by Jerel Law
“Hey, Carlton,” replied Jonah. Jonah had known Carlton since kindergarten—at least, that’s what his mom had always told him. He didn’t remember much about it, but apparently they had spent a lot of time together on the playground back then.
They walked into the locker room to change into their required gym clothes. Jonah used to hate this part of his school routine, but since he’d made the basketball team, he didn’t mind it so much. Before, it always seemed that some creative form of humiliation was right around the corner—head dunk in the toilet, anyone?—but now, the locker room felt like a second home.
He set his backpack down on a bench in front of a row of empty lockers and pulled out his gym shorts and shirt and began to change. Carlton had walked past him, down toward the corner, but not before Carl Fong began to trail behind him, mimicking his every step, as a couple of other kids howled with laughter. Jonah cut his eyes upward in time to see a fallen angel swoop in, gleeful at the fun these kids were having at Carlton’s expense.
Ignore it, Jonah. Remember—it’s not worth it.
He grimaced as he saw Carlton’s hefty shoulders sag. But Jonah dutifully pulled his eyes away, focusing on the shoe he was untying.
“Hey, look, Carlton’s got on his short shorts again!” One of the boys beside Fong was pointing and laughing as Carlton pulled up his shorts. Again, the others sniggered loudly, not even caring that he could hear them.
Jonah glanced at them. They were a little on the short side. Carlton, why did you have to wear such short shorts? You’re not making it any easier for yourself, you know.
Carlton turned toward the boys. “Shut up!”
This only made them laugh harder. “Oooh, Carlton’s getting angry,” Fong said. “You guys better watch out!”
Jonah could feel the fallen angels in the room without even having to look. He knew what they were doing—taunting, encouraging the mean kids, and whispering awful things to Carlton, no doubt.
Thankfully, the physical education teacher, Mrs. Schaumburg, came in just then. “Let’s go, boys. You’re wasting time in there!”
Carlton hurried past the boys and looked at Jonah as he walked by.
A fallen angel glared at Jonah as he flew behind Carlton. “You mind your own business!”
Jonah slammed his locker shut and stared at the ground for a minute, trying to collect his thoughts.
“You coming, Stone?” one of the other basketball players asked.
Jonah looked up. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming. Right behind you.”
Mrs. Schaumburg was a thin, wiry German woman with a thick accent who had apparently been in the military for twenty years before joining Peacefield High as a physical education teacher. That was the rumor, anyway. Jonah believed it. She ran the class like her own private military brigade. She made them do things like jog outside with twenty-five-pound rucksacks on their backs. Or army crawl along the ground underneath a low-hanging blanket of barbed wire she had constructed herself. And she made anyone who complained do fifty push-ups in front of everyone.
Jonah remembered the possibility of those push-ups and hurried across the gym floor to catch up with the others. They were standing in a line against the wall as Mrs. Schaumburg paced in front of them. She eyed him as he joined the line but said nothing. He was safe, for now.
Behind her was a large, square mat.
Stone-faced, she watched them carefully as she spoke. As far as Jonah could remember, he’d never seen her smile. “All right, students. Today we will be testing our skills in a sport as old as the ancient Greeks themselves. It will test your strength, agility, and focus. Wrestling!” She held her hand back toward the mat.
Fong and his friends began high-fiving each other. Carlton, standing beside Jonah, pressed himself even closer to the concrete wall, as if he were hoping to fall through it and disappear from sight.
“I will be instructing you in your technique,” she announced, hands on her hips. She glanced at Fong, who was pretending to do a pile driver on an imaginary victim. “Some of you have been watching wrestling on the television. I can assure you, that type of ridiculous behavior has little or nothing to do with the real sport of wrestling we practiced back in my homeland. I was high school champion.”
One of the girls tentatively raised her hand. “They had a girls’ wrestling team?”
“No!” she said, with the closest thing to a smile on her face Jonah had seen. “Boys. Fifty-kilogram division.”
“Oh,” the girl said, sinking back with her friends. Then she said again, a little too hopefully, “So only the boys are going to wrestle then?”
“The girls will wrestle the girls, and the boys will wrestle the boys, of course,” she said to a new round of ughs. “Now, I need a volunteer to help me demonstrate some moves.”
If they all could have taken a step backward, Jonah figured they would have. Everyone grew perfectly still, no one wanting to have to face the absurdity of wrestling with Mrs. Schaumburg.
Jonah suddenly saw a fallen angel drift down from the rafters, land on her shoulder, and whisper something in her ear. She looked directly at Carlton.
“Mr. Humphries,” she called out. “Thank you for volunteering. Please step forward.”
He blinked from behind his thick-framed glasses. “But . . . I didn’t . . . I . . .”
“Please step over here,” she insisted, pointing behind her to the blue wrestling mat. “Now!”
Carlton staggered forward. The rest of the class snickered, whispering and giggling. Even the girls were now standing up attentively.
Jonah thought for a brief second about volunteering to take his place. It would be the nice thing to do. And with his angel strength, he would certainly have no problem handling Mrs. Schaumburg, let alone anyone else in the class.
Remember, you said you weren’t going to get involved?
He stayed put and kept his mouth shut.
Carlton tripped over the edge of the mat and stumbled, barely catching himself before falling on his face. Jonah couldn’t imagine a more humiliating scene for Carlton.
Mrs. Schaumburg proceeded to put him through a series of wrestling moves that, with each one, increased the howling laughter from the kids.
First, he was down on all fours, with Mrs. Schaumburg crouching behind him. He looked up helplessly at Jonah, right before she pulled one of his arms out from under him, flipped him over, and held his leg up in the air while her knee was on his chest.
“Pin!” she called out, slapping the mat twice. The students applauded, egging her on. Jonah was one of the few who didn’t clap.
“Get up, Mr. Humphries!” He half leaned, half stood in front of her, glancing at the door, as if he were thinking about making a run for it.
With him standing in front of her, she grabbed him behind the head and quickly flipped him around.
“Come on, Mr. Humphries. Give me some fight!” she said. Clearly, she was getting into it. Suddenly, Carlton was on his back, having been thrown down over her leg. He groaned in pain, closing his eyes tight. She flopped down on top of him, pressing all the air out of his stomach with a whoosh.
“Pin!” she exclaimed again, slapping the floor.
“Ooooof,” was all Carlton could say.
Jonah watched the fallen angels flittering among the students, encouraging the jeering and laughing.
This is what they do. This is why high school is hard. They drive people away from each other. They isolate people.
After one more wrestling maneuver ended with Carlton gasping for breath on the mat, and Mrs. Schaumburg yelling “Pin!” and slapping the floor, mercifully the demonstration was over. It was time for the rest of them to try their hand.
She numbered them off and paired them together, boys with boys and girls with girls. Jonah ended up with Drake Drummond, one of Fong’s cronies, a wispy kid with spiky hair and a permanent smirk.
Jonah was already disgusted with the whole scene today. It might actually be nice to get some aggression
out on the mat.
Control yourself, Jonah. You don’t want to send this kid to the hospital.
And, of course, since things for kids like Carlton seemed to always work that way, Carlton was paired with Fong.
Two by two, they were called onto the mat, as Mrs. Schaumburg barked out instructions.
“Let’s go, Stone,” Drake said, within earshot of the other kids. “Let’s see what you got.”
Jonah smiled at him. “Just remember, you asked for it, Drummond.”
He toyed with the boy for a few minutes, letting him appear to have gained the upper hand. Drake stood behind him, holding Jonah’s arm behind his back. “You want any more, Stone? Crying for mercy yet?”
Jonah rolled his eyes and, in a flash, spun, reversing the position so that he was now behind the bewildered boy. He hoisted him with one arm onto his shoulder and began spinning.
“This is not what I am talking about!” Mrs. Schaumburg cried. “We are not doing zee professional wrestling moves! Not in here! Put him down, pleaze!”
Jonah shrugged his shoulder. “Okay, Mrs. Schaumburg. If you say so.”
He dropped Drake onto the mat and pinned him by lying on Drake’s chest, putting his hands behind his head, and staring up at the ceiling. The teacher hopped down on both knees and slapped the mat twice. “Pin!” she shouted.
A smattering of applause came from his classmates. He pretended to tip his hat to them and took his place back against the wall.
“Okay,” she said, “who hasn’t participated yet?”
“We haven’t, Mrs. Schaumburg,” Fong said all too happily.
“But I . . . I already . . . ,” Carlton began to protest, but she shook her head and beckoned him onto the mat.
Carlton sighed again as Fong grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him out to the middle of the floor.
Carlton stood limply, ready to take his medicine and get it over with. Fong, however, was clearly going to milk the situation for all it was worth. Jonah watched from the wall with the others as they cheered for Fong and threw taunts out at Carlton—all of which somehow went unnoticed by Mrs. Schaumburg.
The fallen angels were swarming around the two boys on the mat as well as the kids along the wall. Jonah knew that every student was able to make their own decisions about the things they said—it wasn’t as if they were being controlled by the evil creatures—but the suggestions in their ears certainly didn’t help. Without being in the hidden realm, Jonah couldn’t tell who had given their lives over to Elohim and could claim His protection. Angels certainly were nowhere in sight.
“Okay, Carlton, don’t worry. I’ll take it easy on you,” Fong said, his eyes twinkling. Fong was short but built like a tree stump, thick, burly, and low to the ground.
Carlton was a good sport, and Jonah was impressed that he even walked out onto the mat and got down in the crouched wrestling position to face Fong. But it was a complete mismatch from the beginning. Fong wasted no time putting Carlton on his back, grinning at all the other kids as Mrs. Schaumburg counted Carlton out.
Jonah felt the urge to run out and help Carlton, but each time it bubbled to the surface, he shoved it away, reminding himself that he wasn’t going to get involved. A couple of times he felt so bad for his old friend that he had to look away. When he did look back, he began to watch the fallen angels, as Fong continued to embarrass Carlton. They were practically foaming at the mouth, and the students were following suit.
Finally, after Carlton was pinned for the last time, Mrs. Schaumburg slapped the floor twice and excused the boys back to the wall.
“Tomorrow we will repeat this exercise,” she said, as if there was nothing she thought would thrill the students more. With that, she sent them to the locker rooms to get dressed.
Jonah watched as the kids practically sprinted across the gym floor, laughing while glancing back at Carlton. Fong was in the middle, yukking it up the loudest. Carlton hurried past Jonah, his head hanging down, just another day in a long string of humiliating ones for him.
“I’m sorry, Carlton,” Jonah called out to him as he passed. “I . . . I wish I had . . .”
He couldn’t finish his sentence. Carlton slowed down, and for a second Jonah thought he would turn around, but he didn’t. He just kept on walking.
“I wasn’t laughing!” Jonah said desperately. But Carlton was moving on. Two fallen angels hovered over the boy, whispering quietly into his ears. Carlton was utterly alone. At least, Jonah imagined that’s how he felt. The fallen angels had done a masterful job of driving him into that place, using their own words and the actions of the other kids, who probably never stopped to consider what it would be like if they were in the same boat.
And Jonah hadn’t done a thing about it.
Images of his mom suddenly flooded his memory. His shoulders began to slump too as he realized how unhappy she would have been with him right about now.
Jonah heard cackling from behind him and spun around. To his left, and up above, on the metal rafters, two fallen angels sat. They looked directly at him and laughed.
“The great Jonah Stone is no more!” one of them called out in a sarcastic voice.
Jonah felt something like steam rise up inside his body. He walked over toward them. “What was that? I couldn’t quite hear you way up there in the rafters.”
The two creatures looked at each other and hopped off the ledge, spreading their oily black wings and soaring down until they were right in front of him. They were both short and pudgy, a lot like the fallen angel Valack that Jonah had been confronted by in the hallway.
Jonah glanced around the gym. It was completely empty except for them. Mrs. Schaumburg had disappeared into her office.
“I said”—the fatter one leaned in, close to his face—“the great Jonah Stone . . .”
But Jonah wasn’t listening. As quickly as he could, he lowered his head, prayed, and entered the hidden realm. He reached for his hip, hoping what he reached for was still there.
When he pulled his hand back, his angelblade glittered. The fallen angels barely had time to scream. He ripped the blade horizontally across the air, slicing through both of them with one blow. Their screams echoed in the cavernous gym for a second, but just like that, they disintegrated into black dust, floating down to the hardwood floor.
Jonah breathed in. It felt good, almost a relief, as he held his blade up in front of him, studying the white glow for a few seconds. Finally, he moved over to the shadows beside the bleachers, sheathed his sword, and reentered the physical world.
It felt good, yes, but his emotions quickly came crashing back down as he remembered that he hadn’t helped a friend when he needed it most.
One thing was becoming clear—the more he ignored what Abaddon’s evil gang was doing, the less he liked himself.
EIGHT
A STRANGE SIGHT
After he got dressed in his regular clothes again, Jonah searched the hallways for Carlton but couldn’t find him. He wanted to catch up with him and really apologize, see how he was doing, and do something.
“Where are you, Carlton?” Jonah muttered under his breath as he walked along the science wing before his next class was to begin. “Aren’t you supposed to be around here somewhere?”
But the only thing he found was a handful of students, glancing at him curiously, having heard him talking to himself.
“You all right, big guy?” Tariq said, walking up behind him. “Seems like you’re having kind of an ‘off’ day . . . Talking to yourself again, are you?”
He pulled up alongside Jonah, raising an eyebrow as he held on to both straps of the backpack he was wearing.
Jonah continued scanning the hallway. “I was just looking for Carlton. Have you seen him?”
“Carlton?” Tariq asked, looking puzzled and thinking for a minute. He snapped his fingers. “You mean Professor Carl?”
Jonah rolled his eyes. He’d heard Carlton’s nickname before. If he was honest, he had to admit he’d use
d it once or twice himself. But it wasn’t funny anymore. “Yeah, but why don’t you just say Carlton Humphries? You wouldn’t believe it if I told you what this guy goes through.”
“What are you talking about, dude?” Tariq asked. He waved his hand in front of Jonah’s eyes, which were still searching the hall. “You okay? It’s not mean to call him Professor Carl. I think he likes it.”
Jonah snapped his head toward Tariq. “Likes it? You wouldn’t believe what the kids just did to him in gym class. He was totally humiliated. And I . . .”
His voice trailed off, and he lost himself in his thoughts again.
Tariq just smiled, blinking at him, and extended his hand forward. “And you . . . ,” he said, waiting for him to finish his sentence.
Jonah didn’t want to admit out loud that he’d left Carlton to fend for himself. What kind of person was he? Who would do that to someone? These questions were beginning to haunt him.
“Forget it,” he finally said—it was too much to try to explain to Tariq. “Let’s just get to class.”
They walked together past a couple of classroom doors, rounded a corner, and found their room. Valack, the pudgy fallen one, stood beside the entrance to the class. He had his arms folded, scowling as he saw the quarterling come toward him. Jonah hesitated.
“Hey, Tariq,” he said, slapping his friend on the shoulder. “I, uh, need to go to the bathroom. I’ll be back in here in a few. If the bell rings, just tell Mr. Cooper I’ll be back in a sec.”
“All right,” Tariq answered. “Go get your head straight while you’re in there, okay?”
Jonah nodded, barely hearing his friend.
“You destroyed two fallen angels in the gym,” Valack said, clearly having trouble containing himself as he stood against the wall. “You’re going to cause us to have a little problem here, Stone.”
Jonah walked down the hallway and turned into the boys’ bathroom. The fallen angel followed him in, and Jonah stood in front of the mirror. Another boy was there, washing his hands. Jonah nodded to him and pretended to wash his hands while waiting for the kid to leave.