"Good morning." the child said.
Alex looked up from his phone and exchanged looks with his friend, Jacob. They were both quite confused at the sight of the boy who had walked on to the stage and had started turning on the computer. Alex didn't consider himself that smart, but he was pretty sure that university teachers were supposed to be old men with white hair and bad manners, not twelve year olds who could barely reach for the screen.
"Oh he must be one of the super smart kids trying to play a joke on us" Jacob reasoned. Alex agreed with him. That child surely was one of those geniuses who skipped all of high school and got straight into university. Why he had chosen ornithology, if he was so smart, Alex wasn't sure.
"Welcome to North American Ornithology" the boy said. "My name is Tobias, and I will be your teacher for this semester", he continued.
"Is this some kind of joke?" a girl in the front row said.
"What is your name?" the boy asked. He had big, expressive eyes, but he managed to not express anything with them. He was also wearing the strangest outfit, a skin tight brown shirt, and some dark jeans that were just a bit too small for him. He was not wearing any shoes, which Alex found unusual.
While Alex was thinking about this new guy, the girl responded "Rachel García". For just a second in the boy's expressionless face a glimpse of shock could be seen, but quickly he regained his previous expression and answered "Well, Miss García, I can assure you this is not a joke. Now, back to the class…"
While Tobias got started with the class, the students started whispering among themselves. It was not a very large class, about twenty students in total were present. Alex didn't really know most of them, except Jacob. They had started university together a couple of years ago, and had managed to stay together ever since. They had started in a larger group, but slowly they had drifted apart. While neither he nor Jacob were excellent students, they had managed to pass all of their subjects so far, although there had been a few close calls. However, this teacher, Tobias, who was currently rambling on about how the class was structured, was the most unique. Alex was still not convinced this wasn't a prank, but this Tobias guy had been talking for almost ten minutes now and no teacher had shown up yet. Well, maybe the teacher was older than he looked and he just had some sort of illness that had prevented him from growing or something, Alex thought, and once he shared his idea with Jacob he also agreed. So, while Jacob started making some origami figures, Alex started taking notes and paying attention to Tobias. He was not that bad of a teacher actually, he was managing to make the first class entertaining, and he was getting them excited about some trips to the woods he said he was planning.
"Ornithology is the study of birds, however there are many birds in the world. Even here, in North America, there are many different species, and we don't have time to talk about all of them. So we are going to focus mainly on raptors for the first half of the semester, and then we will talk a bit about the other families", Tobias said. All of the students were excited to hear this, as most of them had grown up hearing about the legendary Animorphs, who some forty years ago had defeated the Yeerks and opened humanity to interstellar travel with the aid of the Andalites. It was still extremely expensive, so most of humanity still lived on earth, but still, it was due to the legends of these heroes that most of them were in ornithology, studying the very animals they had used in their war effort. And raptors had been the most used, so everyone was very excited.
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It was Friday night now, the first Friday of the semester, and Jacob and Alex were meeting with their friends, Cassie and Jaime. There were a lot of Cassies, Rachels, Jakes, and Marcos, and even a few Axes, in their generation, as the people who grew up hearing about the originals named their kids in their honor.
Alex hadn't known Cassie and Jaime before Jacob introduced him to them, but now they were good friends, and they met every Friday for some drinks. Cassie was studying law, and Jaime had been working as an independent programmer for some time now. He was actually a pretty good hacker, self taught as he had never received formal education, but he rarely ever used his abilities. Cassie wouldn't let him anyways. While she didn't believe the justice system was perfect, she did believe in following the law, even if the law was stupid, as she argued that there are mechanisms to change stupid laws within the system, which is why she was studying law. She hoped to be an important lawyer some day. Meanwhile, Jacob and Alex were studying ornithology because they liked birds.
That night they were exchanging impressions on their first classes, and the conversation quickly turned towards the weird new teacher, Tobias.
"He moves weirdly, like he doesn't have a lot of balance. He constantly bumps into things." Alex said.
"Maybe that's related to why he looks so young, he must have had a hard life if he is as old as you say he sounds" Cassie said.
"He's like, totally not normal, dude" Jacob said, who had somehow managed to turn his napkin into a school bus.
"Yeah"-Alex agreed-"all the other classes are three hours long, but his are only an hour and a half, divided on two days. However, it does seem like he knows his birds, I'll give him that".
"By the way, Cassie, have you seen Marco's latest film?" Jaime said.
"Jaime, you know I don't watch that kind of action movies"
"Yes, but this one is different. It's about Visser Three's trial, and there are apparently new images never before seen. Apparently, they have even managed to convince Jake to appear in it, the real Jake."
"Maybe we can all go see it tomorrow" Alex said, not wanting to miss out on what would probably be their last chance to hang out together before everyone (except Jaime, he thought with a bit of jealousy) started having exams.
"Yeah!" Jacob said, wearing a top hat made with Alex's napkin. "I'm a bit low on the economical side of things though" he continued, looking at Jaime.
"We are not pirating the movie, that is illegal!" Cassie exclaimed, before Jaime could say anything. "No way! I will lend you some money, if you really need it, but I am not watching a pirated film."
"Chill, girl, it was just a joke" Jacob quickly responded, tipping his hat, which undid the figure and covered him, making everyone laugh.
