John's Story

Chapter 1?

John’s Story

Hi, my name is Jonathan and I'm 15 years old. I live in Spokane, Washington, United

States of America, Earth, Milky Way Galaxy. In other words I'm a normal high schooler living a normal life, feeling like nothings ever going to change, EVER.  

The bell rings for the end of free period and so I get up from the bench I've been sitting on for the past thirty minutes and make my way to my final class of the day, English. My least favorite subject in the whole school, and I have a LOT of classes. As I sit down I remember that I forgot to read the last chapter of the book we've been reading the whole school year. I start freaking out as my best friend Nathan walks in and sits next to me.

"Hey, bro," He says. "Did you read the chapter last night?"

"No," I reply. "Did you?"

"Uhhh, no." He says back looking like he might throw up.

"Crap," I say. "What should we do?"

I look up right as my crush walks in with her friends.  

"Hey! John! You alive?!"  

"Wha- what?" I say coming out of my stupor.

"I said we should tell Ms. Martin that we forgot to read it and take the punishment together," Nathan says rolling his eyes glancing over at Ava and her two friends, Suzie and Samantha.

"Uh, sure, yeah," I say "But do you remember what happened last time to the kid who forgot to read?"

"Uhhhh, what last time?"

"Oh, come on you remember! You have freaking photographic memory!"

"Of course I do, jeez. She banned him from the rest of the field trips of the year! But we should just let her know, it might not be as bad if we tell her."

"I'm not going to!"  

"Fine, be that way," He says as he gets up "But don't be mad at me if the punishment is worse for you when she finds out that you lied to her!"

"Ok, whatever," I say.

Nathan starts to walk to the front and starts talking with the teacher, Ms. Martin and her expression goes from calm and motherly to cold and stony. She stands up and looks around, straight at me. Nathan looks over at me, glares and gives me a 'come on' sort of look and I give him my signature stink eye and walk up to the front. When I get there Ms. Martin's stare is really freaking me out. Kind of like the lions in the nature vids, where they have their prey trapped. That's how it feels.

"Well, Mr. Mason?" She says "What do you have to say?"

"I did not read the chapter either Ms. Martin."

"I see," She says, "Well then-”  

"Maybe it won't be as bad as last time," He whispers to me.

"Shut it, tattle-tale," I whisper back.

"-for your punishment, since you have both been negligent to the reading over this year you will both be banned from the last field trip on Monday," Ms. Martin says.

Nathan groans next to me as we walk back to our desks. You might be thinking "Oh, you're just banned from a field trip, that's not so bad!" Oh, but it is. This is the field trip to the Houston SPACE CENTER. I am a HUGE space geek, some people know all the periodic table elements, I know all the stars you can see at night where I live. Think about that.

"Sorry, man," Nathan says as we sit down, "I just thought it was the right thing to do!"

"I said, shut it."

"Fine!"

We both open our books to page 296 and start reading. I can't focus on reading. Not now. Not after my friend betrayed me like that. After about 45 minutes, about 3/4 of the way through  the class and Nathan's eyes are half open.  I'm about to finish when I hear a noise coming from outside. It's like a slow whine that's slowly getting higher and higher in pitch.  

"Dang it," Nathan says next to me, rubbing his head.

"You hear it too?" I ask.

"That whistle?"

"Yeah"

"Yeah I hear it, but no one else seems to be bothered by it"

"Hold on, I have an idea," I say as I pull out my pocket knife which I'm not technically supposed to have and slice into my finger. By this time the noise is becoming deafening.

"Jeez man, you know what you're doing?” Nathan says.

"Yeah, just hang on!" I say impatiently as I put the knife away and my finger starts to bleed with a vengeance. I stick it in my mouth and raise my other hand.  

Ms. Martin sees me and slowly makes her way over to me.

"Yes?" Ms. Martin asks.

"I cut myself with my, uh, pencil," I say.

"Ok Johnathan, you may go to the bathroom to wash up and grab a Band-Aid from my desk," she replies, “and take Nathan as your buddy.”

“Ok,” Me and Nathan say in unison.

We both get up and on the way out I grab a Band-Aid from Ms. Martin’s desk. as we step into the hallway the noise is even louder and higher pitched.

"What is that?!" Nathan says with his fingers in his ears.

"I don't know," I say, doing the same.

"Let’s try to find what and where it is then turn it off 'cause it's freaking killing me!" Nathan yells.

"Alright," I agree, breaking into a run.

We start heading toward where we think it's coming from.

"I think someone's coming!" Nathan says.

I can't hear anything but the noise and Nathan but I don't question and so we dive into an empty classroom.

Nathan puts his finger to his lips as someone walks by, stops and keeps going.

"Let's get going," Nathan says

I nod my head in agreement and we keep running down the hallway. Once we get outside we see something we didn't expect to see. A large blob shaped thing had, by the looks of it, crashed into the bench I was sitting on earlier. It had holes like pumice but a LOT bigger, the size of softballs. The thing itself had the approximate diameter of a normal skateboard...