"Read."
The word landed without volume, but it carried weight.
Silvestor stood with the ecology book open in both hands, eyes lowered to the page as though the text itself were something he had been ordered to confess.
The teacher leaned back in her chair and folded her arms loosely, her gaze fixed on him with idle interest.
"Louder," she added. "So everyone can hear you."
Silvestor drew a quiet breath and began.
"Ecological succession… is the long-term change in the species composition of a community…"
His voice was low and measured, slightly uneven, as if he were forcing himself to move each word through resistance. He did not look up even once.
"…over time, every natural environment undergoes gradual and predictable change…"
A soft laugh slipped out from the middle benches.
Someone murmured, not even bothering to lower their voice, "Why does he sound like he's apologizing to the book?"
The teacher did not react.
She tilted her head faintly, watching him with the same expression one used to watch something weak struggle to finish a task.
Silvestor continued.
"…a grassland may slowly turn into a forest… a barren rock surface may become covered with plants…"
His pronunciation was careful. Too careful.
It sounded artificial, and that alone invited cruelty.
"Say it properly, man," a boy near the aisle said.
"It's English, not some funeral prayer."
Laughter rippled lightly through the room.
Silvestor did not pause. He moved on exactly as if nothing had been said.
"This long-term process of change in the species composition of a community is known as ecological succession…"
He stumbled deliberately over composition, catching the word halfway and restarting it too slowly.
"…compo… composi… composition…"
A girl covered her mouth, laughing openly now.
"Is he buffering?"
The teacher's lips curved upward by the smallest margin.
"Take your time, Silvestor," she said softly.
"We all want to enjoy this."
His fingers tightened around the edges of the book.
He did not lift his eyes.
"…it describes how living organisms modify their environment over time…"
His voice dropped further.
"…making it suitable for new species while often making it less suitable for themselves…"
A boy in the back leaned forward and stage-whispered,
"He reads like he's afraid the words will hit him back."
More laughter followed.
Silvestor moved into the second paragraph.
"Succession does not occur randomly. It follows a general direction and pattern…"
He paused again, deliberately longer than necessary.
"What now?" someone said.
"Forgot the next word already?"
"…although the speed and exact pathway depend on climate, soil, and local conditions…"
The teacher rested her chin against her palm now, watching with unhidden interest.
She did not interrupt. She did not redirect. She did not protect him.
"The final stage of this process is a relatively stable ecosystem called the climax community…"
The word climax triggered instant laughter.
"OHHH climax!"
"Bro finally said something useful."
The teacher raised one finger – not to silence them, but to stretch the moment.
Her eyes never left Silvestor's face.
"…which remains in equilibrium until it is disturbed…"
He moved into the third paragraph, voice thinner now.
"Ecological succession occurs because both physical conditions and living organisms constantly alter the environment…"
Someone yawned loudly.
"Some of the major factors responsible include climate changes, volcanic activity, floods, forest fires, and human activities…"
Each phrase came out slower than the last, dragged forward like something heavy tied behind him.
"Why is he even in twelfth grade?"
"My cousin in primary school reads faster."
The teacher finally spoke again, her tone light, almost conversational.
"Is this your normal reading speed, Silvestor?"
A pause.
"Because if it is, your future is already finished."
A few students clapped softly, mockingly.
Silvestor finished the third paragraph.
"…leading to the gradual replacement of one community by another."
Silence followed – not respectful, but expectant.
"Good," the teacher said lightly.
"Sit down."
As Silvestor shifted his weight to move back into his seat, the sound exploded through the room.
Jazz slammed his ecology book down onto the desk with deliberate force.
The crack of impact snapped every head toward him.
He stood up slowly, chair scraping back.
Without a word, he stepped onto his bench, then onto the desk in front of him. A girl pulled her notebook back just in time as his shoe landed inches from it.
He walked forward, stepping across desks and books, crushing pages beneath his soles without hesitation.
No one spoke. No one moved.
When he reached the front row, he stepped onto the teacher's desk and lowered himself into a squat in front of her, balanced on the balls of his feet.
They were eye-level now.
He raised his finger and pointed it at her face, waving it once, slowly.
"Make him read again," he said quietly.
"And I'll make you crawl out of this room."
The teacher did not answer.
Jazz straightened, jumped down from the desk, and walked out.
The door slammed hard enough to rattle the windows.
Silence swallowed the room.
Silvestor remained standing, still holding the book open in his hands.
His eyes stayed on the page.
His breathing never changed.
The silence Jazz left behind did not survive him.
It cracked first into whispers, then into low laughter, then into restless speculation that moved across the room like heat. Students leaned toward one another, eyes flicking to Silvestor and then away again, trying to stitch together a story that made sense of what they had just witnessed.
"Did you see that?" someone muttered.
"There's no way Jazz does that for no one."
A girl near the window tilted her head, thinking out loud.
"Maybe they're related. Like… secret half-brothers or something."
"Illegitimate sons," a boy added lightly.
"Rich father. Poor mother. You know how that goes."
Another voice cut in, amused.
"Or maybe Silvestor's his dealer."
That drew a few snickers.
"Yeah right," someone scoffed. "That walking corpse? No chance."
"What if Silvestor's got something on him?" a girl whispered.
"Blackmail. Some video. Some dirty secret."
The speculation sharpened.
"Maybe Jazz killed someone and Silvestor knows."
A pause followed that, just long enough for stupidity to bloom into something darker.
"Or maybe they're together."
The word moved fast.
A few girls giggled.
Some boys made exaggerated faces of disgust.
"Explains a lot," someone said.
"Jazz only threatens people he likes."
Another laughed.
"So Silvestor's the boss now?"
The jokes piled on top of each other, feeding on their own absurdity, growing louder and crueler by the minute.
Silvestor did not respond to any of it.
He remained standing, ecology book still open, eyes moving steadily across the page as though nothing in the room had changed. His lips formed the words quietly now, barely audible, continuing to read to himself with deliberate calm.
He did not look at anyone.
He did not hurry.
He did not stop.
The teacher watched him from her desk, her jaw tight, her earlier composure slipping into something brittle. Her eyes flicked once toward the door Jazz had exited through and then returned to Silvestor with open irritation.
"Enough," she said sharply.
Silvestor paused mid-sentence and looked up.
"Close the book," she added coldly. "No one asked you to continue."
He obeyed immediately and sat down.
Her fingers tightened around the edge of the desk.
"We'll take a short break," she announced flatly. "Five minutes."
Chairs scraped. Voices rose. Bags shifted. The room exhaled its tension all at once.
She grabbed her bag and walked out without another word.
In her haste, she left two things behind.
Her ecology textbook and the attendance register.
A girl from the first row noticed it instantly.
"Ma'am forgot her book," she said, already standing.
She picked it up and hurried toward the door, weaving through desks and bodies without slowing down.
What no one inside the classroom noticed was what slid free from between the pages as she ran.
A photograph slipped out and landed face-down near the teacher's desk.
Jazz was standing just outside the classroom.
He saw it fall.
He bent down, picked it up, and looked.
The picture showed the sports instructor with his arm around the ecology teacher's waist, their faces too close, their bodies aligned in a way that left nothing open to interpretation.
Jazz's mouth curved slowly.
Then he stepped back into the doorway.
"Yo," he said casually, loud enough for the entire room to hear, "you guys know your ecology miss and the sports sir are screwing each other, right?"
The room erupted.
"What?!"
"No way."
"Show!"
Jazz held the photo up between two fingers.
"This."
Gasps tore through the class. Laughter followed instantly. Someone shouted something obscene.
"Bro, this is INSANE," someone commented.
Phones came out without hesitation, screens lighting up as pictures were taken and messages typed.
By the time the first whispers reached the corridor, the story had already mutated into something irreversible.
The bell rang twice – short and sharp.
Lunch break.
Students grabbed their bags and flooded into the corridors, voices rising, laughter breaking out, bodies colliding as they rushed toward food and freedom. Gossip traveled faster than feet, leaping from mouth to mouth, class to class.
Silvestor stood, slung his bag over his shoulder, and joined the flow without expression. His tiffin box was empty already.
No one spoke to him.
But dozens of eyes followed him anyway.
In the mess hall, long buffet tables stretched across the room, one side labeled VEGETARIAN and the other NON-VEGETARIAN. Metal lids clattered open, steam rising as students queued in loud clusters, arguing about food, revision, Lexus, teachers, sex, gossip, and Jazz.
Nothing about the morning had settled yet.
Silvestor took a tray while others carrying their tiffins and rice stood in line like everyone else, unremarkable, invisible, unbothered.
Finally, his turn came. He took vegetarian and non-vegetarian side dishes on the tray and sat on the stairs alone.
Jazz came out of nowhere; he dropped some of his tiffin's special colorful dishes onto Silvestor's tray.
"Sorry… hand slipped. I don't need it anymore. I don't eat trash food," Jazz said.
He continued, "I don't eat like dogs."
"But you are barking like a dog now," Silvestor said in front of everyone.
Jazz endured the words.
"Maybe. But not a lackey like you are," Jazz said.
"Look, look, they are fighting."
"Idiot, they are just confusing us."
"Look, the melodrama started. Does anyone have popcorn?"
"Yo… look, romance of gays."
Them calling them gays was overheard by Jazz.
But he didn't say anything and left.