Two Strands of Fortune

Season 1 Episode 9 - Sleepover

[DYLAN'S POV]

I was woken up by the sound of my alarm going off. Eric was startled too.
"Hey, what am I doing at your house?" he asked.
"You and I were both knocked out by an Anti-Elemental last night." I sat up.
"Are you okay?" he asked, "You don't look too fine."
I tried changing the subject, "Seeing that my mom is already at work, you'll need to come to school with me because she was your only other form of transport."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"You heard me the first time, right? You're hitching a ride with me today. Now, go shower so long while I take out some clothes for you and get breakfast ready. Remember, we need to be out of the house at 07:40 for the bus, so we have to be quick."
"Okay, Mom." he joked. I shook my head as I headed into the kitchen to make some breakfast.

The second we got out of the bus, I walked Eric to the Grade 8 classroom, seeing that he was in Grade 8. {He was kept back a year because he was born too late in December.) However, Mr and Mrs Daccarey, two teachers at my school, stopped me in my tracks.
To avoid suspicion, I had to think on my feet - spin a story, and fast. "Oh, he's a visitor. His name's Eric. Eric Russel."
She put her hand on his shoulder, "Come, Eric, let's get you settled with special assessments." Mrs Daccarey then went on cheery as usual. The two of them walked away into the classroom. Ethan smiled nervously, but I showed him a thumbs-up to reassure him. Mr Daccarey just shrugged and walked away.

At break time, the group and I walked together.
"Would you mind telling us why this knucklehead is here?" Ivan looked at me.
"The knucklehead has a name, you know." Eric folded his arms and frowned.
"Well," I said, "to make a long story short, Eric and I got shot at with darts that knocked us out. So, he stayed over and here he is."
"Wait, why did you skip the part where the two of you went missing for two days straight?" Alya was a lot more condescending than usual.
"About that," I began, "on Saturday, I was at his house, but we were attacked by an Anti-Elemental and had to stay by one of his friends' houses. So when we got going on Sunday, we were attacked by yet another Anti-Elemental, and that's where the darts came in."
"How come you didn't think to tell us about this?" Martha asked.
"One of them was Pudor, or something like that. I'm not really sure who that was but he seems... interesting." I strayed to explain myself.
"I mean, even if he is still out there, he doesn't know that you have us on your side." Alya put her hand on my shoulder. My face lit up with a grateful smile as I looked at all of my friends.