Fairytale Saviors

Chapter 4.

As we walked back out of the castle, mobs of people surrounded the castle. Keeping myself from rolling my eyes, unlike Boyd and Des, I kept walking past trying to ignore everyone that I wasn't related to. There was a girl in the crowd that caught my eye. She had shoulder length golden brown hair, brown eyes, and flawless tan skin. She looked out of place and uncomfortable in the large crowd. It was almost like she didn't even belong in the right century. In the right world. I shook the ominous feeling that was beginning to crowd me and kept walking trying to rid her of my thoughts. We headed deeper into the woods than usual to make sure that no one followed us to the portal. We've never had anyone discover how we travel back and forth between worlds. As far as anyone else knows, they just think we're from a very strange kingdom of strange customs and dialogue.

When we reached a spot that Jeb thought was far enough away from the castle, he opened up the portal again. We stepped through one at a time. When we got back into the real world, it was almost dinner time. Sighing, I went to the Mazda to get my backpack filled with homework. Me and Des sat down to do our homework, Boyd, Monty, and Jeb occasionally dropping by and helping us either actually do our homework or find our books that were always scattered around the house. The doorbell rang making me jump and leave a streak of pencil across my math homework. I grunted and got up to get the door.

There was a mailman standing there looking like he would rather eat his own toenails than be there delivering our mail, "Are you Boyd Richmond?"

"No,"I said before leaning back away from the door and shouting for Boyd.

Boyd came bounding down the hallway, he happily signed the clipboard the mailman held out for him and started dancing around the living room swinging around the package he just got.

"What is that?"Des grunted as Boyd almost kicked him in the face.

"It's a package,"Boyd said still dancing around the room.

"No, duh."I said crossing my arms over my chest.

"What's in the package, smartass?"Des said crossly.

"The most amazing thing ever,"Boyd said dreamily.

"Well, then open it."Des said challengingly.

Boyd sat down and set the box tediously on the coffee table. He ceremoniously took out his pocket knife and unsheathed the blade. Carefully as a heart surgeon, he sliced open the box. Boyd hunched over the box blocking it from view from us. Boyd reached his hands into the box and then his arms straightened and shot up towards the ceiling, letting his head hang back.

It was a phone case.

Des got up from the couch and punched Boyd, who was laughing maniacally, in the arm. Des scoffed and continued his homework. We ignored Boyd who kept teasing us about our faces and how "priceless" it was when we saw it was a phone case. Boyd kept making jokes and then cracking himself up. If he were left along on a deserted island he wouldn't be lonely at all, all he would need would maybe be a mirror.

When I was finally done with my homework, the pizza arrived. Monty practically ran down the hall and threw the money at the delivery guy like it burned him. Monty muttered a quick "keep the change" before running off towards the kitchen with the pizza with us in tow. We ate the pizza in a comfortable silence, enjoying how good it tasted. After that we all piled onto the couch and one love seat to the left of the couch to watch TV until it was ten when Jeb made us go to bed after a huge argument about bed time and all that. Of course, we lost even though it was four on one, Jeb still won. That was Jeb for you.

Reluctantly, I climbed into bed dreading school the next day. The next thing I knew, there was a loud bang. I leapt out of bed and laid down on my stomach peeking over the edge of the loft floor to peer down on the living room where the sound had come from. My heart was beating, I tried to calm myself down to have a level head when whatever had made that sound came to light. I heard voices, a few moments later I saw Boyd holding a girl's hand leading her off towards his bedroom. I mumbled a few profanities then shuffled back to bed making a mental note to bug Boyd in the morning about this.

The next day at school was killer. Nothing note worthy happened except for fourth period rolled around. A girl, a new girl, stumbled into class asking for directions to her next class. Sadly, she wasn't going to stay for our class so when she left the excitement of there being a new girl was forgotten five minutes after she left. Something about her bugged me. She seemed so familiar but I couldn't place it. It was like when you see a friend in a Halloween mask, and all you can see is their eyes. Or when you see a family member from behind and all you can see is their back and the back of their head or you see a friend you haven't seen for years and it takes you a couple seconds to recall their name. It was like that, but I wasn't having that revelation, that "aha!" moment where you finally realize their name or even why they looked familiar in the first place. When she left, I was staring after her trying to place a name, a place, anything. Any reason as to why she would seem so familiar. It bugged me all day, poking and prodding at my brain. When Jeb picked me and Des up at the end of school, he noticed something was different.

"You okay, baby bro?"Jeb asked his voice full of concern.

"Yeah, there's a new girl,"I said absentmindedly scratching the back of my neck.

"A new girl,"Jeb echoed.

"Yeah, we don't have any classes together though,"I said surprising myself with how I sounded almost disappointed.

I hoped that Jeb hadn't heard the disappointment in my voice.

"Is she pretty?"he asked.

He heard it.

"Yeah, she's pretty good looking,"Des chimed in.

"Yeah,"I mumbled to myself.

The rest of the ride was silent.