Blind Beauty (Currently Editing)

Chapter 4: The Republic of Nielsen

Twenty minutes passed as the bus continued to cut through the blizzard confronting it. Until the bus started to descend down the final hill to the school, sliding ever so slightly, it made it to the bottom and pulled up to a bus stop.

The giant vehicle came to a halt, the driver locking the tires and forced the bus to skate on the ice, before coming to an abrupt stop. The pigeon was shaken awake as his body rushed one way and then whipped back the other.

Throughout the trip the bus had started to fill up, they had overtaken the other bus only a few minutes after leaving the station they got on at and entirely to pick up more significant groups of passengers. Pigeon was still shocked by his rude awakening as he blinked a couple of times and doing a double take as if he had awoken in a new world.

The bus started up again, and the next stop was their's as Pigeon leaned back and pulled the thin yellow cord, activating the next stop sign at the front of the bus. Both of them kept their eyes forward as the bus rounded the final corner, and the boys got up to wait at the buses back door.

Again the bus quieted as the stop came into view while covered by the snow from the blizzard making it a challenge to see, Pigeon was anxious as he pushed on the door handles, and the pneumatic lock disengaged before the doors parted, allowing the outside chill in.

The boys were the first two to get off, walking to the crosswalk they lucky had the light turn allowing them to cross so that they didn't need to bare the cold longer then they had to. When they were only a few feet away from the front door of the school, Brett looked back at the outside world, knowing that soon he'd be locked away for eight hours until he'd witness it again.

Sighing at the reality of it all, the two boys walked into the school's lobby. Pigeon went one way while Brett went in another.

"See you in computer science, man." Pigeon yelled. 

Waving at Brett, who mimicked the gesture.

"For sure, not like I'm going to be anywhere else." He said.

The two laughed at each other from a distance before going on their separate ways. Brett's first stop was his locker. He had been gifted one on the second floor of the school, right in between the two doors leading to the weight room.

Like every day he was worried that one of the burly nerds would try and bully him, but they never had the strength. Mainly it was just a ploy for some of them to attract a mate. However he had seen a few of them try to impress Emma, but she shot them down, quicker than a lightning strike.

The jocks would have no idea what happened as this innocent girl turned them all down and their primal stares barely even made Emma blush. Instead, she would just laugh at them and continue walking. It was an effective move since Brett never saw them at the gym again.

Arriving at his locker, Brett continued to think about that moment, and the wink Emma had given him right after she began to walk away, only to look at her with a stupid smile. In his state of euphoria, Brett grabbed the rotating lock and spun it left then right then back to the left as it clicked and revealed the contents of the locker.

It was nothing special, there was nothing personalizing at all just a bunch of basic textbooks to help him get through his day. Without hesitating, he shoved all of them in his bag before reaching in and removing something else, while trying to keep it hidden from the people around him.

It was a mechanical pencil, but not just any ordinary one. A slightly modified version that Brett had crafted to act as a hidden weapon for defence if anything would happen. He first got the idea to carry something like it when a few weeks earlier the schools gave an assembly about someone using a mechanical pencil in a suicide attempt to prove a point about bullying.

That was too drastic for Brett to ever do, but the pencil gave him a false sense of security knowing that he was always armed. Ejecting the blade that he had inserted into the pencil, he made sure it was all in order then carefully slid it back into its plastic shell. He hoped he would never have to use it, but for now it just gave him hope.

Wasting enough time at his locker, he slid the pencil into one of his pockets before zipping up the top of his backpack and throwing it over his shoulder. The weight was intense almost bending Brett's spine backwards, but he was use to it as he started to walk back out to the cafeteria to where a group of individuals who had coined themselves as The Republic were sitting.

The group consisted of six main members with the occasional outcast passing through every once in a while. The only thing that separated Brett from these individuals was that they were all one year older then he was and would soon be graduating leaving Brett alone to fend for himself in his senior year.

As he approached the group a scrawny little man, with his hair flat oh his head looked up, a shine crossed his glasses as he licked his lips. Nielsen was the leader of the group, and he was very eccentric with the way he portrayed himself. The other five members were referred to as his followers, which consisted of Jakob, Randy, Donner, Alec, and Mike.

Brett and Mike went back the furthest since they grew up with one another and only lived a couple of blocks away from each other, they were best friends, while Nielsen, on the other hand, Brett was still trying to understand.

"Hey, guys." He said. 

"Hey Babe," Nielsen answered.

It was almost immediate, as the rest of the group turned to look at him. Brett never acknowledged Nielsen's attempts at flirting, and always assumed it was a joke. However, in the future, he would come to realize that there was never anything sarcastic about them. As usual, though Brett looked at the boy and merely said Nielsen's name as a way of giving him the satisfaction he craved before it was Mike's turn to acknowledge him.

"Sup bro."

Brett took the seat beside him and threw his backpack to the side of the table, doing his best to blend in with the group. Nielsen bounced back and forth between the conversations he had with everyone as the bell finally rung signalling all the students to go to their first period class. Brett once again threw the backpack over his shoulder and looked at Mike.

"So what's your first class today?" He asked.

"Art, you?" He replied.

The boys stood up and went to the hallway that parted to all the different floors.

"English," Brett answered.

"Nice, well see you back at the table for lunch," Mike mentioned. 

"You know it, see you then."

Brett abruptly stopped in front of a classroom, while Mike continued down the hallway until he walked through the doors at the end of the hall that went to the other floors in the school. Brett, alone now, turned to look at the door of the classroom, before sighing.

Here we go again. Brett thought as he crossed the threshold into what he felt would be the rest of his day.