"Thanks."
"You've got bad eyesight."
"This is my first time using one of—"
"Yeah, yeah, I know. You're an ignorant Oddity." Her eyes shifted from his for a moment. "Falling back on the same excuse...it’s becoming sort of pathetic don't you think?"
"I've been here less than two days."
"—as you well know,” Mrs. Quill continued, swiping a finger across her own tablet which changed the board’s screen. “Marvin Roseland was one of the first manipulators of his time and truly sparked the revolution that would later be known as the Creative Movement. Now you there..." She pointed at a student in the second row. "Starting at Mike Bafflow, read down to the Inventor's Theory on page 94."
"Listen to Mrs. Quill and you'll fail the mid-term,” Melissa continued in a hushed tone. "She's just going over the basics of titus."
"Well, what's the mid-term on?" Alex asked.
"Manipulation. Titus manipulation."
Alex jerked a thumb at the board. "Isn't she teaching us that?"
Melissa blinked and looked away. "Well...sort of, yeah, but object creation stems from the simplest branch. That type of manipulation is like super basic. We should be learning mimicry, not this...elementary crap."
"Uh, yeah...but I don't even know how to create objects—"
"Then I'll teach you."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
He smiled. "Thanks."
Is offering to teach me her way of making up for almost dropping me over the rail? "So does after class work for you...or—"
"Why not now?"
"Now? But—but we're in class." His smile turned upside down. Her words reminded him vaguely of Wilson. Why not now? Sounded like something he would've said.
"Who cares? It’s the beginning of the year. No one with skill learns anything in the first term."
No one with skill... he thought. Is that aimed at me?
"Would you like to repeat that, Melissa? I didn't quite catch it,” Mrs. Quill demanded from behind them.
Jumping, Melissa and Alex whipped around. A chill shot down Alex’s spine and he shivered as he stared wide-eyed into his instructor's narrowed ones. He felt as if someone had dropped ice down his shirt. The chill lingered and a cold sweat formed on his brow as his heart rate continued to skyrocket. His instructor's crimson eyes were as piercing as daggers.
Melissa on the other hand held fast to her composure, grasping onto it almost desperately. She met Mrs. Quill's glare squarely. Her violet eyes, stubborn and clear, refused to waver. Her face however was flushed as bright red as a tomato.
Is she intimidated or embarrassed? Alex wondered.
Daniel quickly shut off his tablet, and leaning back casually, put his arms behind his head. Tilting his head to one side, he looked on. Silent as the grave, he blended seamlessly into the class as another unassuming bystander. His impassive expression gave away nothing. Only the kindling sympathy flickering beneath his dark eyes alluded to a relationship that dipped past the classmate boundary.
At her intuition's urging, Katelyn peeked open an eye. Recognizing her instructor, she sat up slowly. Smothering her bewilderment, she gave Melissa a demanding look, accompanied by a questioning eyebrow. What had happened while she was drowning the world out with music?
"As—as far as I've heard, no one learns anything in the first quarter. Or should I say the entire year?" Melissa began, gaining confidence as she spoke.
Pushing back her chair, she stood.
"You suck as a teacher, Mrs. Quill. You're just up there jabbering on about the obvious. I’m an eleven and they’re tens; we already know what the Creation Theory is and all that. Why don't you start the year out teaching us something of worth? You know what? Better yet, you could just quit. It would be for the good of everyone, the school, your students...not to mention you. In with the new, out with the old, don't you think?"
Alex's eyes widened. What was she doing? What was she saying?! This moron...she just dug her own grave.
Mrs. Quill smiled thinly. "Quite the mouth you've got there." Originally she'd planned to just give the slackers a small helping of humiliation and establish the taste of discipline early but this student was going for something different entirely. A power struggle right out of the gate. The stubbornness with this class seemed especially high. She shrugged off her internal sigh. Each year was different. This year it looked like she needed to be harsher than before.
She lifted her tablet. "I'm sure you'll be happy to know that it's earned you a suspension from the training facility for the entire semester."
"What?!" Melissa blinked, dumbfounded, as a jolt of fear sprang through her. She had gone too far. "You can't—"
Mrs. Quill tapped the touch screen lightly. "I already have."
"What, are you trying to fail me?!"
"You did that to yourself. Now, is there anything else you'd like to say?"
"Why—why you bitch!" Melissa shrieked, lunging at the teacher, fingers hooked like claws. Alex, standing, reached for her instinctively, his hands accidentally catching her at the chest, each one grabbing a handful. A collective gasp ran through the class. It was the heat of the moment and Alex, not realizing just what he'd laid hands on, pulled back in the effort to restrain a now frozen Melissa who stood stiff as cardboard.
"Bold move, man,” a guy said.
"Ugh..." said a girl.
"What a perv,” another said.
Daniel began to clap. "Dude...way to go."
"Huh?" Alex said, confused, looking back at his friend.
Melissa pulling Alex's hands off her, turned around, and slapped him. Alex's head snapped to the side, his cheek red and stinging.
While Melissa glared up at him in contempt, he stared back down at her, confused. "What was that for?!" Alex demanded. "I was helping you."
Melissa, taken aback, stepped back from him. Jaw set and with purple flames sprouting from her eyes, she lifted her hand a second time. Cutting through the air in one swift movement, she brought it down. Mrs. Quill grabbed her arm.
"Get a room!" a guy advised from the other side of the class.
"Well...that was entertaining,” Mrs. Quill said, brows furrowed and mouth between a smile and frown. She coughed awkwardly, trying to clear the air. "Alright, I think I-I'll let this one pass." She let go of Melissa's arm and pointed between the two freshman. "You two, um...should figure out your, er...issues, after class."
With that, Mrs. Quill, teetering on stilts for heels, walked back to the front of the class and continued the lesson. The class, who'd been avidly watching the scene play out, reluctantly returned their attention to a more educational pastime.
Melissa pushing Alex into the table, stormed out of the room, abandoning her belongings. Katelyn and Daniel looked from the door to Alex and back again.
"What?" Alex said, sitting. "I didn't do anything."
Katelyn looking like she wanted to smack him, wrapped her headphones around her neck and stood. "You're an imbecile,” she said, her voice like ice as she pulled on her backpack. Snatching Melissa's stuff, she strode out after her.
"Girls...." Alex said, at a loss, shaking his head. "Hormones...ugh, must've been that time of the month."
A girl threw her textbook at him. Crying out as it smacked him in the back of the head, Alex turned. "The heck?"
The culprit was a girl with a freckled face and strawberry blonde hair. Her look of defiance deflated as she shrunk back warily. "Stop looking at me, you creep."
"You disgust me,” her friend added, chucking her eraser.
"Well..." Alex said ducking. "You're repulsive." Turning back around, he kicked the thrown textbook across the floor towards the front of the classroom.
"Bitches." Alex caught Daniel staring at him. "What? I didn't do—they started it."
"Dude, just apologize,” Daniel said evenly.
"For what?!" Alex said, defensive. Several pairs of shocked eyes looked back at him. Mrs. Quill, however, carried on w
ith her lesson, undeterred.
"The guy still doesn't get it,” someone said.
"Must be an oddity thing,” said another.
"Rude..." a girl coughed.
"Moron,” accused another.
"Maybe a new tactic?" a guy inquired.
"Didn't work,” his friend replied.
"I mean to Melissa,” Daniel said lowering his voice.
"Why should I?” Alex whispered indignantly, “She slapped me."
"Dude...don't tell me..."
"Tell you what?"
"Wait, you really don't know?"
"About what?"
"You...Melissa...her boobs..."
"Okay?"
"You know what? Forget it..." Daniel said shaking his head in disappointment. "I thought you were better than this man...I—I really did...but now, I know what you really are."
Alex shrugged, "Whatever."
They suffered through the rest of the class in silence.
As he was packing up, Alex caught Mrs. Quill’s final words. "As you all know, the semester final is your first tournament. You'll find out who you'll be facing at the end of the day."
Chapter 18
Failing
Later that night, lying around on the couch in the commons with Katelyn and Melissa, Alex flipped desperately through the textbook. He stopped every few seconds to read a blurb of one of his many sticky notes scattered across the page. Searching hopelessly for something he could make sense out of, he was lost and had been ever since day one. While the class had already covered two chapters, defining the key concepts of the unit, Alex struggled to simply understand the first chapters, let alone demonstrate it.
"Object deconstruction, a basic technique involving the use of one's mental imagery to break down an object's innate makeup,” he recited before flipping to the next page.
"Still studying?" Melissa asked not looking up as she flipped a channel. Katelyn, sitting next to her. fiddled with her phone while across the room Daniel occupied himself with table tennis with the lower tiers.
Alex ignored Melissa. A successful deconstruction involved the categorization and labeling of the object’s individual materials, which beginners commonly verbalized before doing so mentally. Such information was memorized by a titus user with the same intensity as a child with language.
For Alex, Mrs. Quill was going the extra mile. She required the definitions of the object's broken down material and to top it all off, also wanted a detailed explanation of the most basic form and common use. However, what was overkill for Alex was a breeze for the other tens. Having been practicing titus since they could talk, passing such demonstrative examinations came as easily as playing video games. Whether new concepts or old, Alex had once believed he could pick up anything and everything... But now he worried that he was in over his head.
~*~*~*~
November fourteenth, a Tuesday.
Alex biting his nails nervously, trained his eyes on the closed textbook sitting compliantly at the edge of his desk. He'd spent hour after hour, day after day, studying in the attempt to absorb the information like he'd always done, always had...before he came to this dimension. He looked hopefully at the clock. Twenty minutes left. A student finishing his presentation made his progression back to his seat.
"Alex Mulholland,” Mrs. Quill called, holding a clipboard in one hand.
"You can do it,” Melissa said as he passed her.
"Good luck,” Daniel whispered. Katelyn, silent as always, simply watched him, gray eyes narrowed as he walked to the front of the class. He turned to face them, a bundle of nerves.
Before him, residing on a metal tray, was a smooth rock the size of two fists. Staring at the rock intently, Alex closed his eyes and attempted to imagine the rock simply breaking apart, but his mind was blank. All he could see was the insides of eyelids, darkness. All he could feel, fear.
In the minute that felt like an hour, the rock sat unchanged. Still shaking, he kept his eyelids shut. And as a mummer rose up from the crowd, Alex took a decisive breath. "With desperate times...come desperate measures,” he muttered to himself. Snapping his eyes open, he grabbed the rock and tossed it up into the air. "Abracadabra!"
A hushed silence gripped the room as it came down on his foot.
~*~*~*~
"Melding," Alex said as he flipped a page. "The forming of an object by combining the bare minimum of two different materials."
Melissa put the remote down and looked at him oddly. "Why're you reviewing something you've already failed?"
"If he doesn't, the class will leave him further in the dust,” Katelyn said.
The opposite of deconstruction, melding combined two of the same objects for a larger form but had a more common use in the repair or fixing of broken objects.
~*~*~*~
November seventeenth, a Friday.
Alex, with his head on the desk, pretended to be invisible. Melissa, in an effort to help him, placed a sheet of paper over his head. But he was too miserable to care and ignored her.
"Alex,” Mrs. Quill called.
"Which one?" someone asked.
Alex crossed his fingers.
"Mulholland."
"Damn,” Melissa said. She'd spoke his mind.
Lifting his head, he felt the paper slide to the floor. He pushed back his chair and glancing down absently, he stared at the papers. Each one displayed a line of Melissa’s own handwritten encouragement.
Good luck, one read.
Do your best, read another.
But the one that stood out and he picked up was, I believe in you.
Bending down to pick up the paper, he looked up at Melissa, stunned. Returning the expression with a shy smile, she gave him a thumbs up and jerked her head towards the front of the class. Rising, Alex folded the paper sloppily and tucked it into his pocket as he walked down their row.
Katelyn looked up from her phone as he passed. "Try not to fuck up."
"Good luck,” Daniel added.
This time around, Alex was confronted with the broken handle of a coffee mug. Staring at it for a long moment, he picked up both handle and cup. Dropping them on the floor, he walked out.
~*~*~*~
It was frustrating. Taking a dip in a reevaluation of self-worth, he did only what he could. Only what he knew to do. He studied, studied the terms, the concepts, and definitions, front, back, and sideways. Wherever he went, so did the textbook.
He was back in the commons. The class had moved onto chapter three.
"Mimicry,” Alex began.
"The use of one’s imagination to change an objects physical appearance to that of another's,” Katelyn said absently, eyes on the game she was playing on her phone. "So you've finally caught up with the class."
It didn't make sense, Alex thought, looking up from the tablet. He had his head in the damn thing—the textbook. He knew the concepts and yet...and yet, he didn't. He was missing something, had overlooked something, somewhere at some point in time. With trembling hands Alex turned off the tablet.
Melissa pulling her eyes from the television screen looked at him. "Done studying?"
"I don't get it,” Katelyn said fixing him with the cool stormy gray of her eyes. "You're a level eleven, yet you don't believe in yourself or titus. It's like a part of you is full of doubt," her eyes returned to her phone and the game unpaused. "It’s like you have a toe in the water and your body's onboard."
Alex said nothing. Internally he was panicking. He’d been found out. Katelyn had seen through him. She who had seemed so quiet and oblivious, had been watching all along, aware yet silent.
"Geez..." Melissa said, tossing the remote to the lower tiers on the floor. "Alex, if you needed help so badly you should've just asked. With all the studying you were doing I thought you were just a bad test taker."
"Hey, Melissa,” Alex said, after a long moment, scrolling the tablet back to chapter one before shoving it her way. “Do you understand—can you explain this?"
She smacked the tablet out of his hands and onto the floor. "Don't put that garbage in my face."
Alex picked up the device. "And you wonder why I don't ask."
"I can't teach you anyway because Mrs. Quill suspended my pass from the training floor."
"You offer to teach him only to decline? Stop contradicting yourself, Melissa. You’re just making excuses because you're afraid to be alone with—"
Melissa covered Katelyn's mouth with a hand and Katelyn bit it. "Bitch," she spat, waving her phone in Melissa's face, her eyes as icy as a blizzard. "You made me lose."
"Wait, can't you just teach me in the stadium?" Alex asked.
"Probably..." Melissa said pondering the idea. "But I don't want you touching me."
"Huh?"
Katelyn directed her stare at Daniel. "It annoys me, my brother playing with those bugs."
"Bugs?" Alex said and looked over at Daniel, laughing as he swung and missed the ball. The lower tiers were now comfortable around him and teased him lightheartedly for the mess-up.
"The other tiers aren't—" he continued.
"Don't judge me. I'm not the only one who looks down on the living."
"Your mind is warped."
"No more than yours,” Katelyn retorted. "One life is like the next," she smiled. "Just like an insect's. I simply see my fellow man on the same plain."
"With the exception of your brother?" Melissa guessed.
Katelyn's gaze was steady. "Who else?"
"Hey!" A guy burst through the entrance. "The tournament info's out!"
Flooding into the commons in a swarm, a flock of mechanical birds flew about overhead, chaos ensuing in their wake. Screaming broke out as many students took cover, Alex and Melissa among them. Others, likely the upperclassmen, hardly payed the distraction a glance. They continued what they were doing, unharmed, as the flying machines parting, went around.
Zipping, cutting, slicing through the air with untraceable speed, the birds darted in and out of the mass as if organizing themselves. Then splitting from the main group, numerous birds swooped onto the shoulders, heads and arms of students. The main group continuing on their given course, disappeared down the hall, leaving their fellow avians behind.
Rod Wars Page 14