To Keelic’s distress, the bus managed to fly out to pick him up at the start of the next week. No one on the bus talked as it lurched and pitched its way back to the school. In Expansion History, Keelic was drawing a Mark V Nuclear Laser Rifle when he noticed the girl next to him watching again. He looked at her face, but found studied superiority, and mild disgust. She continued her writing as the instructor lectured. Hurt, Keelic wondered why she hated him. What if Leesol felt the same way?
Recess was in the gym with relay races and other games. Someone tripped him, and he sat out for the rest of the class with a coldpac on his elbow, watching the boy who tripped him laugh with Thom.
In the Study Hall for Accelerated Mathematics, Keelic flopped down at his desk, slammed his tablet into it, and dumped his homework to Mr. Hallod’s desk. Bitter, he stared out the windows.
After a few minutes, Mr. Hallod sent him back the graded work. It looked like he had done everything wrong. Keelic stared at it as Mr. Hallod began to lecture without seeming to notice Keelic’s mood. Keelic forget some of his anger as he plunged into the mathematics.
When class was over, he thought about returning to the school, and his anger returned. After his new homework was loaded to his tablet, Keelic pulled it from the desk and walked to the door without saying good-bye. The door opened and rain and wind buffeted him. He stepped into the storm not caring about getting wet. The rain was warm and the wind wasn’t strong enough to knock him over. Still, he had to struggle against it. He considered walking around the school and away, but there was no place to go. Ermoltown was too far to walk, and kids weren’t supposed to leave the grounds because of dangerous animals. Keelic felt that he could survive in the forest with all he knew about it, but didn’t like the idea of meeting a spiked pouncer without suit or stunner. But what if he took the school stunner? He’d be okay then. All he needed to do was find out where Waters kept it. He might even have to stun a few people to get away. The thought cheered him a little, and he found himself across the field at the school door. It slid open at his approach and he walked in, leaving a trail of water.
The boys at Keelic’s level didn’t bother him anymore, having learned that he would take them on instantly, but many of the older boys now considered him a prime target. They didn’t call him names as much as the others. Their attacks were meaner, physical. Thom’s pack of friends started the habit of whacking the back of his head whenever they passed him. All were too big to fight directly, so he had to take it. Failure and self-loathing became his daily companions at school. Evenings were spent playing with the alien, but every morning a pit of hard darkness lodged in him.