All throughout the early m, Kay’s thoughts were on the gang that was after him. His walk to school through the grey streets of Little Italy had him thinking of how he was going to approach gathering information. The idea of talking to students asking about gangs around Toronto sounded like an easy way to get belled as some wannabe undercover cop and then, promptly, get one’s butt kicked.
But. Kay could eavesdrop on them. Heck, he could have eavesdropped on anyone, and with his water elemental petting around was easy as pie. His ability to find people to eavesdrop was top notch.
With that realization, Kay felt a little better about his mission to sniff out the gang that was after him, but theurned his head to the tre of the city– a b of towers hanging below and overcast sky. Toronto was a big city; with lots of people. Even if he kept his ears open, overhearing something relevant to gang wouldn’t e quickly.
He tio school. It was a Monday with a grey sky looming above so anyone could have expected a bleary, lifeless m but when Kay ehe front doors and walked through the hall, there was an energy around. He wondered if someone and it only took until him passing by a trio of kids hanging around an open locker to intuit what it was.
“Maybe they’re from some other dimension,” said a kid, leaning up against a locker, “and they e to ours to fight.”
My fight with the shadow guy! thought Kay. Of course, students would be talking about it! Kay’s family had some versation about it themselves over the weekend. The story made the Sunday paper and oudent must have brought it in as a couple kid huddled around an open copy with the title “GHOST THING AND MYSTERIOUS SHADOW BEING FIGHT!” written on the front. Kay reized the photo on the cover of Ghost Thing and the shadow man fighting; probably taken from a window from a nearby building.
Not everyone seemed to care, but there were enough people clearly talking about it for Kay to realize that he was starting to bee a name in Toronto.
And then he cursed his luck. His name was Ghost Thing! Not anything he chose; Ghost Thing!
Kay’s locker was adjat to one belonging to a kid named Joel– a boy Kay ofteh a ski cap that didn’t have any csses with. When Kay got to his locker, Joel had some friends hanging around his. Vince, a guy with shaggy blonde hair leaning up on the door of to Kay’s spot, saw Kay ing and leaned up off the wall. “Eh, sorry, man.”
Listening in on his neighbour’s versation, Kay shuffled his books and things around to prepare for first period.
“My neighbour said that if Ghost Thing is real, angels are real, too,” said Crissa, one of Joel’s chums, that day wearing a red skirt with rubber boots.
They were talking about him! Kay had to keep it together, casually tending to his backpack while trying to keep a straight face as his neighbours talked about his water mode exploits. Sure, that i was actually pretty dangerous and Kay nearly got killed by the shadow man, but when Kay looked around he saw others talking with suthusiasm and he suspected they were discussing Ghost Thing (hard to tell because of all the noise in the halls). People were excited. It might have been a brush with danger for Kay, but for everyone else it was the talk of the town!
“I heard...” said Joel, and he shifted close to finish the sentence, “if ghosts are real then all seeds to be thrown out and started from square one.”
Crissa let out shrill giggle. “Really?”
Vince chuckled. “All of it? Even math?”
“Math isn’t part of sce,” Joel said, matter-of-factly.
“Math is sce!” said Vince, “It’s the foundation of sce!”
They giggled together. Joel looked over at Kay. “Hey, Norkemasis: what do you think about the ghosts?”
“Uhhhh...” Kay leaned up from his pad looked into the eyes of the small crowd w his thoughts. He had to make a ving charade. He had to sound like a regur person enting on incredible news, not one of the partits in the fight.
“Maybe they’re from another world,” said Kay, “and they e to ours to fight.”
This lit up Kay’s neighbours. They smiled and nodded with Joel saying, “See? Told’ja this guy was smart.”
Kay let out a smirk, bright eyes hiding behind sungsses, but he closed his locker and made way to his first css.
All throughout the m, there were quiet whispers about the fantastical brawl. Kay had Chemistry for sed period. His teacher Mr Ramanathan was going over how the solubility of gasses dependant on temperature, with a diagram on the whiteboard of showing carbon dioxide entering salt water.
Kay aying attentioing educated, but two i girls were squeaking to one aowards the other side of the room. “Do you think they have birthdays?” asked one of them. The gled and said, “I don’t know!”
Ramanathan stopped. It wasn’t the first time that Monday that he had overheard students talking about the loews. He sighed and put down his marker on the whiteboard tray. “I see that some students have been taken by our ret news about the strangers spotted downtown on Saturday...”
A girl toward the front asked, “Do you believe it?”
It was a simple question and one very appropriately aimed at a sce teacher. So the students of Mr Ramanathan’s chemistry css shook off their early Monday fatigue and perked their ears up as the teacher began a discussion oter.
“Well, all I’ve seen is a couple pictures,” said Mr Ramanathan, scratg the back of his ear, “and I’ve heard some witestimony. That’s not a lot to go by.”
“What would they do if Ghost Thing was real, though?” asked audent. He then added: “The stists.”
“They would analyze him to see how he works,” said the teacher, “maybe dissect him.”
“Isn’t this thing supposed to be impossible, though?” asked oudent. “Doesn’t this break sce?”
“No,” said Mr Ramanathan, “it’s ued but all it does is extend our– humanity’s– uanding of sce.” He chuckled. “If it’s real.”
“I think it’s a hoax,” said a boy from the front, “It’s probably meant to drum up publicity for something, like that one episode of the Simpsons with the angel skeleton.”
Ramanathan shrugged. “Maybe. Again, it’s only a couple photos.” He got up from his desk. “Let’s get back to the lesson, though, shall we?”
Kay sat there, watg the teacher write on the whiteboard but the boy’s mind was elsewhere. He had to think about what Ghost Thing was. He had to wonder how anyone would find out how he was able to do the things he could do– if it was even a possibility to uand. How could a being like him exist?
But... disse? Was that something somebody would do to Ghost Thing?
Kay shivered. He hoped it didn’t e to that.
Lunch came a, Kay wolfed down a small slice of saghen hibernated in the upstairs library like he was wont to do. In his World History css, the course was gearing up for everyoo write a paper on a pre-Renaissance historical people. He had his nose inside a book on a Rome. Maybe he was distracted with his after school dealings, but Kay couldn’t figure out who to choose.
He toiled in frustration for the whole period but when fourth period rolled near, Kay figured he would get to his early. He walked down the sed floor hallways as metal music boung of its walls. As Kay passed by an open door, he looked inside a to see a bunch of kids gathered around a portable CD pyer.
Kay ig, he tinued down to the door to his World History css. The teacher wasn’t there yet and the door was locked– the dark room resting oher side of the gss. When the bell bred, students flocked into the halls and jumbled around. After a couple minutes, Ruholh, another boy from Kay’s css arrived and leaned up against the wall, waiting for the teacher to e and open up the door.
And then came Roze, audent in Kay’s css. She had curly brown hair that flowed down her left shoulder and– if Kay looked out of the er of his eye around the shade of his sungsses– looked like it turned a dark purple towards the ends.
“Usually the teacher’s here by now,” said Roze, in a tohat was almost bming Kay and Ruholh.
“It’s what you get for ing early,” said Ruholh. “For not making it to css right on the bell.”
Roze stood in front of the door, crossing her arms and almost tapping her foot impatiently. She looked at Ruholh and then Kay. “What are you guys doing for your projects?”
Ruholh was more eager to make small talk than Kay. The boy leaned up on his feet, saying, “Uh, I’m doing A Persia. Or a Russia if the teacher lets us do civilizations that we don’t have aors from.”
Roze cocked a fused look. Kay was a little perplexed himself. Roze cut a grin. “They wouldn’t block you from pig a pce you don’t have a blood retion, too. That would be racist.” She shrugged. “How would they evehat?”
“Iunno,” said Ruholh, leaning away from Roze sheepishly and fidgeting with his hands behind his back, “It’s what I heard!”
Roze dropped the grin. “I’m going to do my paper oecs.” She dragged a pyful gnce over at Ruholh. “If I had to pieone– something that I had a retion to, I guess Pal would be it. My mom’s half-German so I guess–” she trailed off– “maybe something German?”
Kay felt part of the versation so he spoke up. “Roman times...” he said quietly. “I think I’m doing the Roman empire.”
Roze gave him an amused look. “They’re not going to let you do the whole Roman empire. It’s too big. You’ll have to pick a specific part. Like the Byzantine empire.” She ed her shrugs. “Or Pal when Rome ow.”
“You should pie of Rome’s enemies,” said Ruholh, “Like Carthage or... whoever.”
“I thought about that,” said Kay, “but I don’t know...”
Kay didn’t know Ruholh but the guy gave a friendly tone when Ruholh said, “e on! They’re the guys that went up against, like, the world’s biggest empire!”
“Yeah...” said Kay. He kept quiet and thought, but they all got wiped out.
Their history teacher, Mr Paonessa, came walking up to the door with some binders underh his arm and keys in hand. He took a key to the doorknob and it turned with a metallic ch. Paonessa said, “I think I might start css in the puter b since we end up going over there, anyway.”
He opehe door and Kay, Ruholh and Roze took their seats. Over the couple minutes, a flush of studeered the and sat down with. True to his word, Paonessa took attendand ohat was doh, he told everyohey were going to move to the puter b oher side of the school.
The b oher side of the school was one of the new revamps, pleted in 1999. It was full of newer Matoshes with video editing software installed on most of them and the school i speed was state-of-the-art or close to it.
There weren’t more puters than students so Mr Paonessa’s css took all the Macs they could while the others went to the small library off to the side with a steady supply of historical textbooks and encyclopedias. Kay cimed a puter but he logged oer without really being sure what he was researg.
The b was abuzz with chatter, but Kay’s thoughts drifted across every old civilization he could think of with him not preferring any one. Who was he supposed to pick to do a paper on? After Roze’s ents, he felt childish for pig the Roman empire– the most obvious decision– but he typed “Roman empire” into the search bar anyway and came up with a number of different historical sites.
Dragging his eyes down a website illustrating a basic ology of the Roman empire, he caught glimpses of Rome’s invasions of surrounding areas, including the empire’s invasion of Gallids. In a bit of clip art, there was an illustration of famous Gallic leader Vergetorix: a brave warrior who stood up against the Roman empire for the people of his nd.
Mr Paonessa patrolled around the room, cheg to see if his students were on the appropriate websites. As he passed by Kay, he saw the young boy peeping along a summary of the Roman empire.
“Ah!” said Paonessa, “Thinking of doing the Roman empire?”
Paonessa’s tone was one of i so it was reassuring for Kay, ing off of Kay worried that Rome was too cliché. Kay said, “Yeah, I, uh, was thinking of doing the Rome invasion of Gaul...” He checked the s to see how to referehe territory. “Gaul,” he said, literally just saying the wain. He spotted the correct word for the territory. “Gallia.”
Mr Paonessa nodded with a grin. “That’s always a good one. Plenty of information avaible. Are you sure you want to do it?”
Kay skimmed his eyes down the summary again. Rome was a humongous empire and even if the tribes of Gallia baogether, they couldn’t surpass the might of the empire.
“Yeah,” said Kay. “The invasion of Gallia.”
Mr Paonessa blessed Kay’s decision and moved along. Kay was left aloh his worries and analogies, getting started on his paper.
