Her Road|Book 2|

Day 5|II

"Harry? Harry Malakai?" Somehow the name sent shocks through me.

I could see my dad raise an eyebrow through the mirror. "How do you know that name?"

My brain buffered a little, trying to figure out how before remembering. "I saw some news thingie."

Okay clearly words weren't working but my father accepted the answer. Chief Naomi, meanwhile, seemed uninterested like she had heard people say a similar thing.

"So you hang out with the kid?" My dad asked her. I started to notice before, and obviously while we drove, but my father acted strangely when he spoke about Harry. Almost like the boy made him nervous.

"After the incident I made sure to keep him busy, proactive. I know how the road goes after stuff like that so I made sure he doesn't." She paused as she made a left onto a road that took a out of the neighborhoods. "I'm not surprised anyways, Alice. Like I said earlier, besides the backlog, his the craziest thing that's happened in a while."

A lot of the information up until that point was meant for my father really. Understanding the town and its history of crime, understanding the boy who really brought him here, but I couldn't help but feel like it was meant for me. To my father Harry was a case. A person, yes, but a case as well. To me he could be anything from a potential friend to whatever cliché teen fiction I'm reading while writing this. Literally anything.

"Here we are." Chief Naomi announced. I had been so out of it I hadn't realized we'd pulled up across a building.

Not any building, Moirai Secondary school.

Cars filled the parking but I could see it clearly enough. A massive bricked building ran back no doubt filled with teachers, administration, classes, labs and (of course) children. In front of the closed red, double door entrance, a circle for drop offs. Above it, M O R A I in stenciled letters, vertical down the height of the building. There were two or three windows on either side, showing nothing but staircases.

Trying to be an author in the near future, I did my best to describe to myself how the building made me feel. I felt calm, the faded red bricks making the entire foreign trip rather common. This wasn't new, wasn't some rush of information that mashed my brain. Welcoming.

The weather added to that, the sun just hitting the side of the building, lighting it up efficiently enough to cast a shadow. The whole scene gave me summer vibes, not gloomy city of crime vibes like when we'd arrive.

"You like?" I turned to see both my dad and the chief looking at me, only the chief looked a little amused by my reaction. The chief got out and propped herself against her door. "It's really not a bad school. What we can't see now, behind the school, is your soccer, football, swimming, everything."

"They have soccer here?" I found myself asking. For the first time the unease of this place was seeping out of my body, bit by bit.

"Uh huh. I'm assuming you're into that?" She returned to surveying the school. "Every weekend the school sends a team somewhere. Your football, soccer, whatever team goes to other schools all over to play. Sometimes opposition even comes here."

All over? I really hoped she meant nearby towns but then I scolded myself. How would her soccer team end up here? It's literally across the country.

"I understand why you don't want to get out. First impressions are everything." She returned with a small smirk. "But I just happen to know that everyone here is in class and won't be out for another twenty minutes. Want a quick tour?"

The hallway was so normal I almost sighed aloud. White tiled floors stretched guarded by blue lockers, too many to count. Occasionally, in between a door stood. Some open, some closed but noise came from most. Immediately to my sides were staircases, the ones I'd seen from the car.

"Follow me." Chief Naomi set up the left stairs.

On each platform we got a plaque or two, names of athletes and geniuses engraved on them. After four flights of stairs and one floor later, we made it to the second and highest floor.

"This floor is just your labs and art studios. But that isn't what I wanted to show you." She walked down the hallway, passing closed doors.

I glimpsed inside as we walked. In the laboratories were red countertops, each with sheets covering, presumably, lab equipment. Others were computer labs, lines of computers and chairs. There was a teacher in that one, with glasses and crimson hair, who greeted the chief as we passed.

But it was the art studio that were the best. Paint-splattered white floors gave way to wooden canvases. Massive windows let the warmth in, emphasizing every colour like the room was a masterpiece.

"This is what I wanted to show you, it's the only place you can really see the fields." Naomi perched herself by one of the windows. She was right, you could see everything from there.

Below us, tucked behind the school were two well kept fields and two low lying buildings. One field had the markings of yards while the other was neatly divided. The two buildings were small, one most probably housing the pool.

Moirai was beautiful, normal. It wasn't Ridgeway and it's crime. It wasn't the random boy I punched the day before. It wasn't even what I left behind. It was everything a normal teenager would hate but a normal teenager isn't writing this book.

"I think I'd like to go here."