by Ben Reeder
I took a quick look down at my clothes, and tried to see where I might fit. Black cargo pants tucked into my new black, mid-calf combat boots, and a gray t-shirt with black sleeves under a black leather jacket. The only groups that even looked remotely like me were the pale and tragic goths, and the equally pale group of pimple-faced guys in black trench coats and combat boots. I wasn't sure I wanted to hang out with anyone who dressed like I did.
The van came to a stop. “I'll pick you up here around four-thirty,” Mom said. I nodded, too excited to talk, and I tried for surly acceptance when she kissed my cheek.
“See you this afternoon,” I managed as I hopped out and slung my backpack on my right shoulder. Mom's van sputtered away, and I looked at the school. My brain tried to register everything, lock it away as vividly as possible. For anyone else, this looked like me transferring in from another school. But for me, this was another first. My first day of high school. I wanted to remember this.
I closed my eyes and opened my aura sight. Like any public building, the school wasn't warded. No one claimed any place with a flag in front of it. Flags marked cowan territory as well as any glyphs or sigils. Lusty reds and passionate oranges shone in auras all over the place, with an occasional unconventional mauve flash moving through them. The group of trench-coated guys was a spiky, angry gray, and some of the goths had mournful, muddy yellow streaks running through their auras. They were bright, beautiful…untainted. I held my own hand up. Murky red and black taint swirled over my skin: the anger and the corruption of black magick all over my aura. Maybe some of the pretty would rub off on me, and not the other way around.
With a shake of my head, I cleared my aura sight and started for the front doors. Scraps of conversations reached my ears, only a few words making sense at a time.
“…believe she bought the same dress…”
“…kicked his ass on the ghetto level, with my new…”
“…think he'd go out with me? I'd just…”
“… a condensed copy of the Necronomicon last week. Only…”
I stopped as I heard the last and tilted my head to hear more.
“… spells. None of the weak crap.” The guy who was talking was one of the trench coat crowd, with a narrow face and shoulder length brown hair.
“That would be so cool,” one of his friends said.
“Yeah, I figure I'm going to be the most powerful warlock in the city by next week,” the first guy said. “Check it out.” He pulled a thin book from his coat pocket, and I almost choked on a laugh. It looked like a pulp paperback, with a black cover and white lettering and designs, one of the hoax versions of the Necronomicon anyone could buy in a mainstream bookstore. If he was a warlock, I was a televangelist.
I turned and headed through the main doors. My locker lurked somewhere in this maze of people and stone, and I didn't have a lot of time to find it. In theory, I knew where it was; I'd even been to it and dumped my books in it yesterday afternoon. Finding it again, though, that was going to be a real trick with so many people in the halls, and I didn't have time to waste on wanna-be sorcerers trying to do mail-order magic.
With people leaning on the lockers, it was almost impossible to figure out where mine was. The halls cleared some when the first bell rang, and I figured out I'd passed mine about a halfway down the hallway, so I had to backtrack. Like most things I needed to remember, I'd gotten my locker combination down pretty quickly. But getting the numbers to line up and open the lock? Whole different story.
The tardy bell rang just as I coaxed the lock open, and I ran for my first class after I grabbed my American History textbook. Room numbers counted down in my head as my feet pounded on the linoleum. The heavy sound of my boots echoed off the empty hall like doom in my ears. Late for my first class. This day wasn't starting off well at all.
My luck held true when I overshot the room and nearly slipped on the slick tiles as I tried to stop myself. The doorknob only jiggled a little when I tried to turn it, and the little balding man behind the desk gave me a glare through the narrow rectangle of safety glass. He raised a warning finger at me when I knocked. I could see him look back down at his roll-sheet and hear him drone off another name in a nasal voice. I pulled my crumpled schedule out of my front pocket and read the name by American History. Strickland. I didn't like him already.
I sighed and slumped against the door. Great. If Principal Ravenhearst really wanted to get rid of me, I was giving her plenty to work with, right off the bat. Strickland's droning tone kept going behind me, reciting the names of people who knew where his class was and could get there on time. While I was contemplating a suitable Infernal torment for the little man, another sound danced across my thoughts: a girl's giggle.
“Bra-ad!” I heard her voice rise and fall from around the corner to my right. “We're late as it is! Stop that!” I heard another giggle, and a long-legged redhead came around the corner with one hand swiping behind her blue skirt. Blue straps from her backpack pulled her white button-down blouse tight against her, and showed every curve between her shoulders and hips.
A tall blond guy in a purple jacket with gold sleeves swooped in behind her and caught her up with one arm. He spun her to face him, and his other arm reached behind her to grab a handful of her ass. I could see patches on his jacket sleeve for pretty much any sport with a ball. She gave a little cry and pushed him away, and he gave way with a laugh.
“Mr. Abrams wouldn't dare give us detention,” he said as he pulled her under his arm and turned them toward me. More patches and medals decorated the right side of his jacket, and I could see the big “K” on the left side of his chest. If there was a Kennedy team he didn't play on, it was the chess team. “Coach would have his ass if I couldn't make it to practice.”
The girl saw me first, and her face went red, even as Brad ducked his head down to nuzzle at her neck. She slapped his free hand down. “Brad!” she hissed.
He looked up and finally saw me.
The next thing I knew, I was up against the lockers, looking eye to eye with Brad. He had a double handful of my jacket and shirt, and was holding me at eye level, which left my feet not touching floor.
“Getting a good eyeful, you little pervert?” he growled at me.
My brain clamped down on my body's instinct to fight back, but my mouth didn't seem to be in the loop. “Isn't that what a trophy girlfriend's for? So people will look?”Behind him, the girl gave a little gasp, and I saw her gray eyes get wide. Brad just looked at me with a slack expression on his face. “Does she match your car?” Finally, he seemed to get it. One hand left my jacket, and slammed into my stomach. Pain exploded into nausea as I hit the floor.
“My girl isn’t a trophy!” Brad said in my ear as I gasped for breath on my hands and knees. I leaned back on my knees and took a shuddering breath as my diaphragm tried to relax.
“Oh, sorry, do you prefer the term accessory?” I asked the girl when I could breathe again.
Her jaw dropped, but her eyes went to Brad, and I saw pain there instead of wounded pride. She turned and ran down the hallway, and Brad grabbed my jacket again. His right fist went back to his ear.
“I'm gonna beat you six ways from Sunday, asshole!” he said.
Movement to my left caught my eye, and I saw the teacher come around the corner before Brad did. He was a pudgy man with wiry, salt-and-pepper hair that didn’t seem to want to hang out next to his head, and a pair of rectangular glasses that rode low on his nose, letting him peer over them at us with intense green eyes. He had a yellow shirt under a brown sweater vest and brown pants, and somehow he made that look more comfortable than dorky.
“One for every other day of the week, I take it?” the teacher said. A thin smile creased his round face, and I could hear steel in his voice.
Brad flinched and turned to face the man. “Huh?” And I thought I had the snappy comebacks.
“Six ways from Sunday, Mister Duncan. It means once for every other day of the week, whi
ch is to say, you will do it many times, or frequently. Not quite the context you had in mind, I'm sure, but I understand that you were threatening violence to this young man. Am I correct?” This guy was smart. I liked him already.
“I dunno what you're talking about Mister Chomsky,” Brad said as he pulled me to my feet. The name sounded familiar.
“Don't try to lie to me, Brad. To your credit, you're not very good at it. Coach Brenner may have most of the other teachers toeing his little line, but I will remind you that you enjoy no special protection where I am concerned. If you are not elsewhere with extreme haste, you will learn first-hand the definition of the term ‘sidelined.’ Do I make myself abundantly clear, Mr. Duncan?”
“Yeah.” He leaned in closer to me and put his index finger in the middle of my chest. “This ain't over, asshole,” he whispered.
I looked down at his hand, then back up at him and tried to keep any expression off my face. “Are you left handed?” I asked him. He gave me a blank look. “Are. You. Left. Handed?”
“No.”
“Then, the next time you touch me, don't use your good hand.” I stepped back and let the threat hang in the air between us. I probably shouldn't have tried to be a smart ass about it, because it looked like he was going to have to go rough up a smart kid to find out what I meant.
He gave me a sneer and stalked off.
“I don't condone violence as a solution to conflicts, Mr. Fortunato,” Mr. Chomsky said. “Even where people like Mr. Duncan are concerned.”
“How did you know my name?”
“Oh, simple deduction, really. Principal Ravenhearst has informed us of a new student arriving today. Said new student, Chance Fortunato, is in my Physical Science class for fifth period, and Mr. Strickland has him in his first period class. Seeing as you are outside Mr. Strickland's classroom during first period, and you are still carrying your class schedule in hand, I can deduce that you are a new student, and as Chance Fortunato is the only new student we have today, I deduce that you are he.”
“Okay. Um…thanks for…you know,” I stammered.
“You're welcome. And Mr. Fortunato?”
“Yes, sir?”
“While violence is not an optimal solution, I do understand that it can be an excellent deterrent. However, I still cannot condone the implied threat of violence, no matter how well-put.” He smiled and walked past me. “Don't use your good hand,” he chuckled as he headed down the hall.
I revised my first impression of Mr. Chomsky. This guy was really, really smart. Still, the way the girl had reacted bugged me. I'd expected her to insult me back or something. Instead, I felt like something I should have been scraping off the bottom of my shoe.
American History wasn't so bad after Strickland let me in, and Algebra was a lot easier than spell theory, even if Mrs. Meyers seemed to teach by hypnosis. Everything about her, from her flat, bored tone, to her old-lady dress in the most boring shade of pastel blue I'd ever seen, seemed designed to numb the brain into a trance. At least in algebra, the formulas stayed the same all the time, and didn't change with the stars.
English was more interesting. Mr. Abrams had the desks in his room set up in a big circle. The man himself was slim and energetic, with a pair of thick glasses that made his watery eyes seem huge on his face. The class was reading The Scarlet Letter, and even by my standards, it seemed boring at first glance. Mr. Abrams asked questions about why the characters did things, and explained about the way people did things back then. Maybe I started to like it because it was about sin and redemption; I had a deeply personal understanding of that.
Fourth period was P.E. with Coach Connors. As long as we at least tried to be active, he seemed happy. It was only at the end of the period that I started to worry. Everyone around me stripped out of their t-shirts and gym shorts and headed for the showers. I was hot and sweaty from class, and there was no way I was going to go to lunch smelling like I did.
I grabbed a towel and waited for most of the guys around me to head for the shower, then put my back to the lockers and took my shirt off, and draped the towel across my shoulders so it covered most of my back. The scars on my chest and legs still showed, but there weren't as many of those. I headed for the showers, and felt a wash of relief as I stepped past the partition. The shower heads were on four round pillars with semi-partitioned sections set around them, so I figured I could get in, shower, and get out without anyone seeing the scars on my back. Still, I made quick work of getting myself cleaned up. The locker room was mostly empty by the time I got out, so getting dressed wasn't too bad, and I was headed for my locker to grab my lunch only a couple of minutes after the bell rang.
My heart sank as I stepped into the cafeteria and looked at the sea of people in front of me. The buzz of a hundred conversations washed over me like an invisible wave, and the energy of a room full of people pressed in on my mystic senses. The subtle pressure made me feel like my ears wanted to pop as I walked through the subtle ebb and flow of mystic currents toward an unoccupied table in the corner.
Suddenly, I felt very alone. The sense of isolation caught me off guard. Only three days back with people I loved, and I couldn't go for more than four hours away from them without getting lonely. I shook my head as I opened the insulated lunch sack Mom had given me that morning. I'd gone for years on my own; I could handle another few hours. When I pulled out the two sandwiches Mom had made, I smiled and felt a little of the loneliness vanish. Mom had made them with bread she'd baked on Sunday. She'd packed some chips, and a thick piece of baklava. It was like having a little piece of home there with me.
I caught myself closing up the chips before I was finished, and forced myself to eat all of them. Mom wasn't going to let me go hungry, I reminded myself. I didn't need to stash food for later. Thoughts of stale pizza and flat soda surfaced for a moment, and I forced them into the big box in my head marked “The Past – Don't Open. Ever.” Besides, I told myself, the future was looking a lot brighter now; Mr. Chomsky's class was right after lunch, and I still had French and Wood Shop to look forward to.
I took my time with the baklava, and still had a few minutes to enjoy my soda. I'd forgotten how good cold, still-fizzy soda could taste until Saturday, and I decided I liked orange soda, but not as much as root beer. I crossed orange off my mental list. Clear citrus drinks were next, though I had no idea what the difference could be between any of them, I was looking forward to finding out.
The taste of my soda was just starting to fade on my tongue when the bell rang. People started heading for the doors across the cafeteria from me. Crap. If just being in the same room with so many people pushed on my mystic senses, I didn't want to find out what getting caught up in the bottleneck a door would cause.
Two guys ducked past me, both a little chubby, both wearing t-shirts with slogans on them, both moving like they didn't want to be seen. They slipped out of a set of doors that were half-hidden by stacks of chairs, and I followed. It opened out into an almost-empty hallway next to the auditorium. It put me on the far side of the cafeteria from my locker, but I preferred having to hustle a little to the headache a mystic overload would cause.
I ducked into a narrow hallway that looked like it went where I needed to go, and hoped I wasn't getting myself lost. When I got close to the end, though, I heard Brad's voice, and saw a flash of purple and gold. More letter jackets gathered near the end of the hall, and I heard another voice. The hall came to a T a few yards in front of me, and people were passing between Brad's group and me, so I couldn't see the other guy.
“Brad, look, I'm gonna be late for class, man,” the unseen guy said.
“We wouldn't want that, would we?” Brad mocked. “This ain’t gonna take long.”
A door opened across the hallway, and Brad's buddies chuckled as they all followed him in. As tempting as it was to leave the guy to his fate, it wasn't tempting enough. I hit the intersection of the hallway at a jog and wove my way through the other students toward wh
at I could see was a boys’ bathroom. The door hadn't quite closed, and I pushed it open just far enough to slip inside. The privacy wall hid me from view, and I slid along it until I was near the edge. I was out of direct sight, but I could see the end mirror on the line of sinks. In the reflection, I could see Brad's victim pinned against the stalls, a dark-haired kid wearing a denim trench coat that was covered in ink drawings.
“Look, Brad,” the kid was saying, “I told you I'm not going to say anything. No one would believe me!”
“Mr. Chomsky might,” Brad countered. “He likes you, Lucas, and he has it in for me. So if you run and tell him you saw me in his classroom during lunch, he might think I was up to something.”
“Dude, you were in his briefcase!” Lucas said.
“See, that's the kind of attitude that’ll get you in trouble. We need to fix that. We're gonna give you a taste of what'll happen if you open your big mouth. What did Coach call that again, Bryce?”
“Negative reinforcement,” one of the other jocks said.
“Guys, I promise, I won't say anything!” Lucas’ voice came out almost as a squeak.
“We just want to be sure, see,” one of the jocks said from Brad's left.
“If you tell anyone what you saw, you're gonna hurt a lot worse than this.” Brad drew his fist back and gut-punched Lucas. He went down to his hands and knees and retched.
The rest of the jocks moved in on him and my heart sped up. Lucas gave a moan that sounded like a kid who'd been through this before, and I stepped around the corner. The part of my brain that had probably never evolved was screaming at me like a monkey to go the other way, but the seven-year-old kid in me could only see himself there on the floor. I slapped the hairy monkey part of my brain down and kept going. All I had was a desperate bluff that one of my marks had tried on me once.
“He doesn't have to say anything.” I looked down at my empty right hand and slipped it into my pocket. “All I have to do is hit the send button, and you guys are all over my home page.”