"What is your name?" says the cold of voice of the man sitting at the low wooden desk.
Why is he here? Tyson doesn't belong here. He shouldn't be here. Schools aren't his place. He knows this.
"Tyson."
The balding man raises one of his abnormally thick eyebrows. "And your last name?"
The tall boy says nothing.
"I'm waiting," the headmaster snaps impatiently, and Tyson instantly realizes that this man should definitely not be the one handling the students. "We're trying to help you."
The only noise in the small, cramped, box-like room comes from the tapping of the man's stubby pencil. "I'm still waiting."
Tyson frowns and the man cannot tell if he is protesting, thinking, or just upset.
"Your surname, boy!" the principal hisses. "For example, mine is Bonsai."
The boy still doesn't answer.
"Like the tree."
Tyson smiles at him, showing off his filthy teeth.
Obviously, the headmaster won't be getting a response. He murmurs, "Dimwitted child seems to have been on the streets a little too long."
The smile vanishes from the boy's face. He seems shocked. His strange, derformed-looking eyes are filled with hurt. "Dimwitted?" he asks.
The headmaster appears not to have heard. "Well, Mr. No-Name—"
The boy still looks offended. His frown is as wide as ever.
"—Tyson, that will be enough, I suppose. I'll register you as…" The man doesn't seem to have an answer. "I'll figure something out." His voice was rushed and choppy, making it clear he would like to be doing something else. "Go ahead. You can go home. Or wherever it is you go ever day."
He was supposed to be nice, Tyson thought he would be. The framed piece of paper in his office read, "Teachers are your friends!" Another's bright pink letters preached, "Set a good example by being kind to others!" Mr. Bonsai was anything but kind or friendly to him. It was awful. He had never had a friend. No one was kind to him. He thought this man would fix that. Friends were supposed to appear—the man promised Tyson something better. Already, Tyson knows that this "beneficial experience" was not beneficial to Tyson, but to only the school's reputation.
He is picked up in a strange white bus at the corner. It seems to be some sort of free transportation. Tyson thinks he could have earned money somehow, then paid for a regular bus to Meriwether Prep. He doesn't want to enter, but apparently, "law requires you get in, kiddo." After sixteen long minutes, Tyson is told to exit the bus that smells strongly of puke, detergent, gum, and dust. Meriwether looks no more welcoming this morning than it did a week ago.
"Loser," taunts a small boy as Tyson leaves the bus.
"Freak!" says another.
The insults get worse. Three or four kids shuffle around uncomfortably while the others tease the taller boy mercilessly. One boy looks up at Tyson and smiles reassuringly. Tyson wanted to meet the boy.
Very few people say anything polite to him. (One girl greets him, a teacher asks for a pen that Tyson doesn't have, and the boy passed him a note and smiled.)
Lunch is awful. Not only was the food terrible—frozen bagels, a single slice of salami with something green growing on it, a suspicious-looking peach yogurt, and expired strawberry milk—the actual activity is torturous, too.
"Hey, kid, are you enjoying your meal? It must be the most delicious thing you've ever eaten, huh? Better than the garbage you're used to, I'm sure," rings a high-pitched voice.
"But, 'Tunia, he must have been eating plenty of it," says another girl cruelly. She speaks as if every word is a knife, cutting through the air with such force; you have no choice but to stare at her with fear. "I mean, take a look at him."
"Guess he took a liking to the trash, then, Zo. I guess he found it to be a delicacy."
"Well, it wouldn't surprise me. He is a freak, isn't he?" agrees a third voice with a similar chill to it. "As you said, look at the kid."
"Jerks," mumbles the boy that Tyson actually found to be decent. "Mind if I sit here?"
Tyson sniffles, recovering from the sobs he was in due to the girls and replies, "No." He's glad to have someone to sit next to.
"Those girls?" asks the boy conversationally, pointing to the cluster of bullies.
Tyson nods. He can hardly manage words.
"They seem horrible." He pauses. "Who're you?" The boy wrinkles his nose as if he doesn't like the sound of the question.
"My name? It is Tyson."
"Cool," says the boy. "Nice name. I'm Percy."
"Thank you. Are we friends?" Tyson asks.
Percy looks startled for a moment, and Tyson hopes he doesn't leave. Then, he grins. "Sure."
Tyson can't help but feel giddy. "Friends," he repeats. The lunchroom doesn't seem so loud, the bullies don't seem so mean, and his life doesn't seem as hopeless.
"Yeah."
Forty weeks into the school year. The end of the year is undeniably here. This was the final day of school. Somehow, the months went faster than Tyson expected. Somehow, the bullies are more tolerable than the first day of school, even though they weren't as afraid of him now.
But, for days, maybe weeks (he hasn't been counting), a single thought has been haunting him: Tyson might not be able to return to Meriwether. He would lose his only friend. He had to stay at Meriwether. He had to. Apparently, Percy could tell that Tyson was upset. On multiple occasions, he reminded his friend that everything was going to be fine. Tyson didn't believe it, and Percy seemed a little doubtful as he said it.
"Honestly, Tyson. I'm serious, everything will be okay." Percy smiles uncertainly at the boy and his eyes are filled with an emotion that displays the opposite of what he has spoken.
To avoid making his friend feel worse, Tyson nods because he feels it's important to give a response. His voice is shaky when he can manage a proper reply. "It will be," Tyson tells Percy, "it will be okay."
Maybe it will be. Meriwether might not accept the homeless boy next year. The forgotten weirdo would go back to his life searching for food without friends, education, family, or anything. But, he wouldn't be without anything. Now, he had memories. He could think of the nice boy. He had his thoughts of laughing, comfort, and smiles. Tyson could recall every little detail of wonderful things that happened to him this year. Now, he had something. He had more than something. He had everything. He could survive everything. He could do anything. Because Tyson finally had a friend.
A/N: I really wasn't sure how far to extend this, so if the ending seems a little mismatched or something, it's because I was debating with myself about the length. Well, I want to thank my friend that has never been on FF in her life, but inspired me to do this because the first thing she asked me after reaching this middle of The Battle of the Labyrinth was "Oh my god, tell me! Is Tyson alright?" or something along those lines. So, I felt the need to write about Tyson. I did my research on the headmaster, you can tell. I couldn't remember it at first, so I had to look it up in the book, which annoyed me because it interrupted my thoughts. Then I felt like an idiot. But, hey, it's accurate. I'm definitely unsure about this one because Tyson is very...different. Not in a bad way, obviously, but just alltogether different from other characters. Hopefully, I did a sort of decent job.
-Lexi