Unimportant
There is nearly nothing that can prepare you for really bad news. Oliver discovered this fact two days before Fall Break. He woke up to go to school as he always did. His first glance at his phone and the 15 unread message notifications made it clear that nothing else about this day would be like any other.
He sat in his underwear on the edge of his bed reading through the messages from all his friends, trying to piece together what was happening.
“Can you believe it about Ms. Carter?!!!!” Believe WHAT!?
“Seatbelts are a SCAM!!! There’s no way that crash should have kicked ms carter!” NO WAY!!
Oli scanned the rest quickly looking for any more details. There were none that could be relied on. Then the last message caught his eye. It was from an anonymous ID. “Cafe Lamark. 8 a.m. Sharp.”
Lamark? Where is that? One moment later, his phone did something it almost never did unless his dad was calling. It rang.
“Can you be at Caffeinati at 7:45?” It was Kase.
“Yea,” he said. She hung up. Oli didn’t really have time to shower, but he had no choice. He rushed himself under the water. Nothing better than hot water running down my back. Crap. The time. At 7:36 Oli was out the door at a run. The air was very cool and Oli’s hair was still wet. By the time he’d turned the corner to see Caffeinati, Davis was parked outside with D’Nae and Jack in his car. Oli jumped in the back seat next to Jack. She looked deeply concerned. No words were spoken. Where is Kase?
Several minutes later, Davis pulled in a lot behind a pizza place, just off of Evans Avenue. There was a pair of small strip malls with an unmarked four-story brick office building between them. Kase was waiting just inside the door as the rest of the TJ Circle arrived. Davis took the lead as they stepped quickly down the half flight of stairs into the garden level. They turned left down the hall, and entered an unmarked door at the end of the hallway. The time was 8:01.
“Thank you for joining us, teams.” The woman speaking was medium height and build, in her mid-thirties, as best Oli could guess. He hadn’t heard a word of anything yet, so he was trying to just stay calm and see what happened. The woman addressed a group of about forty-five people ranging in age from fourteen-year-old Oliver to nearly sixty years old. “As most of you have probably heard, we lost Jeannine Carter last night. Let’s take a moment and send her the light that bore her to us.” Everyone closed their eyes and began breathing in unison.
Oliver joined in, and after a minute began to feel much more calm. It was his US History teacher who apparently had died a few hours earlier. Three minutes of silent breathing ended with the soft ring of a large bell with a small felt-tipped mallet.
“What we know so far is that there was a car accident last night, and Jeannine’s light was extinguished on this plane. There is a search underway for a suitable replacement for Jeannine, but in the mean-time please be careful. Especially those of you at TJ.” Her tone was at once sad and comforting to Oliver. Everyone else stood stone-still, but he couldn’t help fidget slightly. Kasey stepped in the back of the room quietly closing the door behind her. Oliver sensed her a few feet behind him, but didn’t turn to look at her.
“I believe you all know how the loss of a Torch of her skills will affect us. Regardless, we will carry on.” The woman’s tone and countenance suddenly changed in an instant from British stoic to become warm and welcoming.
“Most of you don’t yet know Mr. Thornton.” She gestured to Oliver. “Oliver is joining us in the TJ Circle. The way I hear it he’s quite talented, and under the tutelage of Ms. Metis. Thank you for joining us this morning.” She directed her attention to everyone else in the room. “Please afford him every opportunity to learn from all of you.” She looked directly in Oliver’s eyes and nodded slightly, and everyone silently dipped their chins without looking at him.
“We all have important roles to play today, so let’s get to it. Remember we are here to bring light to the dark places.” She ended with a gesture to her forehead, and said “Lumos.” Everyone in the room did the same in response, except Oli. He was feeling more like an outsider than he ever had, and he’d spent his life in pursuit of nothing. He had one friend, who wasn’t here, and this was starting to look like a bunch of lunatics in a weird basement cafe at 8:15 in the morning. It was then that he noticed that there were only a couple of small tables pushed to the wall, and everyone was standing. There wasn’t even a pastry counter in this cafe! What the hell?
By the time Oliver was done with this line of thought, the group had broken up and were turning to him to say ‘hi.’ Most of them were in High school, like him, but a few were in their 20s or 30s. There were too many names to remember, and he was still in a daze after learning that his history teacher was now history. Oliver had never cared enough about listening to other people’s lame stories over and over to bother remembering their name, so he was not good at it. Kasey had already slipped out the back before Oliver and the rest of the TJ Circle departed.
Oliver noticed that there was almost a dozen different “Circle” groups represented. There was one from each of the President-schools, as they called them, and the Directions. Abe Lincoln High, George Washington high, North, South, East, and West. There were small groups from several suburban schools as well which Oliver knew nothing about, even though they all introduced themselves to him. Most of the groups had fewer people there than TJ did. He recalled greetings from about a half-dozen adults, but couldn’t recall a single face, which was odd for him. His strength was in remembering faces. Names — not so much.
After the TJ group left, Oliver couldn’t wait to ask Davis what was going on, but there was only a few minutes to get up to speed on the ride. Davis explained quickly that Ms. Carter was a Level 3 Torch, and a member of the regional Guardians. They were charged with protecting the Circles and staying out of the way unless they were needed to fix a problem. He made a confused face and she explained that they worked like a combination of the Harvey Keitel “Cleaner” character from Pulp Fiction, and the Secret Service. The TJ Circle would nave no way of knowing what she was working on, but they were definitely the first regional Guardian group to have a death in quite a few years. Davis couldn’t guess who would take her place.
As Davis finished describing the basics of Guardians, they turned toward the back lot, and he stopped the car. “Out.” The three of them jumped out. Oli headed straight for the door. Alex headed around the block and D’Nae crossed the street and stood there while everyone else walked in. Davis drove into the lot alone. Oli’s mind was spinning. He needed to know more, and wasn’t feeling very calm any more.
“I thought Ms. Carter just taught history. Who else is part of this Guardians, or whatever? Where were we just now? Who was that woman?” Oli had walked almost thirty steps into the lot when he realized that the others had gone other ways and he was talking to himself. He blushed, but his face had pretty much returned to a normal color by the time he trudged past the small groups huddled in the courtyard and in the front door to find a small army of counselors, and kids milling around the lobby, or talking quietly in small groups.
He stopped for a minute to try to figure out what to do next. He was already more than an hour late, so it was the middle of second period already, and he had no excuse other than Ms. Carter. He actually was sad about it, but this was uncharted territory for Oliver. His mom had left the country, but this was different. That’s when he noticed he was feeling funny — like weird — definitely not one to inspire an LOL.
As Oliver looked in the faces of his classmates, he perceived something differently about them. Three girls huddled near the entrance to the lunch room. He looked at them, and somehow felt that they were only putting on a show to stay out of class. There was a group of four against the opposite wall. One boy was showing sadness, but Oliver knew without a doubt that he wasn’t sad at all. The girl comforting him looked outwardly like she was fine, but to Oliver’s new perception she was so sad that she couldn’t find words. Oliver suddenly wanted to cry. Get it together, man! Am I just freaking out right now?
As he was considering whether to sign up to talk to one of the counselors, his eye caught D’Nae striding in and past him rolling her eyes as she watched him inching toward the sign up table. Did she see me just now staring at everyone like a deer in the headlights? Oliver decided that talking to someone would only confuse him more, and besides… he couldn’t talk about the Circle. There is no way it would go well talking to someone who knew nothing about all this, and he had no words to describe the weird feelings he had just had. He had to swallow this one and do as the woman at Cafe Lamark said. He had to just carry on. He thought of Winston Churchill, and put on a stiff upper lip, literally.
He headed toward second period to stare blankly at the board for a half hour, but he got a message from Miller.
Mill: WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?
Dammit… Miller! He must be freaking out right now, Oliver thought. He had totally missed first period where he sat next to Miller. Standing in the middle of the lobby, he replied.
Oliver: Dude. Sorry. Carter thing.
Mill: Huh? WTF? There hasn’t been one yet. Assembly at 10.
Oliver: Yah. Just heard.
He lied.
Oliver: Remember the darkenati group I told you about? They had a thing.
Mill: What the!? She was DARKENATI?
Oliver: Ha. Need a better name. Call them Fez.
Mill: ???
Oliver: Ya kno. Shriners. Red hat.
Mill: Ah. Coo. Good. So what’s up with Fez and Carter?
Oliver: Dunno yet. Let’s talk at the cave later.
Mill: Coo Coo.
Mill: Ka-Choo.
Oliver needed the joke. He grinned because Miller was such a goof. Another message interrupted his smile, from a new anon.
Anon: Training. Now. Downstairs.
As Oli turned the corner toward the north stairwell, he saw Jack disappear through the doors. He hurried, but tried to look casual about it. His breathing began to get shallow. As he slipped into the maintenance door leading to the basement Oliver began to double-think this whole thing. What the hell am I doing? None of this is my problem, and what is this bunch of crack-pots up to anyway? I should just get out of here, and go to the gym.
As he was thinking his feet were still moving toward the basement room where he had first met Davis. By the time he finished his thought he was about to enter the room, and there was no stopping his momentum.
He entered the room to find Jackie and D’Nae in each others faces. Oh hell. This is not going to go well, he thought.
“Well who did then?!” D’Nae was getting aggressive.
“How the hell am I supposed to know? All I know is it wasn’t me.”
“I thought you and Kasey were dragging me into your insane training of that flicker,” D’Nae responded angrily.
“It’s fine,” Oli said. The insult had given him sudden and unexpected courage. “I’m unimportant anyway. I’m out.” He turned and headed out the door before either of the two girls realized what had happened. He was halfway down the hall and moving fast when he was yanked nearly off his feet to his right into the boiler room by a pair of strong bony hands.
#AtoZChallenge is nearing the end. This is part of a novel in process. If you want to read more of it, let me know!
