Chapter 18 - Kaiden
The church bells mean it’s twelve. That’s what time the class on introduction to vampires starts. They’re holding it in the big school building. Way different than the place they’ve got me stuck on. Kind of like they’ve got their own little community college over here. They don’t want me to learn about vampires and stuff like that but they can’t stop me. What are they going to do? Stop me from learning?
I just keep my head down and find my way into class. I’m probably the shortest person walking in. I’m hoping that they overlook me. Maybe fifty people in the class. You’d have to look pretty hard to see me. I take a seat and take out one of my textbooks. Everyone else has their own books, way different than mine. They’ve got crazy patterns and things. Mine just says science on the front with some generic looking people but I’m doing a great job of blending in.
The teachers walks in and everyone starts closing their books, I close mine following suit. She starts passing out stacks of paper right away. Take one pass them down. So far, this is easy. Is this a pop quiz? I don’t know any of this stuff. Alright, play along. Name, my name is Kaiden, easy. Wait, I should use an alias. I’ll be Doug today. I don’t know any of the answers to this so I take my best guesses. There’re two types of vampires, good and bad. But there aren’t a lot of good vampires. Scratch that, male vampires and female vampires. That’s a trick question. Silver bullets kill werewolves. Mummies, zombies and boogeymen are three other types of creatures.
I pass in my test with everyone else and relax. Can’t get much worse than that.
“That wasn’t too bad,” I say smiling to the girl to my left. She’s got pointy ears, she must be an elf.
She stares at me trying to figure me out. I’m just going to look on the other side of the room and hope she doesn’t notice I don’t belong here. The teacher collects the papers and tucks them away before moving the chalk board. There she quickly glances at all of the papers and chooses one out of the stack. What is she doing?
“Doug, is there a Doug here? I don’t recall a Doug being in this class. Where is Doug,” she asks.
Oh crap, I’m Doug. There is no Dough here lady. Drop the issue and teach your class this isn’t important. She keeps looking over the class trying to see who doesn’t belong here. She finds me and makes eye contact. I look down and away from her, hoping she drops the issue. Crap, everyone else is looking at me now. I can’t even sneak out of here now.
“Stand up Doug,” she said staring directly at me.
“My name is actually Kaiden,” I say looking at the wall above her head, instead of her.
“Why are you in my class Kaiden?”
“I wanted to learn about vampires.”
“In four years when you’re sixteen, you can learn all you want about vampires.”
“I actually am sixteen. I spent three years as a thrall or something like that, so my body didn’t age, so some people think I’m thirteen. But, that’s just a misunderstanding. We’re getting it all worked out. I should be here anyway,” brilliant. The best lie, is just the truth. I’ve got this in the bag.
She looks at me and thinks about it. I got her. A ball of paper hits me in the side of the head. The class starts laughing at me. That was so messed up. Another ball comes flying at me. Okay, I got the point with the first one. The second one was just to rub it in. Oh, the third one, got it. I know when I’m not wanted. I grab my backpack and start to make my way out of the room.
“Young man. You have a lot of determination and you probably have big dreams, but everything comes with time. In a few years, if you still believe, you can be phenomenal. The rest of you would do well to mimic his mindset,” the teacher says as I make my way outside.
I just need a chance to prove to everyone that I can be great. Nobody wants to give me a chance. What’s wrong with me? Why does nobody take me seriously? I can do this but nobody wants to help me. Maybe I just need to get some stakes and go kill vampires on my own. But how do I even find vampires?
I’m not even bothered by the rain. It just makes sense everything else wants to spit on me. Why not let nature do it too? At least there’s no cars to splash me around here. I just want to leave here, but I don’t have anywhere to go.
“Kaiden, boy why are you walking in the rain without a jacket or umbrella,” I hear Miss Dalia call out to me. I can’t finder her until she yells out “Up here, in my office,” she yells from a window a few floors off the ground.
“Hi Miss Dalia,” I wave back at her.
“Mother Dalia, and come inside for a cup of tea.”
“I don’t like tea, I’m just going to go get some sleep.”
“You’ll catch pneumonia out in the rain.”
“I’ll be fine, just a little rain,” I hear the thunder, so it might be a lot of rain coming.
“At least let me give you a jacket,” a jacket does sound nice.
“Sure, I’ll be right up.”
I climb the stairs to her office and the door is already open. She’s poured a cup of tea and is going through her closet. She didn’t pour a coup for me. Fair, I did say I didn’t like tea. But she did leave a few cookies out. I help myself to one. I love frosted sugar cookies. She couldn’t eat all these cookies herself anyway. Sugar isn’t good for old people, so I help myself to another.
“I was going to offer you some cookies, but it seems like you’ve helped yourself,” she returns holding a folded jacket.
“Sorry,” I gulp one down.
“No, you aren’t. I’ll make you some. Here’s a jacket. If you aren’t going to stay, at least get home before the storm gets worse.”
“I could stay and listen to more stories,” the jacket is way too big for me, but it is warm.
“Sure, how about a story about a young woman learning she can fly?”
“Is the story about you?”
“Yes,” she smiles.
“Can you really fly?”
“Yes, I can fly. Not like my younger days. It is more like levitation these days.”
“Okay, tell me the story.”
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