Jeff tried to focus on the scrawny girl sitting across from him, but the din of the cafeteria was too distracting. It was almost impossible to shut out the drone of so many kids talking at once. There was something… off, but he just couldn't quite put his finger on it. He set his spork down while he studied her.
She continued to shovel food into her mouth unaware of the new scrutiny, but the pace was wrong. Usually a small mountain of food – somehow more than should fit into a child her size – would disappear practically before he was able to get everything out of his lunch box and set up the way he liked. Yeah, it was a little crazy that everything had to be in the right place before he'd eat, but seeing everything laid out just so was so rewarding. He got a chance to appreciate all the delicious stuff he was about to eat, and it created an anticipation that just made everything taste a little better. Today was no different – he meticulously went through his mealtime ritual once again and sat back to enjoy the results before digging in, but he was shocked to see most of his friend's food still on her tray. Now he sat watching her movements carefully as his perfectly positioned food sat forgotten.
A debris field encircled his fiery-mopped friend, just as it always did when she ate. Somehow she always managed to get almost as much food on and around her as in her. In fact, it was often possible to tell exactly how she positioned her feet during the meal based solely on the two distinct clean spots on the floor. Today was no exception despite the slower pace. He shook away the wonder her eating habits instilled (as well as the small amount of disgust that settled in his gut as a green bean fell into his milk with a splash) and focused on her movements. They were too precise, too deliberate – the natural grace she possessed was nowhere to be seen. It was almost as if she was concentrating on every action.
"What?" Shepard asked around a mouthful of some disgusting mishmash of foods. She seemed to prefer repulsive combinations nobody in their right mind would put together into the same bite, and today's masterpiece appeared to contain pickles, peanut butter, onions, and something red. She froze mid-chew, her lips straining with the effort to keep the contents from spilling forth onto the splattered metal table.
"Huh? Oh, nothing… I was just wondering where you put all that food." Jeff tried to cover his tracks. He wasn't sure what she was doing, and drawing attention to it now would defeat the purpose. She'd either make a concentrated effort to change her behavior without letting him know what was going on, or she'd get self-conscious and angry at him – something he tried to avoid if at all possible. She was scary when she was angry.
Honestly, it was something he often wondered while they ate. He wouldn't be able to eat her standard lunch over the course of a full day, let alone one meal. Heck, she carried a second book bag filled with food, and it was always empty by the end of the day. That little magic trick never ceased to amaze him. It was a believable fib, so he ran with it.
Shepard managed to chew and swallow the massive mouthful of food in the time it took him to justify his subterfuge. She sat still, regarding him suspiciously, as the chaos of the lunchroom swirled around them. This was the eerie calm eye of the storm.
Finally, Shepard shrugged nonchalantly after a few tense moments – a short enough span of time that nobody else really noticed but long enough that Jeff's heart beat about a hundred times.
"Dunno, I guess I just run it off. I never really think about it. Are you going to eat that?" she asked one hand shot out and snagged the perfectly-placed side dish, disrupting his entire spread and taking his favorite part of the meal in the process. She didn't wait for a response; she never did. That was why both of their mothers kept telling him to stop fussing about and just dig in.
"Hey, I was going to eat that!" Jeff howled at the transgression. One bite was already in the process of being chewed while another fully-loaded forkful was on the way to her mouth. She stared him down defiantly as she dropped the forkful of noodles back into the dish, then opened her mouth and let the contents spill forth. Every single Alfred-coated noodle was accounted for.
"Fine, have it," she said as she slid the dish back across the table.
"Forget it. I'm not eating it now," he responded with a resigned sigh. She knew that would be his answer. It always was. He set about eating the remainder of his lunch before she made it all disappear in the same fashion. Meanwhile, she smiled victoriously and added his noodles to the indistinguishable mess of food that became specks and sauces in and around her.
She may have won at lunch, but Jeff was not one to give up easily, especially when his curiosity was piqued. He spent the remainder of the day watching Shepard as covertly as possible, and things were obviously not right with the girl. Normally the first kid finished with nearly every class assignment, she was one of the last kids to finish the afternoon assignment in language arts – and that was arguably one of her stronger subjects. Everyone stared in surprise the teacher told her time was up and she had to turn it in whether she was done or not. And then it took her almost a full additional minute to put her name on her work.
At recess Jeff had to wait for her, which had never happened before. He sat on the lone swing half-heartedly rocking back and forth, wondering where she was. Other kids started pestering him for his seat before she finally appeared with an unbelievable excuse – she was busy tying her boots. The fact that she tied them at all was alarming. She was always the type to keep them just loose enough to kick them off and pull them on without messing with the laces. Being so late because of it was just… wrong.
Now her long, thin fingers fumbled around the OSD as she tried to keep up with the notes of the history lesson, or whatever it was she was writing down. Based on the sheer amount of writing it was a safe bet it wasn't class-related. The teacher hadn't really said much yet, and none of it seemed really important. In fact, she didn't seem to be paying any attention to the teacher at all. Her eyes never left the screen in front of her, even when the teacher started flashing images of some long-forgotten battle. Jeff wasn't really sure what it was either, since he was paying more attention to his friend than anything else in the classroom.
The teacher's voice narrowed to a low monotone noise in the background as he was watched her intently. Her pink tongue poked out from the corner of her lips as she concentrated on writing something out by hand, the text stilted and illegible despite the multiple attempts and great effort being poured into it.
The girl's bright green eyes turned toward Jeff. Embarrassed at being caught watching her, his gaze darted back to the front of the class. The teacher stood one desk-length away and was looking directly at him. In fact, all eyes in the room were watching him expectantly.
"Well, Mr. Moreau?" the teacher prompted as he looked over the glasses currently sliding down his nose.
Mr. Moore insisted on wearing glasses instead of just getting his eyes fixed, and all the students agreed it was probably just so he could shoot withering stares over the frames. It was his specialty, and this was some of his best work to date. Jeff melted under the gaze, his body sliding down in the chair until his chin practically rested on the desktop.
"I'm sorry, what was the question?" Jeff stammered.
A few muffled giggles filled the uncomfortable silence as the teacher regarded him.
"You will get no special treatment from me, so I suggest you start paying attention in class." The balding man shook his head ruefully, turned on one heel, and shuffled back to the front of the classroom. "Mr. Jansen, can you please answer…"
The cold adrenaline pulsing through Jeff's body made it almost impossible to focus. He'd never been called out like that before, and it was something he wanted to avoid reliving at all costs. He'd never received special treatment in school, and really resented the fact that the teacher implied he had. If anything, he always had to work twice as hard just to prove he was more than a crippled body – that his mind was just as good, if not better, than all the able-bodied students around him. Now that the teacher put that little seed of doubt in place, everyone would assume he got where he was from special treatment, not hard work and natural abilities. He tried to push it all aside, to pay attention to the lesson, but his hands shook and his belly did sick little flips as he thought about it, replaying the scene over and over in his mind.
The small hairs at the back of his neck stood at attention as heaviness fell across the side of his face. His skin began to crawl with the tell-tale feeling that someone was staring at him. He hazarded one sideways glance at Shepard and found her watching him intently. As soon as their eyes met she made a face and threw her hands up in a gesture that clearly said what the hell's your problem, before turning away and ignoring him completely. He buried his face in the work on his desk, wishing it all away. She could keep her stupid secrets or whatever was going on.
The rest of the school day proceeded without incident, mainly because Jeff kept his distance. He didn't know if Shepard was still being weird, and he really didn't want to find out if it meant getting in trouble again.
The next couple of days were just as odd. Shepard was routinely the last person finished with assignments as well as meals. She was getting a little faster, but not much, and speed wasn't the only issue. Her natural grace was suddenly replaced by ungainly stumbling about tasks, especially if they involved her hands. She often paused in the middle of an activity to shake her arm out, as if her muscles were unaccustomed to the work. Jeff did his best to ignore it, for fear of causing himself more grief.
Finally, he couldn't ignore it any longer. Shepard was chopping carrots, helping Mrs. Moreau prepare dinner, when the knife slipped. A jagged orange chunk flew across the room as the knife hit the edge of the cutting board, sending it sliding across the table and into Jeff's lap. The blade flipped edge-or-handle in slow motion before it embedded itself hilt-deep into her chair, through her pants. She was pinned in place.
"Are you hurt?" Mrs. Moreau came running over, attracted by the racket and panicked by the pale face staring back at her.
"No, it just got my pants," Shepard responded meekly, her voice strained. Sweat trickled down her forehead as they struggled together to pull the knife free. That was too close a call.
Mrs. Moreau decided it was best to take over full dinner duties. The kids were shaken enough that another accident was practically guaranteed if they helped. She ushered both of them into the other room with a tight smile and turned on a vid to keep them occupied before returning to her work.
Jeff remained silent until his mother was out of earshot.
"Did you hit your head or something?"
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm not stupid. Something's going on. You're slow and awkward all the time; even with things you could always do no problem. So, did you brain yourself on something over the weekend? Oh, did you get that asari flu – the one that melts your brain until it leaks out of your ears? I wanna see it!"
"No, I didn't brain myself. And that flu is just a myth – you'd know that if you bothered to fact check anything. I'm fine."
"Then what's up?"
Shepard stared him down, silently willing him to just forget about it and change the subject, but he wasn't giving in that easily. Finally she sighed heavily.
"Why do you have to be so stubborn?" she groused.
"Me?" he laughed in disbelief. "Look who's talking!"
Shepard stuck out her tongue as she slowly twirled a pen between her fingers, working it from the pinky up to the thumb and back again. The speed increased as she focused on her practice, her attention on her actions and not the question posed.
"Yeah, cool, whatever. I've seen you do that a million times, and faster than that. Quit trying to distract me."
"I'm not distracting you. If you'd just shut up and watch you'd have your stupid answer," she bit back without looking away from the writing instrument flipping across her hand.
With a small flick of a finger the pen went airborne, spinning end-over-end, and she caught it with her other hand. The twirling resumed without a break in movement, the speed increasing to a near-blur.
"So you're learning to twirl a baton? That doesn't seem like your thing. It's a little too… pageant queen for you. And that doesn't explain how slow you've been, and awkward." Jeff watched her skeptically, trying to imagine her in a leotard flipping a flaming baton. His brain refused to process it. "Oh, did you hit yourself in the head too many times? Is that what happened."
Shepard tossed the pen to the side and stared her friend down. He was really going to make her spell it all out for him.
"I'm making myself ambidextrous." It seemed so silly when she said it out loud. His shocked laughter only made her more self-conscious. "Shut up. It can be done."
"Hey, I'm not arguing that. If anyone can do it, you can. The real question is why?"
"To be better," she responded, passion burning in her eyes. "To be the best I can."