Chapter 6

Opal was sorting through the books arranged at the bottom of her locker when Herry strolled over, stifling a yawn. He rubbed his eyes and then spun his combo into his lock, popping the door open to toss his duffle inside. She had gotten into the habit of watching him from the corner of her eye while appearing like she was diddling around with her bag. He seemed more tired than usual this morning, sleepy eyes and excessive yawning was usually only reserved for Mondays.

She considered asking him if he had a late night. 'Late night eh?' seemed simple enough, then why did her heart all of a sudden decide to remind her it was still beating strongly in her chest? Oh no. No, no, a crush. She couldn't have a crush. God damned Six Foot Everything with his happy smile and those god damned little dimples on his cheeks. What was this? Freaking crushes always snuck up on her, like Jeremy in her grade nine history class. For a month his hiccupping laugh drove her insane, what an annoying sound, and then one morning it was the cutest thing. The only difference with Jeremy was that he never talked to her, he didn't know she existed. Herry did know she existed. Admiring happily, and safely, from afar would not be an option with him.

She startled when he groaned, she pushed her hair away from her eyes to watch him more closely. He dug into his pocket and flipped open his phone. Grumbling he shot the name of one of his friends through to the other side.

"Yeah, Jay," he muttered, "Jay, I got it… Jay… Yeah, I'll be right there." He snapped his phone shut and dropped it back into his pocket. Flicking his locker door closed in a rush he turned and hastily lost himself in the crowd of students. It always seemed like it was important when he got a phone call, he always bolted off like that after them. His face, it always looked more serious after them as well, his eyes got darker, the muscle in his jaw would jump as he clenched his teeth, it was the only time she ever saw anything that resembled a frown come across his lips. Opal didn't know what to think about his abrupt behaviors. There was nothing she could think of that would explain them. She huffed out a breath to blow her bangs from her eyes and headed off for class. It came as no surprise when he didn't show up to their homeroom.

Of all the ways to begin a class Rice decided to have a pop quiz. Opal's heart leapt into her throat at the announcement, the revelation that it wasn't worth marks did little to alleviate her stress. They were starting a new unit and Rice just wanted to see what their understanding of the topic on Greek Mythology. Receiving the paper Opal quickly scanned over the questions, what were Hercules' Labors? She could maybe think of one, out of how many she wasn't sure. The twelve Olympians? She might have a shot at that one. Summary of the Trojan War. She saw that movie once.

She had a fistful of hair clenched in her hand, chewing on her lip while she tapped her pencil on her paper when Herry came into the room. He shrugged an apology and handed over a late slip to Rice. The teacher snatched it away from him and passed him a test sheet. She watched the panic flash across his face as he realized what the paper was and then a crooked smile flooded away the anxiety in his features. As he strolled over to his desk he muttered the questions to himself, missing her eyes following him as he passed by her. From over her shoulder she watched him click the end of a pen and then swiftly scribble answers on the sheet. She sighed and looked back to her half blank test.

When Rice called for them to hand their papers forward to be taken up in class she was unsure of most of her answers and there was a significant amount of the paper left white. Herry held his paper over her shoulder, she took it and smoothed it out on her desk and began comparing her answers.

"What?" she muttered looking at the first question, what were Hercules' labors, he had put all twelve. She had heard that he wasn't the smartest member of his group, but this lead her to believe otherwise. She checked off his list as Rice read out the possible answers. Not only had he got them all right, he had them in chronological order. Opal stole a quick glance over her shoulder, hiding her face under her hair. He was doodling on the desk as he waited for the teacher to continue with the next question.

The Twelve Olympians, got them all. The Titans, got them all too, and the last one on his list, Cronus, it was written in all capitols and underlined. Odd, maybe he had forgotten that last one and his writing changed only because remembered last minute. Pegasus belonged too? Perseus, was the scrawled answer. Oops got that wrong, Disney lied to me, Opal thought with a smirk, totally thought it was Hercules. His answers continued with perfection, describing heroes like he knew them and monsters like he had a vendetta against them.

She handed it back to him with an amazed look, "How do you know all that?"

"Ah, I, ah, it's… I just like it," he offered, phrasing his answer like a question, unsure of himself. She nodded in confusion and turned back around to meet the forty-one circled in red at the top of her paper, good thing it was not worth marks. She let out a defeated sigh and held it out for the teacher to collect as he walked by.

Odie scrolled through the satellite images on his computer, Jay hovering behind him. The storm hadn't appeared for very long earlier that morning, it had vanished by the time they made it to the shore of the ocean. The pictures they were flicking through did not show them anything they didn't already know. There were no strange flicks of dragon wings or tails in the images, just a perfectly round bellow of gray clouds.

"I've been looking through lists of sea monsters," Jay muttered, "But I still don't know what this could be. I don't know, it just doesn't really seem like it's Cronus."

"Yeah man, I know what you mean, Cronus usually strikes faster than and harder than what this is doing," Odie said, "Even if it's not Cronus, it most definitely is still related to him though."

"Mmm, yeah that's almost as concerning," Jay said, "as if Cronus' activities here are attracting others from the myths."

"I'm sure we'll figure this out," Odie said after a moment of silence, clicking the x in the corner of the screen, he turned his computer chair around to face his leader, "What do you say we go start a movie?"

"Yeah, I think I'm going to look through some of my text books a little more," he muttered and turned to take his leave. Odie sighed and shook his head.

"Jay, what's up?" Herry asked as he squeezed into the dim room past the smaller man. Jay just offered a quick flick of his fingers in a wave and continued his way out into the hallway. Herry took a moment to give him a confused look and then turned back to Odie with a broad smile, holding out a package wrapped in brown packing paper. It was about the size of a DVD case and when he shook it the sound of a disk rattling in its case drew Odie over to the door.

"Is that?" he took the case from his friend and tore off the packaging like a child on Christmas morning, "Ha, been waiting ages for this."

"Is that Starcraft? I thought it wasn't out yet."

"It's not, this is the beta," Odie said as he popped it into his computer, setting up the program for download.

"How did you get the beta?" Herry asked, spinning one of the extra chairs in his friend's room around to drop into, folding his arms across the back rest.

"Requested, and since I'm awesome, I got it," he gloated with a smug smile.

"Piff," Herry rolled his eyes.

"Arch wants to download it on his laptop, we'll get Atlanta in on it and have a two on two," he continued, "What do you think?"

"Sure, but will be like midnight before we all get it downloaded on our computers," he replied.

"That's cool," he shrugged and held out a closed fist to the man with a cheery smile, "Top shelf my friend."

Herry sent his fist a confused look and hesitantly reached out a hand to push Odie's fist into his open palm. The smaller man hunched his shoulders and sent Herry an unimpressed look. Fist bumping was a relatively simple and commonly used gesture. When Odie first met the boy he had ignored Herry's misunderstanding of his greeting, but now he wasn't afraid to correct him.

"Dude, has no one besides me tried to fist bump you before?" he asked.

"Oh, is that what you're doing?"

"Yes," he said with a blank face and held out his fist.

"Cool," Herry tapped his knuckles against his friend's. Odie just shook his head and looked back to his computer. Herry, kind of a dumbass sometimes, but the best dumbass he had ever had the pleasure of meeting.