Dead Poets Society

kept playing the sax. Todd kept writing. Cameron looked around and shrugged. “I’m leaving,” he said and walked alone out of the cave.
    Knox read his love poem to Chris to himself, then slapped it on the side of his leg. “Damn it! II 1 could just get Chris to read this poem,” he groaned.
    “Why don’t you read it to her,” Pitts suggested. “It worked for Nuwanda.”
    “She won’t even speak to me, Pitts!” Knox cried. “I called her, and she wouldn’t even come to the phone.”
    “Nuwanda recited poetry to Gloria and she jumped all over him... right, Nuwanda?”
    Charlie stopped playing his sax. He thought a moment. “Absolutely,” he agreed and started blowing notes again.
    Off in the distance, the curfew bell rang. Charlie finished his melody, put his sax in its case, and moved out of the cave. Todd, Cameron, and Pitts picked up their papers and followed him out into the night. Knox stood in the cave alone, looking at his poem. Then, shoving it back in his book, he blew out the candle and ran out through the woods with desperate determination.
    “If it worked for him, it will work for me,” he said to himself as he plotted a scheme to get his words to Chris.

    The next morning the ground was thickly covered with snow. Knox left the dorm early, bundled against the freezing weather and icy winds. He cleaned the snow off his bike, carried it to a plowed path, and sped away, down the hills of Welton Academy over to Ridgeway High.
    He left his bike outside the school and ran frantically into the crowded hallway. Boys and girls bustled about, hanging coats in lockers, getting books, talking and joking around with each other.
    Knox hurried down one corridor and stopped to talk to a student. Then he turned and double-timed it up a flight of stairs to the second floor.
    “Chris!” Knox spotted her standing in front of her locker, talking with some girlfriends. She quickly gathered her things and turned as Knox ran up to her.
    “Knox! What are you doing here?” She pulled him away from her girlfriends into a corner.
    “I came to apologize for the other night. I brought you these, and a poem I wrote.”
    He held out a bouquet of wilted, frostbitten flowers and the poem. Chris looked at them but did not take them. “If Chet sees you, he’ll kill you, don’t you know that?” she cried.
    “I don’t care,” he said, shaking his head. “I love you, Chris. You deserve better than Chet and I’m it. Please accept these.”
    “Knox, you’re crazy,” Chris said as the bell rang and students ran to their classes.
    “Please. I acted like a jerk and I know it. Please?” he begged.
    Chris looked at the flowers as though she was considering accepting them. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “And stop bugging me!” She walked into a classroom and closed the door.
    The hallway was clear. Knox stood holding the drooping bouquet and his poem. He hesitated for a moment, then pulled open the door and walked into Chris’s classroom.
    The students were settling into their seats. Knox Pushed past the teacher who was leaning over a desk, helping a student with his homework.
    “Knox!” Chris cried. “I don’t believe this!”
    “All I’m asking you to do is listen,” he said, as he unfolded his poem and began to read. The teacher and the class turned and stared at Knox in amazement.

    “The heavens made a girl named Chris,
    With hair and skin of gold
    To touch her would he paradise
    To kiss her—glory untold.”

    Chris turned red and covered her face with her hands. Her friends sat barely restraining giggles and looking at each other in amazement. Knox continued reading:

    “They made a goddess and called her
    Chris, How? I’ll never know.
    But though my soul is far behind,
    My love can only grow.“

    Knox read on as though he and Chris were the only ones in the room.

    “I see a sweetness in her smile,
    Bright light shines from her eyes
    But life is complete—contentment is mine,
    Just knowing that she’s alive.”

    Knox lowered the paper and looked at Chris, who, utterly embarrassed, peeked out at him through her fingers. Knox put the poem and the flowers on her desk.
    “I love you, Chris,” he said. Then he turned and walked out of the room.

Chapter 12

    Knox flew out of Ridgeway High and raced back to Welton as fast as he could, riding against the blinding snow and over the icy roads. Back on campus, his friends were just finishing their class with Mr. Keating. They were huddled