Chapter 1 of Between Good and Evil by tOon - The Strange Man
"Ms. Ramlal, could you please endeavor your attention to the chalkboard and answer this for me?" came the Caribbean-accented voice of Mrs. Orkeson.
Talia was looking out the window, she had been daydreaming again, it was a good one; She had been famous; she was walking down a red carpet in a sparkling gown, the reporters and photographers flashing cameras in her direction, her fans screaming her name begging for autographs, and her arm in a lock with a Tom-Cruise-Look-alike. Oh how she wished it to be real…
"Ms. Ramlal?"
"Oh, Sorry, yes I can…" She said rather nervously, she didn't usually get in trouble with teachers like that. It may have not been very significant to the teacher, but every time she got caught staring mindlessly out a window, or not paying attention in class, it felt like a stab in the back. She was always on the top of her class (Most of her classes) and wanted to keep that record.
She glanced warily toward the large chalkboard. There was a pyramid of numbers, multiplication, addition, subtraction, and division signs. She studied it, thinking she would definitely not think of the answer in time. She continued to stare when it just came to her.
"42?" she asked, half knowing that that was a complete random guess, half knowing that that was the correct answer.
"Beautiful. Now please tell the class how you got that." Mrs. Orkeson said, with a slight look of satisfaction on her face knowing that Talia wasn't paying attention and will have to pay for her actions.
Talia looked down at her notebook, it was blank, and she expected she should have been taking notes. She felt that unpleasant feeling in her stomach again, she always felt it when she was going to get in deep trouble. She couldn't just say 'It just popped into my head'. She glanced back at her teacher, feeling horrible, but suddenly she felt words protruding from her mouth, and she didn't know how they got there.
"Well, 4 multiplied by 3 is 12, divided by 6 is 2. 2 to the 10th power is 1024, divided by 6 again is 256. 256 plus 4 is 260, minus 60 is 200, and divided by 8 is 25. 25 divided by 5 is 5. 5 plus 1 is 6. 6 multiplied by 7 is then… 42."
The class stared at her, she would have been staring at herself too. She couldn't even believe she did that. She half expected that to happen, because she was somewhat used to unusual, unexplainable things happening. She had no idea why. Mrs. Orkeson stared at her for a moment, a look of slight shock on her face, then put her hands to her hips and yelled to the class "Well why aren't you taking notes?!"
The bell finally rang. Talia gathered her belongings, and her pencil fell clumsily to the floor with a slight clatter. She sighed and reached downward to pick, except that it wasn't there. She looked up and felt her face heat up. Ted, Ted Williams, the cutest boy in all of the 7th grade had picked it up and was holding it out in front of her, smiling. She smiled back. Finally finding her voice, she croaked "Thank you" and took the pencil in her hand. Ted got up and returned to the doorway out into the busy hall. Talia resumed her position toward the door, then she felt someone prod her back, hard.
"You little, lucky, …I-don't-know-what-to-call-you"
Talia turned around.
"Hey, Steph, who are you sitting with at lunch today?" she said casually, and smiling.
"Oh my god, don't you even realize, who…who.. he gave you your pencil back!!"
"I know," Talia replied, smiling even more as she and her best friend walked into the hallway. The moment they stepped into it, there was a burst of loud, talkative voices everywhere, and the opening and shutting sound of lockers.
"And boy were you lucky when you looked over Tammy's shoulder, I saw you, you copied everything she had down."
"No I didn't! I just knew… I …I took notes!"
"Great notes, your name and date must have helped a lot," said Steph, grabbing the page out of her notebook and showing it to her.
"Give that back!" Talia said, trying to grab it; Steph was holding it way over her head.
"Why do you want it anyways? There's nothing on it!" Steph replied, handing it back.
"I'm starting a blank paper collection."
"Ha-ha," Steph replied sarcastically.
Her best friend, Steph, was of course taller than her, much taller, almost the tallest in the grade. She had light brown, short, full hair. She was always so happy, it seemed like nothing could make her upset. Anyways, Talia hated to see her upset. Steph was always there for her, as she was there for Steph.
"See yah at lunch!" cried Talia while waving energetically at the retreating back which was Steph. Crowds of other loud-talking students passed in the hallway, scurrying this way and that like rats. The school was always so small, too small for the over populated, one-story building. Talia put her belongings on the dusty, tiled surface of the school floor and stood in front of her blue locker. It was right at the end of the hall on a strip of others. The lockers were terribly small, she wished they would enlarge them, but she always managed to stuff her abnormally large backpack inside.
She reached out to the black combo lock. '3 to the right, twice, 46 to the left, twice, 10 to the right once, and open' she thought to herself while turning it carefully. She put her fingers around the metal handle and pulled up. It didn't open. She tried again and it didn't budge.
"Not again!" she shouted to herself. She tried once more, with no success. She finally just gave it a large kick, and in return, she got a throbbing pain on her large toe. "Open up, will you!" she practically yelled at it. To her surprise, she heard a click somewhere inside of the locker, and the long, thin door swung open. She stared at it for a split second, then gathered her books and binders and threw them inside the small space, that was already vacant by her overlarge backpack. She stood on tiptoe and reached into the top of the locker for her lunchbox. She took out a brown paper bag, peered inside and moaned. 'Peanut Butter again! Argh, I hate that!' she thought to herself. She threw the remains back into the bag, got the rest of the books from her locker that she needed and started on her way to the cafeteria, but heard a loud call.
"Talia! Come here a moment, please," said the stern voice of Mr. Danchini, the Technical Education Teacher. Talia, praying that she wasn't in trouble, walked a bit timidly toward the Mr. Danchini. Mr. Danchini was a tall, thin, weird man. He always told the worst jokes, trying to be sarcastic, but turning out too severe.
"Yes?" Talia asked, hoping not to sound rude.
"Ms. Stoneson told me to remind you that the Bridge meeting will be next Tuesday, after school. You can catch the 4:00 bus to get home. I hope you can make it."
"Oh! Oh, thanks for the reminder, I would have probably forgot- ." The bell rang loudly, straggling students ran to rooms, while a few of the 7th graders stayed behind, taking their time to go their lunch.
"Well, See you later in class" said Mr. Danchini quickly. "Have a good lunch."
"All right, see you" replied Talia, and she turned back, down the almost deserted, dim-lit hallway. Mr. Danchini had held her back from lunch, she was always late and never got to eat. She passed a few friends, smiled, and waved at them. She always felt some what awkward when she was alone, and slightly nervous. She never really liked being in the spotlight, she never liked standing out, but it just happened to her. She would always do strange things without warning, which made her quite popular. The only bad thing about it, was how she was called a freak by many. She didn't look very strange; she looked like a normal, 12 and ½ year old, except that she was a bit short. She had long, black-brown hair that flowed down to past her chest, a great natural tan she inherited from her Trinidadian mother, and dark brown eyes, that were quite pretty… in her own opinion.
She always believed that somewhere, somehow, there was a secret…someone, or something, that was all over the world and everywhere, but no one could see it, or no one part of it could see it. She believed that she was in a fantasy world and would some day see the real world. She just didn't feel like she fit in, like she was needed somewhere else…
Talia walked past the doors of the cafeteria, hearing loud talkative voices as she walked by. She never went to the cafeteria, it was much too loud for her, and too many people. Instead she would always go to the classroom at the end of the hall, right next to the cafeteria. She would sit with some other students, who agreed with her that it was more private than the cafeteria, and her best friend, Steph. The room was actually only for certain students, including herself. It was the classroom for the "Gifted and Talented" students program. Talia had been accepted into it 3 years ago and had continued going to it. The teacher, Ms. Stowneson, was an extremely nice, somewhat old, western accented teacher. Talia loved accents of all kinds, and especially loved the way Ms. Stowneson would say "Hi Y'all" when she greeted the class.
Talia headed toward the door of the classroom, students were lining up for the hot lunch, which was spaghetti and meatballs today. She was glad she never bought school food, it was awful. As she got closer to the classroom, she heard a voice she never heard before, a man's voice. It wasn't very distinguishable, she wasn't that close. She wondered if Steph was in the room yet. As she walked closer, she heard the man stop talking. She continued to walk, and was about to walk right to the door when a man, the same man talking in the room she assumed, rushed out of the doorway and straight into her. There was a clatter of books and papers; Talia's and the man's belongings had toppled out of their arms from the collision.
"Sorry," the man muttered as he bent down to pick up his briefcase, which had sprung open. Talia noticed in the way he said 'sorry' that it sounded British. Talia also saw that the man seemed out of place. He had on what looked like a suit and tie, but the tie looked somewhat put on the wrong way. His face didn't match his clothing, he had greasy black hair, and his black eyes were strange; it gave Talia the chills. He looked like someone from a Medieval times or something.
She bent down also, and gathered her belongings, searching through the clutter of papers for what was hers and what wasn't. She felt extremely embarrassed even though she wasn't the one who caused it, really. She looked around for her pencil, it would be hard to find. She saw the end of what looked like her pencil from under her blank paper, and pulled it out. It wasn't her pencil, it was a stick. Was it a stick? It was long, straight, and smooth. She held it out in her hand and stared at it. Then, unexpectedly, the end of it sparked in a greenish sort of color. She gasped and dropped it. Was it a sparkler? She looked up and saw that the man was staring at her, with a look of astonishment. He then seemed to realize that she was staring back.
"Oh sorry, that's mine," he said in his British accent, and grabbing the stick off the ground and pocketing it, he certainly didn't seem sorry. He finally looked away from her and got up, picking his briefcase off the ground. He turned around and headed toward the school office.
Talia got up with her books and such in her arms, staring at the back of the man. Who was he? She had never seen him before. He was so strange, especially that weird stick that emitted sparks. What was it? Maybe he was a new teacher?
She entered the classroom, and Steph was sitting at one of the long tables, eating a sandwich. Talia sat next to her and pulled out her lunchbox from her pile of books.
"What took you so long?" Steph asked.
"Well, Mr. Danchini had to tell me that I had another bridge meeting next week, and then there was-," she remember that the man was in this room before she crashed into him.
"Steph, was there a man in here before I came?"
"Yeah, why?"
"What was he doing in here?"
"He was speaking to Ms. Stowneson, why?"
"What'd he say?"
"He asked something about where the Headmaster was, dunno what a headmaster is anyways…why do you care?"
"A headmaster is what they call Principles in Britain I think, the guy had a British accent, he must be from there."
"What, did you hear him talking?"
"No, we had a slight accident and our stuff fell, I accidentally picked up some sort of stick, and sparks came out the end of it."
"What? It was probably a sparkler…"
"Its not even near the 4th of July, and he's English. You think he celebrates American Holidays? And why would he bring one anyways…"
"Oh, your right." Said Steph with her mouth slightly full from her sandwich.
"He was weird, he stared at me when the stick shot sparks, like I was some sort of animal you goggle at in a zoo or something. And if it was a sparkler, how come the stick didn't burn up? It was perfectly fine when I dropped it."
"Don't make such a big deal out of it, you'd probably think it was a magic wand or something, knowing you."
Talia glared for a moment at Steph, but then joined in her laughing. How silly of me to concern over a simple stick, she thought, I'm so paranoid.
"Ms. Ramlal, could you please endeavor your attention to the chalkboard and answer this for me?" came the Caribbean-accented voice of Mrs. Orkeson.
Talia was looking out the window, she had been daydreaming again, it was a good one; She had been famous; she was walking down a red carpet in a sparkling gown, the reporters and photographers flashing cameras in her direction, her fans screaming her name begging for autographs, and her arm in a lock with a Tom-Cruise-Look-alike. Oh how she wished it to be real…
"Ms. Ramlal?"
"Oh, Sorry, yes I can…" She said rather nervously, she didn't usually get in trouble with teachers like that. It may have not been very significant to the teacher, but every time she got caught staring mindlessly out a window, or not paying attention in class, it felt like a stab in the back. She was always on the top of her class (Most of her classes) and wanted to keep that record.
She glanced warily toward the large chalkboard. There was a pyramid of numbers, multiplication, addition, subtraction, and division signs. She studied it, thinking she would definitely not think of the answer in time. She continued to stare when it just came to her.
"42?" she asked, half knowing that that was a complete random guess, half knowing that that was the correct answer.
"Beautiful. Now please tell the class how you got that." Mrs. Orkeson said, with a slight look of satisfaction on her face knowing that Talia wasn't paying attention and will have to pay for her actions.
Talia looked down at her notebook, it was blank, and she expected she should have been taking notes. She felt that unpleasant feeling in her stomach again, she always felt it when she was going to get in deep trouble. She couldn't just say 'It just popped into my head'. She glanced back at her teacher, feeling horrible, but suddenly she felt words protruding from her mouth, and she didn't know how they got there.
"Well, 4 multiplied by 3 is 12, divided by 6 is 2. 2 to the 10th power is 1024, divided by 6 again is 256. 256 plus 4 is 260, minus 60 is 200, and divided by 8 is 25. 25 divided by 5 is 5. 5 plus 1 is 6. 6 multiplied by 7 is then… 42."
The class stared at her, she would have been staring at herself too. She couldn't even believe she did that. She half expected that to happen, because she was somewhat used to unusual, unexplainable things happening. She had no idea why. Mrs. Orkeson stared at her for a moment, a look of slight shock on her face, then put her hands to her hips and yelled to the class "Well why aren't you taking notes?!"
The bell finally rang. Talia gathered her belongings, and her pencil fell clumsily to the floor with a slight clatter. She sighed and reached downward to pick, except that it wasn't there. She looked up and felt her face heat up. Ted, Ted Williams, the cutest boy in all of the 7th grade had picked it up and was holding it out in front of her, smiling. She smiled back. Finally finding her voice, she croaked "Thank you" and took the pencil in her hand. Ted got up and returned to the doorway out into the busy hall. Talia resumed her position toward the door, then she felt someone prod her back, hard.
"You little, lucky, …I-don't-know-what-to-call-you"
Talia turned around.
"Hey, Steph, who are you sitting with at lunch today?" she said casually, and smiling.
"Oh my god, don't you even realize, who…who.. he gave you your pencil back!!"
"I know," Talia replied, smiling even more as she and her best friend walked into the hallway. The moment they stepped into it, there was a burst of loud, talkative voices everywhere, and the opening and shutting sound of lockers.
"And boy were you lucky when you looked over Tammy's shoulder, I saw you, you copied everything she had down."
"No I didn't! I just knew… I …I took notes!"
"Great notes, your name and date must have helped a lot," said Steph, grabbing the page out of her notebook and showing it to her.
"Give that back!" Talia said, trying to grab it; Steph was holding it way over her head.
"Why do you want it anyways? There's nothing on it!" Steph replied, handing it back.
"I'm starting a blank paper collection."
"Ha-ha," Steph replied sarcastically.
Her best friend, Steph, was of course taller than her, much taller, almost the tallest in the grade. She had light brown, short, full hair. She was always so happy, it seemed like nothing could make her upset. Anyways, Talia hated to see her upset. Steph was always there for her, as she was there for Steph.
"See yah at lunch!" cried Talia while waving energetically at the retreating back which was Steph. Crowds of other loud-talking students passed in the hallway, scurrying this way and that like rats. The school was always so small, too small for the over populated, one-story building. Talia put her belongings on the dusty, tiled surface of the school floor and stood in front of her blue locker. It was right at the end of the hall on a strip of others. The lockers were terribly small, she wished they would enlarge them, but she always managed to stuff her abnormally large backpack inside.
She reached out to the black combo lock. '3 to the right, twice, 46 to the left, twice, 10 to the right once, and open' she thought to herself while turning it carefully. She put her fingers around the metal handle and pulled up. It didn't open. She tried again and it didn't budge.
"Not again!" she shouted to herself. She tried once more, with no success. She finally just gave it a large kick, and in return, she got a throbbing pain on her large toe. "Open up, will you!" she practically yelled at it. To her surprise, she heard a click somewhere inside of the locker, and the long, thin door swung open. She stared at it for a split second, then gathered her books and binders and threw them inside the small space, that was already vacant by her overlarge backpack. She stood on tiptoe and reached into the top of the locker for her lunchbox. She took out a brown paper bag, peered inside and moaned. 'Peanut Butter again! Argh, I hate that!' she thought to herself. She threw the remains back into the bag, got the rest of the books from her locker that she needed and started on her way to the cafeteria, but heard a loud call.
"Talia! Come here a moment, please," said the stern voice of Mr. Danchini, the Technical Education Teacher. Talia, praying that she wasn't in trouble, walked a bit timidly toward the Mr. Danchini. Mr. Danchini was a tall, thin, weird man. He always told the worst jokes, trying to be sarcastic, but turning out too severe.
"Yes?" Talia asked, hoping not to sound rude.
"Ms. Stoneson told me to remind you that the Bridge meeting will be next Tuesday, after school. You can catch the 4:00 bus to get home. I hope you can make it."
"Oh! Oh, thanks for the reminder, I would have probably forgot- ." The bell rang loudly, straggling students ran to rooms, while a few of the 7th graders stayed behind, taking their time to go their lunch.
"Well, See you later in class" said Mr. Danchini quickly. "Have a good lunch."
"All right, see you" replied Talia, and she turned back, down the almost deserted, dim-lit hallway. Mr. Danchini had held her back from lunch, she was always late and never got to eat. She passed a few friends, smiled, and waved at them. She always felt some what awkward when she was alone, and slightly nervous. She never really liked being in the spotlight, she never liked standing out, but it just happened to her. She would always do strange things without warning, which made her quite popular. The only bad thing about it, was how she was called a freak by many. She didn't look very strange; she looked like a normal, 12 and ½ year old, except that she was a bit short. She had long, black-brown hair that flowed down to past her chest, a great natural tan she inherited from her Trinidadian mother, and dark brown eyes, that were quite pretty… in her own opinion.
She always believed that somewhere, somehow, there was a secret…someone, or something, that was all over the world and everywhere, but no one could see it, or no one part of it could see it. She believed that she was in a fantasy world and would some day see the real world. She just didn't feel like she fit in, like she was needed somewhere else…
Talia walked past the doors of the cafeteria, hearing loud talkative voices as she walked by. She never went to the cafeteria, it was much too loud for her, and too many people. Instead she would always go to the classroom at the end of the hall, right next to the cafeteria. She would sit with some other students, who agreed with her that it was more private than the cafeteria, and her best friend, Steph. The room was actually only for certain students, including herself. It was the classroom for the "Gifted and Talented" students program. Talia had been accepted into it 3 years ago and had continued going to it. The teacher, Ms. Stowneson, was an extremely nice, somewhat old, western accented teacher. Talia loved accents of all kinds, and especially loved the way Ms. Stowneson would say "Hi Y'all" when she greeted the class.
Talia headed toward the door of the classroom, students were lining up for the hot lunch, which was spaghetti and meatballs today. She was glad she never bought school food, it was awful. As she got closer to the classroom, she heard a voice she never heard before, a man's voice. It wasn't very distinguishable, she wasn't that close. She wondered if Steph was in the room yet. As she walked closer, she heard the man stop talking. She continued to walk, and was about to walk right to the door when a man, the same man talking in the room she assumed, rushed out of the doorway and straight into her. There was a clatter of books and papers; Talia's and the man's belongings had toppled out of their arms from the collision.
"Sorry," the man muttered as he bent down to pick up his briefcase, which had sprung open. Talia noticed in the way he said 'sorry' that it sounded British. Talia also saw that the man seemed out of place. He had on what looked like a suit and tie, but the tie looked somewhat put on the wrong way. His face didn't match his clothing, he had greasy black hair, and his black eyes were strange; it gave Talia the chills. He looked like someone from a Medieval times or something.
She bent down also, and gathered her belongings, searching through the clutter of papers for what was hers and what wasn't. She felt extremely embarrassed even though she wasn't the one who caused it, really. She looked around for her pencil, it would be hard to find. She saw the end of what looked like her pencil from under her blank paper, and pulled it out. It wasn't her pencil, it was a stick. Was it a stick? It was long, straight, and smooth. She held it out in her hand and stared at it. Then, unexpectedly, the end of it sparked in a greenish sort of color. She gasped and dropped it. Was it a sparkler? She looked up and saw that the man was staring at her, with a look of astonishment. He then seemed to realize that she was staring back.
"Oh sorry, that's mine," he said in his British accent, and grabbing the stick off the ground and pocketing it, he certainly didn't seem sorry. He finally looked away from her and got up, picking his briefcase off the ground. He turned around and headed toward the school office.
Talia got up with her books and such in her arms, staring at the back of the man. Who was he? She had never seen him before. He was so strange, especially that weird stick that emitted sparks. What was it? Maybe he was a new teacher?
She entered the classroom, and Steph was sitting at one of the long tables, eating a sandwich. Talia sat next to her and pulled out her lunchbox from her pile of books.
"What took you so long?" Steph asked.
"Well, Mr. Danchini had to tell me that I had another bridge meeting next week, and then there was-," she remember that the man was in this room before she crashed into him.
"Steph, was there a man in here before I came?"
"Yeah, why?"
"What was he doing in here?"
"He was speaking to Ms. Stowneson, why?"
"What'd he say?"
"He asked something about where the Headmaster was, dunno what a headmaster is anyways…why do you care?"
"A headmaster is what they call Principles in Britain I think, the guy had a British accent, he must be from there."
"What, did you hear him talking?"
"No, we had a slight accident and our stuff fell, I accidentally picked up some sort of stick, and sparks came out the end of it."
"What? It was probably a sparkler…"
"Its not even near the 4th of July, and he's English. You think he celebrates American Holidays? And why would he bring one anyways…"
"Oh, your right." Said Steph with her mouth slightly full from her sandwich.
"He was weird, he stared at me when the stick shot sparks, like I was some sort of animal you goggle at in a zoo or something. And if it was a sparkler, how come the stick didn't burn up? It was perfectly fine when I dropped it."
"Don't make such a big deal out of it, you'd probably think it was a magic wand or something, knowing you."
Talia glared for a moment at Steph, but then joined in her laughing. How silly of me to concern over a simple stick, she thought, I'm so paranoid.