FOREST OF THE LOST

PART TEN

17.

Monday afternoon the thirteenth of March, 2000. Fourteen-year-old best friends Jeremy Wright and Kenneth Torrance have permission to spend lunch time breaks from school off and away from school grounds. This day's lunch break will begin in a similar fashion to most all other lunch time breaks.

A short trip to the town grocery store it is for the two friends. Instead of using their lunch money for a sandwich and some fruit as their mothers would have no doubt informed them to do, they buy chocolate, crisps, and a fizzy drink. Their choices are pointed out by storekeeper John McCoy though he promises not to tell on them as long as their next lunch choice is more on the healthy side. The agreement is made with smiles all round.

Next class after lunch is double math with Miss Bradshaw. Kenneth doesn't mind this so much but for Jeremy, he doesn't particularly care for numbers, and he cares even less for Miss Bradshaw despite the fact she attempts to make maths interesting by involving the students directly into each day's lesson and giving examples of a usage in a real-life situation.

To Jeremy, he feels she picks on him more so to actually pick on him rather than involving him directly into the particular day's lesson; he does not know that this is not the case. Miss Bradshaw involves Jeremy as much as she does because maths is his weakest subject and because out of all the students in the class, Jeremy would be the one who would be the least likely to understand what is going on.

The suggestion is made by Jeremy to Kenneth that they should skip the rest of the school day.

'I don't think so, my mum would go nuts if she were to find out' Kenneth says in response to the suggestion.

'She won't find out. I can get my brother to do us up notes if we should need them for school so no one will know anything.'

'Your brother would know, wouldn't he use that against you, maybe use it against us. I can see him getting us to do things for him for ages or tell on us in we don't do what he says.'

Kenneth doesn't really want to get into trouble and if he were honest his doesn't mind maths. It is one of his better subjects and to him Miss Bradshaw is one of the more fun teachers. Jeremy however keeps pressing.

'C'mon, don't be a wuss; it is just one-half day. We can have some fun and no one will know.'

'We'll be caught, someone will see us. I just know it.'

'We will be grand' Jeremy assures his friend. 'We can go to the park, cross the bridge down there. No one will know where we are.'

There is something in what Jeremy had just said which swayed it for Kenneth. The park, especially by that bridge, he has been there alone before and a niggling urge within him has had him wanting to go back there. Having someone there with him on a new visit, well Jeremy doesn't half to ask again.

'Alright, let's go.'

The goodies they had bought from Mister McCoy are eaten while they make their way through from the moment they enter the park all the way up and onto the bridge, and for the first couple of minutes of being within the park the two friends don't speak a word. If either boy feels a calling here, then so would the other. Best friends or not, they have a connection to each other as they so too have with the place they have come to, a connection they cannot quite be aware of or understand.

The connection works between them almost as if they were a unit, a singularity, two parts of the same individual, two components of a power source, and it is at its strongest on the very bridge they come to stand upon. To skim stones on the water is a thought that comes silently to both boys at the same time, and they both are naturally very capable of making their stones bounce across the water. Again, the skimming is powered by their presence to one another, in the place to where they have come ... if only they could know exactly what this ... power ... is.