Leaning close, he expected Lyca to whisper words in his ears, maybe words explaining how her voice had messed up his thoughts if he had never seen her before, but instead of words, he got an unexpected flick on his nose, a very painful flick.
"Oww!" He exclaimed in pain and held his nose while she gave an annoying cackle.
"Did you think I would say anything to you?" She snared. "Trust me, creep, if I ever was to mess with anyone's head in my entire life, it sure wouldn't be you."
Those words hit Ali like a bombshell, and he wasn't sure why they hit him that way. For all he knew, she was just a random girl he had seen and was probably not going to want to see again because he had just received a painful nose flick.
"Why did you have to flick me on the nose?" His hands were still cupped around his nose.
"Because you're a creep and you wouldn't stop pestering me, and I hate creeps," she told him.
"You could have just told me to stop pestering you. Was flicking me really necessary? That hurt bad and I'm 80% sure I'm bleeding," Ali said aloud. He was not bleeding.
"Jeremy!" Lyca rashly called to Jeremiah, who was in the corner trying to set up a battered old projector machine.
"Huh?" Startled by how rashly Lyca called him, Jeremiah spun around.
"Can you tell your sweet, creep of a friend to not sit beside me?" She said, "He's being a nuisance and I hope this isn't the recruit you told us about."
Ali was taken aback by being called a nuisance by someone who wasn't his father.
"Dude! What the hell are you doing?" Jeremiah scolded. "Are you trying to get kicked out of a club you haven't even joined yet? Are you sure you want to be a part of this club?"
"Jeremiah, I'm sure I made this a thousand percent clear that I didn't want to be a part of whatever club this is," Ali gestured around. "There's no one here. I'm surprised she's sitting comfortably in her seat."
It was true; they were just five; Jeremiah, Ali, Lyca, and two other nerdy guys who just stared and said nothing. They were probably putting on a show for them to watch.
"What kind of an after-school club has just four members in it, Jeremiah?" Ali continued, "You could have just told me you were in the process of forming some kind of club."
"Who says we're just four members?" Jeremiah said glumly. He sounded upset. He didn't expect Ali to react the way he did or say what he said. But before he could explain, even more, the door opened and four people strolled briskly past Ali and went to the front of the room. They had this air of authority, a slight authority. Ali wasn't sure who they were, but if they could walk into the room the way they did and have the two nerds and Lyca stand up, they were members of the club.
"They're the upperclassmen," Jeremiah said, confirming Ali's guess.
"So, they're like the leaders?" Ali whispered.
"Yes, if you want to say it like a dummy. Sorry," Jeremiah apologized immediately when he saw Ali's expression. He was still a bit upset with him.
"That's Charlie. The fat kid," Jeremiah said, pointing to a fat guy in the front. "His uncle founded this club on the very first howl they heard when they were in junior high. He knew immediately that it wasn't the howl of a normal human being."
"Well, howls aren't from human beings, Jeremiah," Ali corrected.
"Not unless those human beings are also a part wolf, my Indian friend." He had that cheeky smile that always made Ali roll his eyes because it meant he wasn't going to say anything else.
"Charlie is the group leader now, and his three friends are his goons," Jeremiah went on. "I've been chosen to recruit members. Lyca talks to them and tells them if they're worthy or not. Then they let you join, and I think you just pissed her off, which is very bad."
"She's very mean though," Ali muttered, "she flicked my nose."
"That's what she does when she likes someone, she's mean to them. You'll get used to it; she's mean to me all the time."
"Show me then," Ali said. He wanted to see if it was true that she was mean to only those she liked.
"Show you what?"
"That she's mean to you," Jeremiah said as he approached Lyca.
"Hey Lyca, can I borrow a pen?" he said.
"Sure Jeremiah, here you go," Lyca said, handing him her pen, leaving Jeremiah stunned that she gave him a pen.
"Yeah, that was pretty mean. She even called your real name," Ali said when Jeremiah walked back to him. It's almost like she knew we wanted her to be mean to you. Don't you think that's weird?"
"Everyone here is weird, Ali. Don't spoil your brain by thinking. Focus on making Lyca laugh. That's the best attempt now since you already pissed her off."
The fat guy, whom Ali now knew his name was Charlie, brought out a tiny mallet and hit it on a desk in front of him. Ali could barely hear the mallet touch the desk, but when everywhere fell completely silent, he knew the meeting was about to start.
"You!" said Charlie, pointing directly at Ali. His voice was like an ogre's.
"Me?" Ali said she was not expecting to be seen immediately, but then, there weren't many people in the room, so it was easy to identify a stranger.
"You, stranger," Charlie groaned, "must be the person Jeremiah couldn't stop yapping about. I know because I haven't seen you around here unless you're not supposed to be here?"
"I'm with Jeremiah," Ali replied hastily, though he wasn't sure he liked where all of this was going.
"Ok then, introduce yourself," Charlie said.
"I'm Alian," he started. "Alian Warden."
"What's that, an Indian name?" Lyca rudely interrupted. Ali, trying not to immediately get annoyed, turned slowly to look at her. "Are you Indian? Because you don't look like one," Lyca went on.
"My Ma is British Indian," Ali told her.
"Ma? Who the hell says Ma?" mocked Lyca.
"I do," snapped Ali. He thought she would get mad and give him an evil glare, but she didn't. She was smiling. She was enjoying teasing him, and somehow, Ali was enjoying making her smile.
"Well, congratulations to you," she said.
"What are you doing?" Jeremiah asked Ali after he crudely pulled him to his side while the upperclassmen were putting slides into the projector machine. "You're supposed to be making her laugh, not getting her mad even more."
"You see what she's doing to me, don't you? And who says she's mad? Don't you see the smile on her face?"
"Don't joke around Ali, these guys mean business," Jeremiah said, causing Ali to swallow hard. Jeremiah was making it sound like he was in some kind of initiation ritual for a devilish cult.
"Charlie's about to read what he surfed on the web, dude, pay attention. This is what he does. Then we pitch ideas and throw points in the air. If you give him a fair point, you may have a chance of becoming a member."
Ali didn't see why Jeremiah was making a big deal out of one after-school club. His life wouldn't be over if he didn't pass the initiation rites. There were still a lot of clubs in the school.
"Clinical Lycanthropy is a very rare condition and is largely considered to be an idiosyncratic expression of a psychotic episode caused by another condition such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or clinical depression."
Charlie was reading what was on the slideshow with a laser pointer. There were so many big words, Ali was starting to doze off. All he could hear from the rest of the upperclassmen was "Here, here." He deeply wondered who sponsored the club.
When Charlie was done, it was time for everyone to throw points in, and Ali went rogue.
"So, basically, you're saying it's a delusional belief of turning into a wolf, you know, a werewolf," he said.
"Er... not just wolves, other animals too, it's a mental disorder, it can never be just one animal," A skinny one from the upperclassmen said.
The two nerds looked shocked like they had never heard someone speak the way Ali was speaking.
Lyca was smiling.
Charlie was giving him a weird glare.
"Ali, you understand that affected individuals believe that they are in the process of transforming into an animal or have already transformed into an animal," Charlie said.
"Yes, I understand that very clearly," said Ali, "but what I don't understand is how what you are saying has anything to do with the howls heard last week or the first howl your uncle and his crew heard."
Everyone except Lyca gasped. They were all now glaring at him like he had said something he wasn't supposed to say.
But Ali didn't care; Lyca was laughing.