Ryan Eason, Procrastinator Extraordinaire

[troubled sleep]

((A/N: This is kinda sorta a sequel my original Procrastinator Extrordinaire Story, which can be found here. I guess it's not imperative that you read it first, it's still a silly little story with or without the first part, but the character will perhaps make a bit more sense if you read the first bit.))

 

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“Did you write you paper?”

 

Ryan Eason had been stumbling down the crowded hallways of his high school, pushing his way through the sea of people and trying to get to class on time. He had been up all night finishing his research paper, and it spoke to his distraction that he completely failed to notice the two black clad Agents of Procrastination—a blonde boy and girl, twins by the look of it-- lounging against a pair of lockers until they were immediately upon him.

 

“What?” he mumbled,

 

“Did you write your paper?” the two Agents repeated, again in unison.

 

“You know, it's really creepy when you guys do that…I mean…uh, yeah…I just finished ten minutes ago.” Ryan said, blinking.

 

“Hmm, the paper’s still warm.” The female agent said taking Ryan’s research paper and tucking into her purse. Ryan blanched. “We’ll be keeping this.”

 

“But—“ Ryan began, but was cut off by a hand gesture by the first agent.

 

“This is your big test, Eason. The Brass have been taking a special interest in you--”

 

“--they think you might be ready for the big time,” The second agent finished

 

“We have been called in to give you," the two said in unison, pausing only to exchange heavy glances, "The Test.”

 

“the…the..The Test?? The Test?” Ryan managed to choke out. He could barely believe it. The Test was the most difficult challenge a Procrastinator could be faced with; to pass, a person had to call on not only his procrastination skills, but his skill, ingenuity, wit, and acting ability. Contrary to popular belief, proper procrastination is 50% acting. It’s one thing to be able to do the paper at the last minute; it’s another thing to be able to get your teacher to accept it.

 

“Yes,” the first agent said, putting a friendly hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “The Test. Congratulations.”

 

“You will have until the end of the day--” The second agent said.

 

“—to complete this task.”

 

“You know the rules, so abide by them.”

 

“Remember: you can stop any time—“

 

“—But forfeiting this test will force us to revoke your membership in the Procrastinators and your name will go down in the Record of Over-Achievers.”

 

“However, if you pass The Test, you will be granted a spot on the Procrastination Hall of Lords and be presented with an Order of Procrastination, Platinum Class—“

 

“Plus, just think what Char will say when she finds out.” The female agent said slyly.

 

“How do you know about that?!” Ryan said, coloring.

 

“You’d be surprised at what little we don’t know, Eason.” The other agent said, his voice perfectly serious. At that moment, the two black-clad agents took a step back.

 

"Don't worry, you'll do great--" the girl began, but A Look from her counterpart silenced her.

 

“Good luck,” The two Agents said in unison before turning and disappearing down the crowded hall.

 

“Thanks…” Ryan said, waving weakly.

 

Ryan spent the first half of the day mentally preparing. It was a tough job, and he spent most of biology class thinking about how to approach this task. While the rest of his class poked at disemboweled frogs, he was going over the rules of The Test. According to those rules, he had exactly 28 minutes, or one lunch period, to convince the teacher in question to allow him to turn in his paper late. It didn’t specify how late, however. The unwritten rule was to get at an extension of at least 24 hours. Ryan knew he was good, but not that good. He might, however, be able to squeeze a few extra hours out of his English teacher—an aging, bespectacled woman named Mrs. Clemons. She was famous for her jet-black stare that could paralyze a kid from across the room. It would be a tough job, but he could pull it off. He had to pull it off!

 

For once, the morning flew by: one minute he was in biology class, then blink, he was in French, blink again, and he was in history. One final blink and he following the crowds out towards the cafeteria. He paused at the stairwell that would take him up to the English hallway, then turned back towards the crowd. He scanned the mob of people until he found a certain Cyrus B. Shehatery. Tall, skinny, and dressed in a large, black t-shirt featuring the spiky haired hero from his favorite anime, Cryus stood out like a rose among thorns in the mass of well-dressed-abercrombie-and-fitch suburbanites. Ryan had known Cyrus since pre-school and had helped him talk his way out of more detentions than should be entirely legal. In short, they had history. More importantly, though, Ryan had dirt. Ryan and Ryan alone knew that Cyrus--despite his video gaming, anime watching, class failing image--secretly played the viola.

 

"Hey Cyrus," Ryan said, launching himself into the crowd and falling into step with his friend. "You know Mrs. Clemons?"

 

"The English teacher?" Cyrus grinned, "Sure. Failed me twice. What're you gonna do to her, Eason?"

 

"Umm…yeah, ok. I need you to get as many kids as you can as fast as you can into her room, ok?"

 

"Alright, but you know I don't work for free…the price of manga's going through the roof, you know…"

 

Ryan gave him A Look, then, pretending to walk away said, "Well, you know, Erin Milani's doing video production this month…I've got a whole video of you and your viola worked up for it, I could stick an ad on the end saying you do paid gigs if you want. Maybe if everyone knew about your superior talents you'd have a chance at picking up some extra cash."

 

"Fine, fine," Cyrus said, suitably goaded, "how many kids you looking at?"

 

"Many as you as can get me--the whole cafeteria if you can. Just get them up there."

 

"Sure, I'll get 'em. And I suppose I should make sure that a certain Char Talisse is there?" Cyrus replied, grinning as he stepped backwards, disappearing into the crowd heading into the cafeteria. Ryan shook his head, then turned and bounded up the stairs towards the English hall.

 

Above him, the bell rang, calling for the beginning of lunch. His 28 minutes had started.

 

Forty-eight seconds later, Ryan stood panting in the doorway of his English class.

 

"I can only guess by your sudden and unexpected appearance, Mr. Eason, that you forgot to do your paper." Mrs. Clemons asked. She was sitting at her desk, glaring her signature glare.

 

"Forgot! Forgot? I'm shocked that you would even suggest such a thing, Mrs. Clemons! I…uh…had some things come up. You'd never believe some of the things I've been through these past few days!"

 

“Try me.” Mrs. Clemons said, glaring at him over her small black spectacles.

 

“Well,I…uh…" he looked out into the hallway, trying to avoid that piercing gaze. Dealing with Mrs. Clemons was like dealing with Medusa--make eye contact and you're dead. He just had to kill enough time until people started arriving. Once he had an audience, he'd be fine. Mrs. Clemons hated busting people in front of audiences. Glancing out the door, he saw a pair of black clad twins walk by on their way to lunch--no doubt the Agents checking up on him. It was then that inspiration hit. "Well, did I ever mention how I have a twin? I—“

 

“Now, Mr. Eason, if you’re going to try to tell me that your evil twin with a mustache and a goatee forced you not to write your research paper I don’t want to--”

 

“Mrs. Clemons,” he began. Darn. So she had seen that episode of Star Trek. Funny, he wouldn't have pegged her as a Trekkie. But no matter, Ryan Eason was a kid of many talents. “If you’d allow me to continue, you would realize the seriousness and gravity of my plight and of the..uhh arcane nature of my predicament.” He said, finally making use of all those SAT words he’d had to memorize at the last minute for all those years. “The truth is, I do have a twin. His name is Chris and he lives in on a farm in the Midwest and he does not, in fact, have a goatee. Though he did talk about growing one…but I think we talked him out of it. It'd look awful, we photoshopped one on a picture of him, but it just looked like he had a guinea pig stuck on his face and--"

 

"You 're twin, hmm?"

 

"Oh yeah! We're close, Chris and me…really close..uh…but it's all happened kind of fast, because I didn't know he needed help until--"

 

"Three minutes ago?" Mrs. Clemons offered.

 

"No, no…three days ago. See, my life has always been..strange. Full of…uhh…" He was panicking. He couldn't panic. No. He could do this. He would do this. He just needed more inspiration. He glanced around the room. On the wall behind Mrs. Clemons there was a poster with a rainbow and a hot air balloon on it with "believe in your dreams!" written below the picture. It was all he needed. "Full of rainbows. And Cherubs. Using the knowledge that you have so graciously imparted unto me and the others in my class, I have realized that symbolism is not confined to the English class or even to literature. Umm...so when I woke up three days ago to find a magnificent rainbow hovering over our fair city, I knew that something was going to happen. So it was of little surprise to me when, two hours later, I got a call that a hot-air balloon had just landed at the local airport and was refusing to answer any questions from the rather surprised airport staff until its pilot had spoken to me. So I rode my bike over to the airport as fast as I could. I knew it had to be a message from Chris--he won a hot-air balloon in a raffle up at the Cook County Fair in Lake Woebegone, Minnesota--that's where he lives where he lives, out on the edge of the prairie. I guess maybe it's just 'cause it's Minnesota and there's not much out there, but they have some of the greatest raffle prizes at their county fairs. Once when I was there visiting Chris and--"

 

"I thought you said that you didn't know he existed until three days ago, Mr. Eason?"

 

"Uh…" he'd be caught. There was no way out of this one, unless…

 

"Well, I wasn't supposed to know he existed until three days ago. It's a very complex legal matter with my…my parents' divorce. All very secret. I really shouldn't be telling you all this, actually…" He laughed nervously and--carefully avoiding the eyes-- studied her face, trying to see how she was taking his story. Unfortunately, trying to judge a reaction without getting pulled into her unrelenting stare was impossible, so he looked away again. He had another moment of panic when he saw that the hallway was still empty. Where was Cyrus and his crowds? He hoped it wasn't taco day down in the cafeteria--tacos were Cyrus' superior weakness, if they were serving those, he'd go through the lunch line a dozen times before remembering his promise.

 

"Please continue, Mr. Eason." Mrs. Clemons said after a moment. Ryan inhaled sharply, then turned back to his teacher, plastering on a bright smile.

 

"Sorry, got a little distracted there, ma'am. Ok, so care of the hot-air ballooner was a message from my brother imploring me to help him smuggle his girlfriend out of Kenya. He couldn't get her a green card or a visa or whatever, and it's illegal to get married at 16--even in Minnesota. Of course, he had to stay here in the States to help his step-dad out on the farm, but he was going crazy without her. Not sleeping, not eating, the whole bit. So he was begging me to help him. Well, I knew I had to write this paper for your class, but when your brother asks for your help, you just can't say no, now can you, Mrs. Clemons? I mean, he's my own twin and everything."

 

"No, I suppose not."

 

"So, with $20 in my pocket and a bag of funyuns stuffed in a paper sack, I made plans to leave the country. Of course, the plan was for me to meet Chris on the Kenyan border. However, I couldn't afford to fly, so instead I hit one of my friends whose parents work for Delta for a buddypass…only, after 8 hours of sitting at the airport the only place I could get a flight to was Asia. I ended up lost in Indonesia because I don't speak…" what language did they speak in Indonesia? Chinese? Asian? Indonesian? "uhh…I don't speak Latin." He paused as a crowd of kids came in the doorway, fresh from lunch and still munching on tacos-- his audience was beginning to arrive at last! One kid in particular caught his eye as she paused in the doorway, peeling a very fragrant orange over the trash can. "So there I was, lost. I wandered into a hotel bar to try and get directions from someone who spoke English. Only, there was a drag show going on…" he had no idea where that came from, but it was too late to take it back now, "and I ended up running into this really weird guy in a skirt who told me that the answer to all of my problems lay in this orange! He provided me said orange and walked away, but it was moldy so I threw it at a bad female Elvis impersonator performing in the restaurant. Eventually I managed to get on a plane heading out of there, but after falling asleep on the plane I woke up on a tropical beach!"

 

"Oh. My. God!" one girl cried, "it is just like that show--Lost! I love that show!" Many of the kids around her chattered in agreement. There were about fifteen in the room so far and he could feel Mrs. Clemon's will breaking as public opinion swung over to his side--even her famous glare couldn't contend with all these people.

 

"Yes, well that's exactly what I thought, too, because then there was this…this polar bear next to me, and he was eating all of my Funyuns! So I said, "Hey! Get away from my Funyuns!" but then the polar bear said, and you'll have to forgive me as I know this is a little crude, " tu madre es un gaton con cuadros!"'

 

"Your mother is a cat with squares??" a kid in the growing audience asked. "Why would a polar bear say that?" Ryan was about to answer, but his eyes caught the clock--12:25, only ten more minutes-- and he this protest, continuing on faster than before.

 

"Well he said it and then galloped away on the back of a…" he looked over at Mrs. Lovett's desk, looking for something, anything to help. Piled haphazardly on top of a book entitled "Children are the Future" (A Puffin books original) was a 365 kittens calendar. "a puffin. He galloped away on the back of a puffin. I was started to despair, but then noticed that there was a message written in the sand next to me,"

 

"Wha'd it say?" one of the kids asked. They were all getting into the story now.

 

"It said 'Kittens are our future, you can't deny that.' With this cryptic message in mind, I grabbed the nearest puffins began selling them to unsuspecting tourists to finance my way to Kenya. However, as irony would have it, the only connecting flight stopped off in flew all the way to Scotland--the patron animal of Scotland is the puffin--where I was rather soggy and cold until I boarded a ship headed towards Kenya. From there it was smooth sailing--Chris and I smuggled Miriam out under cover of darkness. You've never seen two people more in love--it…uh…it warmed my heart to see them together. They took the hot air balloon and dropped me off on their way back to Minnesota, so I didn't get back in until about 6 this morning. I tried to work on the paper during the balloon ride, but balloons are very bumpy and it was all I could do to stay inside the basket. I had to be at the bus stop by 6:30, so there was absolutely no way that I could have possibly done the paper."

 

There was a pause after he finished his speech. Ryan could feel the sweat dripping down his neck. Battles were won or lost in pauses such as this. Mrs. Clemons pulled off her glasses and polished them with a cloth from her desk.

 

“Are you pulling my leg, Mr. Eason?” she said after a while.

 

“What? No! I’m not touching your leg!” Ryan said, throwing his hands up in alarm. “uh…ma’am,” he added as an afterthought.

 

The silence resumed. Mrs. Clemons continued to polish her glasses. The clock on the wall ticked softly. The entire audience was holding its collective breath.Three more minutes 'til lunch was over. Ryan hoped his teacher couldn’t hear his heart racing. He tried to study her face, to see if she’d bought it or not.

 

Finally, Mrs. Clemons sighed and put her glasses back on.

 

“Alright, Mr. Eason.” She said slowly, “I’ll give you an extension." The classroom full of kids cheered and Ryan smiled in relief. "I’ll be leaving school at 6:15 this afternoon, and I expect to have your paper in my hand as I leave the building. You have six hours, Mr. Eason. Make the best of them.”

 

It was all Ryan could do not to shout for joy. However, a good procrastinator never allows a teacher to see their relief when an extension is given. So instead Ryan nodded in and said in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner:

 

“Thank you, Mrs. Clemons, you’ll have it by 6:15 today.”

 

“No later than 6:15, mind. No more adventures with your long lost twin. You’ll have plenty of time to catch up after you’ve written your paper.”

 

"Yes, thank you, ma'am!!" Ryan said with a little half bow of thanks before dashing out into the hallway. He was met almost immediately by the two Agents of Procrastination from earlier, who fell easily into step with him.

 

"That was a good show, Eason," the male Agent said, "of course I can't say anything official yet, but I think it's very likely we'll be seeing your name in the Hall of Extremely Conspicuous Procrastinators some day."

 

"Uh, thanks. It was nothing," Ryan said. He tried to grin, but found he still had the shakes from all the adrenaline that had been pumping through his system. He managed a little half smile.

 

"Here's your paper," the girl said, holding out the sheets of people they had confiscated earlier. Ryan nodded and accepted his essay without comment. To be completely honest, he was feeling a little faint. He wondered briefly if there were any tacos left downstairs…

 

"Until next time, Eason," the two Agents said in unison before turning and leaving. Ryan started to walk away, too, when suddenly the girl Agent--whose name he remembered was Kara--ran back to him.

 

"You were great in there," she said, stopping just in front of him. "You know, Char's one of my really good friends…I know she doesn't have a date yet to the Spring Formal…but I think that Bobby Boucher was going to ask her during lunch today. I don't know. I was up here the whole time. But, uh, you know," she nervously tucked of her long, blonde bangs behind her ear, "if Bobby did ask her and she does have a date and you still need one…I'm not going with anyone…I mean…no one's asked me yet."

 

She was cute, but Ryan only had room in his heart for one girl--and that girl was Charlene Talisse. Of course, he couldn't tell Kara that. He had to be cool about it, let her down easy.

 

"Sure, yeah, I'll get back to you…" he said, trying to be casual, but failing miserably.

 

"Ok, great…"

 

It probably would have ended a lot more awkwardly, but then the lunch bell rang again, signaling that they should all head towards their next class. Taking this as an excuse to bolt, Ryan did just that, making it across the school to math just in time for the teacher to collect the homework which, of course, he'd neglected to do. Crap. Pausing in the doorway, he wondered just how he'd talk his way out of it this time…

Edited July 25, 2008 by troubled sleep

[Kikuyu_Black_Paws]

I believe you read this at Voices once...I distinctly remember the rainbows, cherubs, funyums, and puffins Though something I did notice was that Mrs. Lovett's name popped up halfway through instead of the teacher's fabricated name

 

I love this story! And I can't really say the casual complimentary "hope we'll see more from you in the future"- that would be too awkward. I still consider you my Voices leader

 

 

~Kiku

[Degorram]

I totally remember this. One of my favorite things you shared with us. I really miss the completely creative works you brought to Voices! I stand in awe as your faithful follower and pupil.