by Jerel Law
Jonah walked over to the food line and stared down at the offerings, none of which looked entirely appealing. He sighed, wondering what Eliza and the other quarterlings were having right now. He had a mini-daydream while standing in line of an enormous plate piled high with steaming fried chicken, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, and gravy—all prepared by nuns who could really cook.
As he watched the lunch lady with the black hairnet slop a cold, gooey substance onto a tray of a kid in front of him, he snapped back into reality.
“Serve you, son?” she called out to him with a scowl on her face. “Hurry along, now, pick something.”
“Oh boy,” Jonah muttered to himself, finally pointing to the least radioactive-looking tray of food in the buffet line and cringing.
He turned to look for the table where his friends would be, standing still and scanning the entire room for a few seconds. The cafeteria was always divided into sections, but not by the teachers or by room dividers or anything like that. The students separated out into groups themselves, and any kid with even the lowest level of observation skills could easily figure out who they were.
The band kids were in the far corner, not wanting to draw attention to themselves. Beside them, several tables of students dressed mostly in black sat, sullen and mostly quiet. The goths, Jonah said to himself. A few were looking over at the band people with scorn. One student kept lobbing balled-up paper napkins at them and laughing.
In the other corner were the students Jonah had been hanging out with—the jocks. They were the loudest, most obnoxious group in the cafeteria. Mostly this section was made up of football and basketball players, with a few baseball players thrown in, as well as the entire cheerleading squad. Mr. Sherman, one of the lunch monitors, stood against the wall near them, his arms crossed.
Although Jonah still tried to ignore it, he couldn’t help but see what was happening in the spiritual world too. As he held his tray carefully and walked toward the jock tables, he saw a dozen or more fallen angels hovering over the kids, bouncing back and forth, whispering in ears, standing on tables, digging into their backs, and basically encouraging them to pick on other kids.
“Hey, Darnell,” Jonah said, sitting down beside the pencil-thin kid with the blank stare. He hadn’t known any of them for very long, and he was still trying to figure out how to fit in. “How’s it going?”
“Unnngh,” Darnell replied, his mouth stuffed full. Tony was busy listening to a group of ninth-grade boys tell him how great he was and nodding his approval. Mike had his long leg stretched across the floor to the table beside him, his foot wrapped around a chair. When a kid joined his friends with a full lunch tray and tried to sit down, Mike pulled the chair out quickly. The boy ended up flat on his back, with food all over his chest. This sent the three of them into a fit of snorting laughter and high fives.
“That wasn’t all that nice,” Jonah said, but not loud enough for anyone to hear. These weren’t the kids he would have hung out with last year. But he was an athlete now. This was where he belonged. He held up a spoonful of the mystery vegetable on his plate, trying to draw their attention away from the poor kid on the floor. “How about this food? Any guesses as to what this is?”
But none of them were listening. Occasionally a fallen angel would fly by, bend over, and whisper something into their ears. One particularly small, creepy one landed on Darnell’s shoulder, glaring at Jonah with a wicked smile as he spoke into the boy’s ear. Jonah held his spoon in front of his face for a minute, mesmerized by the fallen creature.
“Why are you staring at me, dude?” Darnell said, looking up at him for the first time. “You look weird.”
Jonah blinked a couple of times and shook his head. “Oh, sorry,” he stammered. “I was just . . . thinking about something and lost my train of thought.”
“Lost your train of thought, did you, Jonah?” the fallen angel squealed, laughing hysterically. “Sure you did! Sure you did!”
Jonah opened his mouth but caught himself before he responded to the creature’s taunt.
The basketball player stared back at him, a dull look on his face. “Yeah?”
Jonah forced a smile again. “Nothing, nothing, I was just . . . never mind.” He stuffed a spoonful of the goo in his mouth before he could say something that he might regret later.
He felt someone behind him, and then a lunch bag plopped down to his left. The four basketball players looked up in unison but still stared blankly.
“Hi there, everyone!” Amber said as she sat down. She was one of the varsity cheerleaders. The boys all watched as she flipped her long, blond curls behind her shoulder and pulled up a chair close to Jonah. “Do you mind if I sit here, Jonah?”
He stared at her until he realized he probably had the same glazed look as his buddies. He reminded himself that this was one of the perks of sitting at the athlete table. “No, great. That’s fine.”
She smiled, slid into her chair, and studied Jonah for a few seconds. He swallowed hard, knowing that one of the prettiest girls in school was sitting inches away. The others continued to stare at her too, finally uninterested in their lunches or picking on other kids. Apparently, though, she had eyes for only Jonah.
“I wanted to tell you, in person, how incredible that game was last night,” she said as she unwrapped her sandwich and took a small bite. “I mean, the way you took charge of the game, made those other players look like they were just . . . standing still!” She began to laugh, tilting her head back as if it were the funniest thing she could imagine. “I can still see the looks on those poor boys’ faces . . .”
Amber continued chattering away about the game, how impressive Jonah was, and how many dunks did he have? Fifteen? And how many points did he score? And did he happen to catch the halftime dance number by the cheerleaders?
Jonah simply nodded his head, interjecting a “yeah” or a “uh-huh” or a “thanks” every so often. But something across the room caught his attention, and he found himself cutting his eyes away from her.
Three groups of fallen angels were forming. One over the band kids, another above the goths, and a third over the top of the jocks. For the first time, it hit him—there were different teams of the Fallen, assigned to the cliques in the school.
Or maybe the Fallen had created the cliques . . .
“Jonah?” Amber said, losing her smile and wrinkling her forehead. “Are you listening to me? I was asking you how you liked the choreography I came up with for the . . .”
He zoned out again, too distracted. The fallen angels were hissing and snarling at the others in the different groups in a language he couldn’t understand, but it seemed as if they were hurling insults at each other.
Suddenly, a spitball flew across the cafeteria, hitting a football player named Will Rivera right in the back of his head.
“That’s not going to be good,” Jonah said, standing slowly.
Amber looked at him strangely, her head cocked sideways. “You don’t think the dance moves I came up with were good?”
He ignored her as he watched Will stand slowly—all three hundred and three pounds of him. Will had been named all-conference offensive lineman of the year for three years running. Recruited heavily by Ohio State, Florida, and every other top football school in the United States, he was probably last on anyone’s list of people they’d want to meet in a dark alley. Or a cafeteria lunchroom.
“I want to know who did that, and I want to know right now,” he said with an eerie calm in his voice. The cafeteria hushed as everyone turned to look at Will, but Jonah saw something no one else could. Perched atop Will’s shoulder was a fallen angel, whispering steadily.
No less than six fingers pointed at the same person—a kid wearing all black with his hair hanging into his face. Apparently, his friends weren’t the most loyal bunch around.
The kid dressed in black stood up. He wore gloves with the fingers cut out and held his hands out wide.
“I’m sorry,” he
said, sarcasm in full effect. “Did I hit you with that spitball?” He pointed to the girl sitting beside the football player. “’Cause I was aiming for your girlfriend.”
Two fallen angels swooped in, at his right and left shoulders, leaning into both of his ears. Jonah’s eyes were locked on them, until he saw a swarm of others, floating in the air above the scene. They were jeering and calling out to the other kids, who by now had turned their full attention to the showdown that was brewing.
Will took off his jacket, placed it on his chair, and took a couple of steps toward the boy. “Are you sure you didn’t mean to say, ‘I’m sorry, Will. It will never happen again’?”
“Fight!” someone yelled from the back of the room. Jonah saw a glimmer in the kid’s eyes as he listened. Soon, the rest of the kids around him were chanting the same word, over and over. “Fight, fight, fight, fight . . .”
Jonah looked for Mr. Sherman, but for some reason, he wasn’t at his usual post along the wall. Everyone at the surrounding tables stood up along with Jonah to see what was happening.
The boys were staring each other down, inching closer to one another as the frenzied chanting grew louder. Jonah had seen this happen before, but never so clearly in the invisible world. When kids were together, sometimes the gang mentality came out, and it never ended well.
If only they could see what I see, Jonah thought. Then they’d really know what was going on. He watched as the fallen angels swirled around them, faster and faster, intoxicated by the prospect of a fight. They were egging the boys on, whispering who-knew-what into their ears, whatever they could say that would bring about the most destruction possible.
And Jonah was just standing there with the rest of them. Watching.
The kids formed a tight circle around the two boys, and Jonah saw the glint of fury in Will’s eyes and his fists clinch. He was about to lose it, and neither Mr. Sherman nor anyone else could stop him now.
Except for . . .
The goth kid was still taunting the football player when Will lowered his head like a bull and charged.
But just as the boys were about to crash into each other, Jonah stepped between them and threw out his arms, keeping them both apart. He was using just enough of his angel strength to stop them from clobbering each other. He glanced upward at the fallen angels, who were now congregating right over him, seething in contempt, now screaming his name.
“Jonah! Jonah Stone! How dare you, Jonah! How dare you!”
“Shut up!” he said, finally boiling over. The goth kid squinted his eyes at Jonah, glancing upward too. “Who exactly are you looking at?”
He ignored the comment. “You two don’t need to do this,” he said. “It’s totally not worth it, trust me.”
“Mind your own business, dude,” Will said, grabbing Jonah’s hand and trying to push it away. He pressed against it but couldn’t move it. “Huh?” He looked confused.
“Seriously, guys,” Jonah pleaded, looking toward the door. “Mr. Sherman’s going to be back in here any minute, you’re going to the principal’s office, and nothing good is going to come out of this.”
The skinny kid tried to push himself away, but Jonah grabbed his arm in a steel grip.
“He hit me with a spitball!” Will said, growing more furious by the second, struggling against Jonah’s hold. “He’s not gonna get away with that!”
“What are you gonna do about it, meathead?” the boy answered, pushing against Jonah as the fallen angels swirled wildly again. The students were still chanting.
“Calm down, everybody!” Jonah shouted. The two kids were still straining against him, and he knew he could hold them for a long time. He just didn’t know exactly what to do with them now that he was holding them.
“What’s going on in here?!” the voice of Mr. Sherman boomed across the room as he came running over. “I leave the cafeteria for one minute to take care of a situation, and then this happens? What’s wrong with you kids? Get back to your tables, now!” He broke through their circle and stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at the three boys. The kid in black held his hands up as if he were being arrested, smirking, and backed away, finally turning and hurrying through the door.
“That kid hit me with a spitball, Mr. Sherman!” Will said.
“So you were going to fight him for that and risk getting expelled?” the monitor said. “Sit down, son!”
Will turned back to the football player table but looked back at Jonah, rubbing his hand.
“Stone, you should be playing football, not basketball. No one’s been able to hold me back like that before.” Will shook his head, bewildered, and buried himself in his lunch tray full of food again.
Jonah took a deep breath, feeling the stares of the students and the glaring watch of Mr. Sherman. Jonah excused himself and walked out into the hallway. He needed to get out of there for a few minutes and regroup.
“You!”
The screech filled his ears as the fallen angel swooped down in front of him. His face was filled with hate and anger, and Jonah couldn’t help but take a few steps backward.
“How dare you interfere with our school!”
Jonah glanced around the hallway. There was a girl walking the opposite direction, but no one else was around. He found himself against a bulletin board along the wall.
“This isn’t your school, you know,” Jonah answered, looking the fallen one plainly in his yellow eyes. He then looked him over up and down. “And aren’t you kind of small to be so bossy, anyway?”
The fallen angel was short and round, and when he heard Jonah’s taunt, he looked as if he were going to explode, spinning himself around in a circle before he drew back even closer to Jonah’s face.
“You don’t know who you’re speaking with, do you?” he said, giving Jonah his most threatening stare.
Jonah was unfazed. “I don’t really care who you are. I saw what you were doing back there. Pitting the goths against the athletes. Don’t think I don’t know what you were up to.”
He pointed a crusty black finger toward Jonah’s eye. “I am Valack, and you will speak to me with respect! I know who you are.” He smiled wickedly. “We are all aware, my friends and I, that we have a . . . special creature here with us. But just so you know, this is still our school. It’s my school. So mind your own business and go back to doing just what you were doing. Nothing. And my associates and I will return to what we were doing, and doing so well. Is that understood?”
Jonah sighed. He knew that if he entered the hidden realm, he could take this little guy out with one swipe of his angelblade. A year ago he wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But a lot had happened since then. He had jumped up in the middle of that fight, more out of instinct than anything else. But now that he thought about it, he reminded himself that he didn’t want to be that guy anymore.
“Fine, fine,” Jonah said, looking down at the floor. “Whatever, Valack. Just get out of my face, okay?”
Valack floated in front of him for a minute more, trying to make his point stick. Finally, he backed away, turned, and disappeared around a corner.
Jonah shook his head and started to head for his locker, when a voice called out from behind him.
“Yo, man, what was that all about?”
Jonah turned to see his friend Tariq edging toward him from the cafeteria. Jonah tried to smile, wondering exactly what he had seen.
“I just didn’t want to see that kid get broken in half, you know?” he answered, hoping Tariq was talking about him breaking up the fight.
“No, that’s not what I’m talking about,” Tariq said, folding his arms in front of him. “I’m talking about you, by yourself in the hallway, talking to . . . no one. And did you say . . . Valack, or something?”
Jonah blinked at his friend, wondering if he could play it off. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Dude.” Tariq stepped up beside him, looking him over carefully. “Are you okay? Do you need to . . . I don’t know . .
. go see the school psychologist maybe?”
Jonah forced a laugh. “No, of course not. I’m fine. I was just talking to myself.”
He knew his friend wasn’t buying it. “They make medicine for this kind of thing, you know.”
Jonah slapped his friend on the shoulder, trying to come up with any reason he could to leave. “I need to get to my locker and get ready for gym class next period. Seriously,” he called out, taking three long steps away and down a different hallway, “I’m okay, all right?”
He turned and waved back to Tariq, just to show that he was, indeed, fine.
“Okay,” answered Tariq. He pointed the other direction. “But gym class is that way . . .”
SEVEN
PINNED DOWN
Jonah was definitely feeling a little dazed from the incident in the cafeteria and his conversation with the fallen angel Valack, not to mention the fact that Tariq had clearly overheard him talking in the hallway. He imagined what he must have looked like to his friend. Leaning against the wall, looking up into the air, and talking to no one.
“No wonder he thinks I’m crazy,” Jonah muttered to himself. “I think I’m crazy, actually.”
Who in their right mind spoke to invisible creatures? He just wanted to live a normal, fun, mindless teenage life. He wanted to enjoy being on the basketball team, his friends, not to mention the girls . . . all without the trouble of knowing what was going on behind the scenes.
Why can’t I just go back in time, to life before this all happened? Why can’t I just forget about things, pretend none of this is real?
He didn’t need the stress. He didn’t want to be that guy in the cafeteria, the one breaking up fights, the one having to always know more than the rest. The one who could see things no one else could see. The one who lost his mom to bad guys invisible to everyone but him.
He would redouble his efforts. He told himself that no matter what happened the rest of the day, he would ignore what he saw.
Carlton Humphries entered the gymnasium right in front of him.
“Hi, Jonah,” he said, waving as he plodded along.