Written: Monday. October 21, 2019.
After recess, the rest of the day basically consisted of the mundane things that happen regularly in school. Toby tried writing a chapter of this science-fiction story that he has about time-travel. Tom and Drew were doing sketches on their notebooks instead of paying attention to the teachers’ lectures. Amanda was writing this poem for a story she’s also writing. And June was just sitting there, watching the four of her classmates, as she’s trying to figure out what the hell they were all talking secretly of until she appeared.
Toby was about to come up with a lie that, to him, would be foolproof. Maybe it’s because he’s a writer which made him skilled with these sorts of things. But before he could even speak, Tom immediately told her to meet them after dismissal. After having said that, Toby grabbed Tom and did a small huddle facing away from June — even if she was just a few shy inches away from hearing them — and asked Tom what the hell he was thinking.
“She heard us dude. What were we supposed to do?”
“How could you be sure that she overheard us talking?” Toby looked back at June, who was just standing there, clearly hearing what both of them were saying. He just quickly smiled at her and went back to the huddle. “Plus, I was just about to tell her the cover-up story I had come up with in my mind if ever somebody overheard us talking, until you just went up and told her to — “
“meet you guys after dismissal?” June stepped inside the huddle. “You guys know that I can hear you, right?”
Toby broke the huddle from the two of them. “Look, whatever it is you think you heard, lady, keep it to yourself until dismissal.”
Tom looked at Toby, “What happened to that foolproof cover-up story you talked about?”
“Shut up, man!” Toby went back to his seat and continued on to writing his stories.
Once dismissal time had arrived, the five students packed their things and went out of the classroom. Tom lead the group to Gate B. It seemed that the three boys decided on going back to the crash site — come to think of it, it’s not really a crash site, more of a landing spot — of the metal ball, in order to commence the secret meeting. Not a lot of people pass by that area anyway. So both Toby and Drew agreed on it, and the two new additions to the party — June and Amanda — just followed their lead.
Amanda walked beside Drew. “So are you from around here or…”
Drew, who was just walking and not really paying attention to anything but the sky above, looked down and noticed Amanda looking at him. He looked around him until he was sure she was looking straight at him and not something behind him or whatever. “What are you looking at?”
“I asked you a question. Didn’t you hear?”
“No.” Drew replied. He took something out of his bag. It was a bar of chocolate: Cadbury. “Repeat the question.”
Amanda knitted her eyebrows. She instead asked a different question. “How often do you guys play Defenders Online?”
“Oh,” Drew snapped a piece from the Cadbury bar and put it in his mouth. “Not that often these days. I’m just around when Toby needs help leveling up. Otherwise I’d be — “
“You’d be what?”
Drew tried to think of an answer. He didn’t know if that kind of subject was normal to talk about with girls. “…somewhere else. Doing stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Just…stuff.” Drew takes two pieces of chocolate this time and puts it in his mouth to hopefully end the conversation. He holds the chocolate bar high towards Amanda.
Amanda, who is just more confused at this point, just takes the bar and snaps two pieces off and puts it in her mouth. She’s deep in thought. What the hell kind of other stuff do boys do, other than play their video games? She gives the candy bar back to him. I must know this ‘other stuff’ he speaks of.
Meanwhile, Toby and June were walking beside each other. Toby and June have been classmates for two years now. But they’ve never really talked to one another. They’re just students who happen to be in the same class together, but have very different groups of friends.
“Do you have any friends?” Toby asked June. “I’ve never really seen you hanging out with anybody.” It’s weird, cause normally Toby would just shut down his motor functions whenever a girl is present. Well…a girl he finds attractive, that is. But with June, he seems to act…neutral.
“I do have friends, for your information.” June replied, fixing her glasses. “They’re just not here, in the school we go to, I mean.” Her eyes seem to focus somewhere off in the distance. “Besides, I don’t see you hanging around with people, too. Just these two dummies.” She pointed towards Tom and Drew.
“They’re the only dummies I can get by with.” Toby answered. “The rest of them are — “
“Bullies?”
“That, and they can’t keep up with my preferred speed.”
June looked at Toby, “They’re not smart enough, you mean?”
Toby smiled at the comment. “It’s not really like that…” And he looks at June, who seems to be narrowing her eyes on him. “…well, yeah. It is kind of like that sometimes.”
“They can’t follow along with heavy conversations, like your sci-fi theories or whatever.”
“So you pick up on other people’s conversations?” Toby was, well, he was just waiting for June’s answer.
June was trying to think wisely of what answer she should say. “Isn’t the reason why I’m here is because I’m a good listener? Which is how I found out that the three of you, or at least your friend Tom here, found a metal ball from outer space. And that Amanda here, who has her own extraterrestrial phenomenon placed inside of her bag, found you guys online on some video game whatsits. And that now, we’re off to the place where Tom encountered the metal ball, in order to talk about how to find the other metal pieces from that meteor shower that happened last Friday? I may be half-blind without these glasses of mine, but I’m not deaf.”
Toby nodded. “Who else do you eavesdrop on?”
“Not that many, actually. It’s just your conversations that I find interesting. Like that one where you talk about alternate universes that could explain the reason for your constant déjà vu episodes. Or that story you’re writing about.”
“You’re a writer too, yeah?” Toby asked. “I’ve seen you scribbling down that one notebook of yours sometimes.”
“So you pick up on other people’s hobbies?” June asked Toby playfully.
He smiled at her. “Nah. Just the interesting ones.”
When the five of them arrived at the old abandoned lot, they noticed two people standing near the metal ball’s landing site. Both of them were facing behind the group. One was 8 feet tall. Maybe he’s a basketball player. Tom thought. The other was like 6 feet tall. It was hard to tell, since this smaller one was kneeling before the landing site.
“Hey!” Tom yelled. “Who are you guys? This is our new hangout spot!”
Toby walked towards the two strange figures to get a closer look at them. “There’s something off with the look of these guys.”
As he walked closer, the two strange figures turned around to reveal themselves. Their skin looked like it had scales. Similar to a crocodiles, but a bit smoother, kind of like a fashion bag. The taller one was covered in patterns. It was sort of tribal-looking, like how the indigenous tribes of the country mark their skins. The smaller one also had patterns, but a bit less than the taller one.
“Who are they?” Amanda whispered to Drew.
“I think the better question is ‘what’ are they?” June was hiding behind Drew, her hand clasped around his arm. Amanda noticed this, but couldn’t find the courage to comment on it given the scary situation, so she just clasped her hand on Drew’s other arm. Drew was just standing there, looking at the strange tall being.
The taller one looked down on Toby’s friends. And then down to him. He saw the smaller one pointing towards Amanda and Tom, saying something to the taller one right in front of Toby. None of the five of them could understand their language, but somehow Toby understood what the small one was telling his tall companion when he saw what appeared to be a smile on the tall ones face. They know about the metal pieces.
He slowly started walking back to his friends, but as he did so, both the tall one and the small one started to take steps toward them as well.
“Should we run for it?” Tom whispered to Toby as he got near him.
“Yep.” Toby replied, as he started to run back towards the school.
Upon seeing this, his friends immediately followed. And so did the two strange beings.
After recess, the rest of the day basically consisted of the mundane things that happen regularly in school. Toby tried writing a chapter of this science-fiction story that he has about time-travel. Tom and Drew were doing sketches on their notebooks instead of paying attention to the teachers’ lectures. Amanda was writing this poem for a story she’s also writing. And June was just sitting there, watching the four of her classmates, as she’s trying to figure out what the hell they were all talking secretly of until she appeared.
Toby was about to come up with a lie that, to him, would be foolproof. Maybe it’s because he’s a writer which made him skilled with these sorts of things. But before he could even speak, Tom immediately told her to meet them after dismissal. After having said that, Toby grabbed Tom and did a small huddle facing away from June — even if she was just a few shy inches away from hearing them — and asked Tom what the hell he was thinking.
“She heard us dude. What were we supposed to do?”
“How could you be sure that she overheard us talking?” Toby looked back at June, who was just standing there, clearly hearing what both of them were saying. He just quickly smiled at her and went back to the huddle. “Plus, I was just about to tell her the cover-up story I had come up with in my mind if ever somebody overheard us talking, until you just went up and told her to — “
“meet you guys after dismissal?” June stepped inside the huddle. “You guys know that I can hear you, right?”
Toby broke the huddle from the two of them. “Look, whatever it is you think you heard, lady, keep it to yourself until dismissal.”
Tom looked at Toby, “What happened to that foolproof cover-up story you talked about?”
“Shut up, man!” Toby went back to his seat and continued on to writing his stories.
Once dismissal time had arrived, the five students packed their things and went out of the classroom. Tom lead the group to Gate B. It seemed that the three boys decided on going back to the crash site — come to think of it, it’s not really a crash site, more of a landing spot — of the metal ball, in order to commence the secret meeting. Not a lot of people pass by that area anyway. So both Toby and Drew agreed on it, and the two new additions to the party — June and Amanda — just followed their lead.
Amanda walked beside Drew. “So are you from around here or…”
Drew, who was just walking and not really paying attention to anything but the sky above, looked down and noticed Amanda looking at him. He looked around him until he was sure she was looking straight at him and not something behind him or whatever. “What are you looking at?”
“I asked you a question. Didn’t you hear?”
“No.” Drew replied. He took something out of his bag. It was a bar of chocolate: Cadbury. “Repeat the question.”
Amanda knitted her eyebrows. She instead asked a different question. “How often do you guys play Defenders Online?”
“Oh,” Drew snapped a piece from the Cadbury bar and put it in his mouth. “Not that often these days. I’m just around when Toby needs help leveling up. Otherwise I’d be — “
“You’d be what?”
Drew tried to think of an answer. He didn’t know if that kind of subject was normal to talk about with girls. “…somewhere else. Doing stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Just…stuff.” Drew takes two pieces of chocolate this time and puts it in his mouth to hopefully end the conversation. He holds the chocolate bar high towards Amanda.
Amanda, who is just more confused at this point, just takes the bar and snaps two pieces off and puts it in her mouth. She’s deep in thought. What the hell kind of other stuff do boys do, other than play their video games? She gives the candy bar back to him. I must know this ‘other stuff’ he speaks of.
Meanwhile, Toby and June were walking beside each other. Toby and June have been classmates for two years now. But they’ve never really talked to one another. They’re just students who happen to be in the same class together, but have very different groups of friends.
“Do you have any friends?” Toby asked June. “I’ve never really seen you hanging out with anybody.” It’s weird, cause normally Toby would just shut down his motor functions whenever a girl is present. Well…a girl he finds attractive, that is. But with June, he seems to act…neutral.
“I do have friends, for your information.” June replied, fixing her glasses. “They’re just not here, in the school we go to, I mean.” Her eyes seem to focus somewhere off in the distance. “Besides, I don’t see you hanging around with people, too. Just these two dummies.” She pointed towards Tom and Drew.
“They’re the only dummies I can get by with.” Toby answered. “The rest of them are — “
“Bullies?”
“That, and they can’t keep up with my preferred speed.”
June looked at Toby, “They’re not smart enough, you mean?”
Toby smiled at the comment. “It’s not really like that…” And he looks at June, who seems to be narrowing her eyes on him. “…well, yeah. It is kind of like that sometimes.”
“They can’t follow along with heavy conversations, like your sci-fi theories or whatever.”
“So you pick up on other people’s conversations?” Toby was, well, he was just waiting for June’s answer.
June was trying to think wisely of what answer she should say. “Isn’t the reason why I’m here is because I’m a good listener? Which is how I found out that the three of you, or at least your friend Tom here, found a metal ball from outer space. And that Amanda here, who has her own extraterrestrial phenomenon placed inside of her bag, found you guys online on some video game whatsits. And that now, we’re off to the place where Tom encountered the metal ball, in order to talk about how to find the other metal pieces from that meteor shower that happened last Friday? I may be half-blind without these glasses of mine, but I’m not deaf.”
Toby nodded. “Who else do you eavesdrop on?”
“Not that many, actually. It’s just your conversations that I find interesting. Like that one where you talk about alternate universes that could explain the reason for your constant déjà vu episodes. Or that story you’re writing about.”
“You’re a writer too, yeah?” Toby asked. “I’ve seen you scribbling down that one notebook of yours sometimes.”
“So you pick up on other people’s hobbies?” June asked Toby playfully.
He smiled at her. “Nah. Just the interesting ones.”
When the five of them arrived at the old abandoned lot, they noticed two people standing near the metal ball’s landing site. Both of them were facing behind the group. One was 8 feet tall. Maybe he’s a basketball player. Tom thought. The other was like 6 feet tall. It was hard to tell, since this smaller one was kneeling before the landing site.
“Hey!” Tom yelled. “Who are you guys? This is our new hangout spot!”
Toby walked towards the two strange figures to get a closer look at them. “There’s something off with the look of these guys.”
As he walked closer, the two strange figures turned around to reveal themselves. Their skin looked like it had scales. Similar to a crocodiles, but a bit smoother, kind of like a fashion bag. The taller one was covered in patterns. It was sort of tribal-looking, like how the indigenous tribes of the country mark their skins. The smaller one also had patterns, but a bit less than the taller one.
“Who are they?” Amanda whispered to Drew.
“I think the better question is ‘what’ are they?” June was hiding behind Drew, her hand clasped around his arm. Amanda noticed this, but couldn’t find the courage to comment on it given the scary situation, so she just clasped her hand on Drew’s other arm. Drew was just standing there, looking at the strange tall being.
The taller one looked down on Toby’s friends. And then down to him. He saw the smaller one pointing towards Amanda and Tom, saying something to the taller one right in front of Toby. None of the five of them could understand their language, but somehow Toby understood what the small one was telling his tall companion when he saw what appeared to be a smile on the tall ones face. They know about the metal pieces.
He slowly started walking back to his friends, but as he did so, both the tall one and the small one started to take steps toward them as well.
“Should we run for it?” Tom whispered to Toby as he got near him.
“Yep.” Toby replied, as he started to run back towards the school.
Upon seeing this, his friends immediately followed. And so did the two strange beings.
End of Chapter.
* * *
* * *
Comments
Post a Comment