Monster

Chapter Eight--Not School Material

            “Ohhh. I’m sorry. Really, I didn’t know…” Ha! She thought I was sad that my parents were divorced!

            “Well, are you ready to control the school?” She asked with a note of excitement. I really didn’t know what she meant.

            “Like, rule it?” I asked. She burst out laughing, and so did the rest of them.

            “No,” James cut in, “I’m head of the school news paper. Emma does the website. Ben here is the Yearbook President. I’m President of student council and class Vice President. Carmen is the Class President. And there is so much more. But, basically, we…control everything. No one else wants these jobs, but since we have them, we can do anything! Make fieldtrips just for us, say who can and can’t go on trips, put embarrassing photos of people we don’t like in the School News. It’s amazing!”

            I smiled. These people were my clique. They weren’t the goody-two-shoes. They were the Nerds/Badasses/Rulers of the school!

            “I’m definitely in. What team am I on?”

            Leigh decided to have me on the school newspaper staff, with James.

            The next few days were possibly the best of my life. No Monsterness, no killing. Just Leigh, Carmen, Emma, Ben, James and I. It was…almost normal. Unless you count the daily mini-carrot eating contests between Ben, James and Emma. Yeah, that still qualifies as normal on my scale. But sadly, they say happiness can’t last forever.

            It was Friday, and I had been going to school normally, without incident for two weeks. No Monsterness! (Two weeks is a record.) Our group (I had a group! Haha!) was sitting down at lunch, and Emma, Ben and James had their plates loaded with mini-carrots. Carmen tapped me on the shoulder.

            “So, like, in science class, Mrs. Carter saw me making faces at her, and she asked me to come to the front of the class and tell everyone what I was doing, and then to give an example. And then, when I was walking up there, Hanna said that I looked like an ugly rock star from the 80’s. So when I went up this is what I said. ‘I noticed that Hanna has always had this peculiar look on her face. So I was trying to replicate it, and it just so happened that Mrs. Carter saw it. I will give you an example of Hanna’s face.’” Carmen gave me an example, which was her with her lips stretched far apart and her tongue hanging out, with her eyes crossed. Then she started laughing really, really hard, and I joined in too, because there was milk streaming out of her mouth from laughing too hard.

            And then it happened. My world started pulsing, and suddenly everything turned red. No. No, Drew stop, stop, stop right now. Not now. NO. I clutched the table and clenched my teeth.

            “Um, Drew are you…OK?” Emma asked. I nodded my head and managed to spit out the sentence “I need to use the bathroom.” Everything was still turning red and then quickly back to normal, like a strobe light. I could feel my muscles tensing, getting ready to kill. No. I would not kill.

            I ran to an empty hallway, and then closed my eyes.

            “No. No. No. Stop, Drew, right now. No.” I said aloud to myself. I needed to hit something, so I banged my fists against the wall. Bits of it crumbled away.

            “Hey, Drew? Can we talk?” Oh, no. No, not now. Not here. It was James, coming around the corner. My world pulsed red again and I felt my muscles tense. NO NO NO. Stop. Calm. Be calm and STOP. I wanted to kill him. I needed to kill him. No. No.

            “James you need to go right now.” I said with clenched teeth, my back to the wall.

            “Drew, really, I just need to talk to you…I swear I won’t hurt you.” He said kindly. Well, Mr. Nice was about to freaking DIE if he didn’t leave right now.

            “James. I really…GO! NOW, JAMES, RUN!!!” I screamed at him. He just stood there for a second. But I knew. I couldn’t stop it now. The red wasn’t leaving, my head hurt…my head would explode if I didn’t kill…I slowly turned around to see James, his blonde hair contrasting his deep, chocolate eyes…red. More red. Then the slow motion. His surprised face as he saw my eyes. He turned and ran. And then…bam. Someone knocked into me, full force, and I stifled a scream as all of the redness was ripped away from my pounding skull. But instead of fainting like a stupid damsel in distress, I stayed awake. Waves of sleepiness washed over me. The pain was unbearable. I almost couldn’t see over the pain. Someone had saved James from me. They had woke me up before the killing.

            Suddenly, like being electrocuted, all my energy came back. Everything came into focus, which was weird considering I hadn’t known it was blurry. And there, also standing up, was Charlie. And then, of course, I burst into tears like a huge baby, because that’s just what you do when you are minutes away from murdering someone against your will.