Chapter 7 (Riley)
#7 of First Steps 3: New Generations
Chapter 7 (Riley)
I feel better by the next morning. As I pack my stuff, I realize something feels off. I can't quite put my paw in it, but something just doesn't feel right. I carry my backpack downstairs. "Hi there." Wendell says. He stands in the kitchen with a mug of coffee in paw.
"Hi dad." I say.
"Where's Jo? She's usually here by now." He's right. Where the heck is Jo? She normally jumps through my window or something and drags me off to school herself. That hasn't happened today. In fact, I haven't heard from her or Mike at all since yesterday.
Someone pounds on the door frantic, as their life depends on it. I run up to the door and open it. Mike bursts in and he shuts the door locking it. The look in his eyes show panic. "Mike? What's wrong?" I ask. "And what the heck happened to you yesterday?"
"Listen," Mike breathes, "everyone at school... they're acting different."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean yesterday, everyone was themselves, today... they're like... zombies or something."
"Ok. Calm down buddy." I put my paws on his shoulders hoping my gestures soothe him. "Now, where do you think it all started?"
"Well, everyone was fine until that assembly." The Canler. It was in our fliers. What does he have to do with this? "That crazy man who came in sang a 4-note song and I saw a flash of red. Next thing I know, it was like everyone's energy has gone... bad."
"Well, I'm going to school with you. I'm right there with you, every step of the way." I say. I wrap my arm around his shoulder and I open the door again. The sight of Jo on my front porch makes us slightly jump.
"Oops. I didn't mean to scare you." Jo says in her usual cocky tone. "And sorry I'm late, my sister wouldn't stop bugging me about getting up to take care of the trash."
"It's fine." I say. I look and see she doesn't have her backpack. "Where's your bag?"
"Hm? Oh, I left it at home. The teachers told us we weren't gonna need it today."
"Yeah. I do remember that." Mike says. His paw snakes around my waist, pulling me close to him. Jo narrows her eyes at us, as if she disapproves of what she sees.
"What's going on between you two?" She asks.
"Mike came in earlier, looking kinda panicked." Mike keeps his straight face. "He told me he had a nightmare and didn't want to be alone."
"Well," Jo steps closer to us. She reaches out with both paws and slowly pushes us apart. "Why don't we save that for later?" That's weird. She never cared if Mike got affectionate with me before. Is she jealous? If so, I wouldn't know how to react. I love Jo a lot, but I don't know where jealousy will fit into the equation.
"Let's just... go to school." I say. I get my backpack, noticing my dad's concerned expression. I ignore it as I don't have time for random questions I can't answer and the three of us head out the door.
Mike stays close to my side as we walk down the street. As we do, I can't help but notice Jo doesn't rolls her eyes or try to kick rocks or cans on the ground. She keeps her eyes forward, appearing as if she's isn't looking at anything. It's like her mind is dead.
My paw suddenly gets warm. I look down and see Mike's paw holding mine. I'm about to slowly and gently let go of him when Jo walks behind us and comes in between us, forcing Mike to let go of me. "Jo, what's your problem today?" I ask.
"Nothing." Jo says. "I'm just the same name you knew before yesterday." As we approach the school, I can't help but feel as if Mike is right about Jo.
***
We sit in class. Our assignment is a self-portrait, where we tell our hobbies, interests, things we hate, etc. I notice Mike's paw trembling a little as he does it. Mine's already done and turned in. "Hey, Mike." I whisper. He looks over at me. "It's ok." I look over at Jo to see that she's still doing her work. I let my paws hang on my sides and then I motion for him to do the same. When he does, I let my fingers lace through his right paw. He grips tight and smiles at me.
"Thank you." He mouths. He goes back to the assignment with his left hand. Not sure if I ever mentioned this, but Mike's ambidextrous.
I get out my phone to play games while everyone else finishes. I have a text from Wendell and one from Todd. I read Wendell's first. "Everything ok?". I text him back saying things are fine. Todd's message is something bizarre. "[email protected]". I have no idea what that means.
"Mike! Riley!" Ms Kara shouts. Me and him look up, both of us wondering what we did wrong. She gets up and I quickly delete the message from Todd, pulling back up Wendell's. When she stands before us, something in her eyes definitely shouts that she's changed since the first day.
"Is there a problem?" I ask calmly.
"Yes. What're doing with your phone?" Thankfully me deleting the message gave me an alibi.
"My dad messaged me. I had to message back."
"Let me see it." I don't know if it's fear or if I'm just doing what I'm told, but I hand over my phone to her. She reads the message I have from Wendell on the screen.
"'Everything ok?'. What does that mean?" She asks.
"I had the flu yesterday. Dad's just wondering if I feel any better." I lie straight through my teeth.
"That's right." Kara says. "You weren't here yesterday." She hands me my phone back and turns around. "Oh and Mike..." He looks up. As Kara walks away, she mutters, "... detention. This afternoon."
"What?! What for?" He asks.
"You know why." Mike and I look at each other, unsure of what she means. Jo slips a piece of paper on my desk, not looking me in the eyes. I open the paper and read it.
"Your paws," it says, "it's because of your paws." I look down at my fingers laced through Mike's. Detention for this? Public display of affection? Well, technically comfort but I can see how someone can mistake it as that. I take out my pen and write on the back side of the page that there's nothing wrong with it and pass it back to Jo.
Jo shakes her head and stuffs the note in her pocket. As she does, I feel someone tugging on my bag and then releasing it. I turn around and see Jase with my Support LGBT button in his paw. "Hey! What're you doing with that?" I say a little louder than I meant to.
"What? I'm just looking at it." Jase says. "By the way, I didn't know you and Rainbow we're going out." Mike drops his head down, tears about to flow.
"Leave him alone." I say. "And give me back my button."
"Oh. Ok." Jase grips by button and crushes it in his paw. "Here." He puts the smashed button in my outstretched paw. My heart shatters a bit. My parents gave that to me. It meant a lot to me. Not only did it show that I'm not a homophobe, it showed I stand by the LGBT community.
As I look at Jase, who smiles evilly, and the rest of the class, whose eyes are all on me, anger boils through my veins. Something that rarely happens. My fingers let go of Mike and they clench into a fist. Jase is gonna regret doing that.
What happens next happens so fast, it was almost slow motion. I leap out of my chair, hurl myself across Jase's desk and push him to the ground. He pushes me off of him but I grab his jean jacket and I throw him back, knocking him against the window. As Mike's paws grip my shoulders and pull me away, I see that Jase's nose has blood coming out of it and I bruised my knuckles.
"Riley McCarthy-Tripp! What has gotten into you?!" Ms Kara shouts. Everyone looks at me, the same monotonous look in their eyes. Even Jo's. Jase flips me off. "Jase, go to the nurse. Riley, it seems you're joining Mike in detention later."
"What? He started it! He destroyed my button and made fun of my friend!" I say.
"Really? I saw you throw the first punch." Some students help escort Jase to the nurse. I need to know what the heck is happening around here. This is not how anyone behaved the first day. Two days later, they're someone different.
Like they're not themselves.
***
"Mike, this may be hard to say but I think you're right." I say. We sit on the steps after the last bell, discussing the events of today.
"I know." Mike says. "Who does Jase think he is taking your stuff and calling me names? Oh wait, I know the answer! That thing isn't Jase!"
"I need to know for sure before we go around spreading conspiracy theories especially with kindergarteners going to this school. What we need to do is find the perfect opportunity to find some evidence about what's going on." We hear footsteps coming down the hall and we shut up.
"There you two are." Ms Kara. "My room. Now." The two of us get up and follow her to our classroom. When we go in, there's nobody else here. Just the three of us. "Take a seat. Neither of you two are going anywhere for two hours." Two hours? She's joking, right? Then again, her stern expression says otherwise. Me and Mike sit next to each other.
I immediately start thinking. Kara keeps her head down, her blue pen going across people's papers, grading them. I quickly take my phone out and message Wendell. "Don't text back. Call school. Ask for Ms Kara." I hit send, sit on my phone and a few seconds later, she looks up, but doesn't say anything.
Mike looks at me. "What are you doing?" He mouths.
"I have a plan." I mouth back. And what a crazy plan/long shot it is, but it works when Dallas comes in the room saying Kara has a phone call.
"Don't move." Kara says to us both. Her and Dallas leave the room.
"What's your plan?" Mike asks. I look at Kara's desk. She left her bag.
"My plan is that with Wendell on the phone, we have about two minutes max to see what's going on." I get out of my seat, and run up to her desk. I unzip her purse and riffle inside. There's gotta be some clue as for what's going on. My sneaky eyes find a card with "-nler" on it. I pull it out and it says "The Canler". A business card. I stuff it in my pocket and zip her purse back up. I run back to my seat and sit down.
"What's you find?" Mike asks.
"Apparently, The Canler has a business card." I say.
"That doesn't make sense. Kara says he travels all over the country. Why make a business card if you only in one place for so long?"
"Not sure." The door opens again and Dallas comes in.
"Well, it seems that Ms Kara is busy right now so she asked me to take over." He says, taking a seat at her desk. A question in my mind raises: Can we trust Dallas? Tell him something's up? My mind goes against it.
I need to know more though. I've heard rumors in the past that whenever Dallas supervises detention, he never escorts people to other rooms. Time to put that theory to the test. "Hey, Dallas?" He raises his head. "May I go to the restroom?"
"Hurry." He says, waving a paw out the door. I walk up to the door, slip out and half walk, half run down the hall. The bathrooms are right near the principal's office but i'm not going there. As I approach Dallas' door, I be careful to slow my footsteps so no one hears me.
As I get closer to the door, voices appear and I can make out words. "Excellent work." A dark, mysterious voice says. I've never heard it before. "You're proving yourself quite well, teaching those infernal brats a lesson."
"Yes, well, it's all for you, King of the Influence." That's Ms Kara's voice. What's the Influence? "Soon, we shall achieve our goal and take over these brats and ridding their world of their problems."
"Yes." The dark voice says again. "Like my father, this is my destiny. And to think, 25 years ago, we were all in the Ship, hovering above the Earth, waiting for our time to strike."
"This will be a glorious thing, Canler. And, it would truly be an honor to stand by your side the whole time." Kara says.
"Are you asking to be my Queen?" I detect a smile on whoever's lips they are. I looks through the keyhole. I see a wolf in a brown best and glasses. I don't recognize him at all. Who is he? What is he? Their conversation continues.
"Yes I am." Kara asks. "I feel like I've proven myself not only to you but to the Influence."
"Ok." The wolf smiles. "By the way, I've wanted to ask you, why did you keep your specimen's Earth name, 'Kara'?"
"I think that it suits this body quite nicely if you ask me. But she's not entirely gone though. Sometime I feel her tugging at my energy strings. She can't say anything, but she sure is trying."
"Don't worry. The longer Kara is buried in her own subconscious, the quicker she decays."
"I know. Plus, there are also resistant ones like Mike and Riley."
"Resistant? How?" Suddenly, the wolf's delighted voice turns to anger.
"Remember the Double Duo of Defyance?" Kara asks. If I even should call her that, seeing as she admitted that isn't her. "Smartness and Smiles. If someone's too intelligent, it means their brain is too big, meaning the life force can't occupy it or else it'll get lost and die. Or if someone's brain is that of an LGBT, it means the life force can't occupy it since it'll poison them and die."
"I remember this." The wolf says. I think Kara said that's The Canler, like on the business card. "Look, it couldn't hurt to try the song on them again, right? If it doesn't work... well. We all know what happens to those whose specimen is useless."
"Yes, Canler." Kara says. "They simply... get disposed of." Did I hear that right? Disposed?
"Exactly." Canler says. "It is imperative that we get rid of the Resistant Ones. They pose too big of a threat on the future of our Influence."
"The Influence." I whisper. I don't know what it means but it doesn't sound good. As I listen in more, I hear something and it's not on the inside.
"What are you doing?" Dallas asks.