Battlefield

by J. F. Jenkins

  She did have one comment for him. “I honestly can’t get over the style of your house. It’s not like any architecture I’ve ever seen before.”

  It had a few classic touches to it, but there was something unique about the angles that were different than most other mansions he’d been in. He’d noticed it as well, but he also didn’t know anything about modern buildings.

  “I’m sure you hear that a lot. I don’t want to annoy you. I just can’t help it,” she said, no doubt noticing his frown.

  “Yeah, no problem.” He led her further up the stairs, pulling his hands out to use the handrail. Lyssa was staring down at them from the top. “What? We’re going to my room to make out.” He knew she didn’t buy that, but she also wasn’t supposed to. He rolled his eyes. “I’m giving her a tour. Why are you staring at me like I have three heads all of a sudden?”

  Lyssa looked first at her younger brother and then at his new friend; his new friend who was a girl, a cute one at that, and a smile started to form on her lips. No doubt she was getting the wrong idea. Maybe she would take his making out comment more seriously than he thought.

  “Sorry, I didn’t realize...Are you going to be here for dinner, too?” she asked.

  “Doubt it. Probably another hour or two. But don’t worry, she’ll be back, and we can play twenty questions later,” Orlando said, and then he proceeded to move past his sister. “This is the master bedroom,” he said loudly as he pulled Cadence into an enormous room before shutting the doors behind them.

  It hadn’t been used in a long time. There wasn’t a lot of dust, but the calendar on the desk near the far window still had August of three years ago displayed. Orlando was pretty sure that was the last time his parents had stayed longer than a day at the house. The books by the bed were slightly yellowed. The television was more outdated than it should have been, given the rest of the technology they owned. It was clean, but empty and hollow-feeling. He didn’t like being there much.

  “Stairs to the attic are this way,” he said quietly. He walked her through the walk-in closet, opened another door, and the two climbed more stairs.

  “You know where a lot of things are,” she said.

  “I told you before. I get bored, so I explore.”

  The attic was huge and cluttered. There was hardly room for them to walk as they danced around box after box of things in an effort to get to the racks of clothing tucked away in the back. Cadence immediately began to look through everything. There was a great variety of styles and something for every occasion packed away. He didn’t get why they kept so much stuff, especially since they weren’t around to enjoy whatever nostalgia the objects had. He watched as she paused to admire a black, flowing gown covered with sequins.

  “I’m not sure if I’m feeling anything,” Cadence admitted with a sigh as she moved from the rack to a box of hats and other accessories. She picked one hat up and put it on top of her head. “Ta-da! There we go. A disguise.”

  “You know, if you got a pair of ugly bug sunglasses from the nineteen-eighties, you’d look like a celebrity,” Orlando said as he searched through a box of his father’s old clothes.

  “Thank you.” Why was she smiling so much at him?

  “Er, right,” he said with a raised eyebrow.

  With a giggle, Cadence picked up a black fedora and placed it on top of his head. “You should wear this. It suits you with your emo hair.”

  “It’s not emo.”

  “Yes it is.”

  “Is not,” he protested and gave her shoulder a light nudge. He’d have to explain to her the difference between emo and goth another time. Right now, he didn’t have the patience for it.

  “Yes,” she repeated and poked him in the side. She jumped in surprise as he let out a girlish squeak. “Are you ticklish?”

  Orlando narrowed his eyes. “No.” His lie was revealed when he jumped away from her outstretched and eager fingers. He shivered with disgust. “Stop it. I can feel them all over me, and it’s violating.”

  That was the scene JD and Alan stumbled upon when they finally reached the room.

  “Who’s violating what now? Or do I not wanna know?” JD asked as he rejoined the two.

  “Your friend didn’t learn the golden rule of kindergarten. You know, that whole concept of keeping your hands to yourself.” Orlando glared at Cadence, shivering one last time.

  “I believe the golden rule is, ‘Do unto others like you would like them to do unto you’.” Cadence placed her hands on her hips before turning to JD. “We’re not having a lot of luck with the costume hunt.”

  “Speak for yourself. I know exactly what I’m going to do,” Orlando mumbled as he stared at the fedora hat she had given him.

  “Care to share?”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  JD pinched the bridge of his nose. “Whatever. If he doesn’t want to share, then he doesn’t have to.” He started to roam around inside of the boxes and pulled out various articles of clothing. “I got something together here. Cadence, I think we need to get going. Let’s meet up again tomorrow night and prowl the streets.”

  Orlando raised an eyebrow. “Prowl the streets? And do what? Search for villainous evildoers? Sounds kind of ambitious, don’t you think?”

  “Well, we have to do something,” JD said.

  “I can’t go out of the house.”

  “Bust out!”

  “I’d rather not be grounded for the rest of my life. How about we first work on honing these abilities after school and on the weekends until I’m free? Or you know, first making sure we have an ability, so we don’t go out and randomly get ourselves killed.” He made sure to look at JD as he said the last part. “Let’s put the prowling off and look for some leads first? You know—use our brains.”

  “I use my brain plenty,” JD said under his breath. “Fine, if you’re too much of a wuss to break out of the joint, we’ll waste time and wait. Or maybe Cadence and I can start without you. You know, do that sleuthing thing you were just talking about.”

  She shrugged. “We’ll see what we can do, but we probably shouldn’t bite off more than we can chew either. I think for this weekend we’ve made some good progress. We have our bat cave and our spandex.”

  Orlando snorted, and he was positive he was the only one there who was actually taking the whole thing seriously.

  Chapter Six

  Two weeks passed and already Orlando was enrolled at Lunar Falls High and had a new schedule. Lyssa worked fast, and he appreciated it because after one day with nothing to do in the house, he needed something to keep himself entertained. Filling the gap had been difficult, especially without his video games. He read through his entire collection of books, reorganized his bedroom, and her closet.

  It took him twenty minutes to drive to school on Friday morning. An odd day to start his new classes, but he no longer wanted to delay the inevitable. Ideally, he was hoping for an excuse to get out of playing hero over the weekend. Every day he got a call from Cadence and JD wanting to talk details. And every day he told them not yet. He wasn’t ready. He had no clue how he was going to tell them he might never be.

  That was something he constantly chewed on over and over again in his mind, how to tell them. The more comfortable he became with his abilities, the more uneasy he began to feel. Lunar Falls was a nice new distraction.

  The school was nowhere near as large as Morningtide High. His old school had an average graduating class of five-hundred students, and luxuries most would envy. Visitors always called it an airport or a train station because of the massive size and cleanly upkeep. Lunar Falls was a dump and a quarter of the size in comparison. The stares began when he parked his black luxury sports sedan, his sweet-sixteen car. When he stepped out and grabbed his bag, there were even more. He had made sure to wear more black than he normally would, overdid the eye liner, and wore his favorite black, spiked wristband. The goal was to over-shock them.

  “Wow, nice car,” one
underclassman boy called after him. Orlando acknowledged him with a slight wave and a grunt before pulling open the doors.

  For a small school, it took him an awfully long time for him to find the main office. This was due to having to shove his way through the halls where everyone spent their time mingling. Everyone, being the small huddles of young teenage girls who gawked and giggled at him. Giggling at him—this was new. It’d been a long time since he’d been noticed by a member of the opposite sex, and he had no idea what to do in return. His girl chasing days felt like a lifetime ago. He almost forgot what it felt like, and he could barely remember how he would have handled it before, when he was popular and a ‘pretty boy’. He probably would have soaked it all in and nodded back at them arrogantly. That image made him snort with disgust.

  He got his schedule from the office and groaned. “Lyssa,” he mumbled as he read through the list of three honors classes, two study halls, music appreciation, and P.E. She was purposefully making his life miserable.

  He looked at the room number for his first class and then the clock. There was no way around it; he was going to be late. Taking the time to dawdle through the hallway, he enjoyed the peace the now-empty space brought. It cleared fast, which meant people actually cared about their grades here. This school would be interesting indeed.

  “One hundred,” he searched the room numbers. “Where is one hundred?” He was in the two hundreds and the numbers were getting smaller. He had to be going in the right direction until he reached the end of the hall. For such a small school it sure was easy to get lost.

  He turned to go down the stairs and ran straight into a boy who was built like he was the quarterback of the football team. The guy could easily be the poster child for the all American football star with his blond hair and confident strut. And his broad shoulders easily filled out his school jersey.

  “Sorry,” Orlando mumbled and stepped to the other side of the hallway so he didn’t get attacked. Normally, he wouldn’t bother to apologize, but he didn’t want to start things off on the wrong foot.

  “It’s okay, I wasn’t looking either,” the guy said. He was definitely close to Orlando’s age. “New kid, huh? You must be lost. Here, I’ll show you around. I’m trying to ditch out of class anyway for a while.”

  “Aren’t we all? I’d appreciate it,” he said with a soft laugh. This would have never happened at his old school, not between a jock and an obvious loner.

  “Holmes, right? I’m Peyton Darling.” The boy offered him a handshake. Orlando opened his mouth, wondering how this boy knew who he was before he even had a chance to introduce himself, but Peyton took the time to elaborate. “Word travels fast. I heard the teachers talking about it on Monday in the faculty lounge. They said you were some delinquent from Morningtide. Everyone knows your family though, and that the kid you mauled there—”

  Orlando shifted a bit. “I wouldn’t say I mauled him.”

  “Whatever you did, he deserved it,” Peyton said.

  Orlando couldn’t help but smirk. “So you do know what kind of a jerk he is, then? I’m glad, because it saves me a lot of time to explain.” This was a pleasant surprise. Still, he didn’t want to be presumptuous.

  Peyton led Orlando down to the first floor, then turned a corner and pointed. “Here you are. Don’t worry, Mrs. Henley is a sweetheart. She’ll be cool about you being late.”

  “Thanks,” Orlando said. He gave Peyton a small wave and then grabbed ahold of the handle. As soon as the door opened, all eyes were on him. He gave a nervous smile and stood his ground.

  “Oh, you must be the new student,” the teacher said in a soft voice. She was a gentle looking woman in her early forties. “Class, this is Orlando Holmes.” That immediately got the entire room’s attention. “Tait, could you please get him caught up while I continue?”

  He opened his mouth to point out that he had no idea who Tait was, but then noticed a wave from a girl with long, blond, curly hair who reminded him of every other stereotyped ditz on the planet he’d ever met. Complete with a cute cheerleading uniform that barely covered her midriff, and a bouncing high ponytail. He sat in the empty desk behind her and waited to hear what profound things this girl could possibly share with him.

  “She teaches straight from the book. You can borrow mine if you want, but all you have to do is read and do the busywork and you should have an A. I mean, assuming you know how to do basic math,” she whispered.

  “Only when I’m wearing sandals,” he mumbled as he pulled out a notebook and a pen from his backpack. She stared at him. “You see, that means I can only do math when I can—”

  “See your toes, I followed,” she finished for him. “I was just trying to decide if it would be worth my time to laugh or ignore you.”

  “Ignoring would probably be wiser.”

  “Oh, you’re one of those types, huh? Loner? Nobody understands me, and I just want to survive this one day at a time?” She pulled out her textbook and flipped it open to the chapter they were currently being lectured on. “Here.” She stared back towards the front.

  He rolled his eyes. “That’s rude, you know. You can’t just say something like that and end the conversation. I mean, if we went and based everything we know about each other simply by how we’re dressed, I’d make sure all my words had one syllable and accompanied them with a visual aid of a cute baby farm animal. Even then, you’d still have no idea what I was saying; and yet, look at you still following the conversation so well.”

  “Point taken,” she said.

  He smirked and leaned back so he could doodle and daydream for the remainder of the hour. On occasion he would stare at the back of Tait’s head, knowing full well she could feel his eyes on her and loving how it made her tense up, as if in anticipation. The smirk faded however when he glanced up at Mrs. Henley and saw Alan standing behind her looking over her shoulder at her notes. He made eye contact with Orlando and shook his head.

  “This woman is not doing this right,” Alan said.

  Orlando didn’t respond. What was he supposed to say? Acknowledging Alan’s presence would make him talk again. If the man spoke, he would expect Orlando to reply, and if nobody else could see him, Orlando would look like a lunatic in front of his new classmates. Seeing as how no one else was reacting to a strange man just appearing out of nowhere in the middle of class, he was sure he was the only one who could. He wanted to keep away from as many negative misconceptions as possible. It was too early for him to become a freak. What he did do was put his head down and go back to doodling. Mrs. Henley was definitely a sweet and kind-looking woman, but her class was as interesting as watching paint dry.

  At the end of class Tait collected her book. “Cute drawings,” she pointed to a sketch he’d done of a small, round, alien-looking creature. He opened his mouth to say something in response, but she walked away before he had a chance.

  “Orlando, I wish to speak with you. Come here,” Alan called and waved for the boy to join him at the teacher’s desk.

  The more Orlando tried to ignore him, the more of a fuss Alan made. He approached the desk slowly, but he still couldn’t talk to the alien. He started with a subtle hand gesture, trying to get Alan to understand they would have to talk elsewhere and not in front of everyone. He was not the smartest or most observant creature in the universe because he started to frown.

  “It would be easier to talk to you if you would reply,” Alan said.

  A small growl of frustration escaped Orlando’s lips as he tried to make another gesture, but this time Mrs. Henley glanced up from her papers.

  “Yes? Can I help you...?” She searched her roll sheet for his name.

  “Orlando. I was wondering if I could get a book so I could do my homework this weekend.” He briefly glared at Alan, hoping the message would get across. Once he had his book, he left the room and searched for a quiet, hidden corner where they could finally talk. He found a faculty bathroom, a locked one, and used his telekinesis to solve tha
t problem fast. Grabbing Alan by the arm, he pulled him inside and locked the door again.

  “What’s wrong with you? You remember nobody else can see you, right? I can’t start talking to you out of the blue. Think about this. You’re going to make me look nuts,” Orlando said.

  Alan’s mouth opened and closed a few times. “My apologies. I forgot. Would it make things better if others could see me as well?”

  “No,” he said. That was just what he needed, a half-naked alien following his every move. “Now what do you want?”

  “I wanted to inform you that Cadence and JD have—”

  “Haven’t found anything. I know. I also know that’s not what you want.”

  “I’m bored with waiting. I thought I would see how you were doing on your own.”

  “I’m fine. Okay? You don’t need to check up on me.”

  “Can I stay here anyway?”

  The idea didn’t appeal to Orlando much, but watching Alan stare at the floor and seeing the deep frown he wore while he did so frustrated him. He figured it couldn’t hurt so long as the guy didn’t cause a scene.

  “Yes, but don’t talk to me, don’t touch anything, and just don’t do anything. Okay? People will spazz. And you kind of need to wear more clothes. Aren’t you cold? It’s barely sixty degrees out.”

  “Wonderful, I will not cause problems. Nobody will be able to see me. I promise. Perhaps I could join you every day?” Alan said.

  Orlando only groaned and left the bathroom before he was late for his next class. He could only use the ‘new kid’ excuse so many times for tardiness.

  “There is also something I want to investigate in this area. I’ve heard reports from my ship that another tribe is meeting near this building, possibly in it. I am certain there are youth in this school who are aligned with them.”