I looked towards the field and noticed the coach looking at me as if I was the one responsible for a bombing or something. To sum it all up he was in rage mode. The rest of my devious team mates could clearly be seen to be containing their laughter, "You skipped two straight days of training," he continued yelling.
"I was sick, coach," I yelled back. I had no idea why he insisted on standing at the other side of the field and yell this whole conversation.
"Well next time let us all miss training and show up blaming sicknesses," he yelled back.
"I don't follow coach," I yelled back.
"Next time you try pulling a stunt like that, tell someone about it. Twenty laps around the whole field at the speed you use when making a touchdown. If I see you run any slower you will get five extra laps," he yelled. I knew there was no reasoning with our coach once he was set on making your life hell. I did understand his logic though. The best way to get through his torture was to complain. Once again I had to push my aching body to do the impossible. I began at jogging and started accelerating slowly so that my body could get used to the feeling.
My legs screamed for me to abort this endeavour, but there wasn't much I could do about this situation I was in and so I had to persevere through it. 'You okay, Kevin,' I heard Ciara's voice in my head. My friends were now making it a habit to watch us training. Probably to ambush us so we can go to Armensia for more training.
'Yeah, just.. tired,' I replied. She didn't say anything after that.
…....…
"Blast that coach," I spat while I lay on a bench panting my lungs out. My eyes stung from sweat and my clothes were boiling me with the heat I was emitting, "It wasn't as if the laps weren't enough, but he had me join you guys for the frills you were doing and he expected me to move faster than all of you." I yelled. The locker rooms had cleared and Thomas was the only one left in the showers. Since he was captain, he had to make sure everyone had left. Seeing as I had not yet caught my breath yet, I told him to get going and that I would be moving when I was ready.
"I did warn you," he said and I could practically hear the smirk in his voice as he said that.
"Well, I guess I had it coming," I said. My breathing began to steady and fatigue begun to set almost immediately. I don't think I had ever been half this tired in my whole life. I hauled myself up and noticed had been awkwardly silent for a while now. This was the kind of silence that filled the air with tension due to an unspoken sensitive topic.
"You aren't planning on joining that circle of bastards, are you?" the question slipped out of Thomas' mouth filled with so much venom. Leave it to Thomas to be straight forward. It was one of his qualities. The guy wore his emotions on his face and it made him trustworthy. Part of the reason the team trusted him. He always spoke his mind without hiding anything.
"I haven't thought much about it. Honestly what do those guys even do that's so good? All I know is that keeping appearances can be such a drag. What do you have against them anyway," I said as I got up and got into the showers to wash off. My breathing had finally steadied and the sweating had stopped, but fatigue was now setting in quickly along with a heavy dose of sleep. I guess I really had pushed myself hard at Bergstrom's training. I let the water run through my hair and down my back in the hopes that it would dispel the sleep that was ever getting stronger. I needed to get home.
"So you know nothing about them," he continued, "they basically control the school. I don't even know who granted them that kind of power. There is a lot of weird stuff that they don't let on. But to some extent their word is law. And honestly getting a freshman involved with them is just wrong. As for why I hate them, that's a story I don't tell anyone. But once even I wanted to a part of them. Not anymore," he explained. To be honest this was the vaguest conversation I had ever had with Thomas. He didn't sound like he was filtering anything he was saying, but yet he wasn't even saying anything specific at all. All that he sounded like he was doing was warning me without saying much of what kind of danger I was in. It was confusing to say the least.
"Like I said, I haven't thought about it much. And to be honest, I don't see the use in being a part of them," I said to him dismissively. He didn't say much more much as you could tell there is much he wanted to add. So much so that he left before me forgetting that he was supposed to make sure that we were all out of the locker rooms. I eventually got done showering and dressed up. The sleep ceased in its efforts to weigh me down allowing me the luxury of at least getting home first.
I got out of the locker room and turned to come face to face with one of the last people I expected to see, Sonia Everglade. "Hi, Kevin, you sure took your time," she said cheerfully. I got the strange sensation and started cautiously looking around until I saw her ring. It was an expensive looking ring with a big red ruby in it. Where do you get rubies that size? It's probably not real.
"Nice ring," I said simply before pushing past her in the general direction of the school exit. She followed and caught up to me.
"You don't look good," she said with a slight hint of worry in her voice.
"I'm tired. I just want to get home and sleep. But don't mind me, I'm fine," I said yawning as a result of the sleep and tiredness I was feeling.
"Can I walk with you?" she asked.
"Sure, as long as your home is in my general direction. If it branches off soon, then don't expect to push you in this condition of mine," I said, though she kept smiling as though that didn't bother her one bit.
"Okay," she said and continued walking with me in silence. For the first time since we came to school, home actually felt far. My legs would not stop hurting even one bit.
"Was there something so important to talk about that you had to wait for me that long?" I asked.
"Kinda, but honestly I also wanted to know someone else other than Jacob," she said.
"What about Jacob?" I asked.
"I'm not sure how to put it. Each time I think I know what is going on in his head he does something I wouldn't expect," she said causing me to look at her with a confused expression, "this may sound embarrassing, but I thought he was flirting with me at one point, but then that's it. He's being nice to me and he's acting like he doesn't notice what he is doing." This did seem to frustrate her and woo her at the same time which amused me to say the least.
"So what do you think? Is he simply being careful or is that the kind of person he is?" I asked her.
"You should be the one telling me the answer to those questions," she yelled at me.
I pass a hand through my head in frustration. I hadn't had that much of a chance to hang out with my friends the past few days because of the events that just kept on happening, "I haven't talked to him that much lately so I also cannot answer that question, I will tell you when I find out.
"By the way, I have been meaning to ask you about something. Why is it you spend the least time with your friends?" she asked causing some of my sleep to disappear.
"Haven't they told you about my lunchtime session with Mr Bergstrom?" I asked.
"Oh you mean the one where you stop time and do magic," she said lightly as though it held no value.
Chapter
Silence is what followed. For a moment I was trying to calculate how much trouble I was in. I was about to comfort myself with what Bergstrom said about there being people knowing about magic in Armenville, but he would have recognised Sonia if she was among them which only meant more trouble for him. Bergstrom had also warned him on disclosing their training sessions to his friends who had no idea that any of this was even going on.
"Relax. As you might have guessed, my ring protects me from magic," she tried explaining but I still had not heard what I wanted to hear, "Fine. Your secret's safe with me," she tried again, "as long as you keep mine."
I was not in the least bit worried about my secret. If she dared to blurb it out, then we would both be in trouble. That is if currently of course. If she somehow managed to befriend the artras then maybe then it would be a problem. Right now if she went to them and told them my secret, it would only end up backfiring on her. "Fine," I agreed and looked on ahead as I continued walking. Home was now about eight minutes away and they felt like they were just slowing down. Talking to Sonia was proving tricky now that I knew she was not that ordinary
"So are you ever going to tell them about it?" she asked.
"I'm sure they'll know about it someday. Don't know when, but when the time is right," I told her remembering the time Ciara interrupted our meeting to tell Bergstrom to speed up my training. Bergstrom had taken that warning way too seriously. Here he was trying to kill me in training now, "how do you know about magic?" I asked seeing as we were trading secrets now.
"I'm afraid I can't disclose that bit of my life. At times I wish even I could forget it. But it haunts me," she said. I let it slide mainly because of her choice of words. What did she mean by haunting? I was too tired to bother anyway. It was only now that I noticed Sonia had not branched off at any street and yet we were getting closer and closer to my home. What was she trying to pull? I don't what it was about this girl but my nerves refused to calm with her around me.
"Can we pretend this didn't happen?" she asked all of a sudden once gain surprising me. What was she talking about? "I wouldn't want to get on the bad sides of the only friends I have in High school right now," she explained.
I simply shrugged, "I don't think you should worry about getting on any of my sides. It's Ciara you should be worried about. Your new bestie."
"Come on, don't sell yourself short. It was your dark charms that managed to woo Ciara," she said her voice suddenly going up a few octaves.
My heartbeat began to increase and I felt my face heat up, "Is it really that obvious?"
"Absolutely," she replied in a high pitched tone and started laughing at my expression, "Oh, it's like watching a romance movie with you two. She practically dodged yesterday's lessons just because you weren't in school and were home sick," she continued to torment me. This shouldn't have been news for me, but something about the way Sonia making it look so obvious got my blood racing. It was now that I was realising that Ciara and I could really become an item. 'Wait, what am I thinking? When are we getting home,' I panicked mentally.
"Don't you have to get home?" I asked her somewhat more to myself.
"Yeah, I am, but for some reason I am still on the right path home," she said. I could practically see my house in distance of about two hundred metres when she stopped walking and chirped, "well, I have arrived." she turned to the house on her right. It was a huge apartment building that was on the same street as our house. She walked up to the door and turned back to face me. "Is your home far from here?"
Nice try. "I'll answer that another time," I told her.
"Okay, goodnight Kevin," she said and for the first time I saw the smile she put up falter a bit. I bit her farewell and continued on to my house. 'Why does my life have to get so complicated.'
…....…
"Gary, how was your day at school?" mom begun when we had finally sat down for supper. I obviously had tried my best to convince mom to let me eat my food in my room for once, but she refused. So my aim now was to do away with supper as fast as I could.
"It's okay, as usual," Gary replied.
"I got a call saying you had dodged a lesson at the same time as another girl. What was her name again, honey?" she said adding dad into the conversation.
"Oh yeah. That Claire Winters girl," he said. The whole table turned to me as I began chocking on my food. Winters was Claire's last name. Could she be related to her,' I thought.
"You okay?" dad asked.
"Yeah, I am," I said between coughs which I quickly recovered from. We turned our attention back on Gary who looked like he was hoping we would forget about him and move on to something else.
"I had a long assignment and the teacher had told me it would contribute to my grades and yet…"
'Johnson,' Ciara's voice sounded in my head causing yet another coughing fit. If this went on for much longer I would get discovered. They didn't bother asking as I simply raised my hand to show I was fine.
'Hi Ciara,' I replied.
'Did I get you at a bad time?' it was nice to hear her voice at least.
'Yeah, kinda. Mom forced us to have dinner as a family,' I said. I could hear laughter from the other side of the mental link.
'I thought you guys always had dinner as family,' she said.
'Yeah, but today I wanted to dodge it considering today's football training,' I said.
'What happened?' she asked.
"What about you Kevin?" my mom's voice suddenly became clear to me breaking me out of the conversation I was having with Ciara. I clearly hadn't been paying attention to anything mom had been saying.
'Catch you later,'
'Okay.'
"What about me what?" I said before putting a spoonful of food in my mouth and acting all innocent. Mom groaned in frustration while she face-palmed.
"Were you even listening?" she asked sounding somewhat irritated by my obliviousness.
"Of course, something about Gary having girl trouble and ummm…something something," I said as mom groaned even louder. Dad simply laughed and I relished in the joy of watching Gary's face turn red with embarrassment.
"There was nothing about girl trouble," he grumbled, taking a sip of his juice.
"Well the colour of your face tells another story," I said to him bursting into laughter. My brother was the easiest to deal with when he was cornered, but he could be insufferable when he wasn't cornered.
"Leave me alone, Kevin," he whined only proving my point that he was actually having girl trouble. I may have not heard him talking to mom and dad but I knew he must have found some way to hide everything from mom and dad. Mom stared at him for a little bit before turning back to me as though she had decided he had been tormented enough.
"I was asking about your day, Kevin."
"Oh yeah. My day was very tiring. Coach wouldn't let me off the hook for skipping practice while I was sick all because I didn't tell anyone about it. Anyway, on an unrelated note, there's a new girl in school who is getting close to Jacob. She wears a weird ring and has the longest jet black hair I have ever seen. And guess what. She lives on the same street as us." I intentionally said ending with the most unsettling part of my story that I was sure would throw them into chaos.