2:33 p.m.

Alain Locke Middle School

The Bermuda Hallway

As soon as the bell rung, 2:30 on the dot, classroom doors swung wide open and we flew out into the hallways like we were shot from cannons. Mr. Monk’s sixth-period social science class is a super-slow death. Each minute in that class feels more like five minutes. We hit up our lockers and came pouring down the main stairs from the second floor; a human waterfall, flowing fast — sixth, seventh, and eighth graders spilling across the Alain Locke school crest, flooding out the doorways.

Usually, I’m a part of all of that, but today was different. Today was so embarrassing, I didn’t even tell my dad. I lied to him and told him that, for the next three days, I’d be staying after school to work on a science fair project. Yeah, right. He’d be so disappointed if he knew the truth.

All day I thought about taking that long dreaded stroll down the Bermuda Hallway.

On the ground floor, right next to the boys’ locker room is a set of stairs that are so deep, so narrow, so musty and hot . There have been kids who’ve gone down but never came back up. It’s a stupid school legend that I can’t say is true or not, and I was not looking forward to finding out.

There are some kids that travel the Bermuda Hallway like they do the daily path to their own homeroom. That ain’t me. I guess it’ll be me for the next three days.

As soon as I walked through the raggedy, darkened doorway, the noise behind me got muffled. The laughing, the arguing, and the cussing slowly began to fade until I heard nothing but my own footsteps.

            There were lights along the walls of the stairwell that flickered like somebody forgot to pay the electric bill. The further I went, the more I felt like a part of the underworld that is PSS — Post-School Suspension .

Principal Richmond refuses to waste any valuable time during a regular school day to punish students. He is the originator, the godfather, the evil scientist behind the invention of PSS. Anytime a student gets into trouble, they’ll be punished on their own time. That means sacrificing those sweet valuable hours right after school lets out. Principal Richmond knows that we’d rather be at home, continuing the game we’ve saved on Madden, raiding the fridge and making our mother’s upset by snacking before dinner, or just---chillin’. Being at school, in the basement, after school lets out? That’s so whack, it’s beyond even talking about. But hey, what can you do?

            When I got to the bottom of the stairwell, I expected to see ashes, torn-up clothes, and the bones of kids who never made it out alive. A bunch of tubes and pipes hung above me, some metal, some plastic, some rusted. They leaked in spots, and flushed, rattled and whined in others. Soon the lights stopped flickering, and dimmed for good.

At the end of the hallway, music seeped from underneath the PSS room door. I couldn’t make out what kind of music it was. All I heard were muffled sounds. No talking, just suffocated noise.

A sign made of a copper wired frame hung eye-level, next to the door. You can’t miss it. Encased in the frame was a quote from Fredrick Douglas for all who entered the God forsaken place to read:

People might not get all they work for in this world,

but they must certainly work for all they get.

I gave the door a tiny shove. It screeched open like an angry crow. Before I even walked inside, I heard the music crystal clear. It was “People Make the World Go ’Round” from an old-school group called the Stylistics, my dad’s favorite group.

A bearded man with a large barrel-shaped gut stood up from his desk, with a weird and unexpected smile. “Come on in, son. I think you’re the last one.”

I stepped in, dejected and ready to face my punishment like a man.

© 2010 Derrick Barnes                                                                                     Excerpt Courtesy of Scholastic Press