Chapter 2
Franklin woke the next morning to a deep pain in his stomach. It took him a minute to realize that what he was feeling the aftermath of yesterday's frozen burrito—but it could just as easily have been dread.
Today was Friday, which usually meant some extra homework to ignore and the beginning of a marathon weekend. He'd binge watch something on Netflix, and maybe leave a few comments on one of his gaming forums.
Not so long ago, there was a kid who lived across the street from Franklin. Franklin had never learned his name. He'd never crossed the street to ask. But every weekend that kid would sit on his front lawn and smoke weed and act like an idiot. Franklin used to watch him from his window; he'd even made a game out of mocking him.
Franklin missed that kid. In a strange way, he'd almost felt like they were friends. Weekends weren't the same without him.
Franklin stretched and climbed out of bed. Something felt wrong the minute his toes touched the carpet. Franklin wasn't superstitious, but today the idea of sitting through classes made him feel nauseous—even more than he usual. He wanted to ask his parents about taking a sick day, but they'd left for work before he made it downstairs.
The queasy feeling clung to him throughout the day. Franklin couldn't focus. He found himself paying even less attention than normal to his teachers. And during lunch he could've sworn he felt someone watching him out of the corner of his eye. When he turned his head, he thought he caught a glimpse of something bright and purple disappearing into the crowd.
At three twenty two he got a text from a number he didn't recognize. It said:
meet @ Glanville's Coffee at 1600 hours
DO NOT BE LATE
Franklin sighed at his phone. So yesterday had happened, he thought glumly. So much for trying to convince myself it was a dream.
The text also bothered him for another reason: Kimberly had his number—somehow. He never remembered giving her his number. That fact bothered him more than a little.
Franklin left school shortly after, taking the bus back home, changing, and grabbing his laptop while Mob Girlfriends played in the background. Twenty minutes later he waited at the bus stop at the end of his street.
His school gave all students a city-ride pass—they could ride the public bus and monorail for free. Though most of the time Franklin didn't want to. The people who rode the bus in his city frightened him, and the plastic green seats were always streaked with—something. Franklin was happier not thinking about what that could be.
Glanville's Coffee was part of a strip of little historic buildings in his town. Aged, covered in ivy and stained with mildew, they'd been declared landmarks by the city, and most of them were family businesses that had been around for a lot longer than Franklin. Franklin always thought they were interesting from a distance, but he preferred to stick with Starbucks.
He got off the bus and hit the streets at four, finding the coffee shop right at four o' five.
I guess I'm on time, the usually-punctual Franklin thought. She's not gonna sweat five minutes.
He walked beneath an arch bridge of moldering hard-covers and into the tiny coffee shop. He felt his vision tilt slightly, the warped floorboards giving him the sensation of stepping aboard a musty old barge.
Franklin scanned the crowd for the girl with the purple bangs. Unfortunately, this spot was popular with hipsters and scene girls. Almost every head was covered in an ironic hoodie, or dyed in an unnatural color.
"Franklin! You're late," a girlish voice belted above the softly murmuring chorus of customers. "We've been waiting for you. Come on!"
All heads turned to look at Franklin. He clenched his eyes shut and cringed, a small part of him dying inside. He hated being the center of attention.
Franklin had read somewhere that most people feared public speaking more than death—and Franklin got that. He'd much rather be struck dead on the spot than have any kind of attention focused on him, let alone give a speech to a room of strangers.
He opened his eyes a few seconds later, his face still twisted in a grimace, and made his way over to Kimberly's table. She was sitting with three other kids their age. Franklin took the opportunity to check them out, walking slowly as he navigated around the crammed circular tables.
Besides Kimberly—who was wearing a smart, charcoal women's blazer with a black blouse underneath—there were two guys and another girl sitting at her table.
The first guy wore a grey sleeveless hoodie, unzipped, over a white tee that featured some kind of Metal group. He was at least a head taller than Franklin, and looked athletic enough to play for any school team he liked, but Franklin got the impression that the guy was more of a guitar hero wannabe.
He looked Franklin up and down like he was a bad joke. His stubbly moustache lifted into a sneer. Then their eyes met—Franklin caught an instant flash of aggression, quickly disguised as amusement.
Franklin ignored the unspoken insult and turned his gaze to the next guy. This boy was also taller than Franklin, but much thinner as well. He wore a paper-thin, deep-vee lilac tee shirt underneath a too-large, black wool pea coat.
The kid looked like he was slowly dying of heat stroke, and trying to hide it beneath obvious layers of pale white makeup and perfectly groomed brown hair. He sucked-in his cheeks and set his crimson lips into a carefully arranged pout. And his intense glare—that never left Franklin's face—was surrounded by copious amounts of eyeliner. He held his tea with long, delicate fingers, but never took a sip—never moved. It gave Franklin the impression that he was posing for a photo-shoot that wasn't there.
If Franklin thought those two were unusual, it's because he hadn't seen the girl yet. She had light olive skin and dark curled hair that went down to her waist. She was heavier than the rest of them, though Franklin didn't care about things like that. Weight was nothing to judge by. In fact, if she'd stopped there, she would've come out looking way more normal than the others. But it was her costume that made Franklin lose faith in humanity.
For some reason this girl was dressed as what Franklin could only guess was a Disney princess—who'd been attacked by zombies. She was covered in billowy layers of hand-sewn veils and lace that fell over a shapeless baby blue shirt and matching sweatpants. On her head she wore a small fez, adorned with tassels at the sides, and a hole in the top for her to push her hair through. And every part of her costume was either torn or stained. Whether that was intentional, or the result of heavy city wear, Franklin couldn't tell.
She looked like she was ready for Comicon—in the worst way.
Franklin had prepared himself for something unusual on the way here. He hadn't known what to expect, but he didn't think it would be this.
He glanced again at the rest of the room, this time with longing. A dozen other tables surrounded them, filled with normal kids just trying to look trendy. Franklin had judged them for a bunch of posers a moment ago. Now, he would've given anything to sit with them—to sit anywhere but the table where Kimberly pulled out a chair for him next to her own, her hand patting the seat impatiently.
What am I doing? he thought as he inched over to the old stained-wood chair. He forced himself to fall into his seat, his stomach swelling with dread.
"Do you have any idea how late you are?" Kimberly demanded as soon as his butt had touched the chair. "Do you?"—seven minutes late, Franklin mentally noted, observing the wall clock above the baristas—"I told you to be on time. If anything, you should've been early. You've made a disappointing first impression here—and I vouched for you too," she lamented.
She looked meaningfully at each of her friends and shook her head. "I want you to understand Franky, that when you're late, you're not just stealing my time—you're stealing from the whole club. I'm gonna let you off with a warning—just this once—but next time I'll have to write you up," she finished, her voice echoing authority.
Write you up? Franklin thought incredulously. What the hell does that mean?
"Yeah, okay," Franklin muttered. "Uh, sorry everybody."
Kimberly nodded solemnly. "Well, now we're back to where we were. Yes? Just like before and it's all forgotten... right?"—she took a deep breath; her scowl transformed instantly into a wide grin—"Right! Everyone, I'd like you to meet the newest member of our club. His name is Franklin," she proclaimed.
She stared at the others pointedly, and they forced themselves to clap.
She continued, "Franklin, this is Jann Al-Marid,"—she gestured to the girl dressed in the depressing veils—"but we just call her Jann. She's a powerful genie, bound to her bottle, but who helps us out of her own free will because she believes in our cause."
If Franklin had been drinking his coffee, he'd have done a spit-take. "What?" he exclaimed. He shot a worried look at the girl—who shrugged an ironic smile at him—then back at Kimberly.
Kimberly acted like she hadn't heard him and continued, pointing at the jock in the hoodie, "This is Garrett the Destroyer—a powerful Arch-circle Mage from the flying continent of Nethexigo. He handles occult lore for our group and was my former tutor in the magical arts."
Garrett looked like he was used to this introduction. He took a sip of his latté, but stopped mid-eye roll and shot Kimberly a confused look when she said "former tutor."
"And this," she waved in the direction of the pale fashion model, "is Xavion Nathander de la Rosa-cruz. He's—"
"Prince!" Xavion interrupted. He sent a slightly poutier pout Kimberly's way, then resumed posing for his invisible photographer.
"Prince," Kimberly corrected, "and that's what we all call him anyway. He's from the Wallovian royal bloodline, and aides our cause with the riches of his kingdom. Two hundred years ago, he was turned into a vampire, and he fled to Seattle—until he came here."
Franklin should've guessed vampire. He hadn't seen the movies, but he'd seen all the mania. This Prince was trying so hard to look cool that he'd sprain something just sitting there, Franklin thought.
Kimberly shot to her feet, and pulled Franklin up next to her. He didn't even have time to glare. "Everyone, this is Franklin. He has this mark on his hand—the one I saw in your book Garrett, remember? So I guess you could call him a Demi-god, because he has divine blood flowing through his veins," she intoned loudly.
Franklin tried to sit again as soon as Kimberly started spouting his title to the whole coffee shop. "Franklin—what are you—stop it!" she snapped, fighting to keep him standing. Finally, she let him go, and Franklin collapsed back into his seat.
He scanned the room quickly, praying that nobody from his school had been paying attention to Kimberly. He knew that anti-bullying was a big deal right now, but he also knew you couldn't stop people from judging, and behind virtual doors he'd be pulverized.
Kimberly looked perturbed. Franklin's reaction to her grand introduction was definitely not the one she was expecting. Maybe it was a mistake not buying the confetti.
She watched him for a moment, doubt flickering across her face, then took her chair again, her charming smile back in place. "Everyone, welcome him," she instructed the rest of the table. Prince and Jann offered a few more underwhelming claps and Garrett a bored, "S'up."
Franklin seethed, his face burning, grinding his teeth because he was too frustrated to speak. He clenched his fists at his sides, nearly cracking the rickety old chair.
Did this girl have it out for him? She was doing her best to ruin what little reputation he had in front of a whole room of their stupidly trendy peers. Who knew how many of the kids sitting nearby went to their school?
Maybe Franklin had never developed a sense of humor, maybe most people could laugh this off, but Kimberly had mixed magic with mass-humiliation. That just happened to be Franklin's worst nightmare. He felt like he'd shown up for class in his underwear—except they were magic underwear.
Added to that, Franklin was losing an entire Friday afternoon hanging with these weirdoes instead of getting to relax.
"You weren't here when the barista came by," Kimberly chattered on, oblivious to Franklin's seething, "so I ordered you a caramel macchiato. I could tell from our talk yesterday that you were a caramel man." She winked at him and slid a sweating, plastic cup his way.
Franklin ignored her, still checking to make sure no one he knew had heard Kimberly's loud proclamation that he was a god. Maybe they'd think that was a good thing?
He took a shallow breath. "Look, I'm not demi-anything. What is this? D&D? I told you I'm not into RPGs, and I'm not playing your game. There are like a million guys out there who love this crap—so why the hell did you ask me? I hate magic!" he snapped. He leaned back in his seat and glared at his macchiato. He didn't touch the drink. He was too afraid he'd crush it out of anger.
He looked up to see four very solemn faces, staring at Franklin like he'd just karaoked a Katy Perry song in Russian.
Kimberly took a sip of her coffee—double espresso shot, black—and studied his face. She set her mug and saucer down with a slight clink, and looked back at Franklin. "This isn't Dungeons & Dragons—and it's not a game. This is very real. I promise you," she said sternly.
She's a good actress, Franklin thought. He also knew that he shouldn't have expected a real answer. Of course she'd say that. He'd heard somewhere that the kids who play these games aren't supposed to break character. Ever.
He also felt like a jerk for flying off the handle at a bunch of LARPers who'd just asked him to play their game. What would he do next, start slashing basketballs because he couldn't play? Punch a Glee club member in the throat?
He'd obviously misunderstood Kimberly's invite yesterday. He'd been pretty wrapped up in his own problems. They're just a lonely, desperate group of losers who need to trick people into playing their game because nobody wants to join, Franklin surmised, his anger simmering down into dull bitter grounds.
Still, I don't know why they had to pick me, he thought ruefully.
"So, today's first order of business..." Kimberly cleared her throat and looked pointedly at Jann. The Disney girl took out a tablet PC from her backpack and opened up a word processor.
"I take the minutes," she explained, in a voice so lilting and sweet that Franklin wasn't sure if she was using her real one.
Also, he didn't care.
"...we have to pick a mascot for our organization," Kimberly continued. "A symbolic animal has long been an emblem of pride for countries around the world, and we need—"
Franklin didn't stay to hear the rest. He muttered, "Bathroom," and sprung from his seat, almost knocking his chair onto its back.
He wove through the throngs of caffeinated hipsters, and found himself in a narrow hallway decorated with strange tiled murals. Mostly images of what looked like witches being burned at the stake. Franklin thought that was weird, but he didn't waste time worrying about it. He figured it was par for the course today. He shook his head and made for the back exit.
He knew that he'd made a mistake coming here. A horrible mistake. There was no way he could go back to that table. The kids out there were the reason he didn't have any friends. They were what he was afraid of. Every time that he tried to meet people, he wound up with another strange clique. A new group of crazy people pretending they were normal, with all new rules and labels.
They made Franklin feel even more alone than when he was alone.
He felt his heart sink. Franklin usually tried his best to fit in—not this time, but usually. But he knew that he just couldn't pull it off. He knew he shouldn't have come.
Maybe he didn't fit in anywhere, he thought, with a warm prickle of self-pity.
Franklin glared at the paint peeling off of the door in front of him. He was about to shove against the round metal bar that held the it shut, but paused when he noticed the warning sign above. It read: "Emergency Exit Only: Opening The Door Will Trigger Alarm And Sprinklers."
Franklin's first thought was that they were lying: there was no way he'd set off the sprinklers. He leaned against the door, ready to push. He was so anxious for freedom that he almost called their bluff. He was so close...
But then he decided that if there were no sprinklers and no alarm, why had they bothered with the sign?
Which meant he was trapped.
Out the back or out the front. Both roads led to humiliation. So Franklin opted for the third, surprisingly less embarrassing option: he decided to hide inside the men's restroom.