Lucid (#wattys2016)

Seventeen (Revised)

Isaac sat up without looking at his clock and put his clothes. He wore a red shirt and blue jeans, the same outfit he had worn the day before Lucy got ran over. He rushed downstairs to the kitchen, and he saw his parents making crepes. They had done that ever since he had gone to the therapist. He sat down in the dining room, and he waited for his parents to lay out the toppings, and finally, the crepes themselves. After a few minutes, all of the toppings and crepes had been laid down, and he and his family were ready to eat their food. They ate and talked up a storm like they always did, and afterwards they watched T.V. Finally, it was time to leave to go off to school, and he wished that it wasn't a Monday.

At school, Andre was nowhere to be found. He had been missing for a few days, and he was still gone. The police hadn't questioned Isaac and his family yet, but he knew that it was coming. He chatted with Derek about Andre being gone, and then he headed inside the school. He went to his locker and spun the combination, and the first bell rang as he put in his backpack and pulled out his language arts binder, a pencil, and his vocabulary book as always. He walked to class with him, and he was glad that they sat near each other.

The teacher told them to pull out a piece of paper and a pencil, so they did. The headed it with their names, period number, and the date, and they were told to number their papers from one to ten. They numbered their papers, and then they were told that this was a quiz. A pop quiz? Isaac thought. On a Monday? He sighed in frustration as he continued to listen to his teacher. She said that she was going to ask them ten questions, and they had to write down the answer on their pieces of paper. The teacher asked them the first question. 

"What are the three basic principles of good storytelling?" The teacher asked. Isaac was immediately confused. They had never learned this. He wrote down plot, characters and development on paper, but he really had no idea what it was. The teacher asked the next question. "Which of these statements are correct: Tommy walked to the bathroom? Or, Tommy had walked to the bathroom?" Isaac thought that both of these were correct, but he wasn't sure if that was a valid answer. After a minute of consideration, he wrote down that both of them were correct.

It went on like this for five more minutes, and then the teacher read off the answers. Isaac got most of them incorrect, but he could tell that most other people did as well. Derek got a perfect score, but he always did. Andre probably would've as well. However, Isaac was still confused. They had never learned this material! The teacher collected all of the papers, and she eyeballed every single student. Most of them were concerned about their scores, and right as someone was about to cry, she finally spilled the beans. "Well, class, I have a little secret to reveal. This was a pretest." The whole class heaved a long and peaceful sigh, and the teacher taught them the new unit. It was actually quite easy.

Isaac ended up not having any more quizzes or tests to do that day, much to his relief. The whole day had been a breeze, which was great. It was an easy Monday. Still, he thought about Andre's location. Was he even alive? He wondered this as he walked around, deciding to ask his parents to do another search around the neighborhood. The declined it, saying that it was too dark outside to find anything. That was true, since the sun had set a bit earlier that day. Instead, they ate tacos for dinner, and afterwards they watched television. They ended up watching reruns of Saturday Night Live, and finally, at 10:00, Isaac went off to bed.

Isaac gazed up at the ceiling, and he tried to go to sleep. He wanted to get the dream over with, but he was unsure of what to expect. One of the last dreams he had was blocked off, so he wondered whether he would be able to see it or not. He hoped that he would come across Andre, but he knew that he wouldn't. Still, he remained hopeful as he dozed off to sleep, ready but not at the same time to see a fragment of his future.