As static cues the end of the announcement, calling me and another stranger down to the office, I stop my practice session early and angrily rip my hand wraps off. With my tournament a couple weeks away, the actions of the school coordinators leaves me wondering why they are being so careless. First, Coach Holfman was missing for the past four practices, and now, it is being cut short. I make a mental note to bring it up at the office.
Not bothering to wipe my sweat off, I grab a towel, mainly to prove that I had been busy, and head down to the office. I stomp down the hall, stopping only to glare at a couple of underclassmen who dare to look at me funny. Due to my unnaturally short stature, they give me one last funny look, and then turn away. They probably looked away to make me feel better about my intimidation abilities, but that's okay with me.
I finally reach the office and walk into the spacious room that contains two private office areas. Newly painted, and following the newest interior design trends, the office is the only place in the school that does not have the run-down-vague-jail-feel that all the other rooms have. Judging by the person who runs this place, I don't question this set up. Only two more people are in the room; a preoccupied secretary and a lost looking girl with curly brown hair, trying to get her attention. Ignoring them both I push open the door on the right.
I partially notice the other student sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair and the uncomfortable looking man standing next to the principal's desk. Instead, I focus all of my attention on the principal.
"Now, you two may be wondering why you are here today," She starts, pushing her designer horn-rimmed glasses further up her face. The other student and I nod. "Well, you guys may be aware of the incident twelve years ago." We continue to nod almost perfectly on beat, everyone knows the incident. "The unfortunate event caused this generation of Elites to be short one team, therefore causing an imbalance in the missions handed out. There are simply too many to complete in too little time. In order to solve this, The Chairman of Elites has reached out to ten different schools across the nation. We have been given the opportunity to put together a potential team of Elites. It's a great honour and you two have been chosen!" She ends her long monologue with a large grin on her face, looking thoroughly pleased with herself. She lowers her eyes to look at us expectantly, "So, what do you guys think?"
Silent, we stare at her like she's grown a second head. Her smile starts to look strained as she continues to look down at us. The boy next to me clears his throat, "Err, Principal Richardson, with all due respect, may I ask you a question?" She nods at him enthusiastically. "Are you feeling alright?" Her smile falls off completely at this.
"May I ask exactly why you are asking this?" She questions, growling.
Looking slightly frightened for the principal's saneness, but nonetheless jokingly, he replies, "The Elite are a closed off society, no Undeclared human can ever enter. Plus, they have powers we, obviously, don't have. This is a joke right?" He turns to look at me for back up. I immediately notice his large dark brown eyes and groan internally. Even if this crazy idea was real, why would she pick him of all people?
I quickly voice my ideas, "Yeah, plus why would I want to work with him of all people? He can't do crap." He turns to glare at me.
"Oh, shut up Eli, it's not like you're much better."
I turn to him and raise an eyebrow, "What? It's the truth Kai, wanna bet?"
"Fight me!"
Before we can argue any further, the principal's death glare stops us, "This is not a joke. You two will take this seriously. To add, I calculated, judging from previous years, you two worked marvelously together." I snort at this; years ago we might have been close, but now we were practically strangers.
She attempts to continue on, but, Kai cuts her off, "Kay, so say this 'competition opportunity' thing is legit, you may have noticed that there are only two students here, don't we need four to make a team?"
In response, she looks behind us, through the open door I realise I forgot to close, and calls out to the curly haired girl, "You girl! Yes you! I need you in here now!" The poor girl looks like a deer caught in headlights as she walks into the space. The principal orders for her to sit down and close the door, not taking her eyes off of the overly excited woman, curly hair obeys. "There you go, the third member on the team. I'll be lenient and let you guys pick your last member." The smile she gives us this time looks remarkably forced; the unused muscles on her face are starting to twitch.
Fed up with the stupid act she was putting on, I start to get up, "This is ridiculous. Count me out." Her hand flies out to grab me and pushes me back down into my seat.
"Sit down. I will not have my daughter being an Undeclared." I roll my eyes at this. The curly haired girl looks back and forth between us looking more lost than ever.
"Mother, you seem to have forgotten, but you're an Undeclared too."
"Young lady, you will obey me. My life is difficult enough without you talking back."
"Excuse me," Kai butts in," But I don't feel comfortable being in a team with only girls."
Sexist pig.
While I'm still calculating a decently rude comeback in my head, my ever prepared mother seems to have an answer for him, "the fourth member can be a guy, who will even out the numbers. To add, my daughter is practically a boy anyways." She looks to me and snottily turns up her nose, "Elliot sure smells like one."
Kai turns to me and snickers. I glower at him. My mother seems to have her mind set on making this work. I'm not one to give up on my opinions easily though, so I open my mouth to continue arguing and, at the same moment, Kai opens his mouth too. Together, we rapid fire questions at my mom who progressivly looks more and more pissed. Finally my mom is saved by an intelligent sounding voice, "obviously this school wasn't cut out to handle being part of this." A man who was hidden in steps out, I start; I thought he was a lamp. Everyone who is in the room looks equally startled, even the forgotten man who seemed to be attempting to blend in with the furniture. He moves to exit the room and I can see mother deflate like a balloon loosing air. I feel a twinge of sympathy, so maybe that's why I move to stop him.
"I knew you would come around Ms. Richardson. I will see you three, in addition to your fourth member, tomorrow at nine p.m. sharp," He slowly turns the door knob, however, before he pushes open the door, he turns, and calls us formally by our last names. We look up to him, and, satisfied with our attention he continues, "I recommend for you to not be tardy." With that he dramatically exists.
It takes a good five minutes before everyone is able to compose themselves. We look expectantly at my mother, since she seems to be the only person who has at least a tiny idea of what's going on. She clears her voice and continues with her speech like nothing happened, "Yes, so now you three have come to your senses, I can debrief you now." I roll my eyes at her word choice, but, nonetheless, she continues on, "All Elite teams have adult supervisors until all the team members are twelve years old. Since, you are just starting to be a team; you will have an adult supervisor from here on, to the time you three are either eliminated from the competition, which better not happen," she stops to give each of us 'the look', "or the time you become a full fledged Elite team. I shall introduce your supervisor now" She motions towards the man who seems to have successfully blended into the furniture.
I get a good look at him for the first time and gasp, "Coach?"
