UNIC Designation: Pheonix
Quantum: 4
Miami, Florida, USA, April 23rd 1966 LWT (Local World Time – 27 Years behind Homeline)
Emilio Desousa watched the young 2nd grader enter the refectory.
The boy was immaculately dressed and clean and something about that bothered Emilio. It went against his own rebellious code of conduct.
The big (some might say overweight ) 4th grade boy tapped Jethro Luckett’s arm and once he had the boy’s attention, he nodded silently towards the younger lad.
Jethro, another boy of too many burgers gave the sort of sadistic grin someone might display while they quietly pulled the legs off of a spider.
The 2nd grade boy didn’t join the queue for lunch, he merely grabbed a couple of bananas from a fruit bowl, dropped some coins on the counter which the old woman behind the till accepted without counting, and then walked back out of the refectory again.
All around them children were sitting noisily chatting and eating their lunch and so Emilio and Jethro were able to leave the dining hall unnoticed.
Unnoticed that was, except for miss Harrison, the new second-grade tutor.
Caleb Mustenen was one of her quiet students, who sat somewhere in the middle of her classroom where he wouldn’t get caught up in the naughtier goings-on at the back of the class and where he wouldn’t gain the notice of the teacher by sitting at the front. Or so he thought.
Unfortunately Caleb had caught her attention because the answers he gave in both his verbal and written responses were both technically correct, no not correct – exact, and were intellectually mature beyond his seven years.
Yet he wasn’t just a bookish nerd either. Almost like he flicked a switch in his head he could go from swat to jock and back again.
Miss Harrison had, out of chance, watched Caleb enter and leave again and was about to turn back to her own lunch when she saw the other two boys cast furtive glances about the room before hurrying after Caleb.
Normally Miss Harrison wouldn’t make much of it, but Emilio Desousa had lost a brother in one of the first engagements of the war in Vietnam. Since then the boy had gone off the rails and was always in trouble.
With a sigh Miss Harrison followed in the wake of the three boys.
Caleb found Maggie sitting on her own in their classroom, finishing off the last mouthful of her sandwich.
The half-Finn, half-Israeli boy studied her from behind, watching the way her shoulders rose and fell, listening to her breathing, and noticed that her carrot coloured hair had darkened somewhat compared to how it had been a year ago.
Having finished her sandwich Maggie Shaw threw her lunchbox in her bag and turned for the door.
“Oh!” she said, startled. “What are you doing here?”
Caleb gave a sheepish grin. “You’re going to the sports-hall to practice gym, right?”
“Yeah, how did you know?”
Her head was cocked to one side and she seemed to be looking at him through only her right eye. It reminded Caleb of a flame coloured crow.
“You’ve been on about it all week and you think you won’t make the team.”
“Never said that!” Maggie pouted.
“No, but you think it.”
Maggie thought he sounded like her mother, always saying she knew what Maggie was thinking and it annoyed her, but somehow Cal always did seem to know exactly what was on her mind.
“Come on, I’ll help you practice,” he said.
She smiled her radiant smile and grabbed his hand, pulling him down the corridor.
“Hello?” Emilio Desousa whispered suspiciously as he and Jethro peered out of the third grade classroom door watching Caleb and Maggie rushing in the opposite direction.
“C’mon Jeth!” he said as he walked quickly in the younger kid’s wake.
Miss Harrison frowned as she looked down the two empty corridors. Damn!
Then she saw Caleb and Maggie Shaw cross the far end of the left-hand corridor, shortly followed by Emilio and Jethro.
She briskly followed.
The hall was dark and when Caleb flicked on the lights the two were greeted by a light wooden glossy floor, marked out for the school basketball team and surrounded by several tiers of seats. The hall was already laid out with mats and apparatus ready for the gym try-outs tomorrow.
Maggie gulped.
“I’ll get changed,” Maggie said rushing for the girl’s locker room.
Caleb hopped up onto the low beam and sat there, legs swinging while he ate his banana. “What you doing here, amigo?” Emilio barked in his best tough-guy voice.
Caleb was startled by the sudden noise and nearly lost his balance causing the two fourth-graders to laugh.
“What do you want, Emilio?” Caleb asked calmly as he jumped down from the beam. “I know who you are,” Cal shrugged in answer to Emilio’s quizzical look.
“You annoy me,” the Mexican boy said. “You’re too tidy! So me an’ my hombre here are going to scruff you up a bit. You dint ought to go round lookin’ so square!”
“Hey, where’s your girlfriend?” Jethro jeered. “You come here for some kissy-kissy?” he chuckled at his own joke.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Caleb blurted almost automatically and the statement annoyed him. It was a knee-jerk response and now he had a moment to analyse it he realised it came from a natural aversion, common to his peers, about having anything to do with girls.
Although only seven and far too young to be worrying about having a girlfriend, he decided that if he had to have one then he would want her to be like Maggie, and therefore, logically, he would be happy if Maggie was his girlfriend.
But either way, what the heck business was it of Jethro’s?
“Mind your own!” Caleb said annoyed.
“Ooooo! Check out the mighty wiener!” Jethro mocked, stepping back with a theatrical look of horror on his face.
“Go away, Maggie wants to practice her gym.”
“No one tells us to go away,” Emilio said and shoved Caleb in the chest.
The smaller boy fell backwards onto the mat.
“Jeth – rough him up a bit!”
Jethro lunged forward grabbing Caleb’s leg and dragging the boy along the floor.
Caleb tried to kick out at the older boy but his position on the floor made it difficult.
Jethro stopped as he dragged Caleb alongside Emilio.
The Mexican boy crouched down and grabbed Caleb’s crumpled shirt, popping some of the buttons.
“Hey!” a high pitched voice shrilled from the far end of the hall as Maggie Shaw, now dressed in her leotard ran across to help Caleb.
Jethro released the boy’s leg and rushed to intercept the girl.
He managed to grab her arm and then get his own arms around her, pinning her in a bear hug.
“Let me go!” Maggie screamed, kicking and wriggling.
“Hee, hee!” Emilio chuckled as he watched Jethro struggling to contain the little red-haired hell-cat.
Caleb scrambled to his feet.
“Get off her!” he yelled.
Emilio answered his shout by punching him in the stomach, then as Caleb doubled over he grabbed the back of his shirt and threw the boy to the floor before sitting on him.
Caleb grunted as the air was pushed from his lungs when the fat Mexican boy dropped all his weight on his back.
He struggled and fought but was pinned.
Emilio grabbed the boy by the hair and slammed his face into the green waffle-backed mat. “Sit still,” he barked tersely.
Maggie screamed as she flayed around.
“Shut her up, esse!” Emilio called and Jethro used his weight advantage to yank the girl into a position where he could get his hand across her mouth.
Caleb was struggling to breathe now. “Get off me, Emilio,” he hissed, but the older boy merely forced more of his weight down.
Then Cal spotted Maggie’s frightened face and something inside him broke loose like a lion suddenly released from a cage.
He snarled as he pushed himself upward off the mat enough to enable him to turn and get his arms into a more usable position. He remembered what his dada had said on his first day of school. “If someone starts picking on you, just hit them as hard as you can in the balls!”
So, despite the awkward angle, he did.
Emilio yelped and rolled off Caleb but the blow hadn’t been overly powerful and the Mexican recovered from the shock of it quickly.
“You little shit!” the boy swore as he grabbed the now standing Caleb by his collar and dragged him close enough to slap.
“Stop it! Get off me!” Caleb squeaked at Emilio but the boy just gave him another slap.
As his head turned from the blow Caleb saw Jethro holding onto Maggie and saw the tears on her cheeks and his anger flared again.
“Let her go, you asshole!” he growled trying to pull away from Emilio but the hefty ten year old was a lot stronger and had no problem holding on.
“Ouch!” Jethro suddenly yelped as he yanked his hand away from Maggie! “She bit me!” the boy said incredulously.
His face was screwed up in a mixture of pain and anger and he lashed out, striking Maggie a backhand across her face.
She went down with a shrill cry, tears pouring down her cheeks.
Caleb surged towards Jethro and almost pulled Emilio over but the bigger boy yanked him back by his collar like he was a dog being brought to heel.
“Get off!” Caleb roared at his captor, his anger at boiling point and as he said the words he felt that anger solidify and take form inside him as some enormous force. That force was suddenly expelled from his body in an almighty whoosh, and Emilio was plucked from the floor like an ant being brushed aside.
**
Where had those boys gone? Miss Harrison regretted being new to the school and not having bothered to find her way around every part of the building. All right, it was quite a big building, but not that big! She’d kept up with them and then the boys had just vanished. She had doubled back on herself and checked all the classrooms and even gone outside but there was no sign of any of them.
Then, just as the tall, slender brunette was about to head back to the hall for her lunch she heard a muffled scream.
She instantly turned for the corridor to her right. It was deceptive as the passageway appeared to continue on to the door at the end, but in truth there was a wall which could be walked around to gain entrance to the sports hall and the entrance was hidden from here.
Miss Harrison yanked the sports hall doors open and what she saw took her breath away.
Caleb Mustenen roared at Emilio Desousa and the boy was thrown across the room where he crashed into the upper row of seating with a resounding crunch and lay motionless seemingly folded in half across the seat-back.
Miss Harrison stood, mouth agape and eyes wide in bewilderment and terror.
Caleb Mustenen didn’t know how, but he knew he’d just willed that to happen. There was a savage look on his face, completely unbefitting a seven year old boy as he turned to face Jethro and reached out as though to grab him by the throat. Although more than thirty feet away Jethro choaked and grasped at his own throat and began to struggle for breath. Then, with a slight movement of his hand Caleb lifted Jethro off the ground.
He rose, feet flailing uselessly as some unseen power tightened like a noose on his neck, causing his eyes to bulge and his face to turn a strange shade of puse.
Finally her voice came back to her. “CALEB!” Miss Harrison screamed furiously.
Caleb’s concentration broke and Jethro fell almost twelve feet back to the soft gymnastics mat where he lay gasping for breath and shaking with shock.
Caleb looked horrified and blinked rapidly looking first at Miss Harrison who was rushing towards Emilio and then at Maggie who was staring blankly, like a startled rabbit caught in the headlights.
Caleb deflated ashamedly and burst into tears, running to hide behind the vaulting box.