Emeral waded through the crowd, as if through a murky swamp of reeds, kelp and driftwood. Why teachers had them line up at the door was a mystery to her, because it all ended up as a boiling race to eat food that probably needed to be shielded behind lead and buried three million miles for a few decades.
She was only a few people behind Ritzer when she made it into the food-line. Cheese enchiladas. No way. She grabbed a school lunchable: cold-cuts of ham and turkey, with cheddar and white cheese, and some crackers. Boys loved to see how big of a stack they could shove into their gullet. Most times the middle of the stack would burst out all over the place.
She gave her three-letter code and number as she walked out the other side. The bully had almost slipped away—but there, at the third table, he was already seated with his passé.
"You picked the lunchable too?" Lyza asked from beside her.
"Huh? Oh, yeah." Though she usually sat with Lyza, her best friend appeared at an inopportune time. But maybe it wasn't so bad. Emeral nudged her head to the side, "Follow me, I see a spot." She led her friend to the table behind where Ritzer sat, and seated herself inconspicuously off to his side, and so that she was facing away. Hopefully none of the gang would pay attention to her.
They began opening their mealboxes.
"So what'd you think of Ket's Get-To-Know presention?"
"Presen-tation," Emeral corrected the rabbit, nibbling on some ham, "and I think he did pretty good."
"Yeah, I know! I thought he was gonna clam up and embarrass himself but he seemed all right."
"Nah he wasn't nervous."
"Really? How could you tell?"
"I dunno..." she paused with a cracker in her mouth, "I mean he hid it really well..."
"I guess so, but I think I was too distracted by his Eye of Whatchyamacallit to notice. I mean, he said it was pure gold right?"
"Think so, but it was just the lines."
"Well still," the rabbit began nibbling on the cheese, "I didn't expect him to bring something so....so...." She rolled her hand, asking for a word.
"Unique?"
The hand paused. "Um...what's unique mean again?"
Emeral giggled, "It means—"
The rabbit's ears bobbed. "Shh, wait a minute," Lyza said, wrinkling her nose.
"What is it?"
"Ritzer and the others are talking about Ket's Eye-of-Thingy..."
Yes! Lyza, your ears never fail. Emeral's eyes shifted, and she leaned closer. "What's he saying?"
"...They're talking about the pure-gold part...how much it's worth?" Lyza's mouth opened and her hand slapped against her lips to stop a gasp.
"What is it?"
Her ears wiggled for just a moment, and then she let her hand away, speaking in a whisper. "Ritzer said...he said he's going to take it..." She looked at the gang nervously as they laughed and hooted, "during recess, when everyone's out of the classroom..." She leaned inward, "We should tell Ms. Hupp—"
Emeral reached over and held her friend by the shoulder, the kids around them glanced for a moment. "Hang on," she said, and waited until their notoriety subsided. "Let's not tell Ms. Hupp anything. Keep eating."
"Wh-" she quickly shoved another piece of cheese in, "-ymot?"
"Because, for one thing Ms. Hupp won't believe us, or if she did it would just cause problems for Ket."
Lyza looked at the gang of bullies. "Then, what should we do?"
"Just let me worry about that," she told the rabbit, "I'll take care of it." She sandwiched some turkey and white cheese and then munched it down, following up with some chocolate milk.
"Well...if you say so," Lyza replied, biting her lip. Then she changed topic, "By the way, everything's worked out." The rabbit smiled, twitching her nose excitedly, "Mom thinks Kval is taking us to the movies, and I told Kval to keep the secret that you're not actually coming."
"Is he okay with it?"
"Yeah, he's coo'," she said, gesturing a wipe off her shoulder. "But if they find out you're not really with us, he's not taking any heat; that's his only deal."
"That's fine. Thought of the pay-back yet?"
"Well, I did but... do I get to know why you're doing this secret-secret stuff?"
Emeral bit her cheek for a second. "I...I can't say. Not that I don't want to it's just..."
The rabbit shook her head. "I understand. A girl has her reasons, right?" She sipped her juice. "I mean...as long as you're not gonna...y'know," she puckered her lips and made a gesture with her fingers, and then blew out a steady stream of air.
Emeral shook her head, "No no! Lyza you know I'd never do that."
"I know," she said, her demeanor softening, "but, there's a few kids in other classes trying to get other people to start using..." Lyza became quiet for a second. The subject was a deep wound for her. "But yeah," she said, abruptly changing her tone, "I do know a way you can pay me back. You know my birthday is still a while away right?"
"Yup. Near Halloween, unless it got moved."
Lyza giggled at Emeral's dumb-joke. "Well...this is our last year here—hopefully—and...When we go to middle school I'm afraid I'll be more advis...divis...no—what's the word where you can't be seen?"
"Invisible?"
"Yeah that's it! I'll be more in-vis-i-ble there than I am here. So, could you help me throw a really cool party—and maybe try to get people like Rini to come?" She put her hands together, "Please? I know that if you and Rini are there everyone will remember it, at least a little bit."
Emeral smiled. "Lyza, I'll throw you the best damn party you'll ever have."
The bunny's jaw came unhinged. "You said the D-word!"
"Well, that's cuz I mean it." The bell rang. "C'mon," Emeral said, snatching up Lyza's uneaten crackers, "Let's get social studies over with."
* * *
Social studies would not be gotten over with as easily as she had thought.
Each minute felt like a snail on a sugar-crash riding on top of a turtle with three legs and a limp. And everyone thought popcorn-reading was bad; watching a corny cartoon about the Declaration of Independence was a recurring nightmare teachers liked to impose upon their classes. Ms. Hupp must have gotten it from the teacher across the hall, Emeral swore she'd heard the same sounds as she was heading to patch up Ket in the bathroom the other day.
Speaking of Arkethius, his nose had become fairly intimate with his desk. It was no wonder he got held back, maybe he had a sleeping problem. Or maybe he just went home and did exercises all day and wore himself out, like some martial-arts master. After all, he had lots of hidden strength that he'd revealed over the past couple of days.
He could be like a secret agent. Like a spy or something. Maybe he was actually there to keep an eye on Ritzer: CIA-trained to pretend to be the perfect target for a bully so that no other kids felt the wrath. He seemed to fit the bill: secretive and quiet. He always watched from the sides, like he was analyzing everything. No one knew his last name—well, not until yesterday, and that's only if anyone really cared to remember. It took real sleuthing skills to find him in the Directory, and then where he lived, if he even lived there at all.
It was exciting, like a mystery. She wondered what the look on his face would be when she showed up at his door.
She played out the events in her mind, going through the motions of her plan. Her new plan. It was a lot like the old one, except now she would have a better excuse for arriving at his door unannounced.
Oh, hello, I'm in Ket's class and I think this is his—he gave a presentation on it today and...
Suddenly the lights blazed on, and she and many others were caught in a dizzying and painful trance. Even while this was going on, they were expected to listen and comprehend what Ms. Hupp was saying: "I hope you all paid attention to the video because there will be a quiz on it when you get back from recess."
A monstrous groan shrouded the bell. Yet somehow the kids knew it was time, like an internal alarm went off in their brains. Emeral readied for action. Ms. Hupp was usually the last one out the door, and she would lag a little behind.
Lyza glanced over at Emeral, who waved her hand. Meet you. She mouthed.
The rest of the kids filed out the door to Ms. Hupp's rolling-hand wave. Emeral was one of the last to pass through and she made sure to slow her pace just enough so that the others passed her. Ms. Hupp shut the door and began walking, and noticed her.
"Emeral, are you feeling all right?"
Emeral yawned, an easy—and easily believable—action to perform. "Yeah, just sleepy. The dark classroom made me feel like it was night-time." She reached into her shorts' pockets and paused. "Aw man!"
"What is it?"
"I forgot my gum in the room! Can I go get it?"
Ms. Hupp smiled, "Sure, dear, but hurry; students aren't supposed to be in the classroom during recess."
"Yes ma'am I'll be quick." She ran the few feet back into the room and let the door shut slightly. She immediately went to the side-of-beef backpacks, and found Ket's pretty quickly. It was black and gray, as mundane as he was, without any decals, doohickies, or dingle-dangles on the zippers. Just a plain old backpack for a plain old tiger cub. She quietly coaxed the front pouch open and slipped her hand inside. The bag was easy enough to find; it was the only thing inside.
She retrieved it, closed the pouch, and went to her own backpack, shoving the silk bag inside one of the middle pockets, amidst some papers and candy wrappings.
"Emeral, let's go, hun," Ms. Hupp said.
She flinched, "Sorry! I had it in the wrong pocket." She rummaged through and pulled out a stick of gum, unwrapped it, and hastily shoved it in her mouth as she walked by. Only, she came to find that it wasn't a stick of gum, but rather one of the band-aids she had brought yesterday to replace the butterfly ones. She fought the gagging and pushed it to one side of her cheek, eager to spit it out as quickly as possible.
* * *
Back inside, the quiz was a terrible thing for Ms. Hupp to force on them. Not only was it a whole twenty minutes since they watched the video, half of the class didn't even really watch the video. Emeral tried her best. She started off fine, but by the third question she was completely bluffing and at the midway point she may as well have said George Washington rode a winged unicorn.
Math was merciful that afternoon. In the chaos of her absence Ms. Hupp decided to drop the homework assignment and continue on, but warned the class that this wouldn't be the last time they saw long division. Then she began writing something on the board that looked like a mile-long problem, mixed with addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, and also had these weird things that made some parts of the problem look like they were surrounded by bubbles.
And then the class realized math would not be merciful, but a horrible creature which made them want to invite their friendly-neighborhood boogy-man over for videogames or dress-up. Sure, Ms. Hupp said she would make it as painless as possible, but the difference was from jab-your-eyes-out to salt-on-cut.
Nevertheless, order of operations and parenthesis were introduced, as well as writing fractions sideways to represent division, and using dots instead of x's for multiplying. The problem that was on the board was never actually solved—they just spent the whole subject going over the symbols and the order in which to solve it.
Rini left super-early for patrols. As Ms. Hupp allowed them, the students began walking to their backpacks, grumbling like zombies looking for brains, probably because theirs were fried.
Emeral touched her backpack, resisting the temptation to check and see if the Eye of Horus was still there—she knew it had to be. Then, she froze. What if Ket checked his backpack now, and found out it was missing? Would they search everyone's bags? ...No, they couldn't do that. Could they? She looked over to him; he seemed normal, hoisting his backpack over his shoulder.
Ritzer was squinting at him, face knotted and angry. He had gone inside during recess, just as Lyza had said, claiming to need the bathroom, and on the way get side-tracked by alluring gold.
Emeral wondered if that's how his face looked when he realized the Eye wasn't there. And it was even better too—he couldn't report it being taken, or tell Ket it was missing, because then that would raise questions. Emeral smiled inwardly. Sometimes she could be a clever little devil.
"—and then, we'll pick you up afterward, okay?"
Emeral realized someone had been talking to her; she turned her head to see Lyza. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Haven't you been listening? I was talking for like five minutes!"
The bell rang. She grabbed Lyza's arm. "C'mon let's go! Kval's waiting," she said in earnest.
"That's what I—" The rabbit almost bit her tongue as she was tugged down the hall, sifting through the crowd like a half-broken tree-limb against a raging current. At last they were into the cafeteria and out the side doors. They went to the crosswalk and Rini smiled, hefting her STOP-sign as she called out to turn the signs and allow the students to pass.
Kval had a dark-green car that sometimes looked black. Emeral didn't know what kind it was. She wasn't big on that kind of stuff. But it looked cool, and sounded cool, too. Not the obnoxiously loud sort of sound, but not quiet either; just right, as if he was saying 'I'm cool but I respect your ears.'
His horn let out a chirp as they approached, and Lyza broke Emeral's grasp to run ahead and open up the door. "Afternoon, ladies."
"Hi Kval!"
"Hey, far-face."
The now-adult rabbit smiled back as the two girls situated and buckled. "Shall we be off then?"
"Aye cap'n!" Lyza replied.
Kval snapped his fingers and turned the sound of his music up just a little. The steady keening of a violin brushed Emeral's eardrums.
Kval, Lyza's older brother, was eighteen and a senior in high school. He was nice and caring, his life practically revolving around his little sister. He had a heart and a patience for her that not many others had; not even Emeral.
But he hadn't always been like that. Years ago, when Emeral first met Lyza in first grade, Kval had just started his last year of middle school, and he was one of the worst kids she ever knew. He was so bad, he made Ritzer look like a Nobel Peace Prize nominee.
He was violent, very violent. Sometimes, when Lyza had the courage to come to school, she came with hidden bruises or wrapped up cuts. She wouldn't want to go home, and usually stayed with Emeral for a while after school. He had used drugs during that time, which is why Lyza was wary of them. He even made people believe he got a gun at one point, but that turned out to be a bluff.
Then one day, almost two years ago, his best friend was shot and killed in a drug trade.
He changed completely, after he recovered from the shock. It took him a year to get out of it all, to fully bury everything. Now he was a good person: he volunteered, joined the Junior Leaders Organization (which everyone called Jell-O); and started making As and Bs instead of Ds and Fs. But, most of all, he became Lyza's dearest friend. Although sometimes it was more like he was another parent, or her guardian angel.
"So," he said, drumming on the steering-wheel at a stop-light, "I hear that one of us is going to the movies and the other one of us...isn't." He looked at Emeral in the extended rear-view mirror.
"Uhm... Yeah." The white tigress replied, kicking her tennis shoes together. "I'm sorry I had to ask you guys to fake me hanging out with you..."
"Well, I'm not really keen on the idea," he chirped the horn after the light turned green for a few seconds and the car in front didn't move, muttering under his breath. "Since I'm responsible for you, I kinda have to know where you're going to be."
"I uh..." She looked at Lyza. The rabbit wiggled her nose and then pulled her ears down. "I'm...going to the Library."
Kval smiled. "Really? You need to fake going to the Mold-Farm?"
Emeral massaged her forehead. "I'm...gonna be close to it?"
"Did your parents get you that cell-phone yet?"
Her ear twitched. "No, not till the end of the month."
"Well, will you be near a phone, then?"
"Yeah...I think so."
"All right," he turned sharply, frightening his passengers. He apologized, and then continued, "Here's the deal:" he flipped up the storage under his elbow and pulled out a coin-pouch, tossing it back; "you call me every hour from where you're at. Let me know you're okay. If you don't call, I'm going to leave the theater and come looking for you, and if I don't find you," his voice became creepy for emphasis, but it was not all that sincere; "bad things will happen—understand?"
It was just like Kval: he was born to bend the rules, but his new life cared about safety and consequences. He'd make a good adult...perhaps too good. "Yes, sir."
"Cool. But...you still have a few minutes to change your mind; we're not at the library yet. After all, we're going to eat at Perry's Pizza-Arcade afterward. I think Lyza would enjoy having someone her age with her rather than big ol' boring me."
"But Emeral might not let me win like you do, Kval."
"Whaddya mean?" He replied with a wink. "You're a natural at all the games."
"I'd like to," Emeral said, "But there's really one thing that would ever make me pass up Perry's and this is it."
"Oh, Emmy, I forgot," Lyza spoke up, "What ever happened to Ket's Eye-thingy?"
"Mold-Farm ho! Please allow the vehicle to come to a full stop before exiting and thank you for flying Kval-Air."
Emeral opened up the door and hopped out, leaning in before she shut it. "I got it covered, Lyza, don't worry." With a smile, she shut the door, and watched as the black—or green—car put-putted down the street and turned the corner. She took in a breath, and licked her lips.
This was it. No turning back, now.
