Chiron Academy

Chapter 2: school daze

"Wyatt."

"Wyatt!"

Wyatt opened his eyes. He saw Todd looking back at him across the table in front of him.

"Wake up, man," Todd said. "How are you sleeping through lunch, out of all of the classes you could be sleeping through? It's the part of the day when the least is expected of you. At least sleep through your classes like a self-respecting person. You're embarrassing me."

Quiet chatter filled the school cafeteria. Wyatt and Todd sat at a table by themselves, overlooking the window that formed the closest wall. Wyatt yawned heavily, stretching out his arms. He said nothing. His brain wasn't up to thoughts yet. He stared mutely into the distance.

"How late did you stay out last night, man?" Todd asked. "You look dead."

Todd lowered his voice. "Did something happen? Did you find the Plutonian or something?"

"No," Wyatt said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. "I flew around for a few more minutes after you left and then went home. I fell asleep on the couch eating spaghetti. Next thing I know, around 3:30, I wake up with my face on the plate and the sauce all over my shirt AND the couch. So I was up for a while trying to clean that up before my dad woke up so he wouldn't murder me. Then I fell back asleep till 9."

'Did your dad notice the couch?"

"I don't think so." Wyatt sighed. "He just left me note that said I forgot put the spaghetti away."

"Wow. Passive-agressive."

True, conceded Wyatt. Still it was better than the alternative.

His mom had bought that couch. She always used to rave that it was her greatest find. She had dragged him up and down furniture stores every saturday for a month trying to find "THE chair". She'd finally found it at a little furniture store on the far side of the city. It was half price but she'd managed to talk the lady working there to drop it down to 65%. But whenever she'd told the story to anyone, the number was usually higher.

"It's my fault. I should have put away the food. I knew he likes to take the leftovers to work for lunch the next day. It was just late and I forgot... He's trying to save money so we can move to a new apartment when our lease is up."

"What? You guys are moving?" Todd asked incredulously.

"Not for a while. Dad says it'll be closer to his work, but I think it's because there's too much here that reminds him of Mom."

A hearty RING RING shot out the school bell, marking the end of lunch. Around the cafeteria, kids rose, throwing away last dredges of litter and moving towards classes.

"Well. That's our signal," Todd said, reaching down and grabbing his bag. Wyatt reached down and grabbed his a second later. It was so long since he'd been to school regularly he was starting to lose his automatic move-when-the bell-goes-off instinct, he thought. The two of them started to walking down the hall.

"So it's history class right now, right?" Wyatt asked.

"Yeah," Todd replied, taking a second to cut through a clump of students in the busy hallway. "But don't worry, you haven't missed too much. There's a test coming up in two weeks, but I can give you a copy of my notes."

Todd perked up as if remembering something.

"Are you ready to re-meet this girl I tried to remind you about? The one that sits next to you?"

Wyatt remembered Todd saying something about a girl the night before. Honestly, his recollection of the class was pretty hazy at this point, let alone individual people.