Chapter 21: School Time
A few days later, Damien was feeling better. He was still mad at Anakin, since he had jumped on him again the next day, but he was letting him, along with Jaina and Jacen, look at his Pokémon book. They were looking at the pictures.
"Damien, what does that say?" called Jaina, holding up the book and pointing to a word.
"Charizard," Damien explained.
A few minutes later, they asked another word, then another and another.
"Can't you guys read?" asked Damien.
"No," answered Jacen.
"We never went to school," said Anakin.
"Hmm…" thought Damien. He went to go find Tim.
Tim was swimming, racing with Pikablu. Of course, he lost every time, but it was still fun. "Tim!" called Damien.
"Coming!" said Tim, swimming to the side and jumping out. He was immediately dry. "What's up?"
"Did you know that neither Anakin, Jaina, or Jacen can read?" asked Damien.
"So?"
"Don't you think they should learn? I mean, they should be starting school around now; they're six and seven. Isn't there a school around here?"
"Yeah, there's a school in Gifek, about five miles away."
"They should go there. Plus, it'll get them off our hands for a while." Damien smiled wickedly.
"Okay, we'll take them there tomorrow. They shouldn't have started school yet." Tim stepped outside the forest. "Seeing that there is a ton of leaves on the ground, I'd say it's around the time school should be starting."
"The only problem is, how do we get there?"
"The car."
"What? You have a car?"
"Yeah. I've had it since we got here. I wonder if it still works." He walked out of the forest and to the place where the car was hidden. "Uh, oh," he said.
The car was very old. It had been there for over three generations, of course. Tim went over to it. He forced the door open. He turned the ignition. The car wouldn't start.
"I suppose we have to get another car," said Damien. Tim got out of the car.
"Let's ride up to town and see if we there's another way to get them there."
Damien got on Ponyta, Tim got on Candy, and they rode off to town. When they got there, Tim saw that it had changed a lot since he had last been there. Where the orphanage had been, there was a large hospital. It had replaced the old clinic.
There was also a medium sized train station. It had a sign in the front it said Interplanetary Train Station.
There was a small bank in town, too. "Hey! I wonder if…no that isn't still around..." Tim started.
"What?" Damien asked.
"Well, I wonder if our parents left us any money when they died. But it wouldn't still be here."
"It's worth a try." The two boys went into the bank. When Tim said his parents' names, they found an account. There was a ton of money left in his, Sarah's, and Ryan's names!
"We could buy a new car!" Tim shouted. People in the bank looked at him like he was crazy. (Or maybe it was Damien's blue hair that made people stare.)
They walked around town until they saw a car parked outside a house. It had a sign that said it was for sale. They walked up to the door of the house and rang the bell.
An old man answered the door. "What do you kids want?" he asked.
"We want your car," Tim said.
"I'm charging a thousand dollars for it," said the man, overlooking their obvious ages.
"Okay," said Tim. He pulled the money from the bank, after inspecting the car.
"Don't you need a license?" Damien asked.
"Oh, yeah."
He went to the bank again. He got his birth certificate out of the safe deposit box. They walked over to the police station, but the policeman didn't care much about the fact that Tim still looked twelve when he should have been in his seventies. They gave Tim a license. Then he went back to the man with the car, bought it, and drove it back to the forest, and Damien rode Candy, because she could not be put inside of a Pokéball.
The next day, the twins woke up and ate breakfast as usual. Tim and Damien had told Ben their plan, but Ben had not told them. (Ryan was also going, and couldn't understand why he was being woken up so early.) When they were done eating, Ben said, "Wake up your brother, you're going soon."
"Going where?" Jacen asked.
"To school," Ben said simply.
Anakin woke up at the mention of school. "Yay!" he yelled. He quickly ate his breakfast and ran out the door, where Tim and Ryan were waiting for them in the new car.
They drove off to school. They had to drive very slowly, because of all the trees, so it took over twenty minutes to get into town. When they got there, kids were going into the school.
Tim walked over to a kid. "How long have you been in school?" he asked casually.
"This is our first day, stupid! Are you from this planet? Some people are so stupid," said the kid, walking off to join his friends.
"Good," said Tim. He let them out of the car, and they went into school. Gifek was a very small town, so only one class was needed for each grade. The four of them went into Ms. Hodpow's room.
Ms. Hodpow was standing by the door handing out a test. "It's to see how much you know," she said when the four of them looked scared.
There was no seating chart, so they all sat down at the front table. Other kids filed into the room and began their tests. Including them, there were eleven kids in the class.
When everyone was finished with their tests, Ms. Hodpow collected them and told them to talk quietly while she graded them.
The room was set up in a normal fashion for a first grade class. A chalkboard was at the front of the room. There were three tables of four. Two were at the back of the room, and one was at the front.
At the back, left table, there were four girls. One, who appeared to be the leader, was wearing a pink dress and hat. She had blonde hair. She was named Julia. The girl next to her was wearing a purple dress. She had bright orange hair, and her name was Ida. The girl sitting across from Julia was wearing a yellow dress, no hat, and had black hair. Her name was Mary. The last girl at the table was wearing a blue dress, had a blue hat, had brown hair, and was named Joanne. It seemed that it was "in" to wear dresses and hats.
The other back table had three occupants, two girls and a boy. The boy, Roger, had dark hair, and a blue hat. He was wearing a blue sweatshirt and jeans. Next to him was his twin sister, Lisa. Lisa looked just like her brother, except her hair, like every other girl's in the class, was shoulder length. Across from Lisa was Amy, a girl with a pink and white dress, blonde hair, and a pink hat.
Ms. Hodpow was a tall lady. She looked very kind. She had black hair pulled into a ponytail. She went to the front of the chalkboard and announced, "Everyone did poorly on their tests. I will need to talk to your kindergarten teachers about this. Now, we will start reading so that we can catch you up to were you should be." She began to hand out books to everyone. The books were entitled, The Hobbit. If you've ever seen this book, you know how think and complex it is. If you expect a first grader to read this book, you're loony.
Ms. Hodpow glanced at her class list. "Amy," she said, picking a random name of the chart, "read the first paragraph."
"How?" Amy asked.
"What do you mean how?" the teacher screamed. "You went to kindergarten! You should know how to read!"
"We only learned our letters in kindergarten," Lisa piped up.
"I'm not teaching a bunch of idiots who are in first grade and can't even read yet!" Ms. Hodpow screamed at the top of her lungs. She pressed the call button on the wall near the door.
"Yes?" said the secretary.
"I quit!" shouted Ms. Hodpow.
The secretary hung up for being yelled at, and Ms. Hodpow ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
The children talked excitedly in their seats until the principal came in a few minutes later. "Children," he said, "since your teacher has left, and we have no sub on such short notice, you are all dismissed now." The class cheered, and the kids ran out the door.
Since Anakin, Jaina, Jacen, and Ryan weren't able to contact Tim to come and pick them up, they decided to walk home. By the time they got there, it was about time for them to be home.
Although everyone wondered how they got home at the time school was supposed to be let out, they didn't ask questions. The next day, the four would go back to school as if nothing had happened.
Tim dropped them off at the door. They walked into their classroom and sat down at the front table. There was no sign of a teacher. Everyone was in their seats and the bell rang signaling the start of the school day. A teacher walked briskly in the door. Anakin, Jaina, Jacen, and Ryan gasped when they saw who it was.