Spall

Echo

Echo

It was dinner time, and Jake was looking very nautious

I wondered if he figured it out yet. Considering we are leaving as soon as we finish our dinners, he better know, otherwise we will be going in circles all day long around Flemming.

As we sat down at the spall table, heads turned at us every time we sat down there. Jake still looked like he was about you throw up; he looked green and was not touching his dinner.

"Any new news?" inquizzed Julian. Jake wasn't answering, so Sara nudged him.

"Mr. Jake here does have some news, breaking news." she said.

"What is breaking news?" I asked putting quotes around breaking news. I never heard of breaking news. I have heard of a newspaper before, is breaking news like a piece of destructive newspaper? Sara looked confused at my question.

"What do you mean?"

"Echo and I have never heard of this so-called breaking news." said Julian.

"We'll explain this later to you, we are getting off topic." Sara waved the question away. "In our last class, Jake sort of, well, he, um, he passed out, and he had a vision." She leaned in closer and lowered her voice to a whisper. "I don't think it was real though, it involved talking cats."

I kind of agreed with her about the talking cats, but after 11 years here, I'm ready to believe anything somebody throws at me.

All of a sudden, we all heard the familiar clinking of Shupple's wine glass as he tapped it whenever he had to say something important. Ad all quieted down and looked up at our great headmaster.

"As you all know, we will send off four great champions to save our beloved school from chaos and mayhem! Echo Anderson! Sara Shermans! Julian! And Jake Owens!" The crowd went wild and they all looked at us with faces that were half beaming, half jealous. We stood. "In approximately 1 minutes and 42 seconds, they will make the journey to save thy school, and all know that one shall die a brave death!"

It has always been Flemming tradition to stomp your feet when something important happens, and now, the stomping almost made Shupple's voice impossible to hear.

"Speech! Speech! Speech!" yelled the audience in unison. We all violently shook our heads, and our classmates booed.

We all looked at Shupple as he rose his hand for silence. With twinkling eyes, he said "Sixteen seconds left."

"15! 14! 13!" They chanted in a deafening voice, but my mind decided to wander elsewhere.

I thought about what he said. All know that one shall die a brave death. Who would die? I would if it meant saving my friends, or saving this school, but would the others? Would Julian do the same? Would Sara? Jake? Would we die on accident? No, the letter said from the others great lack. Did that mean one of us would just, cease to exist because the other three didn't care?

"9! 8! 7!" I faintly heard them shout.

I wondered what Jake envisioned, and what did Sara mean about the talking cat? We all learned here that you should not trust somebody until you know them well. Could this cat be trusted? I wished we had more time before Shupple sent us off. We have to talk about this! Jake has to tell us where we are going, or we are going no where.

"3! 2! 1!" Then everybody screamed on one and stamped their feet. We looked at our classmates, then at Shupple, who nodded with his bright green eyes for us to go.

Jake, Sara, Julian, and I stepped out of the seats behind the bench and took a few steps. The crowd all stood up and followed us to the door. Since Julian was leading, he put his hand on the golden handle, and opened it.

We slowly walked to gates and looked back at all our friends and classmates. They were all standing at the door, not daring to step out of them. In the front of the group was Shupple, his cropped brown hair billowing gently in the breeze.

I took a big breath in and looked at our group. Jake had lost his green hue, but was now very pale. Julian was looking down, shuffling his feet. Sara was closing her eyes, so I assumed she was trying to sense what to do, that would be what I would do if I were her.

We turned to the open gates, and stepped into the cold, dark night.