The Essential Elements

Grapes of Wrath

Faith sighs and opens her mouth, now flattered, although still uninterested, "Simon .  .  ." But before she could begin the door swung open and a fearsome woman in a grey and navy pantsuit marched through, ushering in two guards carrying multiple students covered in — what can only be described as — slush. One of those filthy students had, of course , been her younger brother.

Fighting the urge to dramatically sigh, she swallows it, "Hello, Vice Principal Haden."

Whyatt

"The Burnt and crusty chocolate pudding will reveal the secrets that your future holds captive, young one." Whyatt grunts waving his hands over Shane's pudding bowl, "Give me your hand, child"

James looks at his best friend with a single brow raised, taunting the display before him. "You sure about that?"

"Now why would I lie to you about something as serious as your future?" Whyatt scoffs, mimicking a mysterious accent, "Trust me, my ancestors  practically invented and perfected this art."

"Fine," his friend laughs, "What does it say?"

Closing his bright blue eyes and waving his hands, hopefully, over the lunch treat he focuses his mind actually trying.  .  . Something. Like a movie projected onto his eyelids a series of moving images flash before him—Dancing shadows and snuffed bodies of light, drowned souls and smouldering despair.

He couldn't make out what he'd seen, or actually make sense of it, bu he could understand that it wasn't good. He didn't know if it were real or not, but he knew that the pain radiating from the flaming people was real. Their suffering, their death, seemed real.

Whyatt obviously hadn't been serious about having a "special sight" but the chilling breath he exhaled into the warm atmosphere, accompanied by the buzzy feeling in his veins and the dramatic visual affects pulled his brows together and pinched his brain, siphoning a gasp from his lips.

When his troubled eyes opened, he is freed from his trance as well as the memory of it. Quickly the memory dissipated and mixed with the circulating air.

"So, how did the magick pudding reply? Am I the smartest and most charming in all the land??"

"Sorry bud, Lang's mystic emporium is suffering the consequences of an overdue light bill." Whyatt replies massaging his throbbing temples, " I've got a raging ache. Besides I don't need a crystal ball to tell me that you'll always come second to me in those departments."

"Arrogant, dweeb!!" Max delights.

"Dullards." A passing voice scoffs.

"I'll have you know, my marks are quite above the average and that isn't including the defences against dark arts I'm undertaking," whyatt retorts, pleased with himself, "of which I am a prodigy."

The students dotted around the same table turn to stare at the boy, as if he'd crossed some moral line, with their mouths open in mild confusion and stupefied.

"What?" He asks sincerely, "Hey, we're all geeks for something!"

The same voice from earlier finds its way back to the whyatt's attention, "If you really want to embrace the nerdy persona," he smirks placing his hand on Max's shoulder obviously squeezing them tightly, as well, "I can help with that."