Back to the Unknown (An OTGW story)

An invitation

CHAPTER ONE

Wirt stared out the window of his drab high school classroom watching the crisp autumn leaves dance threw the breeze.

"That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang..."

He recited in his head. He found it easier to stay entertained in class if he thought about poetry.

    He wasn't much of a fan of school, the people or the classes. This was the case for all but one class, and that was English. It also helped that his language arts class wasn't as grey and depressing as his math class. He was currently in some lecture about square roots, given by his middle aged teacher. Mr. Palmton. He was a tall, bony man with graying hair who wore large spectacles and brown suits, with crazy ties.

He was a nice teacher, but he had a tendency to ramble, leading to extreme boredom, such as Wirt and most of the other students were experiencing.

    Finally the bell rang and the school day was over. Wirt let out a sigh of relief and quickly grabbed his math textbook and binder off his wobbly desk and speed-walked to his green locker. He exchanged his text book and binder for his backpack, locked his locker, then set off walking to Greg's part of the school. The elementary school and high school were connected by a long hallway on the farthest side of Wirt's school.

However, even though the hallways were a bit far, It didn't take Wirt too long to get to Greg's classroom. He always liked to get out of his part of the school as soon as possible to avoid any type of conflict.

Wirt turned down the yellow-painted hallway where Greg's class sat and went into the first door on his right. The class, like the rest of the elementary school, was very colorful and vibrant.

    The class was a minty green color, but you could barely see the paint under all the children's drawings, and inspirational posters. Not to mention the portraits of the previous classes. There were many of them due to the fact that the teacher had been teaching for thirty years.

It took Wirt a moment to spot Greg through the crowds of chatty children, but he soon caught a glimpse of Greg's blue Mickey mouse shirt and brown hair. He was sitting on a chair in the corner of the room talking to a circle of sitting and standing children from his class. No doubt he was telling stories of his adventures in the Unknown. Wirt was quite impressed by the small crowd who had joined around him to listen.

Unlike Greg, after Wirt got home from the hospital, he had decided that their adventure was nothing more than a dream. However if we were to look deeper into that idea "decided" isn't quite the right word. A better word to use to describe his memories of the unknown is suppressed. Deep down he couldn't fully process what had happened in the depths of the cold water that Halloween night, so his mind kind of just put it away, to the back of his mind. I mean, how can your brain possibly process the idea that you and your brother visited a whole other world in one night?

It's probably for the best anyways, if he went around telling people stories about this crazy wonderland he visited, no one would believe him. Not for a second. So, Wirt just went on with his life and didn't think about it.

This clearly wasn't the case with Greg . He couldn't and wouldn't go a day without mentioning his adventure. It was pretty much his greatest achievement in his eyes. So, Everyone just went with it and accepted the fact that he would probably grow out of it. He just needed time.