“We gotta talk!”
Mike appeared to the side of Darren’s locker like he’d suddenly risen out of the ground.
“What about?” Darren scanned the crush of students in the hallway for any sign of Samantha.
“You know all that spooky stuff you thought Samantha was up to?”
“Yeah.” Darren nodded, now focusing on Mike.
“Yesterday, I hung out with Serena, the new girl.”
“Oh, how’d that go?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” Mike regarded the mass of students like he was looking for someone. “Serena did some real freaky stuff yesterday. I swear she controlled the basketball.”
“That’s not necessarily freaky. Maybe she’s just a natural.”
“No, not like she was a good ball handler; I mean she made it move, without touching it. There’s something real freaky about her.”
Darren stared hard at Mike; he didn’t look so good, like he hadn’t gotten much sleep last night, either. A horrible thought occurred to him. “Mike, she might be a witch, too. You’ve got to stay away from her!”
“A witch?” Mike wrinkled his brow, considering this. “Magic…that’s what it seemed like. But a witch? Uh, Dare, that sounds pretty… whacked out.”
“Mike, I’ve seen some real serious stuff.” Darren shut his locker and motioned for Mike to follow him to an empty alcove that led to an exit. “I don’t know how to explain it all. I followed Samantha home yesterday and peered inside her window.”
Mike pursed his lips, and his brows lifted in surprise. “Normally, I’d say something pithy right now, but this time, I’ll let it go.”
“She lives with her aunt. And, in their kitchen, the old lady was working around a cauldron. I am not kidding. It was boiling and bubbling, and she did some spell thing. Then, Samantha did her own spell that summoned her mother, and I heard her voice talk out of thin air. And she sounded eerie, like—well, like a wicked witch. I mean, totally evil. It was like a bad dream. Her voice made the house shake. But that’s not the really scary part.
“Then Samantha made these black stones fly through the air from her basement. Her aunt had her place one on the kitchen island, and all this creepy stuff came out of it. It was like watching a 3-D movie playing in the air above the kitchen island. There was this scary dude in a black robe and cape, and he called up a demon, and the demon talked about this prophecy, and finally he said something about the ‘Warder at the window.’ And that was me!”
Mike eyed him. “Okay, you sound totally nuts! You realize that, right? And what is a Warder?”
“I swear it all happened. I saw Samantha floating during the basketball game because I’m a Warder. Apparently, I have a long history of them in my family. Because I’m a Warder I can see through some spells witches cast. It’s like they don’t completely work on me; but some do, like the bewitchment.”
“Wait, slow down, Darren.”
The late bell for first period rang. They glanced about, finding themselves alone in the hall.
“That’s why you’ve got to stay away from Serena if she’s a witch; and that’s why I’ve got to stay away from Samantha. Last night Atavus had to undo the bewitchment on me.”
“Atavus?” Mike shook his head. “Your crazy grandfather is involved in all this? I should’ve known. Darren, you’re screwin’ with me. This is all a big joke to you! Very funny.”
“I’m not screwing with you, Mike. Atavus is a Pessum Ire, too.”
“Back it up for a second. You’re going too fast for me. Let’s say you’re not screwin’ with me. What is a Pessum Ire?” Mike scrubbed a palm across his forehead.
“The reason Atavus knows all this stuff is because he’s hundreds of years old. All his stories we’ve listened to are his real past experiences, or based on them. A Pessum Ire is a Warder; they’re the same thing. As a Pessum Ire, or Warder, we can ward off the spells of witches. And our mission is to kill witches…with fire.”
“Darren, you’re really freaking me out! You sound crazy! None of what you’re saying can be true. Look, all I saw her do was make some unexplainable shots. But witchcraft? That’s Tiffany Epiphany’s domain. Atavus has finally broken you; that’s all. And me, I’m just confused.”
Mike stomped off down the empty hall toward their first period class. Darren followed him. Mike continued to rant over his shoulder. “There’s some explanation for what she did with the ball. It certainly wasn’t witchcraft. I can’t believe you’d suddenly say all this is explained by magic. Your grandpa’s crazy! And so are you!”
Mike stopped, turned, and stared at Darren. Neither one said anything for a few seconds. Darren could see the doubt creep across Mike’s face. Mike stepped toward him. “You really believe all this crap, don’t you?”
Darren grabbed his friend’s arm. “It hasn’t been easy, but I’ve seen too much. There’s something going on around here. Atavus has this ancient knife that was used by the Romans when they did human sacrifices. This one, however, belonged to a warlock named Stybyx, and he enchanted it with this power to detect when someone’s been bewitched. If you’re bewitched, a witch can make you do stuff and you don’t even know you’re doing it. My blood came out green, so Atavus had to cure me.”
“Uh-huh. Don’t tell me, he sprinkled salt on you?”
“No,” Darren insisted. “I’m serious. He had all this weird stuff inside a duffle bag.” He stopped, realizing Mike wasn’t listening. “Okay, then how do you explain the stuff you saw with Serena?”
“I don’t know, but it wasn’t witchcraft. There’s some way she did it; some Jamaican voodoo maybe, but it wasn’t witchcraft. And your grandfather isn’t hundreds of years old.”
They stood outside their first period classroom. Mr. Whitmore’s slight British accent carried outside the room. He glanced at them through the glass in the door and motioned for them to come in.
Ignoring the teacher, Mike said, “She did something to one of my shots as well. Somehow, she did something.”
They opened the door and went to their seats. Darren knew Mike was teetering. He was beginning to actually consider witchcraft was somehow behind all this. Darren knew how he felt. It had been difficult for him to accept as well. Mike needed time. He’d be forced into believing it just as Darren had.
This was a new wrinkle, this new girl, Serena, also being a witch. That compounded Darren’s problems. Atavus would expect him to kill her, too. His world was turning into a slasher movie, and he was the one wielding the chainsaw.
These thoughts tormented him for several minutes before he realized Samantha was sitting in front of him. She mouthed, “Hi,” as he sat in his seat, and he gave her a little wave before he realized what he was doing.
Mr. Whitmore had been speaking to him for several moments before Darren began to hear what he was saying. “You’ll be missing enough school next week, boys; you don’t need to miss any of my class today. Now, as I was saying, the group oral reports on The Crucible will be on Monday and Tuesday. I doubt I’ll have enough of you in class on Wednesday to make it worth extending out that far. You all know the due date. Be prepared, because this assignment is going to make up a large percentage of your grade. I’m going to give you twenty minutes this morning to work with your partners to go over your plans; you can finish them up over the weekend. All right, you may begin.”
Samantha turned around and faced Darren, her beautiful green eyes alight with excitement. “We’ve got to get started. We haven’t done a thing. Do you have anything in mind?”
“No,” Darren said, keeping as close to the back of his chair as he could.
“I think we should maybe run with the science vs. religion angle I brought up the other day. What do you think?”
“Sounds good,” Darren agreed. “But how do we do that as an oral presentation? Just get up there and mention a lot of facts that show we have faith in science, like you did the other day?”
“Not exactly.” She smiled, and he could feel his mental shield shattering. She couldn’t be evil. There was no way. No one was that good an actress. Had she bewitched him again? No, she couldn’t have. She wasn’t touching him.
“I was thinking we make a poster. We use global warming as the example since we can pull evidence from the 70’s when the leading scientists of the day thought we were heading into a global ice-age. We contrast those two, using newspaper clippings and paste them on the poster. Then, we put together an oral presentation explaining all this and how we react with faith in our beliefs, just as the people at the time of The Crucible. Then, we point out how people make mistakes in their interpretation of supposed truth. Finally, we point out that for centuries, people have believed in witches and that witches have always been antithetical to God.”
“You’ve been giving this a lot of thought. What is antithetical, by the way?”
Samantha laughed. “In opposition to.” She playfully slapped him on the arm.
Darren recoiled with an involuntary “Ah!”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I mean, probably nothing.”
“You’re not getting like the other day are you? You were acting kind of weird yesterday.”
“No. It’s just Andrea and I had this long talk last night, and when you touched me…oh, never mind.”
“You mean this?” She stroked his arm again, only this time letting her touch linger as she walked her fingers up and down his arm. “Don’t tell me she’d be upset by this?”
“No, of course not.” Darren caught Mike giving him a curious look.
Samantha turned forward in her seat and began scribbling something down on a notepad. She turned back toward Darren and handed him the slip of paper. “This is my address and phone number. Come by this afternoon, and we can work on the poster and exactly what we’re going to say in the report and decide who does what. Okay?”
“Sure, what time?”
“Is four okay?”
“Yeah, only, I have a date with Andrea tonight. How long do you think it will take?”
“Oh, I don’t think it will take us all night. What time is your date?”
“I’ll tell her I’ll pick her up at seven. That should give us enough time, don’t you think?”
“That should be perfect.” Her eyes sparkled. “It’s a date.” Her cheeks flushed. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
Darren chuckled a little. “I know what you meant. It is a date, only not one of those kinds of dates.”
“Yeah,” Samantha agreed and quickly turned back around in her seat.
Darren got up and moved to an empty desk by Mike and Travis. “How’s yours coming?”
“It’s coming,” Mike replied. “Travis had this idea about doing a PowerPoint presentation showing all the superstitious things we do today. You know, like Friday the 13th, and not walking under ladders, and avoiding black cats, and how we even make movies about them. It’s not a bad idea.”
“Yeah,” Travis added. “My folks have a digital camera, and we can take pictures, or get some off the Internet and talk about how we’re just as superstitious as they were back in the sixteenth century. I was even thinking about going to a gypsy or calling one of those 1-800 numbers for a psychic reading.” Travis turned back to Mike. “You know what else we should include? Horoscopes. We can get one out of the paper and talk about how people always read those.”
“Yeah, why don’t we include that, too?” Mike said with mock sincerity. “And while we’re at it, why don’t we throw in a black hat with a rabbit climbing out of it.”
“Mike.” Darren grabbed his arm.
Mike pinched the bridge of his nose like he was trying to ward off a headache. He breathed hard. “Okay, Travis, you’re the man. Just get that thing put together, and we’ll talk on Monday about who says what, okay?”
“All right. But stop treating me like crap. I’m trying to do a good job.”
“Ahhh,” Mike groaned. He put a hand on Travis’s shoulder. “Sorry, I’m having a bad day. It is a good idea. Do you want me to do anything?”
“Nah. I can throw it together like you said. Don’t worry about it.”
“Thanks, Travis.”
Darren nodded toward the back of the room, and Mike followed. Grimacing, he asked, “More witch stuff?”
“I’m going over to Samantha’s tonight to work on our assignment.”
“Look, I’m not sure what I think about this witchcraft stuff, okay? Let’s say I have an open mind about it. Let’s pretend Atavus knows what he’s talking about. How do you know if you’ve been bewitched?”
“I don’t think you can know. He had to cut my palm with this special knife.” He held out his left hand where a small gauze pad was taped. He lifted the pad slowly and showed Mike the cut beneath.
“Good grief, Darren! Your grandfather doesn’t screw around when he’s screwing around.”
“You should have seen the blade,” Darren said. “My blood was greenish and yellow. That’s how he knew I’d been bewitched. He put this powder on it to remove the spell.”
Mike shook his head. “This still sounds crazy. Magic knives and magic powders; girls that are witches. Give me time to adjust to this.”
“I know how you feel. I still have trouble with it.”
“So, what prevents Samantha from putting the evil eye back on you tonight?” Mike asked.
“Atavus says witches can do it through a smell or a touch or if they give you something to eat or drink. The spell could be done with any of it.”
“Well that doesn’t give you much wiggle room. How do you avoid all that?”
“I don’t know.” Darren rubbed his arm. “She already touched me a second ago. I’ll probably have to have Atavus cut into my other hand tonight to find out. This whole thing is so freaky. I keep thinking Samantha’s really nice. She doesn’t seem like a witch.” He looked over at her; she was talking with Maddy, the girl who sat in front of her.
“Neither does Serena.”
“And if she is a witch,” Darren continued, “isn’t it possible she’s a good witch?”
“A good witch? Like Glynda?”
Darren laughed, picturing the happy, sparkling witch floating around in a bubble from The Wizard of Oz. Mike chuckled, too. Their goofy laughter didn’t stop until the whole class was looking at them like they were idiots. Finally, Mr. Whitmore had to say, “You two! Cut it out!”
***
After the cathartic release of tension in first period, Darren decided he wasn’t going to be afraid of Samantha anymore. If she was a witch, she hadn’t shown any signs of doing him harm. And from what he could tell after spying on her at home, it seemed like she was against the other witches—the dangerous ones, like her mom. There was nothing to worry about. And what if she had bewitched him? What was he going to tell her? What did he have that she would want? He didn’t know anything. And if she was making him do things he didn’t know about, it was pointless to worry about it because he didn’t know about it. There didn’t seem to be any gaps during his day where time went missing. No, whatever reason she had for bewitching him, it seemed pointless to let it bother him.
Just the same, when the bell rang for him to go to lunch, he ran outside and used his cell phone to call home. He told Atavus about Samantha touching his arm. His grandfather told him not to worry. The powder he’d used on his hand to counteract the bewitchment also made it impossible for a witch to bewitch him again for a lunar cycle—somewhere around a month. Still, Atavus was adamant that Darren keep his distance. She may not be able to bewitch him again for a while, but there were plenty of other nasty horrible spells witches could cast.
Feeling better, Darren met up with his friends at their table in the lunchroom. Andrea was there, with Lindsey and Sandy. She had saved him a seat next to her. Samantha joined them and started up a conversation with T.J. Mike was missing, which worried Darren a bit.
“Where’s big, black, and hunky?” Darren asked Andrea, squeezing her leg under the table.
She rolled her eyes. “Who cares?”
“I think I know,” Lindsey muttered.
T.J. explained. “She’s not too happy because Mike headed to the Commons after grabbing his lunch. We think he’s got a little rendezvous with you-know-who.” Tony reached over, and he and T.J shared a fist bump.
Andrea eyed Darren. “There’s something different about you.”
Darren smiled, wondering if she suspected his homework date with Samantha tonight. Was he acting differently? He forced himself not to glance in Samantha’s direction, but somehow he knew Samantha was smiling at him. “I hope it’s something good.”
Andrea smiled uncertainly as she observed Samantha talking with Tony and T.J. “Darren,” she turned his face toward hers. “Kiss me.”
“What?” He looked around. Sure enough the rest of his table locked in on the two of them. “Right here, right now?”
She didn’t answer, she simply moved in and kissed him, and he kissed her back. It was long and lingering, and she didn’t let him go until the whistling at the table drove them apart.
Red-faced Darren didn’t quite know what to say. “Thanks.” He laughed, embarrassed.
At first Andrea looked confused, but her face quickly brightened into a glorious smile. “I needed that.” With a smug look of triumph, she glanced over at Samantha. She then turned her attention to Lindsey and Sandy whose mouths were still open. “Let’s go. We have to set up those images in the Commons before lunch is over.” To Lindsey she added, “We can also check on Mike and see what he’s up to.”
The girls gathered their lunch remains and swept out of the room, Lindsey moving the quickest.
T.J. said, “That was something.”
Tony followed it up with, “Somebody marking her turf?”
Shelley, who’d been quietly watching these events while sitting next to Seth, broke in with, “Of course she’s marking her turf!” She glared at Samantha. “She can’t be sure who’s inconsiderate enough to move in on Darren, not that there’s anyone who could give her any real competition.” She stood up and huffed out of the room. Seth watched her go, but stayed in his seat.
Once Shelley was gone, Samantha got up, walked around to Darren’s side of the table, and took Andrea’s empty seat. She leaned in close to Darren’s ear and whispered, “See you after school. The competition will be waiting for you.” She kissed him on the cheek. Standing up, she blew a kiss to the rest of the boys at the table. As one, they turned and watched Samantha leave the lunchroom.
***
Just before lunch, Mike found a note in his pocket. He didn’t want to add any more weight to Darren’s wacky notions that Serena was actually a witch, but how the note got into his pocket was a mystery. He hadn’t seen Serena today and wouldn’t until lunch. It was possible someone else had slipped the note into his pocket for her, but he didn’t see how. No one had been close to him; no one had “accidentally” bumped into him and been able to slide the note into his pocket. Yet, there was a note from Serena in his pocket that magically appeared there.
He wasn’t sure how girls managed to make their notepaper smell all girly, but Serena had done that too, using some sort of magic familiar to all girls. She’d written it in one of those old fashion styles with the beautiful arcs and swoops to the letters. It was so fancy it took him a little while to decipher what it said.
Dearest Michael,
My speech may be difficult to understand, but I have been carefully educated in writing. Please meet me for lunch this afternoon in the Commons. I shall await you at the table in the back by the vending machines.
I look forward to our meeting and hope that your anticipation matches my own.
Serena
He quickly took his lunch to the Commons, which was crawling with students at this time of day. He felt pretty good decked out in his favorite black t-shirt, layered with a gray striped pullover and his black leather jacket.
He wasn’t surprised—but was extremely annoyed—to find Serena at a table surrounded by no less than eight guys, all vying for her attention. He knew a couple of the football players, like Todd Deville and David Strathmore. They were jerks in his opinion, but they were loved at school because of their successful turns on the football field. Of course Todd would be interested in Serena. When it came to girls, he was a dog. Okay, perhaps I’m a bit of a dog myself, Mike thought, but I’m a nice little dog. Todd’s a creepy slobbering hound.
Mike breathed in deeply, squared his shoulders, and elbowed past the throng of would-be boyfriends. He stopped in front of the table and looked down at Serena.
All conversation stopped. Serena looked straight into Mike’s eyes. Two of the would-be suitors attempted to regain her interest, but she merely nodded without any real response. She smiled slightly and tipped her head to one side as she continued gazing at Mike. He smiled back, and for a moment, it was as if the Commons were empty except for the two of them.
“Conklin, I thought you usually ate with the other dribblers in the lunchroom.” Todd Deville was big, and his young face was angular and broad. He grimaced at Mike in a way that conveyed contempt as well as menace. It was clear he was telling Mike to back off.
“Yep, that’s usually where I eat.” Mike’s attention remained on Serena.
Deville looked at Mike and then at Serena. A snarl formed on his face. He pushed Mike to one side. “Why don’t you head back there and finish eating?”
The others who’d had an initial interest in Serena suddenly realized the competition had been whittled down to these two. They stepped back from the table to give them room. They didn’t move far, however, since they could smell the blood in the water. An inevitable confrontation was about to take place. Others began drifting in their direction as well; the tension between them drawing onlookers like free ice cream in the lunchroom.
Todd was a big kid, and Mike had learned in his martial arts training that it was always best to defuse potential violence before engaging in it. He looked at the football player’s ham-sized fists and considered the wisdom of that advice. Humor had always worked for him in the past, and he decided it was the best way to let the air out of the tension between the two of them. “I’d heard somebody was down here being ugly,” Mike said, “but I had no idea how out of control the ugliness had gotten.” To heck with defusing the anger!
Todd violently pushed aside a chair between him and Mike, making it grind loudly across the tile floor before hitting the wall where it loudly clattered and banged against the brick. The effect this had in the big open area was much like a table being knocked over in an old western barroom before a brawl breaks out. The entire Commons came to a halt, and all eyes focused on the drama taking place at the back of the room.
Andrea, Lindsey, and Shelley had just arrived in the Commons in time to witness the chair crack against the wall.
Mike put his hands up defensively. “Hey, I didn’t say it was you, big guy. I don’t want any trouble.” He took a step back as Deville advanced. Unfortunately, his pride got the better of him, and he added, “And let’s face it, neither do you.”
Mike was ready for the blow as soon as the synapse in Deville’s brain fired the message to his arm. He backed up and spun, just as Deville’s fist flew forward. He moved so quickly it made Deville look like a lumbering giant unable to catch a quick-footed Jack running about his feet with a bag of stolen gold. This would have been humiliating enough to the large all-state linebacker, but Mike had used his own spinning momentum to bring himself alongside the moving hulk and push him in the back, so Deville collided with two of the other suitors in an awkward two-step that sent all three to the ground in a clump of arms and legs.
By now the onlookers had moved in, forming a circle around the action. Some chuckled at the way Mike had outsmarted Deville. Others looked afraid to make a noise as they waited for the linebacker’s response. Either way, adrenaline not only flooded both combatants but the spectators as well.
Like a bell going off, the thought rang in Mike’s head that a fight would get him thrown off the basketball team right before the state finals. Quickly, he re-thought his strategy. He moved toward the fallen heroes, extending his right hand. “Dude, let’s just call it good. Let me help you up.”
Despite Mike’s cordial tone and sincere attempt at reconciliation, Deville was having none of it. He staggered to his feet and charged at him, growling threats peppered with foul language.
This time, he came in low for a football tackle. He crashed into Mike’s midsection so quickly Mike couldn’t side-step the move. But he did manage to drop so Deville made contact with Mike’s chest. Mike grabbed him by the shoulders, rolled on his back into a backward summersault, and pushed upward with his legs, this time using Deville’s momentum to launch the football player up and over his head. This sent the linebacker crashing into a couple of chairs that had been quickly vacated by their occupants who had seen the awkward mass hurtling in their direction.
The crush of students moved in closer to the fight. So far this was proving to be exceptional entertainment. Deville staggered to his feet again. This time his lip was puffy and bleeding, and there was a cut across his eyebrow that was already swelling up.
David Strathmore, Deville’s fellow football player who’d also been showing interest in Serena, had had enough. He wasn’t going to let his friend, nor the football team, be embarrassed like this in front of the school. He moved toward Mike with the intent of taking him out from behind. The noise of the crowd got louder as Strathmore snuck up on Mike.
Mike only saw the determined hulk of Deville move toward him for a third attack. “Dude, it’s all good. You win okay?” He stuck his hand out again, hoping against hope that the large tackler would accept the proverbial olive branch. But Mike’s attempt only served to inflame him more. Deville picked up a chair, raising it over his head, intending to bring it down on Mike.
“Dude!” Mike exclaimed. He was already wondering if he could move fast enough to sweep Deville’s leg and bring him down without the chair catching him in the head. On the balls of his feet, he bounced for timing and spun.
But things did not go as planned, not even close. He didn’t move down or advance forward as he should have. The only part of his move that went off according to plan was that his leg swung around in a beautiful roundhouse, which if it had connected with Deville’s head, would have brought him down like a sack of bricks. But he wasn’t close enough for that to happen. Instead, his spinning leg crossed in front of Deville in time to catch hold of the chair as Deville was bringing it down. Mike’s foot caught hold of the chair and ripped it from Deville’s hands. Mike’s inertia turned him completely around, along with the chair on his foot, which collided nicely with David Strathmore’s head. Instead of Deville, it was Strathmore who fell like a sack of bricks.
The spectators went bonkers. “Whoa!” and “Yeah!” erupted from the growing group. Many even applauded. Mike shook the chair off his foot and dropped down beside the fallen football player. Strathmore’s eyes were blinking in reaction to the blow to his head.
Suspicious about the feeling of being controlled by a force other than himself, Mike glanced over at Serena. She was beaming at him, her hero as it were, but when Mike’s eyes lit on hers, she brushed at her nose and looked down in guilty admission.
“Get to class!” Julander’s voice boomed through the group of spectators. The end of lunch bell had rung during the scuffle, but everyone had ignored it. Now, students flew in all directions down halls and into adjoining classrooms. Through the thinning crowd, Mike saw Julander lumbering toward him, red faced and puffing like an overweight, out-of-shape juggernaut of administrative justice.
“You!” he barked at Deville, whose fat lip bled guiltily down his chin. He turned on Mike. “And you! My office! Now!”
Several teachers and an office secretary quickly appeared and began ministering to Strathmore, who staggered to his feet and allowed himself to be led away. Mike and Deville followed the vice-principal who plodded toward the office, knowing his charges would be in tow without having to turn around and check.
Mike glanced back at Serena, one of the few students brave enough to still be loitering in the Commons. She looked sympathetically at him and bit her bottom lip. Suddenly, she sprinted toward him. Mike stopped in time for her to catch him around the neck and kiss him hard on the mouth. A very pleasant shock flowed through him from head to foot. He’d heard of people describing a kiss like it was fireworks going off, and sure enough it was true. She lingered for quite some time, enjoying his lips as much as he was enjoying hers. All at once the prospect of an hour in Julander’s office and being kicked off the basketball team seemed like a fair price for a moment like this.
“Give me a break!” Deville complained, watching the couple behind him kissing.
This exclamation brought Julander around like the hull of a destroyer rocked by a tidal wave. His eyes blazed, his purple face beading sweat like an overripe fruit being squeezed. “Conklin!”
“Aberrato Sensa,” Serena whispered against Mike’s cheek and motioned around his neck, her index and middle fingers extended toward the football player and the vice-principal.
Immediately, Julander’s bluster seeped out of him like air from a balloon. Even his color faded from purple, to red, to pink, and finally to pasty-white. He looked at them as if he had just walked on stage but forgotten his lines. Flustered, he locked on Mike and Serena, still in each other’s arms and said, “Break it up, you two! And get to class!” Seeing Todd standing a few feet from him like a bump-on-a-log he added, “Deville! What are you doing in the hall? You get to class, too!” He glanced down at his watch. “You’re all late!” He grunted with satisfaction, turned around, and marched off toward the office like he had important business to attend to.
Mike gazed into the eyes of the beauty next to him. “How did you do that?”
Serena smiled, and in a voice completely devoid of a Jamaican accent said, “I wish you would have arrived sooner. We could have avoided all this.”