The Rainmakers

Chapter 4: Ferguson Newman

I am not ordinary. I know that.

My mind is extraordinary, unlike the others. My parents know that and they support me well enough with the different teachers and tutors they've been giving me for the past fourteen years of my life as a student of Pacific High.

But I haven't been feeling normal for the past two years and I haven't been doing so well unlike the previous ones which is why my parents are worried.

"What's going on a Fergie?" Mom says to me as she and Dad gives me the one-on-one talk on dinner one day. "Is it because of a girl? Or perhaps because you haven't been treated well by your classmates in your classes?"

"It isn't like that." I say to them. "It's just I haven't been feeling well for the past--" Do I tell them that I haven't been feeling well for the past year? Or the past days? Or do I lie?

This time dad questions, "What's wrong then?"

"I just haven't been feeling well and I guess that's why I haven't been much up to the quiz bowls that I've been to."

"So it's not your friends?"

"Or your classmates?" Mom adds. "Because we've been hearing something's around school that you haven't been treated well by your friends Fergie and you know we can tell the principal about it."

"Mom you know what happened the last time you told Principal Waller about Jackson and the guys."

"Well they shouldn't be bullying kids like you. Especially kids like you."

"They should know their place son." Dad says. I stand from my seat and excuse myself from dinner not wanting to be rude, but I guess I already was, mom was staring at me and so was dad wondering why this was the first time I was quitting on pot roast and mash potatoes, my favorite.

I didn't want to finish this talk, much less talk about the last time Principal Waller talked to the Jackson and the guys because they were pounding on me and my team for the quiz bowl while we were studying by the garden for our next upcoming match.

I sat down on my bed and then looked at my lava lamp, slowly trying to take its form, the slowness of how it moves up and down and yet its stillness when it intersects.

Then a knock startles me. "Who is it?"

"Can we come in?" Mom asks.

"Sure." I say and then look at the door where she and dad comes inside and then sits down on the edge of my bed.

"We're sorry for a while ago, we know about you and Jackson. We know about your past. But if he's hurting you and your friends in anyway then you have to tell us."

"I am telling you the truth mom."

"Really Fergie because it seems as if you're not? Principal Waller has told us that you haven't applied to any of the new quiz bowls that he has given to you but your friends has. And he's seen Jackson lately with you for the past few days why is that?"

Blood boils through my veins, I can't seem to think of what else is on my mind, my parents are now doubting me when I'm not in my studies, but back when I was they never did.

And now that Principal Waller has just seen me with Jackson for a while he thinks we're friends damn right we are.

"Jackson isn't anybody mom, he's just been helping me with a subject."

"A subject?" Mom asks, or likely screeches.

"Never mind, you both are hopeless to say that even if I deem to say we are partners in something, or he's trying to help me in something you both won't understand." I try to push them away from the room as I try to breathe in and out, the exercises that I practice with Jackson the day I first met him at Pacific High and found out the secret that he's been hiding. Or perhaps both the secrets we've been hiding.

"If you're having a problem with a subject then we'll just get you a new tutor. Or more tutorials if you want."

"No mom!" I yell, instead of just saying it. Then she looks at me worried. "I just can't." I falter and then she nods and then both of them walk out.

I burst out. Blood boiling and then I hear the trickle of rain start to pour outside my window.

Jackson meets me the next day. He meets me in a covered area instead of somewhere open where everyone can spot us.

"Principal Waller knows we've been seeing each other." That's the first thing I tell him. "Dang it!" He says. And then he squats down and then looks at me. "He doesn't know right?"

"Who?"

"Principal Waller."

"No."

"Good." He says. "We have to keep it that way. No one must know, not even your parents, not even the closest one you love. The only people that must know about whatever we have is us."

"Why?"

"Because I don't know, do you want someone to know you have something that can control water and rain?" I shake my head. "Of course not. Because in the end someone will kill us, someone will hunt us, and that person will never stop looking for us."