When We Seared The Sky

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Riding With Ratchet

Sam Witwicky sighed deeply as he let his head crash against the desk with a sickening thump. Math was really not his subject, he’d decided, and today’s batch of algebra homework had been mocking him all day from within his schoolbag. If he didn’t get it done, Mr Speller would have him slaughtered – however, he was really past caring about such trivial matters as his academic education.

Who, after all, could be expected to simply pack their bag and return to school like a good little boy after they had just saved the world?

Okay, so maybe if the Autobots did all have to leave Earth and he had to get some form of occupation, he would need the grades. But it was unlikely. Optimus Prime had decreed that the four remaining Cybertronians would stay on Earth, hiding in plain sight, watching and guarding the human race – they had nowhere else to go, after all. Besides, even if they did go anywhere, Sam had already decided that he would be going with them. No way was he going to be separated from Bumblebee again.

His cell phone rung and he snatched it up eagerly, welcoming the distraction, even as Mojo let out a small, worried yap at the sudden trilling sound. “’S okay, Mojo,” he soothed the Chihuahua, digging the device out of his jean pocket and flipping it open. “It’s just a phone, see?”

Mojo eyed him distrustfully.

Sam checked the caller identification on his cell hopefully, willing Mikaela’s name to show – however, he groaned when he saw that it was Miles. “Yeah, what?” he answered, more than a little crossly.

Miles had swallowed his lie about ‘going on vacation’ when he had questioned him intensively about his long absence from school. He was now more eager than ever to hang out with Sam, especially because Sam now had Trent’s ex-girlfriend on his arm – he’d driven Sam to the point of insanity with Mikaela, always eyeing her up and attempting to flirt with her. If climbing a tree and hanging upside down before falling face-first into the lake could be considered ‘flirting’, anyway.

“Dude, chill out,” came Miles’s slightly whiny voice. “What’s up, the algebra?”

“Yeah,” Sam groused, picking up his pen with renewed determination and, with a flourish, writing a completely random notation to do with the square root of nine on his paper. “But what’s up? I’m kinda busy, I need to get this done for Monday.”

Miles clicked his tongue. “I swear, since you’ve been going out with Mikaela you’ve paid no attention to me,” he complained, and Sam gritted his teeth. It wasn’t just Mikaela, it was the presence of certain twenty-foot-high alien beings in his back yard on a daily basis… “She’s so shallow, and she’s turned you the same. You can’t see it, man, but it’s true.”

Sam took a deep, soothing breath to calm himself before pressing on determinedly. “Miles, y’know that our exams are coming up,” he reminded his friend with, in his opinion, the patience of a saint. “I’m studying, man.”

“What about band practise?” Miles continued and Sam pulled a face. “How’re The Headbangers ever gonna get to number one if all you’re worrying about is what grades you get on your algebra paper? I thought that was like, your dream for the band to go somewhere. You always used to talk about how the Misfits were your inspiration, remember?”

The band that Sam and Miles had formed in freshman year had indeed been the central point of both the boys’ lives for a while. Sam was a decent drummer and Miles was passably talented with an electric guitar, but they did have yet to find a vocalist, or a bassist. Or a record deal. Or the inspiration to write more than one song. Sam physically cringed when he remembered the sloppy attempt at a meaningful song that Miles had come up with, involving a boy’s love for his dog – based on Sam’s obsessive care for Mojo.