The Silent Chalkboard

Jake was a new student at a middle school in Texas. He was about fourteen, had brown hair, and was a pretty small kid. Coming from Colorado, he wasn't very used to the different style society had there. He wasn't used to meeting new kids in his new neighborhood, either. So he was shy as a rabbit.

On his first day of school, Jake decided to meet up with the kids in his class and make friends. He was a little early to class, so he got to choose which seat he wanted. He always liked to be in the front, so he chose the front desk to sit in. The classroom didn't look that bad, in fact, he liked it. There were many dark wooden desks, the teacher's desk, a few school-related posters, and an old green chalkboard. That old chalkboard may have been the oldest looking thing in the class to him. Soon the class was filled with kids, some small, some large. By then, Jake heard a screeching sound. It seemed to have come from the chalkboard. “Don’t worry gang.” Mrs. Patty, our teacher, finally said. “It’s just the coffee running from the classroom on the other side.” If anything made him laugh, it was that his new teacher called them "gang". But he sighed, what with hearing all that agitating noise. The teacher strolled to her desk, trying not to muddle up her new skirt. Class had begun. When the first period was over, everyone hurried to get out first to be able to claim their favorite seat in the next class. Jake was the last one to get up from his seat, but then he dropped his books. As he was gathering his books, he heard a noise. A slight tapping noise, as if there were beads bouncing off the walls. It was coming from that chalkboard. He put his ear up against it, then the chalkboard fell silent. Weird, he thought. He continued his race of thought. Noises inside the chalkboard? He assumed it was something else, but he knew it came from that board.

That night while he was in bed, Jake could not help but think about that chalkboard. A curious kid he was! He was filled with interest about what was in that ancient board. He decided to ask the next morning what was in that chalkboard. He asked all of his new friends if they had heard it, but they didn't believe him. If anything, Jake kept asking daily about it, and the kids would get more and more annoyed at him. The kids would even laugh at him for always talking about it. And of course, that was a weird question for Mrs. Patty when Jake decided to ask her. “What’s in the chalkboard?” She said, with a pause afterward. “I haven’t the slightest clue what’s in that worn-out chalkboard. Probably wood. We look forward to getting a new one... thirty-two years it's been here and it's fallin' apart."

During class, the kids were learning about math (Mrs. Patty taught math, so this was the math room). Jake and his friends chose to write the answer to a question on the board. As he was writing on the chalkboard, Jake felt a little wobbly feeling on his chalk. It felt like someone was rapidly tapping on the chalkboard without stopping. He was getting a little nervous when he felt this. Like any kid, he thought there could be anything inside. A monster, a ghost, a zombie, anything that came up in his curious mind. He asked his friends to feel it, but they didn’t know what he was talking about. Then they simply ignored him and walked further away from him. After class, he decided to ask the teacher in the room, opposite of the chalkboard. She was very confused and thought he was trying to be "goofy", which got her a little mad. She said that the only thing she ever made a noise with was the coffee and nothing else.

One day, Jake was yet again one of the last to leave his class to go home. He was not going on the bus because his mother agreed to take him home. As soon as the teacher left, Jake made his way to the chalkboard to find out where this noise was coming from. He knew he had to find out, he knew. He was going crazy. Jake never made it to the chalkboard, because he tripped on his loose shoelaces. He hit his head so hard that it smashed through the chalkboard. It caused the entire chalkboard to fall apart, detaching from the concrete wall. The last thing Jake would ever see is a wall of beehives, the swarming of hornets around him. They were choking him, stinging him, and ripping him apart from his intestines to the outside of his body until he was struggling in his own blood. He had his drop of happiness before his end, because he would never have to listen to the silence that the chalkboard decided to hold.