syme was certainly surprised when Pony handed him the finished English assignment.
"P-Ponyboy… what's this?" he asked nervously.
Pony shifted his feet a bit and replied, "It's my English assignment, Mr. Syme. Is it, um, too long? 'cause I can make it shorter, if you-."
"No, no, it's fine," Mr. Syme replied quickly. "You don't have to rewrite it. Could you just have… uh… made it a bit more… convenient? It'll take me days to get through this. And what are with these numbers and all the paper clips?"
"Well…" Pony started hesitantly," I couldn't fit all the pieces of paper in one paper clip, so I got a bunch. And the numbers are what you read first, 'cause so many bundles of paper can get confusing and you might not know which order to read it in. You get clump number one, read all those in order, then when you run out of paper to read, get clump number two, read those, get number three, read those, and so on."
Mr. Syme rubbed his head and thought, It's going to take me a week to read this all. Probably longer, with work and papers to grade.
"Okay, Ponyboy, you can go," Mr. Syme said, muffling a sigh.
Ponyboy nodded and left, leaving a very baffled and depressed English teacher behind.
Well, Mr. Syme thought, better start reading it now and get it done earlier.
OoOoO
The next day…
Pony walked into English, finding a certain Mr. Syme snoring in his desk chair. He slowly walked over, slightly unsure of what to do, and poked the teacher, saying, "Mr. Syme? Are you awake?" The answer was obvious, but at least it might get him up.
Mr. Syme made a weird snorting noise that signaled him leaving dreamland, and he sat up and stretched his arms high over his head, yawning loudly.
"What brings you here at this time, Ponyboy?" he asked, a yawn muffling his words. "Last time I checked, it was 8:30 pm. Now it should be 'bout..." He checked his wrist watch, and yelped, "Holy smokes! It's 9:30 am! I stayed the whole night!" Then he ruffled around through the papers on his desk, pulling out bundle #10 from the mess. "Well, good thing I remembered where I left off."
Pony stared at him a second, and blinked. "You saying you stayed up the whole night reading my paper?"
Mr. Syme snorted, and replied, "Paper? This ain't no paper, Ponyboy! This here thing is a book, and a darn good one at that! You thinkin' about gettin' this published?"
Pony stared at him. And stared some more. And he stared some more until, finally, staring got rather boring and he asked, "Did you always talk with an accent, Mr. Syme?"
Mr. Syme looked puzzled, and answered, "What are you talking about? I don't- oh, yes, I just woke up, didn't I? Don't worry, I always talk like that when I'm tired and soon after I wake up."
Pony shrugged, and walked to his seat for class. Mr. Syme went back to reading what Pony titled, The Outsiders. Then the bell rang, and the class quieted down, wondering when Mr. Syme would start the class. But he just kept reading, until, finally, someone said, "Mr. Syme? What are you doing?"
The man looked up, slightly surprised to find 24 kids sitting obediently in their seats. He soon remembered that he was actually a qualified teacher, and said, "Today we'll just have study hall. I need some more time to grade your reports from yesterday. And if I find any one of you goofing off, detention for 2 days."
The kids groaned, but obeyed. Though they couldn't really concentrate because of Mr. Syme exclaiming things like, "Johnny, no!" or "DALLY, WHHHHHHYYYYYYYY!" Honestly, it was quite amusing, and the students had to try their hardest to stifle laughs while Pony's face got redder and redder.
When the bell rang for the end of class, everybody finally burst out laughing, Pony was tomato red right to his toes, and Mr. Syme was crying and moaning, "Johnny will never be dead, Pony! Not since you wrote this!"
Ponyboy had learned two very important things this day: one, Mr. Syme is a very emotional man, and two, you should never let an English teacher let his/her hands on a report that long. It just causes trouble.
A/N: Thank you, thank you! Yes, that is the end. Maybe I'll make a sequel, I'm not sure, but that was the end. Really short, yes, but I tried to make it amusing. Hopefully you piranhas- I mean, darling readers who do NOT demand new chapters every second are satisfied. Review, please? (Constructive criticism most appreciated.)