This chapter is from the perspective of Anya Gallipeau.
*knock knock knock knock*
I knew it was him. He always knocks in this weird four-tap rhythm. It's eight AM, what does he want?
"Yes, J'baki?" The dumb look on his face was almost worth talking to other people this early.
"I finally know how I'm gonna do it." He said, perky as ever. "
I'm gonna hold this image of the spunky kid who hasn't been crushed by school yet in my head. He's so precious, let him enjoy his early morning.
"Oh, yea? How is that?" I was genuinely curious. No way could he slap me again. I stayed awake 12 hours a day, of course, he got one in.
"Well, I see you're very tired, I've been reading about biology and human reflexes are slower when you haven't had enough rest." he sounded so proud of himself. Human reflexes, that's cute.
"J'baki I've been up for hours. Unless you get faster than me, you're never gonna get that second hit." I brushed right past him and into the kitchen. "Besides, I'm surprised you're up so early."
"I was up all night finishing up Ms. Bena's practice tests." J'baki plopped himself at the kitchen bar. "I want her to look over them, but she's still asleep so I figured I'd come train with you."
"You consider what we do training?" I almost broke my neck turning around from the cabinet where we kept the bowls. I scoffed "are those it? Let me see them."
J'baki handed me the stack of papers. His handwriting pretty much changed overnight, his math looked good, thank god because I would be no help. Science though, I mean I shouldn't be surprised, he just learned that people are tired when they don't have sleep.
"J'baki, you spent five years living outside, you never paid attention to what was going on out there?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, you failed basic science questions?" I probably could have said that nicer.
"Science is stupid. It doesn't make any sense."
"You don't have to understand it, you just have to know it." He was getting worked up over nothing. "Just put the right answers on the page, that's it."
"Fine, but it's still stupid."
We ate our food in silence, a common occurrence between us, I like to enjoy my food, I don't know why he doesn't talk.
"Anya, I want to trust you like I trust Benji."
J'baki grabbed our bowls to wash them out.
"Where did that come from?"
"Just a thought. I want to show you something. I showed this to Benji too and he kept it a secret, hopefully, you can too."
"You show me something cool, I bet I can top it." Were me and J'baki becoming friends?
He looked relieved at my response so that's cool. In the sink was a bowl filled with milky water. He looked at it then at me.
"Okay. Just watch the water." He placed his hand over the water, and this part was anti-climatic but slowly, the milk started to disappear from the water.
"Wow okay. What exactly did you just do?"
"What you couldn't see it? Benji could see it." Ouch. "I sent spores to clean the water. This is how we do it where I'm from."
"And where are you from."
" I don't know if we're there yet. Maybe after you one-up me."
J'baki was sassy and I didn't like it.
"Fine, I bet you wanna know about the plants."
His eyes widened. I knew it the moment he stepped in here, but he never asked, now was a good time to show it to him. The bait cooler was on the opposite side of the kitchen, I walked over and opened it.
"Alright, Jbaki. You get to pick. Snake, Lizard, or guinea pig."
"How about a snake and a lizard. Wait for what?" Though he could very well pass for a teenager, he had a childlike aura around him.
"What do you think? I bet you'd know if you took science seriously." I grabbed a snake that could wrap around my arm and a lizard the size of J'baki's head. "Plants are alive, they have to eat too."
We walked to our hallway and stood at the two plants.
"Hi Cain, Hi Abel." Cain opened his giant maw and Abel's pitcher shook with excitement. "Nice to see y'all too. Today someone new is gonna feed you."
They took this better than I did. Cain and Abel have been in my family for years. Auntie has been taking care of them since we left home. I could tell J'baki was dying to do this. He walked up to Cain and examined his giant maw.
"Okay if you keep your head there any longer he's gonna eat you!" Just then a drop of saliva hit his face. He stepped back shaking. "See he's hungry, just throw it in there."
J'baki took the lizard from my hands and tossed it into Cain's mouth, his maw clamped tightly around the reptile.
I passed the snake to him and he turned to Abel whose acid started bubbling ferociously. J'baki dropped the snake in head first and stepped back barely missing Abel's lid snapping closed.
"Wooooooow. That's so amazing. Look! They're changing colors!" See, way better than his water cleaning.
"Amazing enough to tell me where you're from?"
"Not quite, but I will show you something else."
"What are we doing here? Just showing each other cool stuff"
" what's wrong with that? Do you wanna see it or not?" J'baki was already at the back door. "Well come on!"
"Okay, we're outside now, what you got?"
"Alright, this one I just started working on."
He went and stood facing the house. He looked to make sure I wasn't gazing off of him. Confidently facing the house he set into a stance. I recognized the crouch, he was going to jump. The uncertainty of the situation made me beam with excitement. In one leap he managed to almost jump to the top of the roof, missed it by that much, and was now dangling his long scrawny legs from the roof.
"Anya! A little help!" He had managed to pull himself up a little, his arms were on the roof but his body still dangled there. I was in hysterics.
"Wow, that waaas cool. You jumped so high. I was almost done laughing. Almost. "Now I'm gonna show you my cool thing"
With no leap at all, I slowly glided off of the ground and landed gracefully on the roof. I sat and let him hang there for a bit.
"ANYA YOU CAN FLY?!" That's the shock I was looking for.
"J'BAKI YOU CAN KINDA JUMP HIGH?!" I mean, what else was I supposed to say? He just rolled his eyes. " come on and get up here already, you didn't expect me to help did you?"
There was the eye roll again.
"No, just hoped." He pulled himself up and sat with me on the roof of our house.
"So what's it gonna take to open up that brain of yours?"
J'baki laid back on the roof, with his arms stretched.
"Something, personal. What I've been through, even someone as cool as you, I have to know who I can really trust."
"Huh, something personal." I sat and pondered for a moment. The realization I came to was obvious. My most personal secret, the place where I feel one with everything. "Tomorrow, I'll take you to a place not even Benji knows about, it's a place where they call me the Empress." I couldn't believe it, the words were knocked out of my mouth before I could decide to say them.
J'baki leaned up flashing a trusting smile at me. He accepted my proposal. It's strange, I had no plan to care for this kid, now I find myself opening up to him.
I'll leave him to his own devices. There isn't much I can do once he's in that world. I won't even be able to see him. Perhaps he can find whatever it is he's looking for after all, he wouldn't want someone he can't trust to be there.