Tempore

Chapter 1

The senior class of Eldridge High School sat in their seats starring at an empty podium. Anxious murmurs spread through the class. The whispers soon grew into loud, noisy conversation.
"Where is he?" A boy sitting up front asked.
"How am I supposed to know?" A red headed girl snapped back at him.
"But the principal said..."
"It doesn't matter what the principal said, he's not here and most likely not coming."
"Let's go!" Another boy yelled.
"We can't just leave," a girl with curly brown hair called from the back.
"Yeah," the boy said. "We can. The principal promised us a special guest for career day, and no one is here. There's only like..." He checked his watch, "thirty minutes left in class so..."
"So what?" A voice called from the door. The boy looked over at the door but didn't see anything.
"Well," he began.
"Sit down." The voice said harshly. The boy did so.
"Someone turn the lights off." He commanded. No one stood up.
"I said turn the lights of. You...the blonde in the front, do it." A girl with short blonde hair stood up nervously. She walked to the wall by the door and quickly flipped the light switch, she then scurried back to her seat.
"Good." The voice said. The sound of weals came into the room. "My name is Lafitte," a man said. It was evident that he was in a wheelchair, but nothing else of the man could seen in the dark. "Your principal hired me to come here and tell you about my job. As to why I don't know, but I'm getting paid for this, so here I am." The students stayed silent. They were all afraid of this man, Lafitte, but they didn't understand why the principal had hired him. The principal had described their guest as a happy cheerful man who had an exciting and thrilling career. He couldn't have been more wrong.
"I," Lafitte began. "am an accountant. I help companies make decisions regarding their finances and..."
"Wait, what?" A girl called out. "You're an accountant, seriously?"
"What is that supposed to mean?" Lafitte said.
"Well, not there's anything wrong with being an accountant, it's just that our principal told us you had 'an exciting and thrilling career.' He also said you got injured of the job. How does accounting put one in a wheelchair? Did you drop a calculator on your legs?" The room was silent.
"What's your name?" Lafitte asked.
"Michaela," the girl responded.
"Come up here." Michaela did so. "You're right Michaela," Lafitte said softly. "I did not have an accident while accounting. Although dropping a calculator on my legs rendering me paralyzed would make an interesting story at the dinner tale, the truth about it is much more exciting."
"Will you tell us? Michaela asked.
"Since you asked nicely, yes I will." Everyone in the class leaned in closer so they could hear Lafitte. "Before I was an accountant," he began. "I was a police officer. I had only been one for about a year, and I had never had anything major happen. I worked in a really small town where everybody knew what everybody else had for breakfast, so the main thing I did was hand out tickets and warnings. One day the gossip of the town was that a man who lived there was taking his troubled nephew under his wing. The people of the town said that he was bad news, that he was from the big city and been arrested multiple times. I tried my best not to believe them, but I had my suspicions. When he arrived everything was just as it had been before. There was one really slow night, and I got a call saying that a young boy had been seen robbing a store. I drove down there as fast as as I could to see the man's nephew holding a bag of money in one hand, and a gun in the other. I pulled my own out and stepped out of the car. Before I could say anything to the boy I heard another person scream behind me. I quickly turned around to see who it was when I heard a bang. The boy had fired the gun and hit me in the back. I collapsed and was taken to the hospital. I was left paralyzed from the waist down."
No one spoke for a very long time.
"What about the person screaming?" Michaela finally asked.
"That was the boy's accomplice. They were going to split the money if they had gotten away with the robbery. They were both arrested."
"I'm sorry," Michaela said.
"Why?" Lafitte asked. "Did you pull the trigger?" Michaela was stopped short.
Lafitte reached into his pocket and pulled out a pocket watch. "Look at the time," he said. "class ended 20 minutes ago." With one parting look at the class, Lafitte rolled out of the room.