Earth date: 01/08/2012, 15:53
As soon as we had recrudesced to base, Jay said, "Please tell me where I can put this." He upraised the body of the Hautik. The Hautik was trammeled with a cup of lime energy munificently apportioned by Frazz to keep blood from trilling onto Jay.
"Follow me, Jay," Monica said. She and Jay left the room.
Joey exuviated his armor and sat down at the table. The rest of us followed suit. Mr. Cole said nothing. His eyes darted between the six of us, only stopping so he could sit back and rub the bridge of his nose. Will and Bette said nothing, only looking at each other and then at Mr. Cole.
Monica and an armor-free Jay returned, and the two of them took seats.
I finally spoke up. "Mr. Cole?"
His gaze snapped onto me.
"If you're going to be mad at anyone, be mad at me. I was the one who put it in everyone else's heads to go fight the Hautik."
He sat back, locking his fingers together into a double fist. "I appreciate your candor, Daphne. But when one person jumps off a cliff, the people who follow her are responsible for their own injuries."
"Meaning...?" Frazz ventured.
"Daphne may have been the one who threw out the idea, but it was the rest of you who followed her."
"Mr. Cole, people were going to die!" Joey asseverated.
"Maybe I'd prefer that to having seven dead children on my conscience!" Mr. Cole shouted back.
The room fell silent. Mr. Cole closed his eyes.
"They know the risks, Cole," Will said.
"Do they, Will? Do they truly?"
"Mr. Cole?" Max spoke up.
"Speak, Maxwell."
Max's neutral expression vacillated for a moment at the use of his full name, but he pressed on. "I didn't tell you about the lady in the graveyard."
"Who or what is the lady in the graveyard? Do tell, Maxwell."
"It's Max."
"Now is not the time to be testing my patience, Maxwell."
For a transient juncture, Max's eyes mantled with a deep turquoise. Then the effect was gone. "On Christmas, my family went to visit..." His voice scrupled. "...Debbie's grave. While we were there, we met a lady. She'd been at the airport when the Blun'i attacked. It almost got her, but I saved her, and she told me because of that, she finally got around to visiting her baby who died."
"Oh my g*d!" Kristi clapped her hands to her cheeks.
Max's neutral expression fluctuated again as he disported Kristi an irked gander. "So if you think I'm in this because I want to be in danger, you're wrong. I'm in this to have stories like that."
Mr. Cole recurred to his reclining deportment, first decussating his arms over his chest, then abrading the top of his head. "Do the rest of you agree?" he finally petitioned.
Six of us nodded. Frazz looked like he might say something to the contrary, but Max and Jay shot him glares, and he gave a thumbs-up instead.
Mr. Cole suspired. "Fine. We'll continue. Dismissed."
The others got up and evanesced in hued scintillations of light. I adjourned in my seat.
"Daphne, was there something you wanted to discuss?" Mr. Cole inquired.
Four sets of eyes locked on me. My eyes straggled down to the table. "Why don't you want us to continue?" I finally catechized in a maunder.
"Do you want to have children, Daphne?"
"I...think so."
"When you have children of your own, you'll understand. For now, go home. Rest."
Earth date: 01/09/2012, 08:00
Monday eventuated with an assembly. I draggled my class down to the auditorium. I hied Keenan Carter, who bored at me but didn't do anything otherwise.
I was reposed between two students, Russell Hampton and Neil Craig, who knew each other but didn't know me. I beetled back as they confabulated around me.
"What's the assembly about?"
"Don't know! Nobody said."
"Do the teachers know?"
"Ask one of them."
Before they could, Mr. Cole locomoted out onto the stage and raised a hand for cessation. "Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance," he said.
I stood with everyone else. The Pledge of Allegiance was one thing I would never get used to about America. But I declaimed it anyway and sat down with everyone else afterwards.
Mr. Cole stood reticent behind the podium for a moment. I wasn't rooted abutting to the stage, but even from my locality nigh the mezzo of the auditorium, I could behold Mr. Cole had the sides of the podium in a death grip. Finally, he undertook, "10 years ago, I transitioned from a military career to being principal of this fine school. I went from military life to education because in many ways, the two are opposites. A good soldier follows orders. A good student thinks for themself. A good military makes the world better with might. A good school makes the world better with knowledge. The military has you dealing with mostly adults. In education, all your focus is on the children. After 15 years of military life, of orders and ranks and writing home to newly childless parents, the idea of working with children, helping them to become their own person, sounded lovely. And it has been. 10 years, hundreds of thousands of students, and I have so much to show for it. I wake up every day excited to come to work. I've watched from afar as students of mine have started fantastic careers. I've gotten a couple of wedding invitations from members of the 8th grade class of my first year."
Mr. Cole paused. He looked out into the audience. I squirmed in my seat, because I was certain he was looking at me.
"So, it is with great hesitance that I announce that this school year will be my last as your principal."
The auditorium laded with gasps. Students goggled at each other, mutely instituting each other if this was Mr. Cole's idea of a prank. Teachers clapped hands over their mouths and started to whisper to one another.
"I will be fully cooperating with the superintendent to find a new principal," Mr. Cole opined over the clangor. He bided for the hullabaloo to culminate before he orated his denouement. "Words cannot express how blessed I am to have served as your principal. Do not think my time here coming to an end doesn't mean I am proud of every single one of you, teacher and student alike." With nothing else to say, he stepped away from the podium.
I stood up with the rest of my class and exited the auditorium when the teacher gesticulated for us to do so. Margaret wended by me when my class came to a stop, and she looked at me and mouthed, Why?
I had no answer.
Earth date: 01/09/2012, 19:00
On the way out of school, Margaret sidled up next to me and said, "Think you can be at the YMCA at 7:00?"
"What's happening there?" I investigated nervously.
Margaret thought for a few seconds before she said, "Team bonding."
My fingers danced nervously across my backpack strap. "I'll ask."
"Cool. Bring a swimsuit." Then she was gone in the crowd.
When I got home, I queried. Uncle Ryan said yes, and Saoirse volunteered to drive me. My heart comminuted as I discerned the plastic tub of swimsuits down in the basement and collared a one-piece that fit me. Would I start crying in front of my friends again? Or pivot and abscond? Maybe neither: maybe I'd drop dead from a heart attack a few meters from the edge of the pool.
"Have fun," Saoirse said as I got out of the car. I only effected an affirmatory noise.
Margaret and Kristi met me in the lobby, and I convoyed them into the women's locker room. I changed quickly, and the three of us walked out of the locker room and into the pool area.
Joey and Max were perched at the berm of the pool. When they saw us, they got up and caprioled into the water. The splashes made me blanch.
"I can't," I stammered ashamedly. "I can't do this. I'm really sorry for wasting your time."
Max egressed out of the water. "You're scared of water. We're going to help you change that."
Joey draggled him out of the water. "Daphne, we'll take it slow, OK? We're not going to throw you in the deep end. We'll take it as fast as you want to take it, alright?"
I didn't want to take it any speed, but I said, "OK."
"Let's sit in the shallow end. Alright?" Max held out a hand. I took it. He led me to the pool's edge. "Ready?" he asked.
I wasn't. "Ready," I said.
Max took two steps down into the water, and after several deep breaths, I followed. Cold water came up to my knees.
"We'll hang here a few minutes, wait for the water to warm up for you." Joey said.
"OK," I said in that squeak I hated.
Joey, Margaret and Kristi talked amongst themselves, but Max stood by me, gazing out over the pool. He still held my hand.
"You're brave," he said.
"I'm not," I insisted.
"You're here, aren't you? Scared of water but up to your knees in it? Scared of water, but you were the one who said we needed to take out the water alien? That's not brave to you?"
"When you put it like that..."
"Daphne, how's the water feel?" Kristi said.
"It feels OK," I said.
Joey came closer. He looked at Max, and they nodded. "Daphne, can we take you underwater?" Joey asked.
"What?"
"Take you underwater," Max said. "We'll do it like a trust fall."
My breathing got shallow, and the soft noise of the pool's water lapping against the sides got louder.
Max thinks I'm brave.
"OK," I said. "Yes, you can."
"Turn around," Joey said. I did. He put one hand on my back, and Max put another. I didn't flinch away from either.
"We'll do it at the count of 3," Joey said.
"Daphne, you trust us?" Max asked.
"Yes."
Max nodded. "One."
"Two," Joey said.
"Three," they said, and lowered me into the water.
The world went blurry as water filled my vision. I opened my eyes and glanced around. Kristi and Margaret had ducked underwater. They waved at me.
Max and Joey pulled me back up. "You good?" Joey said.
I took a couple of deep breaths.
I was surrounded by friends.
I had saved a town from a flood.
I was brave.
"Yes," I said. "I am."
"Good," Max said. "Let's go again."