HELLHOUND

The Roar

"Mr. Gendry," Mr. Faithe, my English teacher, made his way over, his five o'clock shadow and thick black glasses a welcome familiarity. He placed an arm around Swayde's shoulder and smiled pleasantly. "Did you not hear the guide, Mr. Gendry? I found her instruction quite clear, didn't you?"

Swayde's mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. The imagery reminded me of a fish my dad and I had once caught at Lake Toho back in March.

"Well, I suppose she didn't yell loud enough since you still find it appropriate to just stand here and bother young Mr. De Angelo. Do you see those trees out there?" Mr. Faithe pointed down to the valley outside through the windows. We were in a building perched on stilts made of wood, easy and ready to burn. The fire hadn't reached us yet, but we could see it on the opposite valley slope, creeping like a fungus, burning burning burning its way toward us.

"It'll be here in less than an hour," Mr. Faithe continued. "We don't want to be here when it comes. It'll burn, and it will most probably kill. None of this was planned, Mr. Gendry. I don't think you seem to have grasped that concept. This is not a part of the script. People, including kids like you, could die, and do you know what will delay us in our survival?"

Swayde had gone teary, peering up at Mr. Faithe with a shaking head and a stuttering mouth. Gone was the cool guy with the cool accent and cool hair. There stood Swayde Gendry. He looked a like more fragile than I remembered.

Mr. Faithe sighed. "Move along, Mr. Gendry." Mr. Faithe placed a hand on his shoulder, guiding Swayde away as he threw me a wink. "You too, Mr. De Angelo. Don't want to get left behind, do we?"

"No, sir," I smiled, following behind them into another room, trying not to think of the words Mr. Faithe had said and the sound of a roaring inferno in the distance.

Mr. Faithe was probably the only good teacher at Westpoint High, and the youngest of all the knobbly-kneed teachers hired at the old place. He never yelled at me for getting an answer wrong in class, and never, not once, had I ever caught him picking his nose, unlike most other teachers in that school. He always made class fun, the only English teacher in the school who let us act out scenes from plays written over a hundred years ago, props and costumes and all.

"Everyone gather at the pavilion. Your parents are being called - Nathaniel! Stop taking so long!" That would be Mrs. Fineman, the worst teacher at Westpoint High. She blamed me for just about everything and made my life even worse than Swayde Gendry did. She was probably the oldest teacher they had at Westpoint. Go figure.

The museum was one of the oldest buildings in the city, and one of the most looked after. The main building must have been the size of two football fields, littered with artifacts from places all over the world, from the Aztecs to the Greek. I didn't care much for history, it made my head hurt to think of everything the world had gotten wrong, but the fact that Mr. Faithe was there to make it a little interesting made it at least a little bearable.

I settled beside a statue of the only Greek Hero with something wrapped around his waist, Achilles with a spear and a wreath around his head, and waited to be told what to do next. Kids and tourists waded like a sea of fish in the main plaza of the museum, and potentially bumping into a frantic tourist with bad fish breath was not on the bucket list, especially with the unexpected heat.

A man carrying a fish taco (they were being sold at the entrance) shuffled past, a Hawaiian shirt billowing back to expose his hairy, swollen belly. He scarfed down another bite of his food, and when his eyes met my disgusted expression, I quickly looked away.

"Is there a reason you're staring?" Ariadne sidled up next to me, resting a hand on my shoulder with her chin on it. "I thought you were more into the flowery types."