Inside the school building, Lewis looked around. His job, so far, had required him to wear a suit, most of the time. But being in a school building, he has to look younger than he really was. Since he was still in his twenties, all that was required for him was to wear jeans, a jock T-shirt, sneakers and carry around a backpack, and he looked as if he was in his late teens. Or so he hoped. It's been years since he graduated, so even if he looked acceptably young, his behaviour, as well as his vocabulary would give away that he didn't fit in as much as he should.
"Are you Lewis?" a voice asked.
Lewis turned his head to where the voice came from. He saw a plump man, who judging by his suit and glasses was clearly a teacher.
"General West's son?" the teacher continued.
"Yes." Lewis lied, so to keep his cover.
"Good." the teacher sounded pleased, "I'm Mr. Henry. If you'd please follow me to your next class."
The teacher lead, and Lewis followed. The way that teacher introduced himself made Lewis wonder something: Why do teachers always introduce themselves as "Mr." or "Mrs." as if it's their first name?
In class, the first thing that Henry did was introduce Lewis: "Okay, class, meet Lewis. As some of you may know, Major General West will be visiting this base for a few days, so his son Lewis will be joining our classes for the next few day. Please give him a warm welcome."
Although he told them to welcome him, the students applauded. But that wasn't what bothered Lewis. He looked for an empty seat in the classroom, and when he found the only empty seat, he noticed that that seat was next to a familiar face. That face belonged to the girl he had seen at a bar the night before. It was the girl that everyone else knew as Alice.
"If you'd be so kind to find yourself a seat..." Henry motioned him to take a seat.
Lewis was nervous, but his bosses ordered him to do this, so he had no choice. He walked to the one empty seat. As he sat down, he overheard two girls talking to one another.
"Did you see him?" one asked.
"Yeah." the other whispered in return, "How many times has he been held back?"
"Oh, totally." was the reply, "He looks too old to even be here."
Lewis tried to suppress a sigh as he sat down. He didn't have enough time to blend in, and his cover was already blown.
"What are you doing here?" Alice suddenly asked him.
"The same thing as you." Lewis replied, "Sitting here against my wishes."
"Oh!" one of the two girls really felt it necessary to make a remark about this, "Those two are fighting before they get started."
"Grow up!" Alice bit back at her.
Whether it was wittingly or not, the teacher put a stop to this by speaking: "Okay, so to continue our discussion about Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein',..."
Alice didn't care if class started, she wanted to have this sorted out with Lewis: "What do you want with me?"
Lewis raised an eyebrow. He could answer her question honestly, but that would only ruin what he's trying to accomplish, so he answered: "If you mean about the other night, I just wanted to be sure you were fit to drive."
"I can take care of myself, thank you very much." Alice replied, sarcastically.
"It wasn't you that I was worried about." Lewis added, "Because if there were an accident, most of the time the driver survives, but the ones they hit... not so much. I wouldn't want to be responsible for a death I could have prevented."
Alice snorted: "Who do you think you are? Spider-Man?"
The obvious answer was no, but the more specific answer was too complicated to explain. On the other hand, the question was rhetorical.
"In many ways..." Henry continued, "... Frankenstein creating the monster is similar to when God created the Devil. Why do you think that is?"
A student raised his hand, whom the teacher allowed to answer: "Because much like God, who's good, created the Devil, who's evil, Frankenstein was the good guy, who created the bad guy himself."
Henry cocked his head from left to right, because that wasn't the answer he was looking for: "Okay. Anyone else?"
Henry looked around, and as soon as Lewis was in his sight, he said: "What do you think, Lewis?"
Before Lewis could say anything, one of the two mean girls covered her teeth with her lips, so to pretend to not have any teeth, and with an old man's voice, she said: "I'm sorry, I don't have my teeth in."
Both girls roared in laughter. Lewis ignored them, by answering: "From what I can tell, both the Devil and the creature weren't born as monsters. They were mere victims of their own fathers' ambition, because as soon as God and Frankenstein realized their goals can never be achieved, they neglected their creations. And slowly, and surely, they became the monsters we know them to be."
"In other words, an ego problem." Alice seemed to agree.
"And what makes you say that?" Henry asked her.
"Frankenstein tried to become God, who's thought to be perfect." Alice answered, "But God himself couldn't create a better creature himself. So both of them didn't want to be near the one thing that reminded them of their own imperfection."
"Interesting." Henry said.
"Someone's got daddy issues." the mean girls giggled.
Before anyone could say anything else, Henry continued with his class, speaking loud enough so nobody could say another word.