Disclaimer: Anything or anyone you recognize ain't me. All of the original
characters do, so deal. All of the original characters, though based on
real people, were given false names for security purposes.
Author's note: I must warn you, I changed my pseudonym this chapter. The lead female is now known as Maegith Cooper, not Alanna. I forgot to say, the name of Alanna didn't belong to me, but as I got no threats of lawsuits, I guess no one cared. Anyway, I changed that name.
Chapter 3: Of Calculus and Cold Chicken
The next class was math across the hall with Mrs. Egunt. We were doing something called 'calculus' that was complete dwarvish to me. Luckily, my teacher excused me from the homework to give me a night to catch up on what I'd missed. To me, it seemed like I'd need much more than one night.
My fourth period class, Technology, was a little better, because all we did was learn how to make scale drawing on paper with a grid. It was actually quite easy.
Next was Earth Science, with Mr. Rennolds. There were groups of two, two- person tables lined up. I was sitting next to Maegith, who was next to Jess. We started taking notes on heat transfer. For some odd reason, maybe to try to be funny, Mr. Rennolds drew a rabbit in the diagram, along with some people around a campfire on rocks. The campfire and people made sense, but the rabbit was very random. All of a sudden, Maegith nudged Jess and showed her her notebook. First, Jess held back a laugh, and then made a face in mock anger. I nudged Maegith and gave her a quizzical look. She wrote something and then showed me the picture.
It had 'It's a book joke, you probably won't get it' written on the top. On the rocks, instead of two stick figures, she had given the people more definition. They were apparently wearing what looked like black robes and had long hair. Obviously men, one had penciled gray hair and the other black. The gray haired one had a staff with a jewel on top portrayed to be glowing, and looked oddly like a crude Staff of Magus. That man was yelling " Aaaahhh! Bunnies!!" The other was thinking 'blackmail' and 'I'm going to be the Master of the Black robes!'
That's odd. It almost reminded me of Raistlin and me! I smirked silently. But it couldn't be. Still, I had to find out. I scribbled a note back to Maegith. 'Who are they? They seem familiar.'
She took the notebook back, wrote for a moment, and passed it back. 'Book characters. You wouldn't have heard of them in Eritrea.' I was relieved. They couldn't have anything about Krynn in their libraries. There had been no previous contact. I breathed a sigh of relief. Earth Science wore on.
At the end of class, Maegith groaned. I looked back and forth between her and Air's pained expressions. "What? What's wrong?"
Jess and Maegith looked at each other. It was Jess who replied. "Oh, nothing, we're just going to Hell next period; mile run, gym class. Both of us hate gym in general, but mile day is the worst. Come on, we've got to hurry; the gym's on the other end of the building. We walked off quickly.
"In the future, on gym days, wear anything other than jeans," Maegith informed me. "They take points off if you don't, but they won't care since this is your first day. They probably will make you run, though. Those people are pure evil..."
*Pure evil?* Raistlin smirked to me. *Those girls don't know what evil is!* I silently laughed back.
"... and live to torture students." Maegith concluded. We got to the gym door. "You can just go in the main door, or down there is the boy's locker room if you want to put down your stuff." Through the day, I had accumulated several binders, notebooks, and writing utensils via Raistlin. I opted to go to the locker room.
I met back up with Jess and Maegith in the main gym, where she introduced me to Mrs. Schneider. Mrs. Schneider seemed nice enough, but had to ask a 'Mr. Incled' whether or not I had to run. She came back a second later and said I did. Maegith and Jess traded knowing glances. We sat down in our 'squads'.
"I don't think Mrs. Schneider seems so bad. What were you talking about?"
"Well," Maegith said, "Mrs. Schneider really isn't that bad, and neither is Mrs. Wanserman. It's Mr. Incled who's the bad one. The others are actually kind of nice. But, this whole course is hell, even with nicer teachers. Oh, here we go outside to the football field." We got up and started walking. Then, two girls came up to us, one the brunette who had given an answer in English, and the other a dirty blond who seemed to be one of the other girl, Catalina's, cohorts.
Catalina spoke. "So, girls, gonna break a school record today?" She used an overly honeyed and friendly tone.
"Yeah," the other girl said. "Slowest ever!" Both girls jogged off laughing. Maegith looked depressed, and Jess glared murder into their quickly retreating blacks.
I needed to break the tension. "It's alright. I'm sure you'll do fine." At that moment, I decided that I'd personally make sure of that. Those two girls brought back some unpleasant memories of my childhood, and I felt a need to prove them wrong.
"Thanks." Maeg looked up at me gratefully. "We're not that slow, really, but I have come in a proud last several years strait. However, on the bright side, I've never broken that record Catalina mentioned. Believe me, I've checked." She gave the half smile of one facing impending doom and trying to make light of the situation.
We finally reached the field. Catalina and her gaggle of friends, including the other girl sneered. "See you in a couple of hours, Geeks!" said the blond who had laughed before. The teacher gave the signal to start running.
"Ooh. I'm going to kill Alicia. Look at her sneer. And she probably doesn't have enough brains to fill a teaspoon!" Jess scowled and started running faster.
"Can I help?" Maegith sped up too. "But torture would be more fitting I think." She grinned at Jess who grinned back. We were nearing the first corner when both girls, especially Maegith started to lag. I started thinking of some spells I could use. I thought of a couple. One, which I would cast at the pack of sneering girls ahead, would make them feel as though they'd been running for five times as long as they actually had been. It would take a circuit or two for them to slow down, and wouldn't be too conspicuous that way. The other would give Jess and Maegith extra strength, so they'd come to the finish well within the time limit. About another quarter of a lap around, both spells started to really set in. Jess and Maegith both sped up a little and gave each other surprised looks. They shrugged and sped up more. I started really running, because I certainly didn't want the title of last!
After another few minutes, Catalina, Alicia, and their crowd started to fall back. I grinned at their shocked looks when Maegith and Jess passed them, barely out of breath.
Finally, gym ended. Jess, Maegith, and I finished at about the same time. Jess and Maegith looked tired, but happy. As we walked back into the gym, they said that the next period was lunch. They told me where their table was, and we agreed to meet there.
As I walking out of the boy's locker room, Catalina and her cronies suddenly surrounded me. "You know," Catalina said. "You should really not hang out with people like that."
"Like what?" I said.
"Like them." A skinny blond continued. "Sometimes, I think those losers actually believe in things from books like magic!" She said the word that was my livelihood with contempt.
"Thank you for the advice, girls. But I think I'm perfectly capable to judge people on my own." I turned my back on them without waiting for an answer and walked into the cafeteria across the hall.
I quickly found Maegith's table, and sat down in an empty seat. Maegith motioned at the other two girls at their end of the table. "Daniel, this is Joan," She pointed to a slender girl with brown hair and slightly darker skin then herself. "And Maria." She gestured to another other girl, who was wearing thick glasses and a bandana over very dark braided hair. "And that's Rebecca." She motioned to a girl with curly blond hair I recognized from a couple of our classes. She turned to the other girls. "This is Daniel Silver. He just moved from Africa." Joan, Rebecca, and Maria nodded to me.
Maegith turned to me again. "Did you bring anything for lunch?" I shook my head. "All right. I'll just get some extra stuff for you from the lunch line. Anything you don't eat?" I shook my head again. "Okay. We'll be back soon." She headed up with the rest of the table to the front of the cafeteria where the food was sold. I took the opportunity to look around the cafeteria and eavesdrop on people's conversations with my heightened elven hearing. Most of the people were talking about things that were fairly boring to me, such as the homework, or the school sports teams. Then, I heard my name.
"That new boy Daniel is so hot!" One of Catalina's blond cronies was saying. I believe it was the one who told me not to hang out with Maegith and Jess. "I hope Maeg doesn't have her hopes up about him. I mean, look at her! I could get him by the end of the day if he talks to me."
"Oh come on." Catalina said. "You? It's me he'll go out with. But your right, Maeg has no chance." The whole table sneered. I nearly laughed at how much they sounded like some of the elven ladies I knew when I was a child. I contained my amusement though, because my tablemates were coming back. They sat down and Jess turned to Maeg.
"So, Dalamar, you're coming to my house today, right?" I blinked. I must have heard wrong.
"Yeah, Raist." Sam replied. "I'm sleeping over too, right? Yeah, today's Wednesday." She mused. When I heard my Shalafi's childhood nickname in response to mine, my mouth flew open. I closed it before anyone noticed, though.
I had to find out how they knew my name. " Excuse me, Maeg? What did you and Jess just call each other?" I tried to keep my voice calm.
"Oh, those are just our nicknames. See, mine's Dalamar, after a book character, Jess's is Raistlin after another character from the same book, Joan's is Hawkeye, and Maria's is Ryoko after an Anime' character. Rebecca is called Gandalf after a character from the book series I told you about before. I doubt you'd have heard of the books Jess and I take our names from in Eritrea. The series is called DragonLance. Why? Is something wrong?" I supposed my panic and astonishment showed on my face.
"Ah, no. I think I may've read a few books in that series. My father sometimes got some unknown books for me." I hoped that would be a passable excuse. *Holy Nuitari!* I yelled at Raistlin.
*What are you over-reacting about now?* He answered in an annoyed tone. Obviously, he'd been doing something else and not heard the conversation.
*They've heard of us here!! We're in a book series called 'DragonLance'!*
*Are you sure?* My Shalafi sounded concerned.
*Yes! Maegith and Jess call each other Dalamar and Raistlin! They even knew your childhood nickname; Raist! I mean how many people of those names can there be associated with each other?*
*Well, find out as much as you can, but DONT give yourself away.* I turned back to the table conversation, and realized Jess had just asked me a question.
"I'm sorry, I didn't hear you." I tried to hide my nervousness.
"It's alright." She said. "I asked if you wanted to came over to my house with Maeg after school."
"Oh." I said. I was glad they hadn't noticed my attention lapse and momentary panic. "Sure. But I don't have a way to get there."
"That's fine. It'll be tight, but you'll fit in my car." She smiled. "We can show you some things about American culture."
Lunch passed without further incident, other than Maria commenting on the sad state of the chicken, which they served for lunch. Then, it was time for Spanish.
Authors notes: First, I'd like to thank all of my wonderful reviewers.
Kenderling: Thank you for your continuing support for my shameless self- insertion. By the way, the psychological spats are a bit real. Though some traits in this story are exaggerated, it's all based on fact, or at least my perception of it. And too true about writing yourself subconsciously: I know for a fact all of my characters have traits of mine. (short, more academic than athletic, etc...)
Alien21xx: glad my note was useful to you. Sorry I made my description so vague – sometimes I picture something but don't put all of the details into words. To answer your new question: the portal is disguised for the most part in this world. So, if Raistlin passed Dally a pencil, all someone else would see would be a pencil and part of a hand emerging through thin air. Glad you brought that up – it plays a part in a couple of chapters. About Dalamar's name trouble: your right, he couldn't really pause to think in his circumstances, and hadn't had time to think about it the night before, what with his 500 page packet and all. Glad you read for errors though, it's useful.
Guan and Jade Limill: thanks tons for your reviews. Raistlin is coming, never fear.
Well, see y'all soon. Hope you enjoyed this chapter.
Author's note: I must warn you, I changed my pseudonym this chapter. The lead female is now known as Maegith Cooper, not Alanna. I forgot to say, the name of Alanna didn't belong to me, but as I got no threats of lawsuits, I guess no one cared. Anyway, I changed that name.
Chapter 3: Of Calculus and Cold Chicken
The next class was math across the hall with Mrs. Egunt. We were doing something called 'calculus' that was complete dwarvish to me. Luckily, my teacher excused me from the homework to give me a night to catch up on what I'd missed. To me, it seemed like I'd need much more than one night.
My fourth period class, Technology, was a little better, because all we did was learn how to make scale drawing on paper with a grid. It was actually quite easy.
Next was Earth Science, with Mr. Rennolds. There were groups of two, two- person tables lined up. I was sitting next to Maegith, who was next to Jess. We started taking notes on heat transfer. For some odd reason, maybe to try to be funny, Mr. Rennolds drew a rabbit in the diagram, along with some people around a campfire on rocks. The campfire and people made sense, but the rabbit was very random. All of a sudden, Maegith nudged Jess and showed her her notebook. First, Jess held back a laugh, and then made a face in mock anger. I nudged Maegith and gave her a quizzical look. She wrote something and then showed me the picture.
It had 'It's a book joke, you probably won't get it' written on the top. On the rocks, instead of two stick figures, she had given the people more definition. They were apparently wearing what looked like black robes and had long hair. Obviously men, one had penciled gray hair and the other black. The gray haired one had a staff with a jewel on top portrayed to be glowing, and looked oddly like a crude Staff of Magus. That man was yelling " Aaaahhh! Bunnies!!" The other was thinking 'blackmail' and 'I'm going to be the Master of the Black robes!'
That's odd. It almost reminded me of Raistlin and me! I smirked silently. But it couldn't be. Still, I had to find out. I scribbled a note back to Maegith. 'Who are they? They seem familiar.'
She took the notebook back, wrote for a moment, and passed it back. 'Book characters. You wouldn't have heard of them in Eritrea.' I was relieved. They couldn't have anything about Krynn in their libraries. There had been no previous contact. I breathed a sigh of relief. Earth Science wore on.
At the end of class, Maegith groaned. I looked back and forth between her and Air's pained expressions. "What? What's wrong?"
Jess and Maegith looked at each other. It was Jess who replied. "Oh, nothing, we're just going to Hell next period; mile run, gym class. Both of us hate gym in general, but mile day is the worst. Come on, we've got to hurry; the gym's on the other end of the building. We walked off quickly.
"In the future, on gym days, wear anything other than jeans," Maegith informed me. "They take points off if you don't, but they won't care since this is your first day. They probably will make you run, though. Those people are pure evil..."
*Pure evil?* Raistlin smirked to me. *Those girls don't know what evil is!* I silently laughed back.
"... and live to torture students." Maegith concluded. We got to the gym door. "You can just go in the main door, or down there is the boy's locker room if you want to put down your stuff." Through the day, I had accumulated several binders, notebooks, and writing utensils via Raistlin. I opted to go to the locker room.
I met back up with Jess and Maegith in the main gym, where she introduced me to Mrs. Schneider. Mrs. Schneider seemed nice enough, but had to ask a 'Mr. Incled' whether or not I had to run. She came back a second later and said I did. Maegith and Jess traded knowing glances. We sat down in our 'squads'.
"I don't think Mrs. Schneider seems so bad. What were you talking about?"
"Well," Maegith said, "Mrs. Schneider really isn't that bad, and neither is Mrs. Wanserman. It's Mr. Incled who's the bad one. The others are actually kind of nice. But, this whole course is hell, even with nicer teachers. Oh, here we go outside to the football field." We got up and started walking. Then, two girls came up to us, one the brunette who had given an answer in English, and the other a dirty blond who seemed to be one of the other girl, Catalina's, cohorts.
Catalina spoke. "So, girls, gonna break a school record today?" She used an overly honeyed and friendly tone.
"Yeah," the other girl said. "Slowest ever!" Both girls jogged off laughing. Maegith looked depressed, and Jess glared murder into their quickly retreating blacks.
I needed to break the tension. "It's alright. I'm sure you'll do fine." At that moment, I decided that I'd personally make sure of that. Those two girls brought back some unpleasant memories of my childhood, and I felt a need to prove them wrong.
"Thanks." Maeg looked up at me gratefully. "We're not that slow, really, but I have come in a proud last several years strait. However, on the bright side, I've never broken that record Catalina mentioned. Believe me, I've checked." She gave the half smile of one facing impending doom and trying to make light of the situation.
We finally reached the field. Catalina and her gaggle of friends, including the other girl sneered. "See you in a couple of hours, Geeks!" said the blond who had laughed before. The teacher gave the signal to start running.
"Ooh. I'm going to kill Alicia. Look at her sneer. And she probably doesn't have enough brains to fill a teaspoon!" Jess scowled and started running faster.
"Can I help?" Maegith sped up too. "But torture would be more fitting I think." She grinned at Jess who grinned back. We were nearing the first corner when both girls, especially Maegith started to lag. I started thinking of some spells I could use. I thought of a couple. One, which I would cast at the pack of sneering girls ahead, would make them feel as though they'd been running for five times as long as they actually had been. It would take a circuit or two for them to slow down, and wouldn't be too conspicuous that way. The other would give Jess and Maegith extra strength, so they'd come to the finish well within the time limit. About another quarter of a lap around, both spells started to really set in. Jess and Maegith both sped up a little and gave each other surprised looks. They shrugged and sped up more. I started really running, because I certainly didn't want the title of last!
After another few minutes, Catalina, Alicia, and their crowd started to fall back. I grinned at their shocked looks when Maegith and Jess passed them, barely out of breath.
Finally, gym ended. Jess, Maegith, and I finished at about the same time. Jess and Maegith looked tired, but happy. As we walked back into the gym, they said that the next period was lunch. They told me where their table was, and we agreed to meet there.
As I walking out of the boy's locker room, Catalina and her cronies suddenly surrounded me. "You know," Catalina said. "You should really not hang out with people like that."
"Like what?" I said.
"Like them." A skinny blond continued. "Sometimes, I think those losers actually believe in things from books like magic!" She said the word that was my livelihood with contempt.
"Thank you for the advice, girls. But I think I'm perfectly capable to judge people on my own." I turned my back on them without waiting for an answer and walked into the cafeteria across the hall.
I quickly found Maegith's table, and sat down in an empty seat. Maegith motioned at the other two girls at their end of the table. "Daniel, this is Joan," She pointed to a slender girl with brown hair and slightly darker skin then herself. "And Maria." She gestured to another other girl, who was wearing thick glasses and a bandana over very dark braided hair. "And that's Rebecca." She motioned to a girl with curly blond hair I recognized from a couple of our classes. She turned to the other girls. "This is Daniel Silver. He just moved from Africa." Joan, Rebecca, and Maria nodded to me.
Maegith turned to me again. "Did you bring anything for lunch?" I shook my head. "All right. I'll just get some extra stuff for you from the lunch line. Anything you don't eat?" I shook my head again. "Okay. We'll be back soon." She headed up with the rest of the table to the front of the cafeteria where the food was sold. I took the opportunity to look around the cafeteria and eavesdrop on people's conversations with my heightened elven hearing. Most of the people were talking about things that were fairly boring to me, such as the homework, or the school sports teams. Then, I heard my name.
"That new boy Daniel is so hot!" One of Catalina's blond cronies was saying. I believe it was the one who told me not to hang out with Maegith and Jess. "I hope Maeg doesn't have her hopes up about him. I mean, look at her! I could get him by the end of the day if he talks to me."
"Oh come on." Catalina said. "You? It's me he'll go out with. But your right, Maeg has no chance." The whole table sneered. I nearly laughed at how much they sounded like some of the elven ladies I knew when I was a child. I contained my amusement though, because my tablemates were coming back. They sat down and Jess turned to Maeg.
"So, Dalamar, you're coming to my house today, right?" I blinked. I must have heard wrong.
"Yeah, Raist." Sam replied. "I'm sleeping over too, right? Yeah, today's Wednesday." She mused. When I heard my Shalafi's childhood nickname in response to mine, my mouth flew open. I closed it before anyone noticed, though.
I had to find out how they knew my name. " Excuse me, Maeg? What did you and Jess just call each other?" I tried to keep my voice calm.
"Oh, those are just our nicknames. See, mine's Dalamar, after a book character, Jess's is Raistlin after another character from the same book, Joan's is Hawkeye, and Maria's is Ryoko after an Anime' character. Rebecca is called Gandalf after a character from the book series I told you about before. I doubt you'd have heard of the books Jess and I take our names from in Eritrea. The series is called DragonLance. Why? Is something wrong?" I supposed my panic and astonishment showed on my face.
"Ah, no. I think I may've read a few books in that series. My father sometimes got some unknown books for me." I hoped that would be a passable excuse. *Holy Nuitari!* I yelled at Raistlin.
*What are you over-reacting about now?* He answered in an annoyed tone. Obviously, he'd been doing something else and not heard the conversation.
*They've heard of us here!! We're in a book series called 'DragonLance'!*
*Are you sure?* My Shalafi sounded concerned.
*Yes! Maegith and Jess call each other Dalamar and Raistlin! They even knew your childhood nickname; Raist! I mean how many people of those names can there be associated with each other?*
*Well, find out as much as you can, but DONT give yourself away.* I turned back to the table conversation, and realized Jess had just asked me a question.
"I'm sorry, I didn't hear you." I tried to hide my nervousness.
"It's alright." She said. "I asked if you wanted to came over to my house with Maeg after school."
"Oh." I said. I was glad they hadn't noticed my attention lapse and momentary panic. "Sure. But I don't have a way to get there."
"That's fine. It'll be tight, but you'll fit in my car." She smiled. "We can show you some things about American culture."
Lunch passed without further incident, other than Maria commenting on the sad state of the chicken, which they served for lunch. Then, it was time for Spanish.
Authors notes: First, I'd like to thank all of my wonderful reviewers.
Kenderling: Thank you for your continuing support for my shameless self- insertion. By the way, the psychological spats are a bit real. Though some traits in this story are exaggerated, it's all based on fact, or at least my perception of it. And too true about writing yourself subconsciously: I know for a fact all of my characters have traits of mine. (short, more academic than athletic, etc...)
Alien21xx: glad my note was useful to you. Sorry I made my description so vague – sometimes I picture something but don't put all of the details into words. To answer your new question: the portal is disguised for the most part in this world. So, if Raistlin passed Dally a pencil, all someone else would see would be a pencil and part of a hand emerging through thin air. Glad you brought that up – it plays a part in a couple of chapters. About Dalamar's name trouble: your right, he couldn't really pause to think in his circumstances, and hadn't had time to think about it the night before, what with his 500 page packet and all. Glad you read for errors though, it's useful.
Guan and Jade Limill: thanks tons for your reviews. Raistlin is coming, never fear.
Well, see y'all soon. Hope you enjoyed this chapter.