Exceptional

The Early Riser

        "Make what work?" asked Arthur.

        "What you want, of course! Destroying the secret evils that lie hidden in the depths of this sleepy school! It sounds like a movie cliche, I know, but what the heck?" Truman shrugged. "I think you just might be able to do it."

        "Oh really?" Safirah scoffed. "One question- how?"

        "Well, you guys have got a lot of raw talent. I'm thinking, maybe a month or two, we could train you up and have a nice little rebellion by Christmas. It'll take loads of hard work and your complete cooperation, but it is worth a shot. Definitely better than doing nothing at all, don't you think?"

        Truman dramatically twirled to face us, but was greeted by silence. And, I mean, it's not like we were trying to be rude or anything. But it was all so sudden, so... simple. Was that really all it took to get rid of SEG for good? Five kids and one of their own? Sure, we have exceptions and they don't, but who knows how they'll fight back. And the rest of us kids, what are they going to think? Going to do? There were too many variables.

        I stood up. "This... it's... Can we all just sleep on it?" Classic way of getting out of answering right away. Good thinking, Sean!

        Truman ran his hands through his already rumpled hair. "Yeah. Yeah, sure. Just... tell me when you're ready," he sighed.

        When we left the classroom, the girls split from us immediately to grab homework from their lockers, homework I planned to procrastinate on and Arthur had already finished. Marvin's room was a way away from mine and Arthur's, so then it was just us. Arthur said he needed a good rest in order to be able to face tomorrow, so then it was just me.

        I couldn't get a wink all night, but Arthur slept soundly... He snored a little, like he always does when he's sleeping hard. He slept so hard, in fact, I go up before he did. Do you know how rare that is? It's been, what, a month and a half? Two months? And I have never woken up before him. I got the shower first, for once. I got dressed noisily, hoping to "accidentally" wake him up. But no, he was still fast asleep.

        Then it hit me... Maybe he's dead! No, wait, that was stupid. He's breathing, so I seriously doubt he's dead. I leaned over, about to wake him up, but dart out of the way before he murdered me- who knows how he reacts to being woken up by someone else?- when I noticed something. His normally curly hair had been pushed back, and on his forehead, I could just barely see a hint of a scar. It was pale, an old scar, curving down over his left eyebrow into his temple, where his glasses would be.

        I leaned forward for a closer look, but his eyes darted open. Arthur immediately sat straight up, slamming his head into mine. It was obviously a nervous reaction, since it appeared to hurt him more than it hurt me, but it was still a shock.

        Arthur reached for his glasses. "What are you doing...?" he asked sleepily.

        "Trying to wake you up! You slept in!" I explained, rubbing my throbbing head.

        Arthur reached up to ensure his head was completely alright, when he noticed his hair was all pushed back, showing his scar. He pushed it back down immediately, and he appeared to be blushing a little.

        "So you saw it?" he asked, staring at the covers.

        I nodded. Arthur swore loudly, which definitely caught me off-guard.

        "Dude," I said, trying to make my voice seem calmer than I was. "It's just a scar. I have scars all over. You think I care about just one?"

        Arthur shifted slightly, picking at the sheets. "No," he replied. "No, I don't think you care about the scar. But you are a writer. You care about the story. Scars are stories, right?" His voice calmed, and his bright green eyes met mine. "You want to know how it happened, don't you?"

        "More than anything in the world," I blurted. Well, at least I was honest with the guy. "But," I stammered, trying to recollect my thoughts, "If you don't want to tell me, then I'll stop caring. I won't give it another thought."

        Arthur laughed. "So if I don't tell you, you'll just keep thinking about it until you burst?" The guy was on to me. He sighed. "Well, I guess I'd better tell you. But it won't be a pretty story."

        "I don't expect it to be."

        "Well, then, here goes.  I got it when I was seven. But the story starts long before that. I guess it started when my mum met my dad at a college party. They were drunk, and decided they were in love. That happens a lot, nowadays, and there isn't much of a problem with that. The problem was, they stayed drunk. And they kept thinking they were in love, when all the evidence was clearly to the contrary. They got married, and drunk that night away, too.

        "Then they had a kid. I think that's when Mum stopped drinking. She began to realize just how serious this was, how maybe she had made a mistake. She tried to get my dad to stop drinking, but he just drank more and more. So she tried to get a divorce. Better to raise a kid on her own than with an alcoholic, no? But when she told him about the divorce, he got angry. He got so, so angry, and he stayed angry too. Anger made him turn to more liquor, and so the cycle went.

             "It wasn't long before he got so angry that he started to hit my mom. He would hit her over and over, until he got bored. It was never mercy that made him stop, it was boredom. I grew up with that. Almost every day, my mum coming up with a new excuse for her bruises. Trying to stop me from crying, so I wouldn't get hit too.

        "Then one day, I decided to stand up for her. As soon as I heard blows landing, I came out from my room. I stood in the hallway, gathering my courage before I stepped right in between my parents.

        "I would like to say that I made my dad undergo a serious change of heart, right then and there. But that isn't true. I'd like to say I fought him off at only age seven. But that's not what happened. What really happened was that my father hit me with a backhand and sent me flying into the corner of the sharp kitchen table.

        "I was knocked out immediately. When I came to, the first thing I saw was my mum, staring right at me. But something was wrong. She wasn't blinking, or moving, she just lay there in a pool of blood. I screamed. I didn't know what to do. I hid under the table for who knows how long. The cops came, but they never found me. I called out to them, but they never heard me. That was my first mute zone. I fell asleep later that night, and that's when the cops found me. My exception used to be unable to work when I slept, so I was found at the crime scene the next day. The cops told me that my mum was dead and my father was in jail for life. So I was handed off to live at my aunt's farm, and there I was until I came here."

        He sighed, wiping a few stray tears away. "So now you know. You don't have to go making up tales of what happened to Arthur's head."

        "I lost my family when I was seven, too. I was sent to my uncle, not an aunt, though." I awkwardly patted him on the shoulder. "Our stories are too alike for you to be ashamed of it. Cos if you're ashamed, that means I have to be, too. And you know what? That doesn't really suit me at all!"

        I stood up, ripping the rest of the covers off of his bed. "So come on!" I grinned. "We've got a decision to make!"