The door to the grade eight English class bursts open, Andrew stands in the doorway with his hair now gelled and spiked, his appearance out of place in the class with him being the only boy with his hair both styled and vividly coloured.

The teacher watches him enter the room, his voice dry and unamused, his accent, like everyone else’s in the room, Canadian. He was tired of this particular student making entrances like this. “I was wondering when you would join us Andrew.”

Andrew turns back to him, he didn’t really like the teachers calling him by his first name, in addition to that he had before made the request for them to call him by another. “I told you to call me by my artist name!! It’s Sin!”

The teachers look annoyed with the name. “I am not calling you that.”

Some of the students laugh quietly at the exchange, while others seem exasperated with it as they start to groan or mumble to themselves, the debate one that popped up often with Andrew and the staff, though with the name occasionally changing, as Andrew was always changing his ‘artist’ name to the point that the teachers, despite allowing students to go under preferred names and nicknames, had grown tired of and started refusing to extend the courtesy to Andrew.

The teacher raises his voice, not wanting to get into this debate with Andrew again and waste his and the class’s time. “Andrew Perkasin. you will take your seat!”

Andrew crosses his arms, insulted that calling someone by a simple name seemed to be so difficult to do. “You’re going to regret treating me like this when I’m known as Sin, a rich and famous vocalist!”

His teacher seems on his last nerve as he snaps back at him. “You’re going to regret not listening to me when you end up working at McDonalds with a demo tape that no one will listen to.”

Some of the students in the class let out impressed gasps at the burn, while one of the girls in the front row speaks up in a sing-song voice in support of her teacher. “You’re so funny sir!”

Andrew, of course, isn’t taking this comment from the teacher as well as the rest of the class. “That was a joke?! That wasn’t a joke that was ****ing mean!” He points to the teacher both rudely and accusingly. “You sir. Are an asshole!”

Andrew sits in the school counsellor’s office, his arms crossed stubbornly as he keeps his face turned away from the counsellor who reads a note from the teacher that Andrew had brought with and given to him. His teacher had dismissed him from the class and sent him off to speak to his school counsellor about his behaviour.

The letter is simple enough, the message “Andrew Perkasin is disrupting the teaching process and using foul language,” followed by the signature of his English teacher scrawled on a loose sheet of paper from the teacher’s agenda.

The counsellor looks up from it and over to Andrew, it is not the first time Andrew has been sent here under such circumstances, he is by now used to running into this situation with this specific student. “So… disturbing the class again are you?”

Andrew speaks up to defend himself. “The only thing disturbing that class were the teacher's own bad jokes and the creepy little teacher's pets sticking her nose up his ass.”

“Your language Andrew.”

“His poorly whipped arse!”

The counsellor lets out a sigh. “Changing the wording to be slightly more tame doesn’t make what you said any less offensive.”

He looks at a sheet of paper he has pulled from Andrew’s file, it’s filled with incidents similar to this along with many other things; complaints about being late, records of getting into fights with other students, and general lack of respect for authority all in the list numerous times. “You don’t seem to take school seriously do you Andrew?”

Andrew responds quickly thinking the answer to that should be obvious. “School sucks d-” He pauses for a moment changing his language to be less offensive. “Donkey ding dong.”

The counsellor frowns at him. “Again, doing that doesn’t make what you’re saying any less offensive.”

He continues going through Andrew’s files. “I’m surprised to be getting this behaviour from you. Academically you’re a good student, in fact your numbers indicate that you’re a slightly above average student. I think you’re capable of achieving much more if you would be willing to just apply yourself.”

Andrew turns away as he leans back the chair he is seated in, his arms once again crossed. “Why would I want to do more work than necessary? I’m passing, aren't I? That should be good enough.”

“School isn’t about ‘doing the bare minimum to get by’. You apply your best efforts into learning and improving your skill sets for your future.”

Andrew seems unbothered by the way he is handling his academic output. “I don’t really see myself needing most of these ‘skill sets’ for my future.”

The counsellor brings up what he thinks is an important point. “Your father told me you’re trying to be a doctor. Higher grades would certainly help with such an occupation.”

The suggestion clearly ticks Andrew off as he snaps back sharply in a harsh tone. “Only in his delusional mind!!”

Ever since he was a kid, Andrew knew that his dad thought the world of his children, he thought them capable of whatever they wanted to do and often pushed them to reach their goals. Which was fine on paper, and generally what most kids would want their parents to do for them, unfortunately for Andrew, being a doctor was not how he saw himself in the future, being the lead vocalist for the hottest punk rock band was.

As much as Andrew loved his father, his dad perhaps was guilty of projecting on him. At the moment his father worked as a nurse at the nearby hospital, but that wasn’t exactly his first pick as a job. Donald Perkasin had actually been studying to become a doctor in his youth, but because of his kids, he had instead changed his studies to nursing while he was still attending school. Andrew couldn’t even remember telling his dad that he wanted to become a doctor, but he must have at some point, back at the age when kids often changed their minds on what they wanted to grow up to be. Whatever the case his father had taken it to heart and had stuck with it for years, despite Andrew insisting otherwise when he actually did find a future he wanted to focus on.

That’s not to say that Donald isn’t supportive of Andrew’s love of singing, he just doesn’t see it as much more than a hobby, as it is just not a realistic job.

Of the few things Andrew and his father fight about this is the big one, so having it brought up by the school counsellor made him understandably bitter.

The counsellor puts the papers down, focusing on Andrew. “Then what is it you are trying to be? Perhaps we can help you map out a path.”

Andrew doesn’t seem excited to answer, at this point he has become used to how adults respond to the answer he gives them in regards to questions like this.

“Do you not know what you want to be?”

That isn’t it at all. He lets out a sigh getting on with it, his answer straightforward and to the point knowing that no amount of flowery wording would make it sound good to someone who wants students to focus on academics. “A singer.”

The corner of the counsellor’s mouth lifts into a small smirk, though it isn’t an answer he has never gotten before from students, usually it is one that only a certain type of student would so openly admit to. “I usually get that response from female students.”

“Guys can sing too!” Andrew snaps back in an annoyed manner.

The counsellor continues, his speech the same one he would give any student that presented him with a similar answer. “That’s not a realistic goal. Now, that doesn’t mean I want to deter you from it, just suggest that you treat it more as a hobby and focus more on occupations that school is equipped to prepare you for. I guess you could think of it as making sure that you have a backup plan if this goal of yours fails.”

“I’m not going to fail.”

“And if you do?”

“I’m not!”

The counsellor lets out a sigh, kids with star struck ambitions like this are always difficult when it comes to realistically envisioning themselves in the future. “It doesn’t work that way Andrew. You need to give yourself other options, in case this one fails.”

Andrew is uninterested in thinking of anything else. “I don’t want or need a backup plan. Look, if you want me to take school seriously then give me something I can work with that will actually help me not ‘fail’ at my goals.”

The counsellor shakes his head, but complies. “We don’t have anything that would benefit such a occupation directly, but if you insist on pursuing such a thing, then the school does have a drama club that meets up during lunch that you can join.”

Andrew gives him an expressionless stare, he knows the club that the counsellor is talking about, a small group with only five members and they are all weird and hard to ignore, because they are often seen doing the strangest things for “dramatic expression”. It is not something that Andrew would ever want to be publicly seen being a part of. “No ****ing way.”

His counsellor quickly snaps at him, getting tired of having to constantly bring this up. “What have we told you about your language?”

Andrew sighs, leaning his head back, just as tired of getting the lecture as the staff are of giving it. “Don’t say shit like that?”

The school counsellor takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly as he stares at Andrew. 

The school day continues and eventually comes to an end. Andrew meetsup with his younger sister who is waiting for him in the hall his locker is located. She watches as he rumages through his locker, waiting on him so the two could leave together. “Ready to go home?”

Andrew shakes his head no as he puts his school books down in his locker and roughly closes the door. “Can’t. Got detention.”

His sister Alissa, only a year younger than him, sighs to herself upon hearing the news. “You got detention? For what? Being late?”

“No… for saying a ‘scary’ curse word or two in front of my counsellor.”

Alissa looks annoyed at the reason. “Of all the stupid crap! How moronic is that?!” She begins to rant, her brother’s not the only member of their family with a less than ideal vocabulary. “Honestly if someone gets called a bad name by someone else it’s usually because they deserved it. Unless a bully was the one that said it. In that case they’re just a shithead who will eventually get what’s coming to them.”

Andrew lets out a small laugh as he begins to tease her. “Alright sis, me having a bad mouth is one thing, but you should really watch it. Aren’t you studying to be a teacher?”

Alissa looks down a little embarrassed. “Ya… I guess that’s not really the best way to talk around little kids…” She grins playfully looking back to her older brother. “What about you? Shouldn’t you watch it just as much? Dad wants you to be a doctor after all.”

Andrew looks annoyed, though he knows his younger sister knows better and is only teasing him back, he is tired of having to hear that today. Instead of getting mad about it though, he goes along with the jest. “Do I look like I can be a doctor, what’s someone going to think when I come in looking this punk with a mask and a scalpel and tell them ‘I’m gonna’ ****ing cut you open bitch!”

Alissa laughs at the picture such a scenario was putting in her head. “Surgeons are the ones that cut people apart, not doctors…”

Andrew nods his head continuing with the point she has just made. “Just goes to show how much I’m not interested in being a doctor! I apparently don’t even know what the hell they do!”

Alissa continues to tease her older brother. “I guess we’ll both just have to join a bad mouth addicts group when we're older to fix it.” She pauses to think the suggestion over. “Do you think that help groups like that exist??”

“Who cares how I talk? Despite what dad wants me to be, I'm going to be a singer, and they swear all the time, even in their songs.”

Alissa certainly agrees with him but she also has another point to bring up. “I know, but you still have to talk nice in front of the cameras when doing all your live TV interviews right?”

He lets out a grumble. “I guess…”

Alissa leans back on the heels of her feet while swinging her book bag in front of her, rocking back and forth in place. “Well… since you got in trouble I’m going to do some window shopping before I head home.” She turns on her heels, skipping away. “You have fun at detention, I’ll see you when you get home.”

“Sure…”

His sister leaves, Andrew now makes his way down the hall towards the detention room. Though he dealt with the topic as casually as he could manage because he didn’t want to get into an argument with his sister over it, the topic of his future and what he is to do, or is expected to do, is really grating at his nerves today.

“Be more serious about my future? I am serious! And what is with it always being a doctor that gets pushed anyway? Why out of all the occupations a parent would want their kid to be, is it always a stinkin’ doctor?” 

He thinks it over, it is hard for him to understand. He loves music, the sound, the feel, everything. Why wouldn’t he want to be a part of something like that? He mumbles low to himself, upset that his goals always seem to be a fight or a joke to people. “Is it so bad to want to be a musician?”

“Yes.” The distinctive voice of an adult chimes in.

Andrew quickly turns around, ready to chew out whatever member of his school staff was starting this up with him again. “I wasn’t asking for your opinions—” He cuts himself off, the man that has spoken up isn’t a member of staff or even anyone he recognizes. Andrew stares at the stranger awkwardly. “You’re not one of the teachers…”