Thomas
Why School is Stupid
March 17th
9:00am
It started like any other day. Will had woken me up at 7am to eat breakfast and pack a lunch, and Nico drove me to school. I talked with my friends upon arriving, and then class began. I went to a private school called Karen Berry's Athletic School of Excellence. I hated it, so much that I would skip class and try to escape the school. The dads always talked about how my birth parents always wanted me to try something new, but this was something new I wasn't a big fan of. My true passion was cooking, whipping up new flavors, with me at the helm and my dads doing whatever they need to do to help. Going to Karen Berry's tortured me, especially because the Karen Berry School of the Arts was a block away. I used to throw fits about school, but I'd given up when 6th grade started, because I realized I didn't have to stay in class at all times. Sure, my grades were failing, but my happiness wasn't. I was actually taking a risk that fateful day, and I went to our selected Athletic Activity period. I'd been training in archery since 2nd grade.
There were only about 3 people that stayed in the Archery program the whole time I'd been at school. They always kinda creeped me out, though. The first one was Sage Caraway. Her hair was bright, bright green and always slurred her 's' sound. I'd assumed that English wasn't her first language. Her hair was long and curly, and she almost never made eye contact with people. Nico always told me to ignore her. And then there was Aella Trasco. She was really nice, but she was really quiet too. I always found myself drawn to her voice when she used to talk more, but as we've gotten older she's been talking much less. The one that made me most nervous was Bodhi Samola. He had bullied one of my best friends, Molly Meckett, out of the school. He was really short and didn't talk too often, but when he did, you would be scarred for the rest of your life. I'd done my best to ignore him most the year so far.
As I thought about the other students, I grabbed my oak bow. It was a gift from my birth dad, because he loved archery too.
"Alright, why don't you guys start to warm up a bit, I'm still working on our precision exercises for today." Coach Caleb didn't even look out from the shed holding all the archery supplies. I grabbed a plastic arrow and put it in my bow. I stood in the sunny field and closed my eyes, feeling wind on my legs. The wind seemed to whisper to me. Sharper. Sharper arrow. Without a second thought, I put away my plastic arrow and grabbed the sharper metal ones. I smiled to myself, knowing the weight of the arrow was almost perfect for my strength level and my bow. I looked around to see Sage and Aella talking and Bodhi tying his shoe. I closed my eyes and dramatically twirled the arrow in my hand, weaving it behind my back and in and out of my fingers.
"Shit!"
My eyes snapped open. I looked around and my eyebrows furrowed. I turned around behind me to see Bodhi bleeding out what looked to be golden-orange dust out of his torso. I paled and blinked my eyes. I must be hallucinating. Bodhi's arms began to fold backwards and grow what seemed to be gritty feathers. Aella and Sage looked up from their conversation. Their eyes widened at the sight of Bodhi. He began to screech urgently.
"Mom just wanted me to investigate, not kill. It wasn't under her orders, though. Not Tartarus either. It was the girl. The one from Chaos. She was right. Demigods always do the worst, no matter the situation." I shook off the blubbering chatter from Bodhi as some crazy doomsday prophecy type thing and turned to Aella, who stared worryingly at Bodhi.
"C-Can you help me? I think I slashed him in the torso with my arrow. Where's the coach?" Aella stared at me with a blank look as she bit her lower lip.
"Oh poor demigod, assssking for help. We can help you plenty, child. We can help you out of your living missssery." Sage began to shake her hair and flick her apparently forked tongue out. A small snake slithered out of her thick hair. She pulled out a pair of small swords. Scimitars. I thought. Wait- why do I know that?
"Aella? Coach? Anyone?" I yelled.
"Yeah, what's up sport?" Coach began to back out of the shed. I began to stand up to run toward him.
"Ssssit, demigod. You move more, I kill you." My face of hope morphed back into worry as I watched Aella stride towards the coach. She began to sing a song in what seemed to be Greek. Her voice was beautiful, rising up and down like the tide on a warm beach day- and I was drawn to it. I began to sway to the music, in a trance of beauty. I just wanted to crawl toward her and beg her to sing more, sing to me, cradle me in her arms. It didn't even occur to me that Coach's body laid on the ground, motionless. Sage dived towards me and began to smile sweetly, but I wasn't paying any attention. Her scimitars drew closer to my throat and heart area, but I didn't care. As long as I could listen to this music forever, Sage could do whatever she wanted. She looked worried for a minute, as if she wasn't doing this whole thing right. Then sad. Then fierce.
"That poor child you killed, he will have no place to go, you know that? He isssn't mortal, but he isssn't monster either. He will be forever ssstuck assss a lost sssoul, nowhere to go, nothing to do but fade away sssslowly and painfully. He'll never get to go to Tartarus or to Asssophedel. The poor boy had a mortal father, who isssn't going to understand what happened. He probably won't even remember the boy after a few daysss, because his sssoul is gone from the world. Do you undersstand what you did?" I nodded, my eyes feeling dry, the whole speech going in one ear and out the other.
"That'sss why we can't afford to lossse each other. I'm glad you underssstand. Goodbye, demigod ssscum."