Number two! Alex is my child. :''''(
Find the Whole World Gone Insane
Kaleidoscope of Spies #2
[April 2001]
"Can anyone give me the solution to number fourteen? No one? Alex, how about you?"
Alex Rider was staring at his desk. Someone had carved T + S into the wood, and later tried to scratch it away. Bad breakup, he figured.
"Alex? Alex. Alex!"
"Hey, Rider!" The guy behind him flicked a wad of paper at the back of his neck.
Alex's head shot up, eyes suddenly attentive. "Yes, Mr. Donovan?"
The teacher sighed. "Problem fourteen. Solve for y."
"Um. Nine, sir," he answered, glancing briefly at his already completed worksheet. Alex's answer was correct, of course, and Mr. Donovan, the math teacher, moved on with a nod. Alex went back to staring at random things distractedly, and found his gaze drawn to his teacher.
Mr. Theodore or Ted Donovan was a man with close-cropped brown hair, an average height, and a bland, vaguely forgettable face. He was a little stocky, but not heavy enough to be unhealthy. Mr. Donovan wasn't exactly a sort of standout person, but was a fairly good math teacher. He did have tendency to volunteer inattentive students to answer questions, though, which lead to many embarrassing situations for teens in his class.
But nagging Alex in the back of his mind was the feeling that he had seen Mr. Donovan somewhere very recently—somewhere outside of school, and hadn't really recognized him. He had never liked seeing teachers outside of school. They just seemed out of place for some reason. He had probably seen Mr. Donovan at the shops, buying groceries or something, Alex rationalized, and the matter faded to the back of his mind.
Just a few minutes later, the final bell rang—math was the last class of his day—and students began flooding out of the classrooms into the halls of Brookland Comprehensive. Alex took his time packing up his papers and books, loitering as long as he could in order to avoid the Friday afterschool rush.
"So, Alex. I happened to notice that you were distracted during class today." Mr. Donovan mentioned. The math teacher was the only person left in the room, and was gathering up his own papers, including those of the last quizzes, for grading.
"Yeah, I guess. Sorry," Alex apologized half-heartedly, swinging his backpack onto his shoulders.
"That wouldn't have anything to do with your absence from school earlier this month, would it?" The teacher asked casually. "I could get you a counselor if you're having trouble."
Alex paused in the midst of shoving his pencils into his backpack for half a second before continuing as if nothing had happened. "Of course not. I'm fine, thanks. I was just thinking that…well, I'd seen you somewhere recently, that's all."
"Oh, that's nice," Mr. Donovan commented uninterestedly. "I wonder if you know, Alex, that I only work here as a teacher part-time? I'm on reserve, doing some special observation work for my other job, but I'm going back soon, fulltime. They won't need me here anymore. I'd like to tell you that it's been a pleasure teaching you, Alex. I'll follow your career with much interest."
Alex forced his confused look into a half genuine smile, standing awkwardly at the door. "Thanks, Mr. Donovan. Good luck."
The teacher waved his dismissal genially. "See you soon, Alex."
It wasn't until Alex was halfway home on his bike that he realized where it was he had recognized Mr. Donovan from. He had brief recollection of the teacher ducking hurriedly around a corner. Alex had been surrounded by a group of anonymous other people. They were dressed mostly in black or dark colors. Where had he been?
And then he realized it. He had been in a lift—specifically, the lift to take him from the ground floor of the Royal and General Bank to the floor where Blunt's office resided. The lift doors had opened before Alex's floor, two men and a woman had exited, and Alex had caught just a glimpse of a familiar face coming around a corner towards him, noticing him, and then quickly turning to move away from the edge of his vision.
Mr. Donovan hadn't wanted to be seen. He hadn't wanted Alex to recognize him in the halls of the Bank.
Alex turned a corner off the main road, put on the brakes and stopped in the middle of a walkers' bridge arching over a small stream. It was made of wood, and was meant to be smooth, but it seemed someone had recently dumped a few loads of multi-colored pebbles over it; possibly to dissuade bikers like Alex from using it. It didn't matter; he wasn't going fast.
Alex picked up a pebble and leaned against the rickety railing, staring down at the burbling water below. It was clear. The stream wasn't very deep, maybe only half a meter. The bottom was lined with mostly bland gray stones.
He turned the pebble over in his fingers, looking at its two sides. One was much darker, striped with tiny veins or dark red stone. The other side gave way to simple, grey rock not unlike that in the streambed. Alex sighed and flicked the small rock into the water. It landed grey side up. It lay there for a few moments before the current caught on the slight disturbance in the water and sent it tumbling along for a few feet. It found a pebble-sized groove to stick in and abruptly stopped dark side up.
Alex turned away, grimacing at the thought of a pebble in a stream becoming a metaphor for his life. It was more than a little bit pathetic.
Mr. Donovan, the plain, ordinary math teacher, had landed grey side up in Alex's life. For more than three years, he had pretended to be nothing more than a teacher at Brookland. Normal. And then the current that was MI6 had come along to turn Alex's life upside down, and suddenly the Mr. Donovan pebble had flipped over, pushed by the current, to reveal that it had an unexpected darker side.
"I'm going back soon. They won't need me here anymore."
What had that meant?
The entire train of thought was crazy and stupid. It didn't really fit, Alex decided, hopping back onto his bike and slowly continuing on the ride home. The metaphor was absolutely insane.
But apparently so was the world.
On second thought, maybe it fit pretty well, after all.