Chapter Text
Dusk was falling on the fourth day of the Welton Academy school year, and Todd Anderson was exhausted after a day of monotonous classes. He was now bent over his notebook, nose inches away from the paper which was yellowed by the hazily lit lamps of the library. All around, the students were unpacking their books for study hall and chatting amongst themselves. Todd hadn’t befriended anyone, really, since his arrival at Welton. Well, there had been Neil Perry and his friends, but their conversations with Todd never seemed to last longer than a greeting and a farewell. Sure, he had sat with them at meals, and they had let him join them that afternoon on their quest to find out what Mr. Keating’s “Dead Poets Society” was, but all in all they were far too intimidating.
In settings where others tended to congregate with their groups of friends, Todd preferred to sit with another boy or two but not to talk to them. This was a system practiced and perfected at Balincrest. From the outside, it would appear that Todd had friends and this, to some extent, dissuaded bullies from seeking him out as a target.
Today, Todd had hovered around two boys called Stick and David. It was unclear if the two were friends or not, for they seemed to gravitate toward each other in a crowd but did not make the same crude jokes that the other boys were so fond of. They didn’t mind Todd tagging along and hadn’t laughed at him that morning when he’d asked them for directions. Now, Stick and David were sitting across from Todd at the great wooden table in the library.
David, like Todd, did not seem to enjoy conversation. Unlike Todd, though, he was quite cutting and sarcastic when he did open his mouth. Todd couldn’t decide whether he liked him or not. David also had a mess of straight brown hair which covered his forehead in a way that reminded Todd inexplicably of himself.
Stick was incredibly short, with bright blond hair and glasses too large for his round face. He was talkative, in a hushed and self-conscious way that unnerved Todd because he had to strain to hear the other boy’s whisperings and never knew at what volume to respond to him. Anyway, there usually wasn’t much space in between sentences for a response.
“-this Mr. Keating fellow was the most interesting of them all, but I get the feeling he’s not much of a teacher, at least not in the typical sense,” Stick was saying, under his breath. Todd and David met each other's eyes and then quickly glanced back down at their homework. Stick didn’t look up at all. He seemed to consider eye contact unnecessary for communication. “I mean, just imagine the kind of tests he’ll give.”
Todd grunted in agreement, wondering when the blond boy would just shut up and let him focus.
“And they’re up to something,” Stick muttered, gesturing meaningfully toward the group of boys at the table behind them. Todd looked up sharply, to see Neil Perry leaning over his seated friends and pointing to something on the table in front of them. Todd was sure the boys must have been planning their escape into the woods, which was scheduled for that night. Why did they have to be so obvious?
“They think they’re so special,” said David, suddenly. “I heard Knox Overstreet and Charlie Dalton earlier, talking about something to do with Keating. They’re not even trying to hide the fact that he’s picked them as his little disciples.”
“Knox is David’s roommate,” Stick explained to Todd before shooting David a sympathetic look. Evidently, complaining about Neil and his friends was something these two did often. Todd resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
“Say,” murmured Stick, leaning across the table, “didn’t you go with those boys to find Keating after lunch?”
“I… well, yes,” Todd began, unsure of how much information to give. “We just asked him-- they, I mean, they just asked him about some dumb club he did back when he went here. Nothing interesting.”
“Weird,” said Stick. “What was the-”
“For God’s sake, stop chattering and sit down,” boomed McAllister, the Latin teacher, from his post at the front of the room. Todd jumped, having forgotten the teacher was there. He glanced back over at Neil and noticed to his horror that he was walking away from his table of friends and toward Todd.
Embarrassed, Todd hurriedly busied himself with his work. Neil slid easily onto Todd’s bench, coming to a stop slightly too close to him. “Todd, are you coming tonight?” he intoned, ignoring David and Stick.
Todd looked away, his face burning. He knew what Neil was doing. Enough people had invited him to things out of pity that Todd could recognize the interaction for what it was. “No,” he said.
He regretted it the moment the words left his lips. The thing was, he yearned to spend more time with Neil, regardless of the intention behind it. Neil’s every action rang with confidence and authenticity. And he was beautiful. He was just the type of boy that Todd found himself perpetually enamored with from afar.
Neil’s face flushed indignantly at Todd’s refusal. “Why not?” he demanded. “You were there! You heard Keating. Don’t you want to do something about…”
“Yes, but, uh…” Of course Todd wanted to do something. But certainly not something that involved embarrassing himself in front of all those boys, in front of Neil.
“But what?” Neil pressed.
“Keating said that everyone took turns reading and I don’t want to do that,” Todd admitted, not meeting Neil’s eyes.
“Gosh, you really have a problem with that, don’t you?” Neil said.
“No, I don’t have a problem. Neil, I just… I don’t want to do it, okay?” He looked Neil directly in the eyes, trying to make him understand.
“All right,” said Neil, disappointed. Instead of getting up and walking away, he looked down at his lap, thinking for a minute.
“What if you didn’t have to read? What if you just came and listened?” he asked hopefully.
“That’s not how it works,” Todd said.
“Forget how it works! What if… what if they said it was okay?”
“W-what, are you gonna go up and ask them?” Todd faltered. Neil just shrugged.
“No, no…” Todd began.
“I’ll be right back!” Neil said, winking at Todd. He got up and crossed back over to his table, leaving Todd to call helplessly after him.
Todd’s palms were sweating and his heart was beating fast. He was certain the other boys wouldn’t be as understanding as Neil had been. Neil was already sitting with the others, head bent close to Charlie Dalton’s, whispering something.
“Oh shut up, will you?” called McAllister.
The library shifted into silence, with the only sounds coming from the shuffling of papers and the friction of erasers against failed trig problems. Stick took up whispering again.
“What was that all about, Todd? Perry’s your roommate, isn’t he? God, he can be really annoying, can’t he? But nice, of course. And real smart.”
“Yeah,” was all Todd could think to say. He was busy replaying the moment in his head. Every previous experience he could recall was telling him that Neil hadn’t really meant it, that he had no real interest in Todd. And yet, hadn’t he asked multiple times for Todd to come along? Hadn’t he made an exception to the rules just to make sure Todd could come? It felt too good to be true.
Todd passed the rest of study hall with his face buried in his textbook, deftly tuning out Stick’s muttered complaints about Hager and his workload. When the clock struck 9, McAllister dismissed the boys and left them alone in the library to repack their papers and books and make their own way back to the dormitories to get ready for bed.
Todd stood up, hugging his books to his chest with one arm. Stick was still shuffling some pages but most everyone else, including David, had left. As Todd was about to turn to go, Stick’s hand shot out and grabbed hold of his free elbow, pulling him back to the table.
“Can we talk, Todd?” Stick said. It was perhaps the first time Todd had heard him speak at a normal volume.
“Uh.. yeah,” Todd said nervously. The library was empty now, except for the two of them. Stick brought himself up to his full height and though he was considerably shorter than Todd, he succeeded in the effect of making the atmosphere much chillier and bringing a peculiar gravity to the situation.
“I would stay away from Perry, if I were you. The others too, Dalton especially,” Stick said.
“But why?” asked Todd, scratching the back of his neck uncomfortably.
“They’re just bad influences. I was actually supposed to carry a banner in the opening ceremony this year, but because of certain… well, I’m just saying they don’t have the same self-control as the rest of us.”
“You were friends with all of them, then?” Todd asked, trying to wrap his head around this.
“Still kind of am, aren’t I? I mean, we still sit together at meals. But I don’t spend time with them anymore, if that’s what you mean,” Stick said. He was looking down, fidgeting with the fraying binding around his textbook. Suddenly, he looked up into Todd’s eyes, with a wild look on his face. “You can’t tell people we’ve talked about this, alright?” he said.
“Sure,” Todd replied. That we’ve talked about what, exactly? he wondered. So far the conversation had only served to confuse him more and make Neil and his friends sound even more intriguing.
“I’m just trying to warn you,” Stick murmured, more to himself than to Todd. “Well, we have to head to the dorms now. They’ll wonder where we are.” He turned and started toward the door, not waiting for Todd to catch up to him.
Todd wandered back to the dorm room he shared with Neil, keeping his eyes fixed on the wood paneled floors as he walked, to avoid exchanging any awkward looks with the other boys. Secluded in his brain, there was a man pacing back and forth, back and forth, his shoes thumping out a tough headachey rhythm.
I hope they don’t let me come. I hope they don’t let me come. I hope they don’t let me come.
It really wasn’t that Todd had no interest. Rather, he cringed at the prospect of walking next to those boys in a group, of sitting down with them, of standing with them, of talking with them. They were simply of a different cut of cloth. He was a rough linen rag, and they were… well they were not any sort of cloth at all, nor were they even human, but carved marble busts of men. They were intelligent but not stiff, they were funny but not crude. Even Steven Meeks, a boy who Todd might have picked out from the lot of them as the nerdy pushover, was nothing of the sort. In fact, he was just as well liked and respected as the rest. Todd had a suspicion that Meeks was the first person to own those damned glasses to be treated the way he was.
There was some quality Todd was missing. Maybe it was something you won over many years, maybe it was earned through different trials such as forging new friendships, picking up girls, and coming out top of your class. All of these were things Todd could only dream of experiencing.
He found his and Neil’s shared room empty, and quickly changed into his plaid pajamas, heart pounding with the notion that Neil might walk in any second and talk to him. So far, Todd had had the good luck of not yet having stumbled into a situation which required him to change clothes while Neil was in the room. This surely couldn’t last forever, though. God, how was every other boy so comfortable with one another? He knew they were all changing besides their roommates as if it were nothing. And of course, they all showered together with the same nonchalance.
At Balincrest, Todd had been roommates with a boy called George. He was a big guy, with arms much longer than those of a normal human, which left him crippled with an ape-like stance. He hardly spoke a word to Todd over the year that they shared each other's company, but he was not shy about the threatening glares he shot Todd at any chance he got. Todd often found himself settling down in his bed for the night or doing his homework, when he would suddenly become aware of lingering angry eyes boring into the side of his face or the back of his head. He made sure never to turn his face and look back at George when he noticed him staring. What would the result be? A fight? Some sort of accusation?
Anyway, Todd was glad to be rid of George and even gladder than his current roommate was much more polite. But politeness didn’t equate to a lack of awkwardness, not by a long shot. And because of this, every moment in Neil’s absence felt like a blessing, a calm before the storm.
Todd shook his head, his thoughts muddled. Hadn’t he just been thinking about how much he longed to spend more time with Neil? And of course he did like Neil. An embarrassing amount, considering how little they knew about each other. Yes, it seemed even right now, while he was thanking God that he didn’t have to spend another awkward interaction helplessly trying not to embarrass himself in front of his roommate, he was at the same time wishing he could talk to Neil. That didn’t make any sense, did it?
Out in the crowded hall once more, Todd noticed Neil conversing with Steven Meeks, Charlie Dalton, Richard Cameron, Knox Overstreet, and that Pitts fellow outside of Charlie and Cameron’s dorm room. The room was directly across the hall from Neil’s and Todd’s own room and Todd had to duck low to edge past them without catching their attention. Another boy might have walked up to the group and asked Neil, in front of them all, what had the verdict been. Asked him unabashedly if he was permitted to join the club or not. But of course, Todd wasn’t that boy.
He walked awkwardly over to the bathroom door, which was inbetween Charlie and Cameron’s room and Dr. Hager’s office at the end of the hallway. The bathroom was crowded and rowdy. There were three sinks and a row of shelves above them, where Stick and a couple of boy’s Todd didn’t know were brushing their teeth. Todd joined them at the far right of the sinks and listened half heartedly to their conversation, which seemed to center around a boy they called Spaz.
“Hey Spaz, you missing this?” a blonde boy in a green flannel shirt was saying, flashing a tiny glass bottle tinted deep brown.
“That’s for my asthma, okay? Could you give that back please?” said Spaz, a skinny boy with flat black hair a lisp. Todd had noticed him before, he was perpetually sneezing into his grubby handkerchief. The first boy replaced the bottle half heartedly as his shorter, chubby friend giggled.
Now, the blonde boy had some sort of red velvet mitten on his hand and was waving it in front of Spaz’s face, hypnotically, back and forth.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you like snakes?”
Todd leaned forward and spit into the sink. He felt someone tap his lower back and stood up, confused. There was Neil, grinning at him.
He pointed at Todd and said, “You’re in,” before spinning on the spot and dashing back down the hallway.Todd watched him go for a second, wondering what he should do. He was in. He was in the club.
“Get away from me!” Spaz was whining.
Todd looked back to see the three boys to his left still bickering and Stick standing awkwardly next to them, not joining in. The chubby boy with the brown hair started to whistle a snake charmer’s tune while his blonde friend continued to weave his gloved hand through the air, like a serpent.
“Hey Spaz, why don’t you check your pockets?” crowed the blonde boy. Spaz’s hand withdrew from his pants pockets, sticky with white toothpaste. His pockets stuck feebly out, coated in the paste. Todd wondered if Spaz had another pair of pajamas to wear.
“Cut it out, Robert, I mean it!” said Spaz, his voice beginning to tremble. He turned on the tap using his wrist and scrubbed at his fingers under the stream of water with futility.
“What do you think, William,” Robert asked mockingly. “Should I cut it out?”
“Show him a bit of the snake act again,” William said, leaning against the tiled wall smugly. “I heard Spaz just loves snakes.”
Robert laughed and reached out to pinch Spaz’s nose through the red mitten. Spaz jumped back, leaving the faucet running noisily. “The snake just bit you, Spaz. Hope you’re not allergic to those too!” Robert said.
“Everyone is allergic to snakes, it’s called being poisoned,” snapped Stick, swatting Robert’s hand away from Spaz’s face.
Robert and William glanced at each other before William said, “Why are you sticking up for old Spazoid now, huh Stick?”
“Maybe because you’re an asshole,” muttered Stick, rolling his eyes.
“No, I don’t think so,” said William. He pretended to think for a moment. “It couldn’t be because you’re a queer, could it?” he asked with mock interest.
Todd stiffened. He hated that word, it reminded him of Balincrest. It reminded him of way all the boys teased him, the way he couldn’t even defend himself, the way he stuttered so intensely that he imagined his words were trapped in a lock box somewhere around his adam’s apple.
“Fuck off, Wright,” Stick said, scornfully. He tossed his toothbrush onto the shelves above the sink and pushed past Todd and out the door.
William and Robert laughed, high-fiving each other at their joke. Todd slipped away without saying anything at all.
When Todd came back into the hallway, it was pretty much empty. Neil was standing at his desk, just inside their room, staring down at something in his hands. When he noticed Todd’s arrival, he grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into the room quickly, closing the door behind him.
“Look what I found! Keating must have left it for us,” he whispered excitedly, handing Todd a well worn book with a faded green cover.
Five Centuries of Verse, the title declared, in glittering gold print.
“Mr. Keating gave this to you?” Todd asked in wonder, flipping the cover open to see the first page.
“Well, somebody put it on my desk,” Neil said. He walked around Todd until he was standing behind him and leaned over Todd’s shoulder to point out something written in the book.
“Look, it says his name up here in the right corner. J Keating, Dead Poets, 1942. That’s the same year I was born.”
“Me too,” said Todd. Below the name there was a poem written in a boy’s scratchy penmanship. Perhaps Keating himself had written it, 17 years ago.
“God, this makes it feel so real. It’s going to be great,” Neil said, walking over to his bed and taking a seat. “I’m so glad you decided to come, Todd.”
“Thanks,” said Todd, awkwardly. He sat down on his own bed too. He was facing Neil. They were only about two feet apart and Todd had no idea what to say. He busied himself by flipping to the middle of the volume. There were so many poems in here, the book would probably be enough to last the club several years of readings.
“You know,” said Neil, “If you ever change your mind about reading, you can just say so. Later in the year, I mean. Once you get to know us more.”
Once you get to know us more. So there it was. A promise that they would all be friends. A promise that the society would still be meeting later in the year. Neil had said it all so naturally, as if it was a set thing, a destiny that could not be avoided. Todd just stared at him.
“Okay, okay,” Neil said, taking Todd’s confused look as another renunciation of the whole reading idea. “Just if you change your mind. If.”
“I know,” said Todd, hurriedly. “That’s nice of you Neil, really.”
“No problem,” said Neil, though Todd had not said thank you. He laid back on his bed with hands folded behind his head.
“I talked to the other guys,” Neil said, after a moment. “I think the walk to the cave will take about half an hour and we need to wait a couple minutes now, until the lights go off in the hallway. That’s when you know Hager’s gone to bed. He doesn’t take too long, either. He just goes straight to sleep.”
Todd wondered how Neil knew that. He supposed one picked that sort of thing up just by living somewhere long enough. “Do you guys sneak out often?” he asked.
Neil laughed, sitting back up. “Just down the hall, to each other’s rooms sometimes. It’s no big deal, we only do it for special occasions.”
Todd nodded like he understood but it was undeniably a weird answer. What constituted a “special occasion?”
Neil said, “Last year, Meeks and Pitts got caught on their way to Charlie’s room for his birthday. God, Hager was so mad. He burst into the room while the rest of us were already in there. He was pulling Meeks and Pitts practically by their ears and he hauled us all down to Nolan’s office.”
“God, what happened?” asked Todd nervously, thinking of how angry the staff would be if they found out students had left the building entirely.
“They just gave us a pretty good scolding. Nothing too bad, except they called our parents. My father was so angry, you should have seen him. He’s really strict about that sort of… well, I guess you already kinda know what he's like.” Neil trailed off, lost in the memory.
After a moment, he seemed to remember that Todd was there and carried on with the story. “Anyways, because of all that everyone was kind of against sneaking around for the rest of the year. We had to skip Pitt’s birthday because we didn’t want to risk it. And Stick was really shook up about it, he almost cried when we got in trouble.”
“Stick?” Todd said, remembering how Stick had told him he’d used to be friends with Neil and the rest of them. Maybe this had been the incident he was warning Todd about. But how could it have been if Neil and Knox Overstreet had gotten in trouble too and they had still been in the opening ceremony?
“Yeah,” Neil sighed. “Anyway, do you remember that old dog Nolan’s got?”
Todd did remember, he had seen it sitting at the Principal’s feet under his desk while Mr. Nolan had given out the extracurricular assignments.
“Well, Knox snuck into the kitchen after dinner and got a couple of treats so that she won’t rat us out tonight. Nolan has them made special, see. Actually, I think they put more effort into making food for that stupid dog down in the kitchens than they do on the food for the students,” Neil chuckled.
Suddenly, the light shining in through the crack underneath the door went out and Neil stood up quickly. He had a huge smile written across his face. He grabbed Todd's hands and pulled him up, leaning backwards spinning him around in a wild circle. “God, this is gonna be fantastic! It’s just the thing I’ve always wanted to do.”
Neil’s enthusiasm was infectious and Todd allowed himself to throw his head back and laugh freely. He was going to have a real adventure, he was going to try something crazy for the first time in his life. When their momentum slowed, Todd realized his palms were sweating and wished Neil would let go. Then, when Neil did, to grab the flashlight and book and lead Todd out into the hallway, Todd was relieved.