Monster of a Quest

Chapter 17 Cody

I was surprised when Leo came in and woke me up, and not Sam. I wonder why he picked me and not Sam. Maybe it had something to do with that thing about bonding he was mumbling about. I walked out of the tent and grabbed my knives I had in my bag in between the tents under a rather large leaf I found on the ground when we were setting up camp. Dabria was already by the edge of the clearing looking into the woods, with her bow readied. "Hi Cody" she says, I almost jumped. How did she know it was me? I didn't even make a sound, and she was not told that Leo had picked me to do the next shift. "Hi, how did you know I was coming, and it was not Sam" I asked, still surprised and quite impressed, and interested. "I knew it was you because you were searching through your bookbag looking for your knives, and even if I did not know for sure, it was you. I could tell by the way you were not making noise when you were walking over to me. Even though Sam is good, he still makes a bit of noise when he walks," she says, still focus on the woods. Wow, she is good. No wonder the king favors her, but I was still curious why she did not think it was Leo or Charlotte making that noise. "That makes sense, but couldn't have been Leo or Charlotte who was going through the bag," I ask, looking at her while she is still looking out into the woods. "Very true it could have been but I know for a fact that Charlotte does not keep her bag outside because she sleeps with it next her, and for Leo a reason would be that his bag is hanging from a tree with all the food in it, and I extremely doubt he would go up there he does not seem like a heights person" she says, why didn't I think of that. Why am I so dumb, but in my defense she is quite observent, but still that is no excuse I need to know this stuff. Get your head right Cody! "Right obviously I knew that just testing you" I say, she laughed a little, I was not trying to make her laugh. It was quiet for a good minute but then she looked at me. "Are you bored?" she asked, what does she mean, am I bored? "No, not really why" I ask? "Because you are kind of fun to talk to right now" she says smiling, I smile. "You're not too boring yourself" I say.

We stood there in silence for a while, But a question was pounding in my head. "Hey, I know this is not my place to ask this but how did you and Sam meet" I ask. I was really curious because they act like they are quite close but they also acted like they have known each other forever. "We met in first grade. I remember walking into the classroom seeing this kid getting bullied and the teacher was too busy on her phone to notice. So I decided to deal with it myself and went up to the bully. I wanted to see how he would react if he found out that someone noticed what he was doing. So I asked him what he was doing and you know what this kid said. He said we are making fun of Sam. You want to join? It is fun. The audacity that kid had." she said, then let out a vast sigh like she was trying to control her anger. "I was so angry that I walked even closer to him and said you better stop or I will tell the teacher. I gave him a chance, I really did, but then he stepped closer to me and laughed in my face. Spit went everywhere and wow, did that kid's breath stink. After I recovered from the smell he says what are you gonna do? Cry about it? After that, I did not give him warning, and I flipped the stupid kid over my shoulder, then grabbed Sam's hand and walked away. The kids avoided me for months, but after that me and Sam were best friends." I tried to imagine Dabria in first grade flipping a kid over her shoulder, but I could not picture it. All I can see is a little girl in a princess's dress waving her magic wand at him.

 "But the bully did tell on me, and the teacher called my mom. The teacher came to me after she called my mom and said you deserve to be punished for what you did, but I am sorry for what is coming for you when you get home. I already knew what was waiting at home for me, but it really did not matter because I made a friend, my first friend." She says, smiling like this was one of the happiest moments of her life. But why did her teacher apologize to her? What is bad about what her mom was going to do to her that a teacher who just got her in trouble for flipping someone over her shoulder would apologize? This reminds me about how little we know about each other and their backgrounds.