"There's a real life ranger coming! Can you believe it?!"
"So, I guess this makes the four of us friends, huh."
Protector of Silence
Chapter Four – Bidoof Race
They left the classroom after a brief meeting and headed up the upwards set of stairs. At the top was a sort of common room-type area with two doors: one pink and one blue. On top of the door on the left was a bronze plaque with the words 'Girls' dorm' and on the right was 'Boys' dorm'. Near the blue door was a large white machine.
"See that" Keith pointed at it "You put your styler in it, it charges it up."
Kellyn nodded to show he wasn't deaf and was indeed listening to everything Keith was saying...or ranting really - guy hadn't stopped talking since they left the classroom. But now they were away from Miss April, the boys were taking advantage to gather around Kellyn and begin interrogating. Plus, two more boys had suddenly appeared and started asking questions too.
This was just not Kellyn's day, was it?
"Hey new student" said the boy called Ponte "Um...sorry, I can't remember your name. How long did it take for you to capture the Pikachu? Like an hour?"
"Whatever it was, it was definitely better than Nick" a boy with blond hair patted a brunet on to back "It took him like...three hours!"
"Well at least I got a decent mark on the written test Liam!" the brunet called Nick complained.
"Miss April said something about him being better than me" Keith grinned "Well, that's gonna be, like, impossible! It only took me, like, twenty seconds!"
"Yeah, Keith's a record keeper when it comes to capturing, too bad he goes and sleeps through class and fails all written exams though." Kellyn looked through the crowd and saw another blond-hair boy, this one had hair that grew down just beyond his ears, at the back of the crowd, carrying a stack of hooks under his arm.
"Oh, hi Isaac!" Keith smiled "Decided to step into the sunshine for once?"
"You're not funny" stated the boy called Isaac, a completely serious and disapproving expression on his face, before then heading down the steps. "By the way, New Kid, don't spent too much time listening to Keith, he's a show-off in the extremes."
"His name is Kel!" Keith called after the boy, his voice ringing with frustration. But Kellyn could tell it was about the show-off remark rather than not knowing his name. He wrote something in his notebook and showed it to the other boys.
My name is Kellyn for those of you who don't know. And is that boy one of my roommates?
"Yeah, we all bunk together" Ponte groaned, although the answer to why was a little beyond what Kellyn could understand.
"Ponte's just upset because he has to share a bunk with Isaac" Nick smiled "He hardly sees him though. He's always either in his classroom or the library—"
"Otherwise known as Keith's nap room" Liam finished for him with a grin.
"Ha ha! Very funny!" Keith snorted, not taking the teasing that well "Come on, poor kid's carrying luggage! Are we going to make him carry it all day or can we actually show him the dorm?"
"Ah, the dorm" Ponte smiled, opening the door "Inside, if you please."
The dorm was reasonably spacious. There were two windows, three bunks and a blue rug in the middle. In fact, everything in there was blue. Kellyn didn't mind, but he preferred green or red to blue. But he could get used to it.
"That's Ponte and Isaac's bunk over there" Keith pointed at the bunk to the right "Ponte's on the top bunk of course. Then there's Nick and Liam's bunk, Nick on top bunk." Keith pointed at the bunk to the left "And the one is ours. You've got top bunk, I'm not all that good with heights."
Kellyn smiled. He liked being in high places. He placed his suitcase at the base of the ladder when they heard a bell ring from somewhere above their heads.
"The bell!" Liam cheered "Alright, outdoors time! Who's up for football?" Immediately he, Ponte and Nick began discussing teams.
"You guys mind just practising for a bit?" Keith asked "I think Miss April wants me to show Kel the grounds."
"Alright, but do hurry" Nick sighed "We don't have enough members for teams otherwise!"
"Verity will probably join in" Keith smiled "Or Becs or Tamie. They're feisty enough for it. Alright, come on Kel." He seized Kellyn's wrist "We're going outside!"
Keith proceeded to drag Kellyn all the way to the outdoor side-barn where he had captured the Pikachu.
"That's the training room" Keith explained "That's where Mr Kaplan plays with computers whilst laughing manically - boy he's almost as good as Mr Kincaid at that - and comes up with speeches to tell the new students about his plans to rule the world; when he's not actually doing his job of showing students how to use stylers that is. Poor Mrs Claire having to share a training room with him - but they're married so she must be pretty used to it by now."
He then pointed at an identical side-barn to the right of the school. "That's the lunch hall. Beyond that there's a few steps up to the clearing: everyone likes to play football up there. But over there..." He pointed at some steps leading down a cliff "At the bottom of those steps is the Ascension Square. We go down there once a month. There's a monument to gather around, which we do on Outdoor Class Days. The next one is in three weeks. And there's a real life ranger coming! Can you believe it?!"
Kellyn didn't want to ruin Keith's fun so gave a fake silent gasp of amazement to satisfy him.
"H-Help!" Both boys turned and saw someone who might be a caretaker in the middle of the grass in the middle of a circle of path, surrounding by seven Bidoof. "N-Nice Bidoof! Now, back into the training room!" Then she yelled: "Kaplan! How many times must I tell you to keep your Pokémon under control!"
"Looks like Janice is in trouble again" Keith commented, looking like this happened a lot.
"Ah! What's going on?!" The blonde-haired girl Kellyn remembered was called Rhythmi from their class emerged from the school door and arrived at the scene of the crime just as they did.
"Kaplan's Bidoof have escaped!" Janice squeaked. Kellyn showed Rhythmi and Keith what he'd just wrote.
If the three of us work together, we should be able to capture them.
"Oh, actually Kellyn, I don't have a styler" Rhythmi explained, reading his message "I'm training to become an operator. That why when Keith becomes a ranger I can boss him about." She sounded smug.
"Yeah, whatever, make yourself un-useful!" Keith snorted "Hey Kel, since it's just the two of us, let's have a race! See who can catch the most Bidoof!"
"Can't you at least make the effort to learn to say our new classmate's name correctly?!" complained Rhythmi "Oh fine! Have your silly little race! Like I care! Just hurry up with it so poor Kellyn doesn't have to spend all day listening to your bad influences!"
"Me, bad influences?!" Keith complained in mock shock "Alright, we'll be quick. Ready Kel?" Rhythmi rolled her eyes in exasperation and Kellyn nodded. "Three, two, one...GO!"
Kellyn barely remembered the next minute. It was all a blur of whizzing lights and Bidoof noises. Finally Kellyn noticed all the Bidoof had been rounded up. At Kellyn's feet were three Bidoof, at Keith's four.
"Ha! I win!" Keith cheered. He somersaulted into the air and performed his own ranger pose.
'I'll have to think of one of my own at some point' Kellyn thought. Rhythmi groaned and Kellyn raised an eyebrow.
"If there's one thing I can't stand more than Keith" she explained "It's a smug Keith." Sure enough, Keith was now putting together his own victory dance. It had a song too, but it sounded suspiciously like 'We are the champions' but replaced with 'I am the champion' and very out-of-key.
"...Five, six, seven" Janice counted "But I was sure there were nine."
"Um...are you looking for these two?"
They all looked towards the entrance gates. Walking up the steps with two Bidoof at her heels was the ginger girl with the spiky pigtails from earlier.
"Oh, hi Kate!" smiled Rhythmi "So, you caught the other Bidoof?"
"Yeah" Kate nodded "They were walking around looking lost at the gates, and you know how much I like to sit on the wall and read. So I captured them and I heard Keith yelling 'I'm a champion' or something so I came up here to see what all the ruckus was about."
"Well, I better take these Bidoof back to Kaplan" sighed Janice "Oh is he going to get an earful about this!" And indeed it truly looked like he was going to, if the expression on Janice's face was anything to go by.
As Janice led the Bidoof away, the other four meet in the middle of the grass circle.
"I won! I won! Oh yeah, yeah, yeah!" Keith was still singing to himself. "Oh, by the way Kel, I was surprised by how well you did. You never know, you might actually put up a decent fight for class champion. I might have some actual competition this year."
"So I don't qualify as competition?" Kate folded her arms, her spiky pigtails making her look even more intimidating. "Even though I had a quarter of the time to capture half the amount of Bidoof."
Keith sweat-dropped. "Alright, maybe I have two competitors!" he said quickly, then regaining his over-confidence. "But it makes no difference! Bring on one competitor, two, or a thousand! I, Keith, the world's soon-to-be Top of the Top Rangers, will not be beaten! No ser-ree!"
"Oh Keith!" Rhythmi was exasperated again "I was looking for you guys anyway. Miss April wanted me to give Kellyn this." She held out a green jumper with a yellow tie "Your Ranger School uniform."
Kellyn's eyes widened as he took the jumper and tie from her. He removed the black fleece he'd been wearing and slipped the school-issued jumper on. He hung the tie with his fleece over his arm - he'd figure out how to put it on later.
"It's official, you're one of us now" Kate smiled friendlily.
"Hey, er, Kel" Keith was frowning slightly "Is...er...something wrong with your eyes?" Said eyes widened as Kellyn panicked. Had his eyes changed colour again? Oh no, he hadn't been planning on exposing these eyes and their powers here at Ranger School!
"Keith!" Rhythmi cried "Don't tease him because his pupils are white! He can't help what the colour of his pupils are! And learn his name properly!" Kellyn gave a mental sigh or relief. They were only referring to his regular eye-colour.
"I like them" said Kate quietly "They suit him."
Kellyn sent her a 'thank you' smile.
"So that's like your natural eye colour?" When Kellyn nodded to his question, Keith beamed "That's so cool! You are most defiantly my bunk-mate!" He looped an arm around Kellyn's shoulders. The slightly shorter boy flinched at this action, but Keith's smile reassured him he wasn't going to strangle him or anything.
"So, I guess this makes the four of us friends, huh?" smiled Rhythmi.
"Hey, forget about making friends with Rhythmi here!" Keith put in quickly "You wanna be friends with me! Got it!"
They all laughed, even Rhythmi. Kellyn even opened his mouth in silent laughter.
'Luke may be right, I may be able to make friends' he thought 'It's nice...It's nice to be accepted...finally.'
