The Creature He Is

CHAPTER 5

As the following school day arrives, Craig had all but almost forgot about the issue with Clyde, until he sees him that morning. He still didn't feel like talking to him about what happened the previous day, so in an attempt to avoid that conversation, if only for a little bit, and as childish as it it, he quickly avoids him by ducking behind some people and heading into his first class.

When he enters it, his gaze is drawn right to Kenny's seat with a small beat, but when he sees it vacant his expression falls into a small frown. He ignores the small tinge of disappointment he feels and takes his usual seat.

He then goes back to concerning himself about Clyde, and for the most part he's is able to avoid him in one of the shared morning classes with him, by mainly not looking at him at all, and switching his cellphone off so he can't be texted. At one point during it, he pretends to be asleep until he hears the bell ring and promptly takes off running out of the class before Clyde can even approach him. Eventually lunch comes along and he stands by his locker putting his things away. He catches sight of Clyde and his group of friends talking, before Clyde looks over at him. He sees him start to walk over and sighs, knowing what's coming and being unable to avoid it again.

As he shuts his locker, he hears a sudden voice from behind him.

"Can I talk to you?"

It catches him so off guard that he nearly jumps and lets out a small scream. When he looks over, he finds Kenny now standing there.

"Jesus Christ," Craig says placing a hand on his chest, "where the hell did you come from? I didn't see, or even hear you walk up."

"Can we talk?" Kenny asks again.

Craig gives a somewhat curious look at that. This was the first time Kenny had approached him and wanted to talk to him, and he couldn't help but wonder why. As Craig glances back over at Clyde, he sees his eyes narrow at him a bit as he looks between the two of them. Then he sees his other friends look at him and give mixed expressions of confusion and curiousness.

"Sure, uh, let's head somewhere else first," Craig tells him, heading off and Kenny follows.

He knew doing this would raise even more questions, not just with Clyde, but all of his friends now. Which was just a thrilling idea for him to think about, being bombarded with them all later. He sighs and starts to think that maybe he should've turned down Kenny's request, but his curiosity is too strong and he figures it must be something important for Kenny to have come to him.

As they walk outside the school building, Craig gets a text. He looks at it briefly and sees it's from Clyde, before he decides to ignore it for the time being, until he's talked with Kenny.

"Okay, so what is it?" Craig asks, putting his phone away.

"It's about yesterday," Kenny replies.

"What about it?"

"I thought about what you said."

"What I said?" Craig asks not really knowing exactly which part he meant.

"Tonight."

"Huh?"

"Meet me tonight by Stark's Pond..."

"What-why? I don't understand," Craig says confused.

"You will," Kenny tells him, before he heads off.

"Wait-that doesn't help!" Craig says.

He thinks about following after him to ask more about what he means, but something tells him not to. So he decides to spend the rest of lunch on his own afterwards, not really wanting to talk to his friends about seeing him walk off with Kenny. Eventually, lunch ends and he heads to his afternoon class. He's half expecting his friends to bother him in class about it, but they don't, surprisingly, and just leave him alone. And for a while, he thinks he's in the clear, at least that is until school ends.