by David Morgan
Chapter 7
The morning bell rang, warning the students that they have only a few minutes to find their homeroom seats.
Paxton slammed the door of his locker shut only to jump back in surprise of the face leering at him.
“Where were you on Saturday?” Chad’s voice wasn’t overly accusatory, but it did carry a hint of irritation—or at least disappointment. “I came in third at the Tournament.”
“Oh. Cool.” Paxton tried to make his way to homeroom—but Chad insisted on keeping up.
“Kara came in the top ten—6th or 7th place, I think.” He paused for a moment, expecting Paxton’s congratulations, but receiving only silence, he spoke up again. “So…it’s kind of a big deal.”
“Congratulations.” Paxton humored flatly. True, the highest rank either of them had ever achieved at one of the tourneys was 4th place, but it just seemed insignificant in light of the weekend’s events.
“That’s all?” Chad asked.
“Excuse me.” He said, pushing his way through Chad to pass on to get to homeroom, and as he shoved past—a small slip of paper fell from under one of his books. Chad thought for a moment to call Pax back and give it to him—but he was distracted by the conversation of a couple of girls talking.
“No—we were supposed to hang out yesterday, but I haven’t seen him since The Hole on Friday and he hasn’t been picking up his phone.” Girl one responded.
“Weird—have you checked Facebook or anything?” Girl two suggested.
“Yeah, but he hasn’t seen any of my messages and I stalked him but the last activity on his account was Friday morning—he liked one of Kelly’s boob pics or something.”
“I wonder if it had something to do with that new girl—creep city, right?”
“OMG, I’m glad you said something—she’s really weird…and she looks like some Japanese cartoon or something. And I heard Paxton Volvox was all up on her before Darren rescued her.” Girl one feigned a wince then grimaced when Girl Two mentioned Paxton’s name and then they broke into obscene laughter.
Chad had had enough of that, and he walked away—still, it was suspicious that Darren hadn’t been seen all weekend. He also agreed that the new girl, Dasha, was kind of strange—but to Chad, all girls were strange. Social skills, as an area of academic pursuit, were to Chad as phlebology is to all people who have never thought of venous systems as something worth their attention.
Darren’s disappearance may or may not be as interesting as phlebology, but for the time being he was more worried about Paxton. He was planning to go to the Magic tournament on Saturday, and even Kara—in all of her hungover glory—managed to show up and even place. What was Paxton’s excuse?
As he pondered his friend’s odd behavior, he examined the piece of paper in his hands. There was nothing particularly interesting about it from the surface, except for the way that Paxton’s name was written on the front. Either Paxton had spent the weekend beginning (and mastering) his calligraphy skills, or he was exchanging notes with someone who wrote perfectly with a feather quill.
Genuinely concerned for his friend’s well-being, he succumbed to the beckoning of temptation and carefully began to unfold the note.
To his surprise, the entire letter was written in near perfect alignment, as though printed from a type-writer, and written in stunning cursive. He began to read.
Paxton, I’m dreadfully sorry about last night. I do not recall what came over me, I was hoping that—
“Hey Chad.” Kara came up from behind, “What’s that?” she asked, peering over his shoulder.
The surprise was clearly something Chad was not expecting, combined with the guilt of the unforgiveable crime of reading a friend’s note, he jumped in surprise.
“It’s nothing,” Chad said, half crumbling/half folding the note as he shoved it into his pocket. Kara looked pale and tired. Maybe she’d been drinking again Saturday and Sunday.
“What’s up? How was your weekend? Nice job at the tournament, by the way.”
“Oh, thanks” she drew out the word as she yawned, covering her mouth with her hand. “Man, I am exhausted.”
“More parties?”
“Huh? No, I just have been having some really weird dreams the past couple nights.”
“Oh? Care to share? Anything…exciting?” And he tried to wink at her—which she either ignored or didn’t see.
“Well, they’re really strange. Like, I go to sleep and everything is fine---and I’m having a normal dream about school or family or something else, and then it always happens that I’ll hear a voice, kind of calling me.”
“Hmm.” Chad nodded attentively.
“Well, both times there’s been some kind of door in the normal dream, and the voice comes from behind it. Sometimes it’s a door I know—sometimes it’s a new one. I don’t want to walk through, but I have to. I don’t…” and she hesitated.
“What is it?”
“I don’t like the voice, but I feel compelled to obey it. Like, if I don’t listen to it immediately, then I’ll start to feel sick until I open it. So I do.”
“And then what?”
“The woods—I’m in the woods. And there’s someone else there, and I can’t see her, but I can feel her.”
“Her? How do you know it’s a girl?”
“I don’t know—I just do. And do you know what, Chad?”
Chad looked at her, thoroughly intrigued. Kara leaned in, making sure no one might overhear.
“I want to kiss her.”
“Seriously?” Chad responded, surprised—and a little turned on.
“Well—more like, I really want her to kiss me.” After a moment she added, “I swear I’m not gay.”
As much as he liked the thought of Kara kissing another girl, Chad didn’t feel it would be appropriate to pursue the topic any further.
“So then what? You do? Or she does?” Chad asked just a tiny bit too eagerly.
“No—then nothing. I usually wake up. But my mom said…” And now her face grew red, “…that I started sleep walking again.” She continued without giving Chad a chance to respond. “Sunday morning, she found me in the neighbor’s garden in just my bra and panties—she thought I was raped at first, except that I wasn’t harmed, just a little dirty. So basically, I’m exhausted.”
“Well it looks like you’re not the only one with issues lately,” he said.
“Someone else is sleep walking?”
“No, but Paxton’s been acting strange.”
“Why? Cause he didn’t come to the tournament?”
“I’m surprised you noticed,” Chad said sarcastically.
“What’s that mean?” Kara asked, annoyed.
“It means you barely even speak to me anymore.”
“What are you talking about? I talk to you all the time—I’m talking to you right now.”
“Yeah, but not like we used to—not since you lost weight…”
“First off, that is NOT what happened—and secondly, I’m not talking about this with you right now.”
“Look—I liked you, you liked me—and now what? You lost a bunch of weight and you’re too good for me?”
“I can’t believe you. I don’t see you that way, Chad.” Kara was now thoroughly annoyed. “I’ve got to get to homeroom,” she said, turning on her heel, “I’ll talk to you later.” And she walked away without another word.
“Nice going,” Chad mumbled angry comments to himself as he dragged his feet towards the classroom, kicking himself for being such an ass to his only chance at a girlfriend. She was really cute when she got angry, but this sleep walking business worried him.
It was too risky, he decided, to read the note while he was at school—he didn’t want Paxton knowing that he had it, and he really wanted to wait until he got a private moment to dive into it, lest he be interrupted again by surprise conversationalists.
Every minute lagged as he waited for school to end—and finally, a
fter hours of torment, the bell rang, dismissing everyone until another day. He made his way towards the buses.
“Chad! Wait up!”
He turned around to see Paxton running up to him, his man boobs jiggling in rhythm with his feet, slamming against the ground at each step.
“Listen--” he began, catching up to Chad. “I’m sorry I was such a douche earlier today—third place at the tourney is pretty amazing. I’ve just had a ton on my mind this weekend.”
“Hey—it’s all right,” Chad began. “I can be a douche sometimes too, and Friday night wasn’t easy for you—I’m sure.”
“Cool—you going to the Shop tonight? I’ve got a set of goblins I’d like to start painting.”
“Yeah,” Chad responded, “I was planning to.”
“Good—I’ve got some good stuff to tell you, you’re not gonna believe it—but I went out with Dasha on Saturday, and then hung out on Sunday too!”
“You’re kidding,” and Chad really thought he was.
“No! Check it out—she wrote me a note--” he felt around in his pockets, obviously searching for the slip of paper he had dropped earlier. “Wait. Where is it?” He continued to feel his pockets—now more aggressively, shoving his hands all the way into the bottoms, then scouring his backpack.
“A note? Like this?” Chad held up the note. “Here. I found it this morning—you had run off to homeroom, so I picked it up.”
“Oh thanks!” Paxton took the paper, breathed a sigh of relief and unfolded it.
“So what’d it say,” Chad asked before rethinking and adding, “…if you don’t mind me asking.”
“Nah—it was awesome. She said that she was sorry for acting like a B- on Friday, that she was only going off with Darren for a drink.”
“She couldn’t have just drank some of our beer?”
“She said she didn’t like beer. Anyhow, in the note she suggested that we meet up and she gave me her phone number, so we hung out all night on Saturday evening—and then again on Sunday night!”
“You get any action?” Chad asked, interested.
“What? No way—I’m a gentleman, I’m not gonna pressure her into dropping her panties. We’ll take it slow—she’s clearly into me, so I’ll just let it happen naturally.”
“Dude—don’t get put in the friend zone,” Chad warned.
“C’mon man—she’s into me why else would she have wrote the note?” Then his phone started ringing. He pulled it out and looked at the screen and turned to Chad, “Listen, I gotta go—I’ll see you tonight at the shop?”
“Yea—I’ll be there around eight. I’ll see you tonight.”