10
Eric walked in a daze toward his history class.
Twice that day, time seemed to have jumped. Fiona had even commented on it, said it was normal. Eric really wished everyone would stop using that word because he was starting to lose all sense of what normal really was.
He turned into the corridor where his next classroom was located.
“Whoa, there, tiger.”
Once again, he had to stop in his tracks to prevent himself from running into someone. Only it wasn’t just one person this time. It was two. Fiona and Keira were standing shoulder to shoulder, blocking his way.
“We need to get you out of here,” Fiona said. “The situation is more serious than we expected.”
“Uncle Colin and Uncle Carl expected it,” Keira said under her breath.
Fiona shot her a look then turned back to Eric. “Here.” She held out a piece of paper.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“An excuse to get you out of class.”
How would a note from a fifteen-year-old girl who was pretending to be a thirteen-year-old eighth grader get him out of class? “So the office is going to let me go because you excused me? I don’t think so.”
“Just take it.”
He grabbed the note and opened it.
Please excuse Eric Morrison for the rest of the afternoon for a doctor’s appointment.
Thank you,
Patricia Morrison
Eric had to read it twice to make sure he was really seeing what he was seeing. The note looked like it written by his mother. He’d recognize her handwriting anywhere.
“How did you do this?” he asked.
Keira beamed. “Like it?”
“You did this?”
“Kind of a hobby.”
“Writing like my mother is a hobby?”
“Well, not just your mother.”
“How did you even know what she wrote like?”
Keira shrugged. “Same way we were able to start school today. Ronan and Uncle Carl made a late-night visit to the school office. After they entered us into the computer system, they checked out a few files, specifically yours, where they found old notes from your mom.”
“Hello? None of this matters,” Fiona said. “We need you to drop this off at the office so we can get out of here.”
“But I have to go to class,” he protested. “Our report’s due today.”
“Your report? Eric, if you go to class, it might be the last one you ever attend.”
“Wh…what?”
“Let’s move it,” she said, pushing him in the direction of the office. “There’s not much time.”
The hallways were deserted now, everyone having already entered their fifth-period classrooms. Eric was sure Vice Principal Rose would suddenly appear and order all three of them to class, but they made it to the office without getting stopped.
“You’ve got to do this on your own,” Fiona said outside the door. “If we come in with you, someone might get suspicious. You can do that, right?”
“Yeah,” Eric said, not exactly full of confidence. “I guess I can do that.”
“Good. We’ve got something we need to do, so we’ll meet you in front of the school in a few minutes.”
Eric entered the office, again expecting to run into Vice Principal Rose, but the vice principal was either in his private office or off somewhere else terrorizing other students.
“Can I help you?” Mrs. Cameron asked.
Eric hesitated, then said, “I have to go to the doctor.”
He put the note on the counter, suddenly sure he was about to get caught.
Mrs. Cameron opened it and then looked at Eric over the top of her reading glasses. “Are you sick?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then why are you going to the doctor?”
What an obvious question. He should have prepared an answer for that. All he could think to say was the truth. “I don’t know. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
Mrs. Cameron looked at him a moment longer, then chuckled. “No, I guess you wouldn’t have.” She wrote out a pass allowing him to leave the campus and handed it to him. “Have a good weekend.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Cameron. You, too.”
When he reached the hallway, he couldn’t contain his nervous energy any longer and started running. He didn’t care if Vice Principal Rose popped out of nowhere and tried to stop him. He wanted to get out of there. Now!
To get to the main school entrance from the office, you had to go to the end of the hall and turn right into a shorter corridor that led to a set of glass doors. Two minutes tops at a fast walk. Running, he would make it in a quarter of the time.
“There you are,” Peter Garr said as he stepped out from behind one of the pillars along the hallway wall. Once more he was talking in the strange monotone.
Eric stopped and tried to take a step backwards, but someone pushed him from behind.
“I don’t think so,” Tommy Bird said, his hand on Eric’s back. Like Peter, his voice was also a monotone.
“I…I…I’ve got to go,” Eric said. “My dad’s waiting for me. Doctor’s appointment.”
He tried to duck around Peter, but the plump Kyle Sanders got in his way, his tiny eyes staring down at Eric.
They closed in around him, using the corridor wall to box him in.
“Hard to run now, huh?” Peter said.
Tommy pulled Eric’s backpack off his shoulder and slipped it over his own arm.
“Hey!” Eric said.
“You don’t need it any more,” Peter told him.
Eric reached for it. “Give it back!”
Tommy’s focus seemed to waver and he started to hand the bag back to Eric but Kyle reached out and stopped him. “Peter said you don’t need it.”
Eric looked at each of them. “What do you guys want?”
Peter moved in close, then tilted his head back.
He smiled. “You, of course.”
What Eric would have done to have that unicorn necklace in his pocket at that moment. He was sure there was a lesson in there somewhere, but he didn’t have time to figure it out right then.
“Why me?” he asked. “What did I ever do to you?”
“Nothing,” Peter said.
“Then why do you and your friends keep trying to beat me up?”
Peter moved his head to the side in the way a dog did when it heard an odd noise. He seemed to lose focus for several seconds but then he looked Eric in the eyes.
“That was…preparation. Are you ready? Or do we need to…intimidate you again?”
It was quite possibly the strangest question Eric had ever been asked, and that was saying a lot after dealing with the Trouble family. “I’m ready. Sure. No need for any more intimidating.”
Peter’s laugh was almost mechanical. “Good. Then you need to hold this.”
He pushed something into Eric’s hand.
