The P. P. A. Project: Revelations

Chapter Two - Mirage

Chapter Two – Mirage

I sat in the back of the room and watched as the water flooded down the glass. I was irritatingly good at science so paying attention almost seemed like a bigger waste of time than sitting and pondering the deepest depths of my own mind.

The night before I had called my new friend and arranged to go to his house tonight to play videogames. I was pretty good at them but I had a feeling he was a professional. After all, when you had no friends you tended to find better ways to occupy your time.

There was a silence in the room when I looked forward and realized the entire room was staring at me. I felt sick for a moment as I stood and straightened out my shirt. I then cleared my throat and smiled to my teacher who was less than thrilled with me at the moment. He was pointing to an equation on the board and I was supposed to announce its properties.

“It’s…”

The bell rang. Thank god. I hated talking in front of a group of people. As quickly as I could I slithered out from behind the group before she could catch me and made my way into the mass of teens in the hall. The looks only seemed to be growing colder by the day considering the first football game of the year was coming up and their best players were still absent.

At lunch I decided to sneak off campus and walk around the rainy back alley’s around the school to see what mischief I could get into without threat of being poisoned. As I walked I knew someone was following me. I waited several blocks before I’d hidden behind a large, broken down RV in a parking lot. The steps grew closer until I finally jumped out to find it was just Bradley.

“Oh my god!” He shouted as he fell backwards into a large puddle. I laughed and helped him to his feet. He seriously thought I couldn’t hear him. How precious.

“Why are you following me?” I asked as I turned and began walking again.

He stuttered and stumbled around before an answer finally came, “Well I wanted to see what you were doing.”

“That’s creepy, guy.” I laughed as I shook my head at him. He was obviously embarrassed but it wasn’t as bad as he thought. The kid was kind of socially retarded. He couldn’t help it and I knew that.

We kept walking until we hit a tiny diner. It was an obvious choice to go in and sit down. Once seated we ordered some drinks and waited for the woman to leave earshot before speaking again.

“Have you always lived here?” I asked unfolding my napkin and grabbing the bottle of ketchup. Brad watched carefully as I drew dumb symbols that flew into my head on the thin sheet of paper. As the woman brought us our drinks she shot me a disapproving look and took the bottle from me.

Brad laughed and then focused on the question asked again.

“Oh, um… well my whole life. My dad is the town Plummer so I am pretty well known for being the kid of the dad who cleans their dad’s doo-doo.”