"Don't be such a downer!"
"Some people take time to learn to trust others."
Protector of Silence
Chapter Nineteen – Christmas Truth
Kellyn wasn't quite sure how he was going to be woken on Christmas Morning, but he more than sure Keith would be to blame. He thought maybe a zillion alarm clocks piling the floor and just about every accessible space in the room or being woken up by a water gun filled with whipped cream or water bombs, something like that. But no, Keith had something much more devious planned.
Kellyn smiled as he woke for a peaceful sleep. His hazy vision made out two spots of white in front of his face. A little confused, he blinked and tried to wake himself up more. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on ends as he realised there were two plastic eyes inches from his face.
Squeaking with alarm, he threw the privacy intruder into the air. The stuffed toy hippo, as Kellyn now realised that was it was, flew through the air and, by dumb luck, landed on top of Ponte. The thickset boy squealed with fear and the hippo was thrown into the air again. This time, it landed on the floor in the centre of the room. Something inside the hippo suddenly went
POOF!
Within seconds, the room was filled with artificial smoke. Those who hadn't been woken by Ponte squealing like a girl were immediately woken by the smell of the artificial smoke - i.e. cotton candy.
"What the... cough! cough!" Nick spluttered as he shot up in bed, rubbing his brown eyes to clear them of the smoke.
Kellyn blinked and was then filled with rage as he heard insane cackling coming from his bottom bunk. He peered his head over the side and saw Keith rolling around on the bed, clutching his stomach, in tears of laughter. Kellyn looked over at Starlight who was sitting up, giving Keith a glare that probably translated as: 'I-will-personally-kill-you-later-but-I-want-my-present-first'. Kellyn sent Keith the same glare.
"You'll - cough - die for this - cough cough - Dazuru!" Liam glared at the boy across the room from him who had just rolled off his bunk in hysterical laughter.
"Yeah! - cough - Where'd ya find - cough cough - the smoke machine - cough - anyway?" Nick joined in.
Ponte coughed twice before ducking under his duvet to protect himself from the smoke. Kellyn protected his mouth with his sleeve so he wouldn't end up in the same fix as Nick and Liam.
"Whoa. What bomb went off in there?"
"Yeah. What happened?"
Kellyn turned as saw Shadow and Luna at the window, peering through it in curiosity. He didn't blame them.
'Keith happened' he answered 'He set a smoke bomb off in his stuffed Hippowdon!'
"Well, be fair, he could have done worse" Luna pointed out. Kellyn raised an eyebrow "He could have set the room on fire. Or drowned you all by dismembering the plumbing."
"Fire! Where?" Shadow blinked into attention and began looking around in fear.
Kellyn rolled his eyes. One word: paranoid.
'It's dismantled the plumbing, but yeah, suppose' Kellyn shrugged 'You guys sticking around?'
"Nah, Rushweed's got a party over at his place-" Luna shook her head "-And it's a bad idea to ignore an invitation from a Vaporeon with anger issues."
'Er...' Kellyn blinked 'I'll take your word for it. Have fun.'
"Will do!" Luna beamed and nodded, then thwacking Shadow's flank with her forked tail, causing the Umbreon to squeak with alarm but stop panicking "Come on Mr Paranoid!"
Luna metaphorically dragged her companion beyond the window, out of sight.
With the Pokémon out of the equation, Kellyn turned his attention to the humans. The hippo plushie, apparently named 'Mr Snuggles' or, as Liam called it, 'Big Mouth', had finally stopped producing smoke. Keith had removed the mini smoke machine from the hippo and buried the device in his 'drawer of many random things' which was locked with seven different padlocks each needing to be opened by a different key. Now everyone was getting dressed. Taking his cue, Kellyn pushed himself off the end of the bunkbed and landed on the carpeted floor on his feet in front of his set of drawers. Hurriedly, he put on some jeans and a green shirt as well as his locket. He smiled at the cloak Kate had given to him, folded neatly on the left hand side of the drawer, before pushing it shut.
"Hey Kellyn! Catch!"
Kellyn jumped as the present Keith had chucked hit him on the shoulder. Looking around in fear, his eyes finally settled on the large cylinder-shaped box wrapped in blue paper with waving snowmen on it on the floor. Sighing with relief that it wasn't another smoke bomb, Kellyn picked the box up. It had been previously stored in Keith's 'drawer of many random things'; Kellyn thought the seven padlocks may the be only things capable of keeping Ponte away from his present.
Staring down at the present in his hands, Kellyn's brain tried to process what was going on. Presents, presents...Christmas...Christmas...It's Christmas!
'Finally! I thought today would never come!' he grinned, thinking to himself 'I have to see Kate! I bet she has some awesome Chris—'
His thoughts trailed off as he remember what had gone down between him and Kate last night. He blushed, then hit himself and rubbed his eyes with his sleeve, white pupils narrowing dangerously.
'Get over it! It was just Keith being an idiot! It. Was. Just. Keith!'
"Hey Kel!" Speaking of Keith... "Wanna sit with us? We're opening our Secret Santa presents."
Kellyn grinned, all thoughts of Kate leaving his head. He crossed the room in two bounds and sat between Keith and Starlight in a circle on the carpeted floor. Even Isaac had agreed to sit with them for long enough to give and receive his present.
"Okay, so, who's going first?" Liam was saying from side to side, his ankles crossed beneath him, in anticipation.
"Can I go?" Nick asked, a little shyly. Liam shrugged and nodded "Alright then. This is for you Keith."
Nick handed the now very bouncy ginger a present about the size of a board game, wrapped in red with mini Rudolphs smiling decorated on it. Eagerly, Keith practically tore the paper to shreds in a mad dash to get to his present; it took a while, since Nick had stuck to his 'just to be sure' nature and practically bandaged the present in Sellotape. Then Keith squeaked at a pitch normally inaccessible to any voice and began waving the box in the air with both hands. Instantly everyone else in the dorm room groaned.
"My own 1001 jokes kit!" Keith squeaked with joy "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you Nicky!"
Keith swooped in to give Nick a big hug, but the brunet quickly dodged out the way.
"Don't call me Nicky" Nick folded his arms and narrowed his brown eyes.
"Yeah yeah, don't be such a downer!" Keith grinned "Next!"
Ponte cleared his throat and everyone looked at him. He was holding a thin present wrapped in dark-blue wrapping paper with snowflakes on it.
"T-This is for you Starlight" he gulped, handing Starlight the present "It's just, you haven't exactly been here long so I wasn't really sure what you'd like, so I asked a friend who said I..."
"A star finder?" Starlight frowned with surprise as he held the circular flat present up to the light. In the time Ponte had been babbling, Starlight had already unwrapped his rather unusual present.
"Y-Yeah" Ponte stammered, probably with worry "You know, with your name being Starlight and all and the way you like to be outside at night, I thought you'd find it useful." Ponte's dark eyes widened "B-But if you don't like it I can take it back and just give..."
"It's great Ponte" Starlight smiled at the nervous boy "Really. Thanks."
Ponte opened his mouth, probably to babble again, then stopped and shrunk back, hugging his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them.
"Isaac, you wanna go next?" Keith asked.
Isaac nodded and, to the receiver's horror, pushed his present wrapped in brown paper over to Liam. Nervously, Liam removed the brown paper...
Liam blinked
Then he blinked again
Everyone else blinked
"Football through the Ages" Liam read the cover of the book he had just unwrapped.
"Well you're always telling everyone about that sport, I thought you might what to read some actual facts about it" he commented matter-of-factly with a shrug.
"Er, wow" Kellyn could tell by the look on Liam's face he had been expecting some much worse than this "Thanks, Isaac."
Kellyn elbowed Keith.
"What?" the ginger hissed, rubbing his arm where Kellyn's elbow had made contact. Kellyn gestured at Isaac. Keith's brown eyes widened with understanding and he nodded.
"Isaac, here" Keith handed Isaac his present. It was Isaac's turn to blink now.
"An international book voucher?" he asked.
"Yeah" Keith folded his arms behind his head "Sorry mushroom-dude. I just had no clue what book you didn't actually have. So Kel here said I should give ya that so you can get whatever book ya want."
"Thank you. That was thoughtful, Keith, Kellyn" Isaac thanked them "Just one question. Why is the voucher decorated with yellow and white cartoon mushrooms?"
Kellyn glared at Keith; the ginger said nothing.
"My go!" Liam grinned. He shoved a long present at Nick.
Nick held the present, now unwrapped, up for everyone to see. Kellyn really didn't know what to say.
"Socks?" Nick asked Liam. The socks were grey with several little Shinx running around the top of them.
"Yeah, you're favourite Pokémon is Shinx" Liam grinned proudly "So, I was thinking to myself: 'Now Liam. You know Nick loves Shinx, so you should buy him the first thing you see with a Shinx on it!' So I saw those socks and I knew they would be the present ever!"
Silence.
"Er...thank you...Liam" Nick finally managed to say.
"Righty-o!" Liam was still grinning "NEXT!"
"Ah! Not so loud!" Nick complained, nursing his ears. He sighed "Starlight? You wanna go next?"
Starlight looked at the floor, his silver bangs hiding his eyes. Kellyn looked at him in worry.
'Is something wrong with him?' he couldn't help up wonder.
Starlight then sat up and looked at the boy sitting next to him.
"This one's for you Kellyn" he announced.
He then picked a box up from beneath his knee (he, like Kellyn, had been sitting cross-legged on the floor) and gave it to Kellyn. It was a small velvet box, the type used for containing jewellery. He opened it and forgot to breathe. Inside was a silver locket with a pattern on the front. He opened the catch and looked at the inside. On the right was an engraving of an Espeon. Its stately head was raised proudly and it's forked tail was curled downward near its hind ankles. On the left half of the locket, were thirteen signatures - one for each of his classmates. Somehow, they had lifted his signature from somewhere too; must have lifted it from one of his textbooks or his homework.
Kellyn was lost for words, even if he was capable of saying any.
"Do you like it?" Starlight asked nervously "I saw the old locket you were always wearing, so I thought you would like a new one, with new memories."
Kellyn gave Starlight a teary smile.
I love it
Starlight gave a sigh of relief, removing a lock of silver hair from behind his right ear.
"Alrighty then!" Keith grinned, removing the locket from the box and opening the clasp "Let's take this old one off and then w..."
But Keith didn't get to finish. On the word 'off', Kellyn's eyes widened with terror and he scrambled backwards away from the circle.
"Kellyn?" Starlight looked confused "Something wrong?"
Kellyn didn't reply, just sat there shivering and cupping his old rusting locket between his hands, looking terrified at the thought of anyone touching it let alone taking it off him.
"You don't want to take your old locket off?" Nick asked.
Kellyn shook his head as rapidly and wildly as possible.
"It means a lot to you?" Keith guessed.
Kellyn gave a tiny nod, his white pupils locked on the floor.
"Who gave it to you?" Keith asked.
Kellyn swallowed.
My brother
"Oh" Keith nodded with understanding. He shared a glance with Starlight, but neither said anything.
"You have a brother?" Kellyn heard a voice say. He thought it was Liam, but couldn't be sure. His thoughts were in chaos, wandering along different paths but never reaching the summit of the hills they were climbing.
"Yeah yeah, whatevs!" Keith pulled the personal conversation away "So Kel, you wanna give Ponte your gift?"
Without looking up, Kellyn held Ponte's present out in Keith's direction. He felt it leave his hand.
Kellyn didn't register Ponte ripping the wrapping paper off his present, or his shrieks of joy when he discovered it was a large circular box stuffed with different flavoured marshmallow packets. He didn't even hear Liam groan and make vomiting noises at the idea of mint-flavoured marshmallows. He weighed the two lockets in his hands. Old, new, old, new, old, new...
Silently, Kellyn slipped the new locket into his jeans' pocket.
Kellyn was scolding someone. It didn't happen very often, considering he couldn't talk. Plus his happy, positive attitude stopped him from ever getting too angry. But at the moment, the one both being scolded and doing the scolding was himself.
'Idiot! Stupid, stupid, stupid! Mentioning Lunick like that! What if they'd guessed? Stupid Kellyn!Moron! You'll have to thank Keith for saving your hind like that! Ugh...have to say thank you to Keith...'
"Christmas is a time for jolliness usually."
Kellyn, who was lying on one of the sofas in the empty common room, looked ahead of him and saw Kate standing beyond the armrest. Her ginger hair was down and she wore jeans and a Christmas hoodie decorated with reindeer and snowflakes that was way too big for her so the cuffs started at the tips of her fingers.
"Merry Christmas!" Kate grinned, waving her hand and causing the excess sleeve to flap about.
Kellyn snorted with laughter.
"Ah" Kate realised, holding her right hand up and pointing her fingers to the ground so she could inspect the sleeve "Percy. He never knows what size clothes to get me so he eeney-meanie-minie-moes the sizes."
Kellyn almost doubled over with silent laughter. He sat back against the armrest and drew his knees up so Kate could sit in the same position opposite him.
"Your family send you gifts?" Kate asked.
Kellyn thought about that. His foster parents had sent him new clothes and Melissa a tub of styler grease to 'make sure his styler sparkled', her words. Clio and Luke had sent him a book entitled '100 ways to keep an idiot busy' and a personalised bookmark; he thought he should try it out on Keith. At the thought of family, his hand make it way up to his locket and clenched around it.
"What is that locket anyway?" Kate asked, making him flinch "I never see you without it."
Kellyn's grip tightened.
"Well, what's on the inside?"
Photos
"Of who?" Kate raised an eyebrow.
Brother and sister
"By blood?" Kate asked. Kellyn shook his head.
Adopted
"Not foster?" Kate carried on with the questioning. Kellyn shook his head. Kate gave him a warm smile "Can I see?"
Kellyn's blue-green eyes widened with horror for the second time that morning. Kate was the last person he wanted to know! Not because he didn't trust her, but because he didn't want to loose her. He frantically shook his head.
"Please?" Kate pressed her palms together and stuck out her bottom lip, putting on those adorable pale blue puppy-dog eyes "You don't ever need to hide anything from me." She suddenly looked concerned "You trust me, right?"
Kellyn considered this. He did trust Kate, he trusted her almost as much Luke. No, he trusted her more than Luke. More than his childhood friend he had known since he was barely a year old. Luke had known his secret and hadn't disowned him, why should Kate?
Slowly, Kellyn nodded and unclasped the locket clasp resting on the back of his neck. Removing the locket, he handed it over to an eager Kate. When she opened it, her smile faded into an unreadable expression. Kellyn was a little surprised; he had expected her to flinch or gasp or do something! Instead she did nothing for ten seconds, twenty, thirty...
"Whoa, seriously?" Kate finally asked. Kellyn nodded, miserably "That's so cool!" Kellyn looked up. He blinked. Then he blinked again. "Percy totally looked up to these guys, he still does. They were true rangers who stood up for what they believed in, even when the cost was at its highest."
Kellyn blinked a third time. This was certainly not what he had expected.
They were outlaws though
"Only in the eyes of the law" Kate explained "To many people, they were always heroes. Heroes who were willing to loose everything to stand up for what many believed in. Lunick and Solana stopped the Go Rock Squad, remember. If it weren't for them, I certainly wouldn't be training to be a ranger now." She gave him a warm smile. "If it weren't for them, the two of us wouldn't be here together today, would we?" Keeping her smile, Kate laid a hand on his shoulder. "Don't ever feel ashamed of those you care about Kellyn. You got it?"
Kellyn looked her in the eye, baby-blue on blue-green, and smiled, feeling a huge weight lift off his shoulders.
I needed that. Thank you Kate.
And Merry Christmas
Keith watched the ice-white snowflakes fall on his palm. He drew it back under the shelter of the porch and watched the snow melt into cool water. Shifting his seat on the concrete step, he watched Liam, Nick and Ponte mercilessly pelting Sami, Verity and Tamie with snowballs. Kate had her earplugs in, tapped into her iPod, and was listening to something while sketching on a big notepad. Becs was shooting rapid-fire snowballs at the wall of the training lab to practice her accuracy skills. Kellyn and Isaac were both sitting under a large tree, reading. Isaac was reading another HUGE book whilst Kellyn was reading a new book Rhythmi had bought him as a Christmas present called: Rayquaza and the Battle of the Stars.
"It's not like you to gaze off into space when a snowball fight's going on." Keith jumped at the sound of Rhythmi's voice behind him. He placed his elbows on his knees and rested his chin upon his knuckles, giving a long sigh.
"Don't get me wrong, I'd love to drop a snowball down Isaac's back" Keith grunted "It's just..." He let out another sigh.
"You're upset about Kellyn not saying anything?" Rhythmi guessed.
Keith didn't answer her.
"Lind always loved a white Christmas..." he mumbled instead, trailing off.
"Changing of subject hints yes" Rhythmi said.
Keith hung his head. "I just wish he'd said something, anything." He sighed for a third time. "We had to eavesdrop just to find out about his brother and sister. Who knows how many secrets he may be hiding."
Rhythmi looked across the snow-covered field over at Kellyn. The brunet boy had just smiled at something in his new book.
"Some people take time to learn to trust others, Keith" she said, not diverting her eyes "Kellyn will come round, in time. He just needs time to heal." She now looked down at Keith. "He's already opening up to Kate. Give him time, he will to us too."
Keith merely nodded. Then a small smile came upon his face and he sat up.
"As much as I hate to admit this, but, you're right" he said.
He then shot up strait as something cold and wet hit the back of his neck. He flinched as melting snow travelled down the back of his coat. He then turned his head and glared up at Rhythmi who was running across the field, laughing, towards Kate. Chuckling with amusement, Keith bunched a snowball together and stood up. Then, hollering a battle cry, he sat off after the laughing blonde.
"You're dead Rhythmi! You hear me! Six feet under! Dead!"
Upon the cliff top at the back of the Ranger School, a figure stood silhouetted against the sky in a navy winter coat. Hair swaying in the wind, the figure watched the grey waves crash violently against the rocks at the base of the cliff. At the figure's feet stood a Pokémon, its midnight pelt making it contrast with the crystalline snow. Following a deep breath, two words left the figure's lips.
"She knows."