Another Simple School Day, Part 2

The ceaseless roaring of the neighbour’s lawnmower echoed through the window of Tony’s bedroom while the vivid aroma of greasy bacon tickled his nostrils to the point that he had to cut short with his show & tell. Indeed, Tony was showing off in front of all his classmates about how he was a superhero and everyone was simply amazed. All the girls were in line so they could get an autograph. Trina was only two turns away from getting her own autograph and Tony had planned on offering her a little trip to the sky while at it. She would be so impressed that afterwards it was certain that she’d gladly accept to marry him, but supposedly bacon was more important. He tried to force himself back into his dream, but he was solely using imagination now and so the vividness just wasn’t there anymore. He had woken up and it was time to get ready for school.

 He sat up, stretched his arms and then turned off his alarm before it would start ringing when he would least expect it. Rambo seemed to have this mystical power of instantly knowing when Tony woke up, so he strolled down the hallway and into his bedroom to request some affection. Tony shook him up in a way that made the fat reverberate throughout his whole body and then he gave him a few taps on the belly. Rambo was good to go, so Tony shoved is hand in his boxers, scratched his crotch and then headed up to the shower. Tony’s mother could hear her son walking down the corridor. “Good morning, Tony! Breakfast’s almost ready, so take your shower quickly.” She called out from the kitchen.

“Yeah, sure.” Tony grumbled back, still half asleep. He took his shower until he felt fully awake and then dried himself with his towel. He contemplated his naked self in the mirror, still not used to his tanned and notably more muscular body. Seven days had passed since he arrived back home. His mother had insisted that he needed some rest after all this so he stayed home for a week before going back to school. He examined the scars on his forearm, close to his wrist, the ones that Jaw had left when he had grasped him tightly during his last seconds before death. It was the only scar left from his adventure. In his nemusian form, his body was able to regenerate from wounds without leaving any mark, but Tony had deliberately left this one there as a memorial. Looking at his arm, flashes came back to him. He remembered the horrors he had seen, the pain he had endured. He could still vibrantly relive the lightning bolt that had revealed the image of Cloudfire’s corpse in a puddle of bloody water.

“Tony, you’re breakfast’s gonna be cold!” He heard from the kitchen.

“Yes, mom, I’m coming!” He shouted back from the washroom. He got to his bedroom, dressed hurriedly and went for the kitchen. His mother had prepared a delicious breakfast to celebrate Tony’s return to school. “Cool, you prepared my favorite omelet!”

“I hope you’re ready to catch up on your homework. You haven’t seen your classmates for so long. You must be excited, aren’t you?” She asked him while Tony gobbled his breakfast.

“Yeah, I’m a little nervous.”

“Your friends probably forgot about you.” Jimmy added as he stuffed himself with bacon.

“Jimmy! Don’t say things like that, you should be supporting him instead.” Tony’s father said. He was also at the dining table on that particular morning because no one could stay asleep through the irresistible smell of Tony’s mother’s cooking.

“Ha! Don’t expect me to help him with his homework. I have enough on my own.” Jimmy retorted. Tony’s parents knew he was only being playful. Jimmy was happy that his brother was well and alive, and even though he kept saying he wouldn’t help him, Tony knew that he would actually do most of his homework while the parents wouldn’t be there. Jimmy being two years older, all of Tony’s homework was like baby stuff to him.

“Now remember to go see the principal during recess alright? Like she told us when we went to see her last week, she will make a special program for you so you can catch up on what you missed.” His mother told him.

“Yeah yeah, I know, I’ll go see her.”

The boys finished their breakfast so they quickly packed their school bags and then left for the gaming room to play Super Smash Brothers with what little time remained before they would have to leave for the bus stop. Tony was insulted because during his absence, Jimmy had been playing regularly. Tony was still rusty from his lack of practice so his timing was off and he lost all the time. He was about to lose yet another match so he dashed for the console and shut it down before he would lose his last life. Jimmy squealed in anger and Tony ran away screaming for mommy but his brother caught up to him and gave him an atomic wedgie. Tony faked some tears so Jimmy would get scolded, and after getting scolded, Jimmy was forced to give his little brother a chance. He installed Mario Kart so it would be fairer. They sat down, chose their characters, chose their level, and then they heard their mother screaming: “Godammit, don’t you guys ever learn? The bus is on its way, you’re gonna miss it!”

“Oh s**t!” The boys exclaimed in synch, and then they put on their shoes and their schoolbag with outrageous speed.

“You better run for it because if you guys miss the bus again, you are SO much in trouble.” Their father warned. The boys headed out and sprinted like their lives depended on it. The bus slowed down, and once again the two brothers were lucky enough to get in.

As they entered, the bus driver shook his head in deceit and gave a look that summoned a feeling of shame in both of them. “Next time, I won’t stop.” He said, like he always did, even though he always stopped.

“Sorry…” They both said, and then went to their respective seats.

“Whoa! Well look who’s back!” Dan exclaimed.

“Hey guys.”

“Your mom told us that you were gone missing. We thought you were like dead or something.” Gab said.

 “Well, it’s a really long story…” During the whole bus ride, Tony explained a completely made-up story that justified his absence and his friends seemed to be buying it.

“That’s fucked up but… I guess all that matters is that you’re still alive, right?” Gab said after hearing the whole story.

“So you actually killed someone, ey? I never thought you’d have the guts to do that.” Dan asserted out loud. There was this uncomfortable pause of silence where many students from the nearby seats stopped talking and they looked at the three boys. Dan had said it a little too loud.

“What are you talking about? It was just a game man, I didn’t kill him for real!” Tony verbalized in an unfittingly loud manner, pretending to chuckle so he could convince all the ones who had halted their discussions that the boys were just babbling about some stupid stuff that no one should even pay attention to. He then whispered to his friends, “Shut up man! Don’t tell this to anyone, it’s between us okay? And I didn’t kill him, I just stabbed him with the scissors… he’s still alive.” The other students got back into their chatter and the three boys weren’t the center of attention anymore. “But anyway that’s how it was and I don’t want to talk about it anymore because I’m a little traumatized and I’m trying to forget about it.”

“Did you get like… sexually abused?” Gab asked, looking concerned.

“No!” Tony let out abruptly, “I said I don’t wanna talk about it, so how about you guys? What’s new since last time we met?”

“I got a girlfriend!” Dan replied with a passionate smile.

“Whoa, really?” Tony was surprised, and he felt a hint of jealousy.

“Let’s correct the facts here,” Gab interrupted, “He got a girlfriend on Runescape.”

“Oh… now that makes more sense.” Tony said, relieved.

“So what? I don’t see the difference.” Dan replied as he took out his orange juice box.

“Do you even know what she looks like?” Tony asked him.

“No, but I don’t care. You should know by now that love isn’t about the looks.”

“Fortunately, or else she would’ve turned you down! Ha-ha-ha!” Gab laughed at his own joke.

“Hey, that’s mean! And anyways that makes you guys even uglier than me ‘cause you don’t have a girlfriend, na-na!” Dan refuted. He stabbed the straw in the hole and started drinking.

“I’m happy for you, Dan. Congratulations for your… imaginary girlfriend!” Tony denounced and then he started laughing with Gab incessantly until Dan sprayed them with his juice box. They were forced to stop and say sorry and then they called him an idiot for making such a mess for nothing. They hoped that the bus driver wouldn’t notice later or else they’d be in trouble for sure next time they got in.

“But hey, how are you gonna catch up on all the work you missed?” Gab asked Tony.

“I don’t really know, actually. The principal said she would arrange something for me but I don’t know what that something is.”

 The bus then stopped at Golden Valley School. Tony was really excited to go see his friends after such a long absence.

“Well, good luck with that. Let’s hope that you don’t fail your year because of that rapist.” Dan let out.

“He didn’t rape me, sheesh!” Tony said before exiting the bus. He stepped in the school’s playground and a strange tingling sensation filled his body. He had never felt so cheerful to go to school.

“Look who’s here, It’s wiggly boy! We haven’t seen you for such a long time!” Miss Cally said as Tony passed beside her. Even though she was the lunch lady, she was also the one who supervised the playground during the morning. She called Tony “Wiggly” because ever since kindergarten, the boy simply couldn’t sit still during lunch time. He always wiggled and fooled around instead of peacefully eating his lunch like a normal kid would do. Miss Cally needed to spare some extra attention on his case and use some specific disciplinary measures to handle him. She was one of the rare staff members at Golden Valley that still liked Tony even though he had the tendency to be a troublesome little brat.

“Hi Miss Cally, long time no see!”

“Definitely, we were worried about you! Where have you been during the past month?”

“Oh, well you see, it’s complicated…” It had started. “I was affected by some really severe and contagious virus that has a name so complex that I don’t remember it, but anyhow, it’s all gone now and I can finally go back to school.”

“But that’s horrible!” Miss Cally stated with devastation.

Tony felt really bad that he needed to lie to everyone about what really happened. He could see the compassion in Miss Cally’s eyes and he felt ashamed to make her feel so distraught because of his story. Nonetheless, it was absolutely necessary. Narcolia had been very clear about the consequences of revealing the truth. Tony was doomed to lie for the rest of his life. He will have to learn to cope with it. He felt like he needed to flee the immoral guilt that ate him from inside after having made Miss Cally suffer for something she wasn’t even responsible, so he said, “But anyhow, I’m really eager to go see my friends now, I haven’t seen them for a long time, so talk to you later!” And then he ran off.

 He looked at the swings, where his brother was heading, and he was grateful. He looked at the monkey bars, where all the cute girls assembled to do their daily gossiping, and he was grateful. He looked at the teeter-totters, where all those stupid daredevil performances led to the most gruesome accidents he had ever seen, and he was grateful. All those precious memories, he was grateful to live them again. He then realized that it was only when your life is taken away from you that you understand how much you really loved that life.

“Tag, you’re it!” He heard shouting behind him. He turned around to see Phillip running away from Scott at full speed.

“Nuh-uh! You didn’t even touch me!” Phillip answered without slowing down.

“I touched you right on the arm and you know it.” Scott replied.

“You’re such a liar, go to hell!” Phillip said, and now that he was far away from him, he stopped running.

“What did you say? Come say that to my face, you cheater.”

“Phil you’re such a damn cheater, we saw you!” Anthony blurted out.

“That’s it, you’re all conspiring against me again, are you? He never even touched me.” Phillip argued.

“Okay that’s it. Phil doesn’t play anymore; he’s too much of a cheater.” Keven said, even though he also cheated all the time.

Phillip started screaming and whining and then he noticed Tony not too far away. “Hey guys, Tony’s here!” The whole gang turned in Tony’s direction with a surprised look on their faces.

“Whoa!” Bradley said, “We thought you were dead, like captured by an alien or something.”

“Ha-ha, that’s nonsense. Aliens don’t exist.” Tony affirmed, deeply feeling the irony of his own words.

            The boys ran and circled him, filled with curiosity. “Tell us what happened, man. We were told by the principal that you were gone missing. I thought we’d never see you again.” Phillip told him.

            Tony had to lie once again. How many times was he going to have to explain this? There was no way out of it. All his friends were standing there, eyes wide open, eager to hear the story. Tony sighed and commenced his story:

            “It all started after this weird earthquake started in gym class. I got scared so I ran outside to see if the earth was also trembling outside. Once outside, I was running down the Drug Alley (the Drug Alley is where the secondary students went to hide to sell, trade and consume their mind-altering substances. It was thus a feasible setting for his story since crime did occasionally happen over there) and then this weird old man appeared out of nowhere and asked me why I was running with such a frightened look on my face. I told him about the earthquake that had happened and he told me that if I wanted to know about the earthquake’s origin, I should follow him. Curious, I decided to follow him and then soon after he tied me up and threw me into the trunk of this stinky van! It was dark so I couldn’t see a thing, but it was a really long trip and when finally the van stopped, the man pulled me out and carried me like a potato bag into this creepy house.

“Once inside, he dropped me into this room and said that he was gonna use me for illegal scientific experiments on genetics and cloning and weird stuff like that. He untied me and then locked me up in this room for a whole day. The man kept me locked up like this for many days, giving me just enough food and water for me to survive, and then one day he said that his lab was ready and that he could finally start his twisted experiments. He brought me into his lab, but as soon as he let me out of the room I ran off, looking for an exit, but all the doors were locked and all the windows were barricaded with steel bars. He got hold of me and dragged me into his laboratory where he tied me up into this weird apparatus that was supposed to scan and copy my genes. He shot me with a needle to take a sample of my blood and then he put my blood into this other strange machine. He told me that it was best if I didn’t know anything about his experiment so he poured this liquid into a cloth and squashed the cloth in my face. Everything turned to black and I lost consciousness after that.

“When I woke up, I was back in the room. Hours later, the man came back to get me. What he didn’t know, was that last time, when I had run away in the house to search for an exit, I had come across a pair of scissors and I hid them in my sock! The man was about to grab me so he could carry me to his laboratory, but I was hiding the scissors behind my back, so when he came near, I stabbed him numerous times until finally he fell to the floor and couldn’t defend himself anymore. Now that he was lying on the floor, bleeding and defenseless, I searched him until I found the keys, and as soon as I found them I went straight for the exit and ran away.

“Once outside, I hid in a dumpster because my clothes were stained all over with blood. If I would have gotten seen like that, people would have thought that I’m a psychotic killer! That’s when I understood that maybe there were some extra clothes into this mad scientist’s house so I went back, scissors ready in case he had gotten back up or called some reinforcements. When I saw that he was still at the same place, unmoving, probably dead, I hurried into the shower to wash the blood on me, and then after that I found a t-shirt somewhere in the house. It was obviously too big for me but it was better than running around naked or with bloodstained clothes. The shirt was so big that it went down to my knees and thus it covered most of the bloodstains on my jeans.

“I searched for a clothing store and when I found one, I went in, found a shirt and a pair of jeans that were my size, and left off running with them. The merchant obviously ran after me, but since she was an old lady with high heels she wasn’t able to catch me. I hid in a dumpster for the rest of the day and slept there because I feared that the police would be looking for me. The next day, I pretended to be a homeless kid and asked for money. As soon as I got a dollar from some generous adult, I sought for the nearest phone booth and called my mom to come and get me. So yeah, that’s basically what happened.”

“…That is simply fucked up.” Anthony answered.

“So you actually had the guts to kill someone and then rob a clothing store?” Bradley asked out loud, and then two girls who were passing by stopped in their tracks and started looking at Tony.

Tony started to chortle in an unnecessarily loud and strange manner and then he said: “Well since it was only a game where we pretended to do such things, yeah, it was part of the rules. Ha-ha!” He had pronounced the word “pretended” slowly and loudly to make sure everyone around would hear it. “You guys shut the f**k up! I could get in trouble if you say things like that. I’m only saying the true story to you guys ‘cause you’re my friends. And I didn’t kill him, okay? He was still breathing and moving, he just couldn’t stand up.”

“Yeah well he maybe died shortly after.” Kevin added.

“Shut up about it!” Tony said, visibly irritated and worried that someone would hear about it. “We have to keep this absolutely secret, alright?”

“I don’t believe it.” Scott said. “Are you just bullshitting us?”

Questions started to rise from his friends, questions like: What did the guy look like? What is the name of the city you were in? What did the van look like? What was the name of the clothing store you robbed? How many times did you stab the guy? Did the dumpster smell like s**t? And with every question, more lies were getting created, and Tony didn’t like it. “I don’t wanna talk about it okay? I’m traumatized from all this and it’s better if we just forget that this ever happened and we never talk about it again. Good?”

The members of the gang stopped talking and they had a serious look on their face. They looked at each other, as if they were waiting for one of them to do the first move, and then Phillip summoned the courage to ask the ultimate question. “…Did you get raped?”

“Yeah, like raped in the butt?” Bradley asked.

Tony could see where this was going. He was getting uneasy. He had to prevent his friends from starting this rumor.

“No! Why would you even ask that?”

“Tony got raped, Tony got raped!” The boys started chanting as they circled around him.

“Hey guys! Tony! What the hell?” Sidrik asked from farther away. He came running to the scene.

“Sidrik!” Tony shouted and then he ran to join him.

They gave each other a friendly hug and then Sidrik obviously asked him what happened.

“Tony got kidnapped and raped!” Bradley screamed.

“What?” Sidrik asked, confused.

“Stop it guys!” Tony barked. “That’s not true. I just told them minutes ago what happened. I’ll tell you what happened later.” He then whispered, “But we’ll have to be alone. No one can know about this.” Sidrik was Tony’s most trustworthy friend and therefore he had reserved a very different explanation for him that was a lot closer to the truth.

“But anyways, why don’t we just play tag?” Tony suggested. He just wanted to go on with his normal, earthling life.

“Okay, but since you got raped in the butt, you’re it!” Scott said, trying to divert everyone from remembering that he was “it” before Tony arrived.

“Stop saying that out loud!” Tony said, and then he started chasing after Scott. The boys played tag until the bell rang.

The students attended to their classes, and when Tony entered the classroom, Mr. Bark was there to greet him. “So you weren’t gone for good, huh? I thought I had finally gotten rid of you!” He said in a teasing tone.

            “Nope. I’m back and ready to go.”

 “Back to make some more trouble, right?”

 “Umm… I dunno.”

Mr. Bark smiled. “Glad you’re going well, Tony. Welcome back to Golden Valley.”

“Thank you.” Tony answered politely. He headed for his seat, but Mr. Bark put a hand on his shoulder.

“Not that I want to kick you out already, Tony, but you’ve missed a lot of classes. You’re simply not going to be able to follow today’s course. You won’t understand since you didn’t attend the previous lessons. Mrs. Landry is waiting for you at her office. She has conceived a special program that will help you catch up with the other students.”

“Oh… okay.” Tony answered. First day of class and he was already sent to the principal’s office.

 Once at the office, Tony learned that his special program basically consisted of being excluded from his class for the rest of year until he would catch up. He would be in a private class with a tutor that would help him learn all that he had missed. Of course, that included after-school classes and even week-end courses. There was also a lot of homework. Not having any choice, Tony accepted the harsh conditions imposed on him and promised to do his best. It was supposed to give him a successful future after all, according to his parents and Mrs. Landry.

            Fortunately, Tony was talented in language arts, so even though he missed some courses, he easily understood all his extra homework. The most difficult was mathematics. Not only was it Tony’s weakness, but he found it so boring that most of the time he didn’t even pay attention to what the teacher explained. During that day’s mathematics lesson, the tutor was demonstrating the method that would permit him to divide numbers that contained decimals, but Tony zoned out, like usual, and started philosophising about anything possible except math. He started counting the tiles on the ceiling and then he wondered how rainbows were made. Where do they come from? Where does it start? Is it possible to follow a rainbow until you find its starting point? Does it touch the ground? Why do they say that there’s pot of gold at the end of a rainbow?

            “Tony, are you listening?” The tutor asked him because visibly he wasn’t following at all.

            “Yes of course, I see what you did there.”

            “Really. Okay then, tell me what the next step on this problem is.”

            “The next step?” Tony asked, completely lost.

            “That’s right. What do you do from there?”

            “Umm… well you take that number there, to the left, you put it under the symbol here and then you, um, subtract with uhh.. okay I don’t know.” Tony admitted.

            The teacher sighed. “Now listen here, it’s very important that you know this step or else you won’t be able to do your homework tonight.”

            “Yes, miss.” Tony answered, dispirited.

            “So from here, I’ll say it again, you have to ask yourself how many fives can fit into forty-two. It won’t give an exact number, but start by approximating and then you take the estimate and place it under the symbol and that’s where you will be able to…”

Tony had no idea when Rosayan would come back to try and kill him. He wanted to avoid thinking about it but the idea had been troubling him all week. Maybe Narcolia was right. It would be a good idea for him to know how to defend himself. He couldn’t always depend on his nemusian counterpart, especially since he wasn’t able to choose when to transform. There was this Karate dojo close to his place that he could attend. He knew about the place because he and his friend Dan used to pass by there with their bicycles and sometimes they stopped to peek through the windows of the building and laugh at the students because they looked like they were always repeating the same robotic dance moves while screaming. He didn’t understand how those moves were supposed to help someone defend himself, and he wasn’t convinced about the effectiveness of the art at all.On the other hand, it was the only martial art close to his place and reasonably, he thought, people wouldn’t be doing those dance moves and look dumb for nothing. There had to be something beneficial about it. He considered giving it a try because he realised how important it was for him to know how to fight if he planned on surviving future hostilities. There was no way to know when the lizaard would strike back, but at least, whenever it would happen, he would be ready.

“So now, to make sure that you understood what I just showed you, here’s a list of problems. Finish these before the class ends so I can correct them or else it will be homework and you’ll have even more trouble catching up with your classmates.” The teacher said and then she posed a paper filled with numbers and symbols on Tony’s desk.

“Wait, what? I have to do all of these?” Tony asked, looking distressed. I wasn’t even listening!

After suffering the boredom of his very first “special class”, it was lunchtime and the boy could finally rejoin his buddies down in the cafeteria. He was planning on sitting at the same table as usual, where the Gang always sat, but then he crossed paths with his crush, Trina, so he lost all memory of whatever he was thinking of at the moment.

“H-Hi Trina…” He muttered timidly.

“Oh, hi Tony! I heard you’re finally back for good ey? I’m glad to hear that, we were worried about you.” She answered gleefully.

“Really?” Trina had actually been worried about him? Or maybe was she just saying that to make him happy? “I’m alright, you didn’t need to worry about me. I can get myself out of any situation, he-he-he.”

“So what happened to you? Where have you been?” She asked, looking curious.

“Well, you know, it’s a long story.”

“Why don’t you sit with us and tell your story?”

“Uh-um, yeah, sure!” He was a little nervous with the idea, but ecstatic at the same time. It was the first time he had ever been invited to the table where Trina’s little clique of cute girls always sat at lunchtime. He would never have thought that this adventure would make him so popular. All his classmates had been questioning him, looking intrigued, and now it was Trina’s turn to come and talk to him. It was his ultimate chance to impress the love of his life. Tony finished cooking his bowl of Gattuso noodles and then followed Trina up to her table. He was pretty tense because he never knew how to act in front of girls. What he did know for a fact, was that he certainly couldn’t express the same kind of behavior that he had when he was with the Gang. Once he arrived, all the other girls at the table looked at him with their usual snobbish/superficial look that Tony interpreted as “what the hell is this loser doing here” and then they looked at Trina for an explanation.

“Tony’s going to sit with us today and tell us this whole story we were wondering about!” She told them.

“Oh, how interesting! We were curious about what happened to you. People are saying that you got kidnapped by a pedophile.” Karyann said, and then all the girls started giggling from the rumor. Girls were always interested when it came to rumors and gossiping.

“What? That’s not true!” Tony negated with a sweat running down his forehead. Those damn friends of his. So they really did spread the rumor. “Scott is the one who told you this, right?”

“Maybe…” Catherine replied while all the girls were snickering.

Godammit, He thought to himself, How did this spread so fast? He absolutely needed to correct the situation before it would get out of hand. “You girls should know by now that Scott is always saying bullshit. Let me tell you what really happened.” He said. The girls were all ears, eager to hear what had actually happened.

 Now there was no way he could tell the same story that he had told the Gang. He couldn’t possibly say to some girls that he had killed and robbed people. They weren’t old enough yet to be aroused by thugs and rebels. They were still at that age where they all loved the romantic, noble and courageous Prince Charming model that was presented to them in Disney movies. He thought quickly about what he was going to say. He structured all of it in his head while he took a bite out of his noodles, and then he started: “Well, it all started when this earthquake started in gym class. I got out because I wanted to find out what was causing the tremors, and then I saw this�"

His story was quickly interrupted when some sudden flying sandwich intruded itself in his bowl of Gattuso, causing an exaggeratedly immense outburst of soup broth all over the table, spraying Tony and all the girls that were around him. The girls shrieked in horror as they felt the broth sink into their hair and clothes. Humiliated, Tony wiped off the excess liquid in his face and then he could clearly see the members of the Gang laughing hysterically with all their might. “Those f*****g a******s…” he groaned. They ruined my ultimate chance!

“Come on, man.” Phillip called from his table where the rest of the Gang was, “It’s just a joke, don’t be so butthurt about it!”

“That’s it. You asked for it.” Tony said. This was going too far.

“Oh my god!” Laurence yelped with revulsion, “We let this immature kid eat with us one single time and look what it leads to!”

Outraged, Tony furiously opened his lunchbox and studied his arsenal. He chose his messiest weapon: the yogurt container. He slightly opened the corner of the lid on his yogurt and flung it violently at the Gang’s direction. Noticing the projectile that was heading straight at him, Phillip instinctively turned around, and so the yogurt container smothered on his back, smearing his shirt and the back of his head. “Oh you motherfucking dumbass, you asked for it!” He screamed.

Kevin unwrapped his Joe Louie cupcake and threw it as hard as he could in the middle of the cafeteria, where the mob of students was the most concentrated. It got some random student directly in the face, and that was what officially declared the massive food fight that was about to break out. In fact, it was only about to break out, but it never did, because as soon as the dozens of rebellious students readied their hands with a weapon of choice, just about to launch it in every possible direction, Miss Cally entered the scene and yelled her ultimate attack: “EVERYBODY SIT DOWN!!!” Her scream was so loud, so piercing and so intimidating that it immediately destroyed the courage of any daring student. It was as if she could freeze time with that attack. At the sound of Miss Cally’s order, the dozens of students that were about to throw some sort of food silently sat back down and shoved whatever they had into their hands into their mouth and the war was over. Only an apple and a cup of Jell-O had the time to fly across the cafeteria before order was brought back. The members of the gang were then forced to clean up the mess even though they all said “it wasn’t me” and “I didn’t do anything.”

Now that Tony was back to school, life was normal again. The rest of the week went on smoothly even though Tony was busier than usual.  He barely had the time to play video games because he had to spend most of his free time doing extra homework so he could catch up with his classmates. He even had to take some courses on Saturday and Sunday, so the only real leisure time he had was on Friday after school.

Tony wanted Sidrik to sleep over at his place on Friday because he wanted to show him something that he felt was very important. Sidrik obviously accepted the offer, so after getting permission from his parents, Sidrik took Tony’s school bus after school was over. Once arrived at Tony’s place, Tony kept looking at the time repeatedly, as if he needed to attend some important rendez-vous. At 4:30 PM, Tony told his mother that they were going to play in the forest. They left the house and Sidrik followed his best friend in the forest because Tony told him that something interesting was going to happen. Once they were deep enough into the woods, Tony stopped walking. A moment later, a raven flew out of a tree and it started circling around them a couple of times. It then landed in front of them, a couple of feet away, and it stared at Sidrik with its strange red eyes. That’s when Tony told him: “Sidrik, this is my new friend, Pascal.”