“Look, Brian, look! Sarah has a room now too!” Sarah said, brightly, her brown eyes glinting excitedly. Sarah’s small blonde ponytail whipped back and forth as she took everything in.
Brian sighed as he allowed his petite, 5 year old sister to drag him around their new home. They really had to come following his older sister all the way to Medimnum, a tiny, suburban town that consisted of a few widely-spread houses, huh? Admittedly, the school system was supposed to be excellent and there was nothing lacking in terms of electricity or any other utility, but there was nothing to do. There were a few grocery stores and tool shops that sold a variety of knick-knacks, but if you wanted a good restaurant or shopping center you would have to go all the way out to the city, a 20 minute drive even if you didn’t count the traffic. In short, the only exciting thing about the whole blasted town was the reservoir a few miles from the town. Brian sighed again as he remembered the catastrophe from just an hour ago.
When they had gotten off of the plane, they hadn’t had anyone waiting for them. Then again, they hadn’t expected to have anyone waiting for them. It was a tiny, empty, dirty-looking airport with few people around. No one on the rickety plane had seemed very talkative, but at least there were other people. The minute it had landed, they had disappeared silently. Brian supposed they too were newcomers trying to find their way in this god-forsaken place. Yet his ever-excited father had whipped out an ancient map of the place and steered the tired, luggage-laden family toward a sad little beaten-up rental car shop, which was filled with equally sad little beaten-up rental cars. Just looking at the clerk, who was sitting behind a dirty pane of clear plastic, chewing gum, and reading a book with a cigarette hanging from one hand, made Brian feel tired and queasy. The car they rented took them to Carina’s new college, where Brian was given leave to wander the town for the few hours it took to find Carina’s dorm and make it “perfect,” though why she needed a dorm when they’d all be living just a half an hour’s walk away from her, Brian didn’t know. When Brian voiced this piece of logic, Carina had rolled her thickly mascara-ed eyes, flipped her short, brown hair over her shoulder and said, “Like I’d want to keep living with you guys. I didn’t want Mom and Dad to follow me here either, Brian, go be an idiot somewhere else.” Even if Brian hadn’t already had experience being beaten up by his rower sister, the muscles that her black tank top showed off would have warned him away.
So he had left and run into Mr. Alligator and Stevens. Brian hoped all of the residents weren’t as crazy as Stevens, because he didn’t know how he’d survive the next year if they were; His family was crazy enough as it was. Thankfully, he was going to be a senior and had gotten a solid promise from his parents that they would not follow him to college.
He didn’t mind moving. As a middle child, the one who had to both take care of a younger one and be subjected to an older one, he was easily adaptable. He could still keep in contact with the friends who had gotten him through sophomore and junior year and wasn’t really bothered about making any new ones. Just get through one more year of high school and family, and he would be free. From what he could tell, the school standards here were much the same as they had been back home in California, despite the fact that it was a private school, so there didn’t appear to be much catching up to do. According to his Mom and Dad, there were only two weeks left of their summer vacation, a great relief to Brian.
“Brian! Come help us unpack!”
He shook his head, “Coming Mom! Hey Sarah, go play in the backyard. If you need help or anything just call, I have to go help unpack ok?”
Sarah blinked at him, “Brian has to go?”
Brian nodded.
“Ok!” Sarah said, cheerfully, and she flounced off to their tiny, fenced backyard, that contained only a sad little patch of yellow grass and one fairly small tree, though to do what exactly, Brian couldn’t even imagine. He glanced back at his fairy of a younger sister and willed her to be good, for once, before sighing for the third time and heading towards the sound of his impatient Mom.
Two weeks later, school started. To Brian’s complete amazement, the school was actually quite a large place, filled with students. It seemed to him that there were as many teachers here as there were students at his old school. And where did all the kids come from? The class sizes were small (exactly ten students per period) and the teachers, surprisingly good. From everything Brian knew about most school systems and private financing this type of a school system should be unsustainable, particularly in such a rural area, and yet here it was, almost insulting him.
As every other building in the town, it had a woodsy look to it, as if it wanted to start sprouting roots and becoming part of the landscape. But unlike Carina’s college, which was a collection of tall, elegant buildings made from carefully carved and painted wooden slats, this school was squat and sprawling, with log-cabin type one-story buildings circling a dusty central court.
But besides the apparent perfection of the school system, two other things bothered Brian. The first was the ridiculous “buddy system” of the school. Apparently, each class was split into three groups (as if ten students wasn’t small enough), two groups of three and one of four, which were to be instrumental in the class. Excluding tests, everything was to be done and discussed together. The groups and classes were apparently chosen at random for each student and, once assigned, were immutable.
So here was the second issue: being that the groups and classes were chosen at random, why exactly did he have the same group for all six of his core classes? And why, of all people, was one of his group members Stevens?!
The other two appeared to be perfectly normal. There was Jane Fleming, a blonde, motherly girl who looked like she had just come out of an antebellum Southern romance movie, and there was Arawn Davidson. Arawn was well-built, with dark brown hair that he kept brushing away from his chocolatey eyes.
During first period, the groups had been ordered to meet up, have members introduce themselves to each other, and in general be friendly. Suffice to say, it hadn’t started well. They all dutifully introduced themselves. It went something like this:
“Hi, I’m Stevens. I know you… You’re Brandon, right? Oh woops, Brian. There we go. Anyways, these two are the infamous Jane Fleming and Arawn Davidson. They’re like, school idols or something.”
Jane turned red and stuttered a quiet, but adamant denial.
Arawn frowned and said, “It’s Aaron, not Arawn.”
Stevens shrugged, “Not much of a difference.”
Aaron glared at him, “Yes there is. One is a normal name, the other is the name that my good-for-nothing parents gave me. Or have you forgotten why you go by Stevens, Diana?”
Stevens glared back, “You know I hate that name.”
“Well at least your name is the name of the Greek hunter goddess’s incarnation in the greatest empire the world has ever seen. Mine, on the other hand, is the name of the Norse god of the Underworld. It’s more than obscure, it’s insulting.”
Brian absent-mindedly noted that Diana was a girl’s name. He could imagine why Stevens wouldn’t like to be named after a goddess, being a guy. He would have followed that thread a bit longer, but he had bigger issues to worry about, like his group members starting a fight.
Stevens rolled his eyes, “Like I care about that. Just the sound of the name Diana is annoying to me. By the way, what are your siblings named? Don’t you have, like, eleven of them? Are they all named after some weird mythological figure?”
Aaron angrily opened his mouth as if to answer, but Jane placed her hand lightly on Aaron’s forearm, shaking her head slightly. Brian wasn’t a genius, but even he could tell that the only things stopping Aaron from socking Stevens were Jane’s grey eyes pleading him to keep the peace. Aaron sighed, releasing his fist and pulling his arm gently from Jane’s grip. Well, Brian thought, wasn’t his first day going well? And that was before he knew that all of his first 6 periods had the same grouping.
****************************************************************************************************************************
Aaron was annoyed. Jane could tell, even when no one else could. Sure, he still smiled and laughed and goofed around with his friends, but once it was just the two of them, he wore a slight frown on his face. Jane sighed. He didn’t have to be that high tension about his real name. Stevens and Aaron had been butting heads since elementary school. Stevens seemed to have this weird thing about names. She hated her own, Diana, and made fun of anyone else with a peculiar name. For most of high school they had been in separate classes, but now it looked like the clashes were back up and running.
And the last member of their group, Brian. He scared Jane a little. She knew she could easily overpower him in a fight, with his scrawny frame, but even with his brown eyes mildly taking everything in behind his dorky, green, transition-lens glasses, he seemed too sharp. He didn’t say anything during the entire transaction in first period, but Jane could tell it wasn’t because he didn’t have anything to say, but because he knew that it would be his downfall to interrupt.
During the next 5 periods, Jane watched with a mixture of amusement and concern as the boy met them with surprise and dismay. Jane wasn’t pleased with this constant grouping of the four of them. It made her nervous. She didn’t think it would be good for any of them to have that enigmatic boy watching as Aaron and Stevens constantly butted heads. She felt like someone was playing a joke on her, except she didn’t know what the punchline was.
4th period, Advanced Placement Biology, a class she should be enjoying. Well, she would have been enjoying it if it hadn’t been for what the teacher was saying… “I’m going to be giving each group a special assignment. I know it’s only your second day, but I think it would be good to start you all of with a research assignment. It won’t be too hard, since it’s mainly to get you used to working with your new groups, but as such I expect the quality of the work returned to me to be fairly high. Group 1 (Stevens, Jane, Aaron, and Brian), please write a lab experimenting on the photosynthesis rates of 5 different types of trees found in the reservoir, which we are so luckily close to.” The next few words the teacher said was blah blah blah, to Jane and no doubt to the rest of the group members, considering the looks of incredulity they were giving each other.
“…now get together as a group for the rest of the period and address your research problem.” The four of them reluctantly snapped out of their stupor and faced each other.
There was an uncomfortable silence.
Jane stammered out some suggestions for the project, though her brain felt like it was spinning circles in her head.
Aaron, his arms crossed across his bulky frame, sighed and took pity on her, “Look, guys, Jane, let’s meet after school at the front entrance, alright? This assignment is simple. We have to gather the leaves first, so let’s get the easy part over with quickly.”
Stevens gave a curt nod, a sour expression on her delicate features.
Brian nodded absently, looking nervous and tapping his long fingers on the rims of his glasses.
Jane didn’t think any of them would show up after school at the entrance, but being the diligent honors students that they were, they all came. So off to do some foraging. She sighed. The strange group walked up the short, dirt hill from the school into the imposing forest, where the foliage thickened quickly, shading the entire area. Jane snapped open the small notebook in her hand and went up to the nearest tree. She classified it, and, taking several fresh, green leaves from it, dropped them into a ziploc bag. Not expecting much help, she went silently from tree to tree, assuming the others were following her. It didn’t take long, but when she looked up, she couldn’t see any of them.
She froze, notebook still open. Straightening slowly, she called, “Hello? Aa-mmff.”
A hand covered her mouth and a voice hissed in her ear, “Shh…” Jane turned. Brian was staring at her intensely, holding a rifle in his left hand. Now where had he gotten that?
He whispered, “I don’t know where the others went, but I think there’s something…”
“Stevens, run! Damn it.”
Jane ripped herself out of Brian’s grasp and jolted towards the commotion, which was off to their left, where there appeared to be a very small, shaded clearing. That was Aaron’s voice, no doubt about it. And if he was telling Stevens, a person he disliked so much, to run, he needed her. It had to be…
She burst into the clearing, Brian in hot pursuit. Jane felt a hand force her head down as a screeching cry and a whump, whump passed above her. A little bit ahead of her, Stevens was lying flat on the ground, still as a stone and obviously terrified, though not apparently hurt. Aaron, on the other hand, was bruised and bleeding, lying on his back and facing her, as still as Stevens. Why hadn’t he taken out his weapon? Even if he hadn’t wanted to show Stevens that he was a shadow, he was still licensed to carry around that dratted pistol.
Jane tried to get up, but the hand that had pushed her down before stayed firmly on top of her head. “Don’t move. I don’t know exactly what species this is but neither Stevens nor Aaron is moving. It must be attracted to movement.” She looked to her left, where Brian was lying on his stomach, eyes flitting around, looking for the source of the danger.
Jane looked up at Aaron. His chocolate-brown eyes locked with hers and she knew what he was going to do, but it was clear that they’d only have a moment to do it.
Jane opened her mouth, took in a big breath and began to sing. A high pitched, freezing sound rippled through the air for just a moment, stopping everyone’s movements. Then, Aaron and Jane were both standing up. She looked up and in a big tree at the other end of the clearing was a giant eagle, shaking itself free of the quick enchantment she had blasted it with.
Giant eagles didn’t have such bad eyesight that they needed to rely on the movements of their prey, did they? But she didn’t have time to worry about that. She sang the note a second time. The problem was that it worked for everything and everyone in the vicinity. That song would freeze everyone and be completely useless. “Get it now, Aaron.”
Aaron unsteadily aimed his pistol at the bird, unwilling to bring out his shadow weapon when there was little chance he could retrieve it from way up there. Biting his lip, he said, “You know I’m not so good with this long-range stuff.”
There was a bang, and the giant eagle imploded. “If you’re not so good with long-range weapons, let someone go after it who is.” Brian was standing with his glasses off and the rifle in one hand. “Shooting a shadow creature with a regular weapon could have left a carcass too.” He bent down and picked up his glasses, putting them back on his nose.
Stevens stood up, looking shocked and confused, and obviously still under the influence of Jane’s freezing spell. She looked from one person to the other, blinking as if the light was too bright for her green eyes. Her customary grey beret had fallen off and her choppy brown hair waved wildly in the wind.. For a moment, no one spoke. Then Stevens cleared her throat and started barraging Brian with questions, apparently recovered.
“If you can explode shadow creatures with that rifle, why didn’t you do it to the crocodile?”
“I tried, but I couldn’t see the horn on its head that protected the spot usually used to kill alligators.”
“Why did you take your glasses off?”
“Because I see and shoot better without them. And it’s kind of dark here.”
“If you see better without them, why do you wear them at all?”
“Because I have photophobia, where one of my eye nerves in both eyes is frozen so my pupils don’t dilate. They’re kind of like sunglasses.”
“So, why were you screaming when I saw you, even though you were really calm this time?”
Jane thought Brian had assumed the air of someone used to being hit with too many questions, “Because I hate fire.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve had bad experiences where I’ve either blacked out, gotten a headache, or been temporarily blinded and then attacked.”
“Attacked?” This time it was Jane’s turn to ask.
Brian sighed and ticked it off on his fingers. “Bats, bears, dogs, bees, and once a pair of woodpeckers. My parents are nature freaks, so we go camping every year and they decided that it would be cheating to bring along say, a flashlight, or a gas burner, heck even a proper tent.”
“Wait, wait.” Aaron protested. “You guys know each other already? As shadows.”
Stevens and Brian looked at him. Stevens grinned brightly. Brian nodded curtly. Brian sighed and began disassembling his rifle as he talked. “We had a nasty escapade with a fire-breathing alligator my first day here. Luckily, Stevens forgot to egg me while I was still dizzy from the smoke. He just assumed that I was a shadow.”
Stevens stuck out her tongue at Brian, “You just say that because you don’t like to admit that you got shown up by a girl.”
Brian blinked at her. “Excuse me? A girl?”
The three of them looked at Brian. Stevens put her hands on her hips and said bluntly, “Well what did you think I was, an alien from a place where boys are given girls name?”
Brian turned red, but answered, almost in annoyance, “Maybe. You can deflate Siberian tigers, after all. Why not?”
Jane looked from Stevens to Brian and began to giggle. Maybe it was because of the adrenaline rush she had experienced just moments before, or maybe the idea of Stevens being a boy didn’t actually feel that far off from the truth, but Jane started collapsing in laughter. Somehow, no matter how often she worked as a shadow, at the end of a job she was always a bit of a wreck, anyways. Stevens joined in, while the boys looked on in confusion.
A loud caw interrupted their laughter. A crow fluttered onto a branch not too far away. It hopped onto the ground and began pecking at some green leaves on the floor, ignoring them completely and reminding Jane of something….
Jane took a look at the ziploc bags she had brought to put the leaves in. Inside, were several indistinct green mushes. Jane slapped her hand against her forehead. “The leaves got smashed.”
Aaron patted her head, “It’s ok. You recorded what types of trees they were already, right? We can just get some more. Let’s go.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and began steering her off. Then, he seemed to remember their little friends. Looking over his shoulder, he called out to the other two, “Are you two planning to come along, or will Jane and I have to do this project by ourselves?”
Stevens gave a disgusted noise and followed.
Jane started laughing again as she heard Brian mutter in disbelief, “I just saved his @$$, and he won’t even give me time to put away my rifle while he goes off flirting? Unbelievable.”