The Joining: The Cycle of the Shards Book One

14. High Noon

    It wasn't the first time today that William Phelps would think it, and it wouldn't be the last. How in the hell did he get into this situation? He was going to be a college professor. He was going to touch people, and change lives! He was going to bring the magic of learning and science and education to developing minds!

He mentally spat. He bought into the cliché of teaching hook, line, and sinker. At first, he had been fine. Despite a lack of any children of his own, he fell right into the trap of caring for his students. He knew going in the problems, with the lack of pay and funding, and the fact that the parents largely either didn't care or cared too much. Beyond it all his first few years were fantastic as he wet his feet in elementary school, where just the simple act of bringing up Mars filled kids with wonder when you started talking about the truth of the planet, not the stuff seen in movies or television. Back when the world was wonderful. He had almost changed his career plans to stay with those kids. But in today's world, it was not a realistic career path. In this day and age, male teachers were largely looked at with untrusting eyes, as though every one of them were in the profession for unsavory reasons. Eventually the pressure was too much, and though he still needed to save up enough money to go back and finish his schooling so he might even have a chance to live his College dreams, he chose a different path in this High School. Here it seemed his spirits were going to be crushed forever.

It wasn't that most of the kids were bad, though there were a few he wished would just disappear from the school system entirely. It was just nobody really cared about the things that he was saying. A lifetime of being taught to the test, he supposed. And then there was the make-work that the teachers had to do due to the constant understaffing. Like today, for example. For the second time this week he found himself being a glorified chaperone in the lunchroom, watching to make sure that there were no fights, nobody making out in the dark corners, and certainly no food fights. These kids were capable of things that he would have never thought of when he was their age, he thought.

At least today was a good day. Kyle Edison had finally woke up from his stupor! They had an actual conversation! Things like that anymore were so few and far between. He hoped that kid would hold on to that interest, there was nothing sadder than someone finding themselves and what they like and then drifting away from it for fear of humiliation. Maybe that fall he took, regardless of the reason for it, had knocked some sense into him. Something had to come from the constant presence of Brian Boyd and his cabal of troublemakers.

As he stood surveying the barely controlled madness, he heard a whisper in his ear. "Critock."

He whirled, and saw nothing. What was that word...

He heard it again, this time in the other ear. He whirled around again, and saw nothing.

"Critock, it's me, what are you doing?"

He definitely heard it that time, a light male voice from the air in front of him. "All right, I've had just about enough of this." He stated to no one, to the confusion of a little freshman girl who was passing by at the wrong time. "Show yourself now, and I won't send you to the office." He hated turning on his stern authoritative voice, but sometimes he had to remind them who was in charge here.

There was a beat. "Ah, Sorry, forgot that your optics probably haven't linked up with the human's yet. One second." Just as Critock had run up behind Phelps and frantically tried to wave him off, Tomkari adjusted his phase, and suddenly William Phelps could see exactly who was talking to him, or more accurately, what was talking to him.

He couldn't comprehend what he was looking at, and he was startled by the wisp's appearance so much that he jumped backwards, right into Critock.