OC HIGH: STUDENT NEWS AND VIEWS : Brothers Skip School for Two Years--and Live to Tell About It

Robert and Anthony Duran of Corona got so good at skipping school they couldn’t stop.

Month after month, their parents would ask about school, and month after month, the twins said it was “fine.” At first, the boys were afraid their parents would find out; eventually, they hoped their parents would find out.

The parents finally did find out, but not before the twins had ditched their entire freshman and sophomore years at Corona High School.

“Every day we were always planning to tell our dad, and every day we just didn’t,” Robert said. The boys usually stayed home and played video games or listened to the radio while their parents were at jobs in Orange County.

Their father, Armando Duran, discovered the truth when he called for copies of the report cards his boys kept “forgetting” to bring home. When the school secretary said the boys weren’t enrolled, he thought it must be a mistake.

“Believe me, I was very upset with them, with myself mostly,” Duran said. “If I had been more alert, I would have caught it.”

Now 17, the twins are making up classes at the Corona-Norco Career Academy and will graduate a year later than their estranged public school classmates.

The hooky binge started innocently on Robert’s second day at Corona High when he was 13. He was late. His friend left without him. He decided to skip school, just this once. Robert said he wanted to tell his dad that day, but Dad came home in a bad mood. The next day he skipped again.

Two weeks later, Anthony came home early from school because he was not feeling well, and there was Robert, eating a bowl of cereal. The next day, Anthony stayed home too.

They told of snatching a warning letter from the school district out of the mailbox before their parents saw it. If Mom or Dad stayed home from work, the boys hid in the back yard. Robert had a radio with headphones. Anthony just sat.

“I just read something. I just sat there,” Anthony said. “Time goes by quick if you just sit in a tree.”

They knew someday they would be caught, but they were afraid to own up.

“We were hoping . . . a miracle would happen and we’d be back in school,” Anthony said. Now they are.

Anthony said he wants to go into electronics. Robert wants to study communications and become a radio disc jockey.