CH 4
Nathan slowed down as soon as he left the room. ‘Something about being in a classroom just makes you want to run’ he thought to himself. ‘Contrarily, something about being in a school hallway just makes you want to sit there and do absolutely nothing for the rest of your life.’ Nathan began to leave, but stopped when he saw Heather enter the hallway from the opposite classroom. He stopped her. They had never really been close enough together to tell, but now it became obvious that she was only about an inch shorter than she was, which was intimidating by any standards. Nathan stuttered in his mind, but somehow spoke fluently to her.
“Do you wanna catch a movie some time?” Nathan was sure that the blatant disregard for proper speech would definitely be enough to win her over.
“No thank you.” Even though Nathan was expecting to get rejected, it surprised him when she just came right out and said it like that.
‘Probably would have hurt less if I hadn’t worked so hard to speak the language.’ thought Nathan. ‘At least she was nice about it…’ Then he remembered where he was going and how it didn’t matter if he was dating her because he wouldn’t see her. This made him brighten up a little. He turned away smiling and walked straight into Jason. Nathan knew that Heather had a pass, but Jason was probably just skipping.
Unsurprisingly, Jason had his two cents to throw in, and he did so in an awkward, babyish way. “Awe. How cute. Little baby boy has a crush.” Nathans grip on the note tightened and he turn and saw Heather just as she was walking into the girls’ restroom. “So. How bad did you get rejected, loser?” He was poking Nathan. Hard. Nathan was not in the mood. He grabbed Jason’s arm and twisted it about three hundred degrees, just until it hurt. When he let go Jason flinched, but quickly regained his manner and then was slowly consumed with anger. Jason’s face turned red and Nathan ran. He did not slow until he was slightly less than half way across the courtyard. He then continued to walk to rest of the way to the front office where the FSA officials would no doubt be waiting for him.
When he got there, Nathan was greeted by two men dressed in completely black suits. They looked like they had been bred in some lab. ‘Then again, this is the government we’re talking about.’ Nathan thought, giggling to himself. They were the perfect size. They were very muscular, but not too overbearing. They had that stereo typical emotionless expression on their face. Pitch black shades and ear buds decorated their head. The part that was hard to digest, though, was that they both looked exactly the same. They stood right in front of the doorway, making it impossible to see the rest of the office.
“Hello Nathan.” said the first man. His voice was heavy. The other one immediately jumped in.
“My name is Agent Rick and this is Agent Kyle.” They sounded exactly the same. If Nathan had closed his eyes he would not have been able to tell who was talking.
“You have been selected based on your prodigious intelligence to attend a top secret mission.”
“You will be picked up at your house at exactly eight A.M. and will be taken to a secure location where you will be briefed on your mission and introduced to your new partners.”
“Now go home and rest up. Tomorrow is an extremely important day.”
With that, they turned to the two doors on Nathan's right, which was technically the front of the office. It was the first time Nathan could see the room he was in. A round desk exhibiting a big computer with several paper baskets rested in the back of the room. The tile floor was dirt-stained from years of students walking around with dirty shoes. The roof was made out of foam insulation with an obvious camera protruding from the ceiling in an awkward manner. It was facing away from where the men were talking to Nathan. The small room was completely empty of people, which Nathan had never seen. ‘Probably cleared out for this specific meeting.’
The husky men held open both doors for Nathan, which was not at all necessary, for a bar separated the two doors, making it impossible for anyone to use more than one door anyway.
Nathan began his walk home, and, for the first time, was in no rush to get there. He was not plagued by homework or the responsibility of getting to school on time. For the first time, he really looked around to see what was in his neighborhood. He passed a small blue house with daffodils lining the front, only breaking exactly in the middle where the porch stairs were. Another house had a tall white fenced in area with a deep voiced dog barking at the jack russell terrier who was tied to the next house and was barking back in a much higher pitched voice. In a couple more steps, he reached a small cobblestone bridge. He took all of three steps before the ground began shaking violently. The whole world seemed to be crumbling around him. The enormous tremors began crushing houses. The water under the bridge formed large waves. Nathan knew that the bridge would not be able to withstand the earthquake, and no sooner did he think this than the entire bridge disintegrated all at once, causing Nathan, who could already hardly stand, to fall strait down into the dangerous, gushing water.
