The Boy Witch

Chapter 11

After his outburst in the cafeteria, Sam’s friends carefully welcomed him back into the fold. But the silent, unspoken threat was there. Do not do that again. Do not stand up for a loser again. Do not question what the members of the group do again.

In the following days, Sam joined the basketball players again, sitting at lunch with them, and playing basketball with them during practice and shooting hoops after class. But Sam had a hard time hiding it anymore. How he really felt. How much he did not care about the basketball players, how insignificant he felt they were.

In the meantime, Sam and Miles continued to meet at night, a few times a week, practicing Miles’ telekinesis. Miles’ powers continued to develop, and he had much fewer nose bleeds and dizziness spells. Sam was so proud to be a small part of his friend’s development. He felt closer to Miles than he had felt to any other friend. Part of Sam wondered just when he was going to have to say goodbye to Miles, too, like he had to do with every friend before, when his father’s job took him somewhere else. Except this time he was dreading the inevitable farewells.

***

In history class, the teacher assigned a project in teams of two. Students teamed up quickly. The basketball players teamed up with each other, the popular girls and the nerds did the same, everybody falling within the social design of the class, and suddenly Sam found himself alone. He wished Miles had been in his class. Maybe this abandonment was part of the basketball team’s lesson.

The teacher paired up the stragglers and he seemed surprised to see Sam alone. He put him in a team with Ethan, a loner with long, straight dark hair, a tall, thin frame, and dull brown eyes. Sam could not say he had ever noticed Ethan before. Without much enthusiasm, Sam walked over to his new partner, grabbed a chair left by someone who had moved to sit with their teammate, and sat by Ethan’s desk. Ethan was busy sketching in his notebook and barely acknowledged Sam.

“Hello,” Sam spoke up, trying to catch the boy’s attention. “I’m Sam. Nice to meet you.”

Ethan finally looked up from his sketching. “Oh, great,” he scowled. “I’m paired up with a Chad.”

Sam furrowed his brow, confused. “My name’s Sam, I just said that.”

Ethan chuckled. “Not too bright, aren’t you? Typical.”

Sam tried not to be insulted, but he was taken aback. “Okay, I’m just going to ignore that.” Sam pulled his chair closer, bracing himself for an uneasy and unpleasant partnership. “Any thoughts on the project? We have to pick a figure from Canadian history and prepare a presentation.”

“Frankly, I don’t really care,” Ethan turned back to his drawings.

“Maybe you could draw their portrait, to add to the poster. That would be pretty cool,” Sam tried to be conciliatory.

“I have better things to draw.”

“Sure, whatever,” Sam sighed. “How about Laura Secord?” He suggested, thinking of chocolate in the back of his mind. He could have gone for some chocolate right about then.

Ethan snickered again. Sam found the boy’s dismissive laugh irritating. But he had to tolerate it, at least for the duration of the project. “I don’t think so,” Ethan answered.

“Who then?” Sam insisted.

“I told you, I don’t care.”

“Obviously, you do.”

“Just not a woman.”

“Oh,” Sam stared Ethan down suspiciously. “I see.”

Sam sighed. This was going to be a long project.