I jogged off to meet up with Jacques and Kathleen by the west gate. "Mr. Pony says it's in the art room, like usual."
"I know where the art room is," stated Jacques, reaching one of his long arms over his shoulder to draw one of the scrolls from his backpack. He unfurled it to show it to me and Kathleen – I mean, Kathleen and I. "Look, it is here, on this map."
"Whoa, is this the same one as before?" asked Kathleen. "It's so good!"
"Yes," he replied, "and… thanks."
I studied the map closely. I knew that in order to find out our current location I had to imagine that we were just one small tooth in the giant mouth that was this campus, and then soon I'd have our location. I soon located the proper tooth. "And we are right here, right?" I asked, pointing to a spot on the map that appeared to be the path leading to the carpool circle near the kindergarten building.
"Yes," said Jacques.
"Then that means, we only have to cross the street from here, and go up that hill, and then we'll be at the art room."
"Yes," said Jacques, for the third time. "I have been there before. I will lead the way." He promptly rolled his map back up, slipped it into his backpack, and began striding towards the hill on the other side of the carpool circle. Kathleen jogged after him, while I struggled to keep up.
After looking both ways before crossing the street and making the short trek up the hill, we arrived at a crossroads between an L-shaped building and another building off the side of the hill that was led into by a bridge.
"The art room is right in here," said Jacques, leading us into the L-shaped building. "Good afternoon, Mr. Seal," he greeted to a svelte white being across the room.
"Good afternoon, Jacques," returned Mr. Seal, in a voice that was even deeper and more luxurious than Mr. Sibba's. His sad eyes were big and brown, in stark contrast with the colorful rubber beret on his head. "Today we have Cheetoes for snack."
"Crunchy or puffs?" asked Jacques.
"Crunchy," responded Mr. Seal.
"Yes," said Jacques for a fourth time.
"Aw," said Kathleen, pouting a bit disappointedly. "Crunchy Cheetoes are fine, but the puffy ones are so melt in your mouth good!"
Our little group of three went over to one of the tables and each picked out a Dixie cup filled with crunchy Cheetoes, and a plastic cup of water. We sat down together at one of the paint stained tables as Jacques took a drawer of crowns and colored pencils and took a few more rolls of paper out of his backpack. Were these all maps that he had made? He unrolled his map of campus, and then unrolled a blank sheet on top of it.
"What are you gonna make, Jacques?" asked Kathleen, crunching one of her Cheetoes. "You know, now I'm kinda glad Mr. Seal used the crunchy ones. You'd only be able to fit 2 or 3 puffs in one of these cups."
"I'm glad you understand," came a dulcimer voice from right behind us. We both jumped a little in our seats.
"Mr. Seal!" I said. "I didn't notice you behind us."
"Oh, I apologize," said Mr. Seal mournfully. "I was just, say, browsing the classroom." He strode away from us sincerely. Was it just me, or was he acting weird too?
"Anyways," answered Jacques, "I am going to be creating another map. I'm going to use this map I already have, which I've traced over in pen, as an outline." He was so resourceful when it came to things like that.
"Wait," inputted Kathleen, "But if you're tracing the old one, you'd get the same map. Why do you need two?"
Jacques looked up at her from his paper with his unblinking eyes. "There are many different kinds of maps that use the same outline. For example, a street map will show all of the different cities and routes in an area, whereas a topographic map will show all the natural features of the area, such as where all the hills are."
"Really? What kind are you going to make now?" she asked.
Jacques tapped the rear end of one of the colored pencils to his cheek thoughtfully. "I haven't quite decided yet."
I heard a coughing noise to my right, and turned to look. Kathleen and Jacques followed my gaze. Two tables away, on the other side of the Cheetoes and water, was none other than… you guessed it, Graham Turver.
"Solitude..." said Graham to himself in a voice loud enough for me to hear. "Silence, and solitude."
"Hey, Graham," said Jacques, waving with one hand. "You can come over and join us, if you want."
Graham Turver cleared his throat. "Bwahahahaha! Well, well, well, if it isn't but the Headless Horsman! What brings ye round this yonder area?"
"The Headless Horsman?" I asked, somewhat taken aback. "What is he talking about?"
"He calls me that, for some reason," responded Jacques quickly, before turning back to reply to Graham. "Extended Day. I've been here every day since school began."
Graham twitched slightly in surprise. "Ah, so you are well versed in the ways of… 'Extended Day'. No matter," he said, sliding into the chair to Jacques' left and across from me. "A being of your caliber is always welcome at the table of Graham Turver."
"But..." inputted Kathleen, putting her finger to her mouth skeptically, "We were at this table first." Graham Turver paid her no heed.
Moving his eyes wildly like a character from Naruto, Graham surveyed the map on the table in front of Jacques. "This map… is this Paige Prep? Could this be the map you told me of in your cypher?"
"Just the outline of it for now," answered Jacques. "And what is a cypher?"
"It is the medium by which you and I communicate." chuckled Graham darkly, closing his eyes and crossing his arms. I put my hand over my nose and mouth, beginning to think again. What did he mean by this? In my mind, I thought and thought, but could only come up with three possible answers: the spoken word, morse code, or a letter. While I had no doubt that a being such as Graham Turver was fluent in morse code, I had yet to see him use it, so I figured that was probably incorrect. That meant that it was either spoken word or a letter. I had a fifty-fifty chance of getting this right, so I guessed… a letter. "Do you mean the letter he wrote you?" I asked. Yeah, that's right, I thought, "because you two are pen-pals?"
"Yes, we already figured that out, Jordan," stated Graham, now slightly irate. I felt my ego take a little hit. I thought I was being so smart, uncovering the meaning in Graham's odd way of speaking. Cloaking his emotions once again, Graham continued. "Furthermore, might I suggest an idea for this next map?"
"What do you have in mind?" asked Jacques.
"Prepare your forms," forewarned Graham, "for this story was revealed once upon a dream to me last night. How many of you have heard the legend of the mysterious items?"
"Ooh, is that a new movie that's coming out soon?" asked Kathleen excitedly.
"Neigh," responded Graham. "The legend of the mysterious items tells of four mysterious items concealed somewhere within the bowels of Paige Prep. Uttering the true names of these items is forbidden, so they are commonly known to you humans as This, That, Which, and What." He made sure to put extra annunciation on every letter in the four names of the items, as well as pronouncing 'uttering' like 'utch-ring'. "Anyone whomst doth possess all four of these items will obtain unquestionable power."
"That sounds made up," said Kathleen, putting her finger to her mouth skeptically. "You said this was all just a dream?"
"I'm not sure," I mentioned. "Recently, I've been having these weird, vivid dreams that have been almost indistinguishable from real life sometimes. I think we should at least hear him out."
"Do you think it could just be the memories you forgot?" asked Kathleen, crossing her arms and looking to one side thoughtfully. "You were asking about your amnesia earlier."
"I don't think so," I answered. "Most of the things that happened in my dreams were too bizarre to happen here in real life."
Graham looked away pensively. "Sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction. Now, Headless Horsman, may I enlighten you with the fabled locations of the mysterious items?"
"Go ahead," answered Jacques. "I'm all ears."
Graham chuckled darkly. "The first item, known as This, is buried deep within a pyramid, and guarded by a fearsome beast. The second item, known as That, has been sealed away in a forbidden chamber beneath a basin on the nether reaches of campus. The third item, Which, is located in an alternate realm only accessible through the WATCH Tower." The three of us listened in a state somewhere between belief and disbelief. It almost sounded like listening to a friend detail a very specific cheat code to play a secret mode of a video game. "And most legendary of them all is the fourth item, What," continued Graham, clutching at his forearm as if it was becoming very vascular. "No one who has ever found What has survived with their sanity intact. It is so legendary that its location was not even revealed to myself, naught except for one hint – Mr. Pony."
Jacques, Kathleen, and I were a little surprised. "Mr. Pony has one of these items?" asked Kathleen, putting both hands over her mouth in shock.
"It does make a bit of sense," I admitted, a disappointed bead of sweat dripping down the side of my face. "Mr. Pony can be a little insane sometimes."
"Aside from the WATCH Tower part, though," said Jacques, after processing the mythos that had just been dumped onto him by Graham Turver, "none of that helps me with my map. I don't think there are any pyramids or basins at this school, so I'd have no idea where to put This or That on the map." However, he wrote 'Which' in large capital letters on top of the sketched structure of the WATCH Tower. I guess that made it… the WHICH Tower.
"Well," remarked Graham, "You have yet to explore the campus in its entirety, yes?" He sounded a bit like a vampire when pronouncing the 'y' in 'yes'.
"Yes," said Jacques for a fifth time, peeling back the top layer of paper to reveal his main map of campus, which was still empty outside of a few building outlines in several areas.
"Then you cannot deny the possibility of the existence of a pyramid or a basin," insisted Graham, crossing his arms and closing his eyes smugly.
"That's true," admitted Jacques, putting the top layer of his map back. "Do you have any idea where these landmarks might be, then, Graham?"
Our little group of four spent the next half an hour or so workshopping Jacques' new map based on Graham's strange lore, snacking on crunchy Cheetoes and sipping water. However, both our interest and snack supply eventually dwindled.
"I'm getting kinda bored," said Kathleen, leaning forward on her hands and kicking her feet back and forth restlessly. "Do you think Mr. Seal will let us go outside? I wanna go back to the Big Toy."
"The Big toy is a long walk from here," remarked Jacques, showing the distance on his map. "I don't think he would let us go there."
"Well, we never know unless we ask," ventured Kathleen, pumping her fists in front of her energetically. I was a little taken aback by her determination. "Jordan! You seem responsible, you should go ask him!"
"Me?" I asked, adjusting my spectacles. "But you're the one who thought of this."
"I know," she responded, closing her eyes and putting one hand behind her head somewhat embarrassedly, "but you just seem more… official, Jordan. Maybe it's the glasses."
Glasses? She must be talking about my spectacles. I removed the spectacles, looked at them, frowned at them, cleaned them quickly with my cloth, and placed them back upon my face, where they belonged. "All right," I gave up. "I'll go ask Mr. Seal. Jacques, Graham, are you coming?"
"Yes," said Jacques for the sixth time. "I should probably get out and stretch my legs a little."
"Indeed," added Graham, rising to his feet, crossing his arms, and looking away mysteriously. "The muscles rippling throughout my body doth desire movement." I could almost feel the embarrassed bead of sweat dripping down my forehead.
"Let's go." I led the pack across the length of the L-shaped classroom towards Mr. Seal, who was just chillin at his desk. He put down his issue of The Boggler, a magazine that he was reading upside down, and acknowledged us.
"Mr. Seal, can we go to the Big Toy?" I asked.
Mr. Seal looked at us for a second. "No," he said quite decisively. Behind me, Kathleen looked down disappointedly. "It's too far away from here. I couldn't keep an eye on you there and all the other people here at the same time."
Kathleen perked up, thinking of an idea. "Then we'll just convince everyone here to come with us!" she said, pounding her fist into her hand as if she were mashing a potato.
Mr. Seal's deep, brown, mournful eyes glistened sympathetically. "Unfortunately, that won't work either. You see, we have to stay in the art room, otherwise, how will your parents or guardians find you when they come to pick you up?"
Kathleen's spirits fell again. "Yeah… that is a good point," she admitted.
Feeling kind of bad for her, I put my hand over my nose and mouth, trying to think of a way out. We couldn't have somebody stay here and tell the parents where to go, because Mr. Seal wouldn't be there to watch them if he was with us. "What if we just go outside, on the top of this hill?" I asked. "That way, you can still watch us, but we won't be too far away."
Mr. Seal replied in his dulcimer tones. "That would be okay, but you would have to stay where I can see you. Make sure you clean up, first." His eyes twinkled. "Though perhaps one day we can all go to the Big Toy, with enough advance notice."
I turned to my posse of a tall boi that drew maps, a blonde girl with nice teeth, and an Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonater, and said, "It's not the Big Toy, but we'd at least be outside. What do you all think?"
Kathleen pumped her fists in front of herself energetically. "Sounds good to me. I've got a football we can kick around too, it'll be fun!"
Graham grinned, closed his eyes, and crossed his arms. "Any small victory is a victory in my book."
"I have to put away my maps and the pencils first," said Jacques, "But I'll catch up later."
"No, let us help," insisted Kathleen, speed-walking past Jacques to get back to the table. "That way we can all go out together." Jacques nodded in gratitude as we all returned to the table we were sitting at earlier. After tidying up efficiently, Kathleen got the football from her bag and we stepped outside onto the top of the hill.
The weather was a bit cooler now that it was later in the day, but it definitely helped that the hill was shaded from the sunlight by several humongous trees. Thankfully, the top of the hill had about a 3 meter by 4 meter space that was relatively flat at the top so we could spread out and still have time to kick the football around. I was finally glad to just get out for a change and go through the motions of kicking a ball around with my friends. No bizarre mindgames or school rules to follow, just us and the ball. I wonder if this is what they meant when they said "ball is life".
"Hey Jordan," Kathleen's voice snapped me out of my thoughts. "Are you just gonna stand there and worry or have fun with the rest of us?" she adeptly dribbled the football for a few seconds before precisely passing it towards me in a way that was controlled, so I was able to stop it without much trouble. It occurred to me that she was really good at this.
"Wow," I said, clunkily kicking the ball, along the ground, to my left towards Jacques. "Kathleen, you're really good at this, aren't you?"
"Huh? Oh, you mean football?" she asked. "I mean, I guess I'm okay. I play for a rec team outside of school." We're sponsored by Termidor. Termidor Termites!" She gestured to the logo on her bright blue T-shirt, cheered, pumped her fists in front of herself enthusiastically, and continued to look towards me, while stopping the football passed by Graham on her right. She sent it back my way.
"Termites?" I asked curiously, stopping the ball and passing it on to Jacques.
"That's kind of a strange mascot," remarked Jacques, before passing the ball to Graham.
"Nuh-uh," insisted Kathleen, turning towards him. "Never underestimate the power of termites. That's our slogan!"
Graham passed the ball to Kathleen. "That is also an odd slogan for a company that terminates termites," he added.
Kathleen decided to juggle the ball for a bit, so I took the opportunity to ask a question. "How many goals have you scored? It must be a lot."
She focused a bit on trying to remember while juggling the ball. "I dunno," she finally answered. "I can't count that high." she closed her eyes, laughed somewhat embarrassedly, put her hand behind her head, and kicked the ball back over to me. I intercepted it and side-footed it towards Jacques. "But that's only because I'm the main point scorer on my team. I couldn't do it without the help of everyone else."
Hmm, I thought, putting my hand over my nose and mouth. In that case, the position she must play is… I thought and thought, continuing to think until I could feel nothing but the world melting around me and my thoughts. However, despite all this thought, I was only able to come up with three options: Golye, Striker, and Midfielder. I knew the first one was just a misspelled, mispronounced version of a Harry Potter character's name, so it was down to just Striker and Midfielder. I decided to go with Striker because it sounded cooler.
"Striker?" I said out loud for some reason.
"Striker?" repeated Kathleen. "Yeah, that's the position I play. But what does that have to do with anything?"
"Huh?" I was a little confused.
Graham chuckled darkly. "It seems his consciousness has temporarily astral projected into the hypersphere."
Jacques provided some helpful input. "Jordan, you just kind of spaced out again, and the ball went right by you."
"Aw, really?" I said, surprised, disoriented, and even a little disappointed that I had spaced out on my friends.
"Yeah," broke Kathleen the news to me. "It rolled down beneath that bridge behind you. We should go get it back."
I turned around to look at the concrete bridge that extended from the top of the hill to the side of the library, creating a small underpass. "Are you sure?" I asked. "Mr. Seal said we had to stay where we could see him."
"It'll be quick," reassured Kathleen, jogging in front of me towards the underpass. "We'll find the ball and be right back."
"Fret not," added Graham. "I shall cloak your presence so Mr. Seal will never know of your absence."
I didn't know how to respond to that, so I just nodded and took off after Kathleen. It was so difficult to get a read on Graham, but he just seemed like a big goofball at heart. I bushwacked through one of the small bushes in front of the entrance to the underpass and followed Kathleen inside.
"Whoa," I said, looking out the other side of the underpass. "You can see the whole parking lot from here."
"Yeah," said Kathleen, "and the kissing rock too. And look! There's graffiti here on this one part." She walked towards a heart design drawn on the underside of the bridge with two names on it. "Who are Scott and Kimberly?"
"I don't know," I replied truthfully, "But we need to focus on getting the ball and getting back quickly." I took another quick glance around the dark underpass, whose natural shadiness was intensified by the surrounding trees. "Plus, this place kinda gives me the creeps."
"Aw, don't be such a scaredy cat, Jordan," she teased, walking back towards me. Suddenly, a mechanical humming noise started up, breaking the silence and making us both jump.
"What was that?" I asked meekly. My fight or flight response had been activated, and right now it wanted flight. I wheeled to the right as a flickering red light flashed in that direction, illuminating the underpass in a red light. It was just an exit sign, mounted over a heavy looking metal door.
"It looks like a fire exit for the library," guessed Kathleen, putting a finger to her mouth curiously. I walked towards it. "Careful, you might set off the alarm," she added with a chuckle. "I've done that a few times on accident. Oh look, there's the ball!" she strode over towards the football and picked it up with her hands.
I continued to stare at the door, feeling a strange sensation of apprehensive anticipation. I felt hypnotized by the red light of the exit sign, inexplicably drawn towards the door for some reason. I wanted to reach out and open it.
"Jordan." I felt Kathleen's hand on my shoulder and jumped a little again, still kind of on edge, though not quite enough to make the noise that sounded like a mix between Hank Hill and Kermit the Frog. "Jeez, you're being a real space cadet today," she said worriedly, as I turned around. "Are you getting enough sleep at night? Come on, let's get back to Jacques and Graham." I blinked, nodded, and headed off after her back into the outside, still a bit disoriented.
When we returned to the top of the hill, only Graham remained. He was looking sullenly to the left and crossing his arms.
"Where did Jacques go?" asked Kathleen, as I was still plodding up the hill several paces behind her.
"The Headless Horsman has gone the way of all students," replied Graham Turver. "Spirited Away to lands unknown by his parental guardians until the next morning cometh."
"Gotcha," said Kathleen, sweating somewhat disappointedly.
"Also, the being known as Mr. Seal seeks thee."
My heart was already beating kind of fast from climbing back up the hill, but Graham's comment still made it skip a beat.
Kathleen turned blue in panic. "Oh no! Did he notice we were gone? We couldn't have been that long."
Graham looked at the miniature sundial strapped to his wrist. With the trees blocking the light from the setting sun, there was no shadow cast on it. "Thirty-Five minutes."
"No way!" said Kathleen in disbelief. "That's like, three episodes of Spongebob!"
"I don't think it was that long," I pondered. "Either way, let's go back inside to see what Mr. Seal has to say." We all entered back into the art room through the open, airy double doors.
"Ah, there you are," rang out Mr. Seal's dulcimer tones. "You two, kindergarteners, Jordan and Kathleen. Your guardians have arrived to pick you up."
"We're sorry for taking so long," apologized Kathleen, looking downward disheartenedly. "It's just that, we accidentally lost the ball, and - "
"So long? You've only been outside for about…" he looked at the grandfather clock near the entrance "ten minutes."
Both Kathleen and I turned to Graham in confusion. He began sweating nervously, like Chuck. "Eh heh heh," he chuckled nervously, tapping at his sundial and muttering to himself. "Blasted… accursed… instrument."
"Well, anyways," continued Mr. Seal, "They're waiting for you outside."
After saying goodbye to Kathleen and Mr. Seal, and bidding farewell to Graham, I met up with my uncle and climbed into his bus-shaped vehicle. Man, I was so exhausted by the end of the day that I fell asleep on the ride home, my mind swirling with the turmoil of the day.
