Someday We'll Be Together

Chapter 8- The School

"All right, it wasn't good to be late on the first day of school," Lena said as they hurried towards the school.
"Hey, it's not our fault. My watch's alarm didn't go off because it's set 25 years and 2 hours ahead," Max said.
"But still, the woman said not to be late."
"Oh come on. We're usually late three times in a row. This is just the first. At most, she'll just yell, 'You're a slacker, Fontana! You have behavior problems!'" Max said, imitating Mrs. Murray.
"You shouldn't forget, Max. We're Fountain, not Fontana," Lena warned.
"Hey guys, look at the school building! It looks brand new," Tyler said excitedly, pointing to the school building ahead of them. The walls, which were covered with graffiti, were now clean.
"Hey Fontana!"
Max turned around, thinking he was being called again. Tyler and Lena also looked in the direction of the voice.
Michelangelo stopped his skateboard and turned to Kyle, who was calling him.
"Give me your skateboard. I don't want to get caught by Murray."
"Uh, sorry Kyle, I can't give it to you. I'm going to give this skateboard to someone."
Lena realized that the skateboard Michelangelo was trying to give away was hers.
Kyle approached Michelangelo and pushed him against the wall.
"Are you defying me, you Italian bug?"
Michelangelo regained his balance and turned to Kyle:
"Instead, if I give you some money–"
"No one... no one can not give what I want," Kyle said angrily.
Michelangelo began to walk back, holding onto his skateboard tightly, and stopped when he hit the wall behind him. Kyle signaled to the boys next to him. They knocked Michelangelo down, took his skateboard, and then laughed with Kyle as they walked away.
Watching what happened, Max couldn't resist running to Michelangelo. He helped his father up.
"You can't let yourself be treated like this," Max said.
"It won't last much longer anyway. Saturday is the big day," Michelangelo said as he brushed himself off.
"Hey, I know, but why don't you stop it now?"
"I told you. He's the team captain. I can't..."
"Max. My name is Max."
"I can't, Max."
"But–"
"Oh God, I'm late. Murray is going to chew me out."
"See you later, Max," he said, running towards school in a hurry. Max went to Lena and Tyler.
"Who was the guy with my dad?" Lena asked.
"That was my dad," Tyler said.
"Wait, your dad's a bully to my dad?"
Tyler nodded.
"That's why he said he used to hang out with my dad in his youth."
"When did he say that?" Max asked Lena strangely.
"He hasn't said yet. He'll say that 25 years from now," Lena said jokingly.
"Hey, that was good," Tyler said to Lena with a smile.
"All right, come on, this way!" Max signaled. Lena and Tyler made sure the corridor was empty and then ran towards Max. At that moment, they heard Mrs. Murray's voice:
"You're a slacker, Fontana!"
She was scolding Michelangelo on the other side of the corridor. "Listen, Kyle–"
"You have real behavior problems!" Mrs. Murray shouted at Michelangelo without giving him a chance to speak.
"Besides, Kyle is one of the best students in this school and not a slacker like you!"
"That's not true. He's a bully," Max said. But his voice was heard by Mrs. Murray. Now she was coming towards them.
"We have that Fontana luck," Lena whispered to Max. Michelangelo, taking advantage of Mrs. Murray moving away from him, ran away from there.
"All of you! What are you doing here? You should be in class! Aren't you aware of the time?"
Lena looked at the scolding woman:
"Um, you didn't show us where our classes are."
Upon hearing this, Mrs. Murray frowned and started to think. She pointed to Max:
"You! Follow Fontana. You should be in the same class as him."
Max was relieved to get away from the woman and waved goodbye to Tyler and Lena, then went in the direction his father had just run. The woman turned to Lena and Tyler:
"You two, follow me!"
Lena and Tyler followed the fast-paced woman. The woman stopped in front of a classroom.
"Hey, this used to be our history class," Tyler said.
"You mean 25 years from now," Lena corrected.
Mrs. Murray opened the door forcefully and pushed Lena and Tyler inside. "These are new," she said to the history teacher inside.
The history teacher nodded and directed the children to sit in the empty seats at the back.
"Lewis! Sit properly!" Mrs. Murray warned a boy in the front row. Then she slammed the door and left.
Lena piled her bag on the desk and sat next to Tyler.
"Hey, do you always pile your stuff like this?" Tyler asked jokingly this time.
"Yes, we have two new friends joining us today," said the history teacher. He pointed to Lena and Tyler sitting in the back row: "How about introducing yourselves?"
There was silence.
"He's talking about us," Lena nudged Tyler.
"I'm really bad at speaking in front of the class," Tyler said pleadingly to Lena. Lena rolled her eyes, straightened up, and stood up:
"I'm Lena Fon- uh, Fountain. I'm here with my friend Tyler—"
"Justin Bieber!" Tyler whispered.
"Uh, I mean... my friend Justin Bieber and I are from a hippie commune, and we're here just for a week to help scientist Mrs. Lincoln with her experiments."
The girls in the class looked at Lena and giggled.
"What kind of name is Justin Bieber?" laughed a group of boys.
One of the boys in the front row asked, "So, were you living in Indian teepees?"
"Yes, of course. We had these big, um... red teepees," Tyler answered.
Lena gave Tyler a look as if to say, "What are you doing?"
"I said I'm bad at speaking in front of the class!" Tyler whispered frantically.
Then, amidst curious eyes turning back to him, he continued:
"We even had to catch our own food. Like, I can catch a rabbit and easily skin it."
There were looks of confusion among the girls in the class.
"How do you skin it?" asked one of the boys.
"Uh, well... to skin it, you first have to pluck the fur, of course. Then you, um... you cut the skin with a knife and take the fur off without damaging the muscle layer. Then you have to remove the intestines. But if you don't do it properly, it can be all bloody."
Even Lena was starting to feel queasy now. She gave Tyler a look indicating that he needed to stop. The boys, however, seemed quite interested.
"Do you also cut off its head?" asked one of the boys in the back, laughing.
"Oh, of course. You can't do it without cutting off the head. You wouldn't want to eat a baked eyeball, would you?"
Lena couldn't even look at Tyler anymore. She was mortified. Realizing she couldn't stand any longer, she sat back down.
"Well, that's quite an interesting experience, Justin," said the history teacher.
Tyler confidently took his seat amidst whispers and attentive glances as if he had accomplished something great. A few boys even gave him high five signs.
During the rest of the lesson, the teacher handed out homework journals and class schedules to Lena and Tyler. Lena carefully entered her fake information, while Tyler had already completed his long before. As he was about to hand in the paper with real information, Lena snatched it from his hand.
"It says 'August 12, 1991' for the birthdate. That's still eight years away. Quickly change it!" Lena whispered urgently.
She pointed to her own paper, which showed "September 2, 1966" as the birthdate. Upon this, Tyler crossed out "1991" and wrote "1966." After Lena checked the other details, they handed their papers to the teacher.
When Tyler sat back down, the boys around him bombarded him with questions.
"How did you escape the lion attack?"
"Can bears really tear down your teepees?"
"Did you ever eat one of the people there when you were hungry?" Tyler gave flimsy answers to all these questions, but it only seemed to pique everyone's interest even more. He already had a few admirers in the class. But what would they think if they knew Tyler hadn't even been born yet?