That Which is Unexpected

by A.L. Bridges

  Chapter 7: The Saga of the Pretzel Baroness

  The private school was about thirty minutes away so Sara gave us a ride. Thankfully neither Sara nor Tia wore maid uniforms so we didn’t attract unnecessary attention to ourselves like poor Alicia Snyder, Pretzel Baroness.

  Actually, I had no idea about the Pretzel Baroness thing because I’d never said a full sentence to the girl. That was just the only rich Snyder family I could think of and there is a Snyder factory in Goodyear. I also like the pretzels that her family purportedly makes.

  Actually, I had no idea what her name was, but the large braided loops in her hairstyle did remind me of pretzels and she did have maids in uniform.

  The school was modeled in an H-shape of sorts, and was easy to navigate. Grades seven through nine in the left wing, ten through twelve in the right with classes numbered sequentially from front to back, even numbers on the left and odd numbers on the right. The administrative offices, cafeteria, and gym were in the center of the H and the football, baseball, and grass fields covered the back the school, moving from left to right respectively.

  I walked Cheza to her homeroom class, mainly so I knew where it was, and then I went off to find my own class. I’m not much of a people person so I didn’t really make any friends and just looked forward to my lunch period, which I shared with Cheza because her homeroom teacher’s name was in the same lunch bracket as mine. I wanted to make sure that she was doing alright.

  Four hours later, I went to the cafeteria and looked for Cheza. I heard “Rei, how do you like school so far?” come from my left. I looked over and saw, much to my relief, that she was surrounded by classmates and that (also to my relief) most of them were girls. Not really all that surprising—pretty people tend to be popular. She seemed to be doing just fine and was scrawling down what I assumed were the answers to questions.

  Despite the fact that I was famished, mainly because pretzel girl was sitting in front of me for three of my past four classes, I decided to skip lunch and headed for the grass field instead. Her name wasn’t actually Alicia Snyder, it’s… see what I mean? Not a people person. I’m terrible at remembering people’s names which is a shame because she was really nice and actually cute enough to the point that I would be interested if it weren’t for the fact that seeing her made me hungry and let’s be honest, no relationship can come of that. It will just lead to impotency or some strange fetish that makes me orgasm whenever I see an oven or hand rolled dough and god forbid I ever get cum in her hair. I’d end up driving to the nearest AMC Theater to get a Cinnabon pretzel…because her hair looks like a pretzel and Cinnabon icing looks like jism… Oh, no explanation was necessary? Then that’s my bad.

  The grass field was a deep green and quite soft, which sounds weird until you take into consideration that Phoenix is a desert and water can get expensive. There was a small hill off to the side so I went over to lie down, deciding that I would take a little nap. I enjoyed the smell of fresh cut grass as a nice cool breeze drifted over.

  ‘Tomorrow, I’m totally not wearing the jacket.’ I thought.

  The majority of the other students weren’t either because Phoenix in August is too damn hot to wear a blazer. My peaceful rest was interrupted by the sound of three guys smoking off to my left. I cracked my eyes open and peered over to what looked like two gentlemen and an ogre. He must’ve been a linebacker, or should’ve been considering that the guy was about 6’7”, 250 lbs of not-exactly-fat. I did my best to ignore them for five long minutes, until they started to walk back towards the school.

  “Finally,” I muttered to myself. I could go back to napping before the lunch period was over.

  Or at least that had been the plan.

  For about ten seconds.

  Until I heard ogre yell “WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM, YOU DUMB BITCH?”

  I looked over and I saw Cheza with a slice of pizza stuck to her blazer. I jumped to my feet and started quickly walking over. What was she even doing out here? Less than ten minutes ago, she was ‘chatting’ with her new friends so I slipped out, not wanting to disturb her, without… without getting any lunch. She must have seen me leave without getting any so she decided to bring some to me.

  “YOU SPILL PIZZA ON SOMEONE AND YOU DON’T EVEN SAY ANYTHING!?” Ogre yelled and then he pushed Cheza to the pavement.

  I started running towards them. By the time I saw the blood on palms I was close enough to shout “Hey! What the hell do you think you are doing!?” stopping about ten feet from them.

  “WHO THE HELL ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO BE, DIPSHIT?” Ogre snarled. At that point I was no longer sure if he is actually yelling or if his voice was naturally that loud.

  “I’m her brother, asshole!” I exclaimed. Ogre snarled in response and was about to say something when he smiled.

  Little warning bells went off in my head as the memory of Tia’s voice chimed in and said “When fighting multiple opponents, try not to let them get behind you.”

  Just then, one of the two ‘gentlemen’ put me in a full nelson, or a double shoulder lock, from behind. Ogre took a step towards me and punched me thrice in the stomach before giving a quick nod to his friend, who then dropped me and my face into Ogre’s uppercutting fist.

  When I hit the ground, my nose and lip were already bleeding and I was pretty sure my nose was broken, but at least my ribs didn’t feel too bad. Then the two gentlemen’s feet made contact with my ribs and I discovered the need to re-assess my injuries. They stopped kicking me and I found myself thinking, ‘This is a bit gruesome for a school fight, especially a school that has security cameras everywhere.’

  I looked at the overhanging roof and realized that the reason Ogre and his friends were back here in the first place is because there were no security cameras covering this area. I looked over at Cheza, who was on the ground by the wall, 25 feet away, looking at me with tears running down her face.

  I wanted to make these assholes hurt for making her cry. I rolled over onto my knees, and then I heard it.

  “Say goodnight, big brother,” Ogre said as his foot flew into my face.

  Oh… so I guess he was yelling before.

  ****

  Chapter 8: First Words

  My head is fuzzy. I hear voices to my right and for the love of god, would one of them please turn off whatever is making that constant beep. Off to my left I hear Cheza scream my name.

  “COLE!”