Knothole High: One

Knothole High Mini Ficlet Thing

By: Cake-the-Crab

“ . . . And thus silence does not truly come from the absence of sound, because to listen carefully we would realize that all around us is noise that we simply are not listening to. The wind, or our own heartbeat’s, the sound of our clothing creasing as we shift our weight. This is to then assume that silence truly comes from our inability to listen - we force the non-commitment to hear upon ourselves. Making it appear silent. In conclusion, silence is a state of mind.”

“Yeah, so, what if I’m deaf? Are my ears really broken or am I just refusing to listen?” A very crass Sonic the Hedgehog brought up his opinion when his classmate didn’t seem anywhere near an end to his essay on the human condition they’d had to write for Humanities. “Because,” Sonic said, chin on rested hand out of boredom. “If that were the truth - if silence were a state of mind that we simply choose - then, why can’t I tune-out your God-awful monolog?”

The blond coyote reading said “God-awful monolog” bristled in ferocity. His hand that had before been theatrically waving about during the reading was now clenched hard into a fist.

“Are you insinuating upon my essay?” The coyote demanded between clenched teeth.

“Ha,” the sapphire-haired boy laughed back mocking. Arrogance was plain in his sleepy eyes. “Your essay insinuates itself.”

“I give you points for knowing the meaning of that word, ‘Edge’og.” The blond young man grinded out. His stance was painfully straight upon hearing the near-silent wave of laughter that broke out.

Another person also heard the laughter, and she took offense to it. It was one thing to watch the two boys bicker endlessly amongst themselves, it was another when one of them decided to step further and publicly humiliate the other.

“Sonic Hedgehog,” the red-headed head-of-the-class reprimanded with a razor’s edge to her words. She glared at the blue one who sat next to her in the third row.

“That’s Sonic THE Hedgehog,” he yawned out, smiling at her. He gave a half-wave to brush off his own correction and asked as if oblivious to her stewing state of mind, “wha’sup?”

“Don’t play dumb with me,” her words were like fire. She leaned closer to ensure there would be no eavesdroppers. “I heard what you said to Antoine . . .”

“But you didn’t have to,” Sonic quickly threw in, tired eyes widening in a mock innocence.

“It was hard to ignore.” She cocked a single ‘brow.

“It could have been completely silent in the ole ears - if you wanted it to be . . .” Sonic snorted after finishing, clearly about to go into silent hysterics at his own comedy.

But the girl just rolled her eyes, unable to bare with him (for fear that she just might see the funnier side of this, it was presenting itself) and she turned away, “whatever.” She muttered though she knew it’d fall on deaf ears.

“You, Sonic, are a bastard of the highest pedigree,” Antoine’s heavy hands thudded down on Sonic’s desk with almost as much anger that was in his eyes, it was almost equal to his snarling tone.

“Did you mean ‘degree’ by any chance? ‘Cause I’ve never heard of a bastard with a pedigree,” Sonic nearly lost it as the words escaped his lips.

Antoine’s glare was shot - it was hard to remain furious when the blue-haired fool just kept laughing at his own jokes that the rest of the laughing class of idiots seemed to enjoy. What did they know? Antoine sighed, taking a look over his shoulder at the sleeping old owl who claimed to be their teacher. What was he even good for?

Finally Antoine narrowed now icy-with-rage eyes at Sonic, his smile a solemn promise for revenge on a later date. He and Sonic had always gone back in forth with their little rivalry, but he had to admit, that Sonic’s victories were always more humorous . . .

It didn’t matter though, “‘Edge’og,” he addressed the now impossibly calm Sonic with a raging vein in his forehead. He grimaced darkly at the smaller boy and his smile was as cute as a serial killer’s at midnight in a dark alley. “You’re burning in hell, you know this, yes?”

“I’ve already made reservations to dine with Satan,” Sonic retorted as fast as his namesake, irritating smirk on his arrogant lips. Sonic arched a brow and looked over the eerily-shadowed grimace the coyote wore. He pursed his lips, puzzled. And his eyes burned with curiosity.

Finally, “what’s wrong, Ant’? You don’t look too good, did I say something?”

Antoine ground his teeth further - a stray thought of when he’d reach the gum faintly danced in his mind - and he exhaled heavily. “Nothing that you wouldn’t have said any other day,” Antoine answered as calmly as he could looking away from Sonic’s angelically innocent face - if only he could act like that! Then, he could quit drama club (from where he was learning to act). Sonic had the world’s best poker face . . .

“Any other day . . . ?” Sonic’s repetition of Antoine trailed into a question. He leaned back into his desk seat as if truly hurt, hands together in front of him like he were struggling with something. “I - I-” He looked up at Antoine searching. “What have I done?”

And how rueful was the grin that quickly turned wry spread across the coyote’s lips. He shifted his shoulders with maybe a little more dramatic flare than needed and finally leaned in on Sonic, as his hands rested on the hedgehog’s desk.

“What have you done?” Antoine asked, pleased by Sonic’s wide uneasy eyes. He gave a short bark of a laugh, answering darkly, “you simply existed.”

And then, without warning, the bell ripped through the air like the jagged cry of a victim about to be thrown to the electric chair. And despite it’s annoying noise - it was actually a proclamation of freedom. Every student fervently hoisted themselves up and burst at high speeds for the door. The last class of the day was finally over.

“Same time again tomorrow, dear friend?” Sonic smiled like an angel at Antoine whose nose was still in his face.

“Like I have a choice,” were the coyote’s parting words. Sonic grinned with a mischievous anticipation. One that pissed off Antoine. What? He enjoyed this?

And with a huff of breath Antoine left.

With a dainty move, Sally had risen from her seat and stalked off toward the exit - still miffed with the insensitive Mr. Sonic THE Hedgehog.

And Sonic? What of him? Why, he finally obeyed his painfully obvious sleepy eyes and fell dead asleep like a child dying down of sugar crash.

Thus ended another day at Knothole High.

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A/N: What was I on? Hmm . . .
Let’s see, this was inspired by the idea of, “well, what if I did a parody of a Sonic/High School story?” This came to mind.
The teacher “the sleeping owl” that Antoine looks at is Old Man Owl from the Sonic the Hedgehog Movie. However, I’m not sure anyone would have caught that subtlety.
Sonic and Antoine’s relationship is based off the one I’ve observed inside the Sonic SatAM series.
On a final note, the opening scene of Antoine’s essay speech is actually inspired by my own schooling.

I hope you enjoyed it and please leave a comment.

Yours sincerely,
Cake-the-Crab