November Twelve (D-12) - Who Killed the Robin?
Back from New York! ^^; I'm still really dizzy and tired from the rapid time zone changes (two fourteen-hour time changes in three days is pretty draining x_x), but I got started on my catch-up! ^^
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The Best of the Day: A vicious glare, not unlike one that a gangster would give to his poor victim moments before beating him up.
Sugar/Caffeine had: Three small squares of dark chocolate to keep me awake. ^^;
Sanity: Eh, none, but that's usual, no?
Word Count (Daily): 2,404
Word Count (Total): 19,096
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Three - Through the Fox-Hole • Filming Stars
“…who are you?” It probably wasn’t the most polite of responses, but, to be honest, he wasn’t really in the mood to be polite. His ankle was throbbing slightly from kicking the door (he probably shouldn’t have done that, but humans do dumb things when they’re irritated), and this “mysterious” figure really wasn’t helping.
Rolling over on the branch it was lying on, the figure moved slightly more into the light. Bright orange hair at neck-length framing a narrow face, sharp nose and narrow eyes (cat-like and creepy, really) a well-shaped neck with defined collarbone, covered neatly by a deep-cut V-neck shirt, some sort of Asian-influenced clothing, revealing a flat chest. Male, aged maybe eighteen to twenty. His brain threw up these observations more as a shield against any impending panic rather than as something he was really interested in.
“A radial teen live six.”
The purring voice caught him in the middle of his next observation (a smooth forehead, and that my mother would probably have eagerly asked him to be a model for her new line of faux-fur coats). A radial.. “…what?”
The mystery figure merely rolled over again, lying on his stomach and smiled, continuing in that weirdly irritating and entrancing voice. “A vanilla ex-tie rides. Sex lied a variant lei. A saliva rend it exile. Larval tie die in a sex.”
“Excuse me.” That was enough. He’d gained some of my politeness back by then, courtesy of his expert control of his irritation in hopes that it would merit him some sort of proper answer and a way to open the Door. “But I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
A large grin, and a small laugh. A finger pointed at his chest, tipped with pretty, but dangerously sharp white nails. Ivory teeth, sharper than normal. “Alexias Valient Ride. Such an interesting name.”
“I don’t see what my name has to do with whatever things you were saying a moment ago, sir.”
Another laugh. It was starting to get on his nerves. What was so funny? “Oh, it has everything to do with it, Alexias. Everything. It’s just the matter of finding the connection, really.”
“At the moment, I believe that’s the least of my-“ …wait. How did he--? “…if you don’t mind me asking, sir, how do you know my name?”
There was a moment of silence while he seemed to think, shifting lazily on the branch, before turning, sliding down the trunk of the tree and dropping lightly onto the ground in front of Alexias, who couldn’t help but take a step back instinctively. He was a little shorter than, probably a little skinnier, too, and pretty good model material (my mother’d been pounding into me the definition of a model too long if I started thinking these thoughts all over the place, he thought somewhere in the back of his mind), but that was the least of his observations.
Point one: this new figure, he was wearing a skull on his head. Bleached, perfectly white, most likely a fox or a wolf, or something like that. The right side shattered off, the left eye-hole cracked all the way from the nose to the forehead. Fangs extending from the jaw, curving over his forehead, just down past his eye.
Point two: …fox ears. He’s thought they only existed in those cheap Japanese animations his roommate’s girlfriend liked so much; a rusty-reddish-orange like his hair, poking out of holes cracked into the skull, tufts of fur-
“Yes, they’re quite real.” His eyes were narrowed again in that foxy sort of way, meant to be deceivingly pleasant and succeeding quite easily in that aspect. “Would you like to touch them?”
“Uh, no thanks.” Alarm bells were going off all over the place in his head for a variety of reasons: “A guy doesn’t ever say that to you without it sounding creepy,” “Those ears can’t be real, it’s against all nature,” “Why is there another person, and a crazy one at that, here in the Door?” “What the hell were those phrases he’d said earlier?” and infinitum. But, of course, the Door came first. Coughing into his hand, the blonde cleared his throat and put on his best model face, smiling back just as pleasantly, but without the danger element.
“If you don’t mind me asking, would you help me with this Door? You see, I’m afraid I really must be getting back out of here, as I have lots of work to do. You do not look busy, so if you could take a look at this door…?”
The fox (Alexias, for the lack of a better name, decided to call him that for now) merely shifted in spot, arms gathered behind his back in a somewhat girly position, one knee bent with his boot-clad toes bouncing off the grass in a steady rhythm, the unchanging smile still on his face.
“…well, will you help me…sir?” Irritation was starting to get the better of him, though he hesitated, questioningly the logic behind calling a fox “sir.”
“I don’t think so.”
Alexias did a double-take, turning back to the ever-cheerful figure. “…excuse me?”
There was a soft laugh, the fox’s fangs almost glinting in the overly-pleasant sunlight, hand at his chin in the imitation of proper etiquette. “I said, I don’t think I will.”
Needless to say, it was taking Alexias all of his willpower and a little more by then to resist the urge to punch the strange in the face. Not helping was one thing, showing up irritate a stranger in trouble and spouting meaningless words before declining a plea for help was another thing-
Point three: the thing had a tail corresponding to its ears, the same rusty-red color, swishing back and forth behind lanky legs, sending the grass flattening onto the ground and the air rushing in a slight breeze.
“Though, I will tell you this, Alex,” the voice came purring again, just as irritating.
Shaking out of his observation-making panic-escape-method, Alexias looked up from where he’d plopped down to get a better look at the blasted Door. “…yes?”
“Have you ever read the wonderful piece of literature entitled Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?”
He thought back to the paperback edition he’d left on the park bench, something he’d picked up out of pure whim the other day as something to distract myself. Maybe this person was a stalker? Seeing how he knew his name and what he’d been reading? “…yes, I have. How does this make a difference?”
The smile widened a bit, just a bit, if that were possible, and he made a small noise like a running engine, as if pleased. “Of course, of course, just as I expected! How amusing this is!”
A cough, a clear of the throat. “Excuse me, sir, but I must inquire as to how that has any relation to my current-“
“Alice Liddel.” The name sounded like something from a cheap pornographic film, said in that lilting tone, too smooth, too connotative to be the name of the innocent main character from the book. “Alice Liddel. Do you recognize the name, Alexias?”
Alexias’ response came in the form of a quick shake of the head, a slight irritated frown crossing his face. “Alice Liddel is the name of the girl from whom Lewis Carroll drew inspiration for the creation of the character Alice, the main character of Alice in Wonderland.” Simple encyclopedia definition, really.”
“Exactly.” The eyes narrowed a bit more, and the tail swished back and forth once before curling up into a semi-circle, the fur quivering slightly in the air, seemingly in excitement. For a moment, Alexias could have sworn he’d seen a light glinting from the eyehole of the fox’s skull-helm, but he was soon distracted by the touch of the fox’s claw (right hand, pointer finger) a centimeter from his nose. Yellow slitted eyes crinkled in pleasure, the lilting voice said a series of words that he thought he’d never, ever, ever come to hear in my life (and he’d heard all sorts of dumb things at frat parties; drunk college guys will say all sorts of things):
“…welcome to Wonderland, Alexias. We’ve been expecting you.”
III - AAA • Yggdrasil Fallen
After introduction, our class went through the standard procedure of assigning seats, handing out books, et etcetera, et cetera. The desks there were of high quality, too. Smooth, polished wood, shiny enough to see our reflections in, the legs perfectly aligned and not all squeaky and wobbly like one would expect from a normal elementary school classroom. The books we got were less perfect, but still formidable. Bearing titles like “Advanced Phonics” or “Advanced Addition;” they seemed to like the word “advanced,” as if having a book that read “advanced” would make us smarter or faster or something like that.
The tests, the books, our cubbies, everything had a little label attached. But it wasn’t with our name, no, as soon as we were done with ice-breakers, we instantly forgot everyone else’s names. Instead, we were lined up according to height, girls and boys separately, and given numbers. So I was Boy No. 3. Third tallest boy. The only two that were taller than me were a lanky Asian kid (Chinese, I think), who already liked basketball, and a ridiculously tall red-head with fierce eyes and a strangely wild laugh. 20 boys, 20 girls, a perfect class of 20.
All of my possessions were labeled B03 from then on. The small white sticker with the letter and two numbers written neatly on it (thick, short pen strokes courtesy of Ms. Dilworth; she put smiley-faces in the O’s and dotted her i’s with little hearts, as if trying to show us how cute writing could be) was what I identified from then on.
If we ever misplaced an item, we would not know who to give it to, as we had no way of identifying names or handwritings (everyone’s was equally messy back then, with the characteristic too-hard strokes of a stubby pencil and jagged lines typical of little kids), so we were told to simply place it back in its corresponding cubby. And, of course, little kids lose their things a lot. We learned to make a habit of checking the floor for lost notebooks and pencils and “indoor shoes,” checking the number and slipping it wordlessly back where it belonged.
I think that, without that rule, we would have talked to each other a lot more.
Once that business was taken care of - introductions, material hand-outs, numbering, labeling, being told the “Buddy Cubby Return” system - we took a turn for the more…amusing, I suppose it was supposed to be. Trust games.
The word still send makes me grimace. I don’t know why, but those two words just sound fundamentally wrong together. Trust isn’t something you play with. Games are supposed to be honorable on default. But put these two words together, and it came out twisted. Playing with the sincerity and belief of another person just didn’t seem right.
In any case, the game was simple. Ms. Dilworth had us gather around a table; it was most likely just a normal table, wood, sturdy legs and nice carvings around the side, but to us little kids, it seemed huge, monstrous, a hulking beast made of oak with stubby thighs and no ankles. She would ask for a volunteer - no one volunteered, of course; we were all a bit scared of the table - then pick someone when everyone was silent. The lucky chosen person would climb the table using the miniature children’s step-ladder (it was a horridly bright Technicolor thing made of plastic) and stand at the edge of the table. We would turn so that our backs were to the rest of the kids. We would close our eyes. Take a deep breath. Yell out loud that we trusted each other. Then lean backwards until we plopped, safe, into the arms of the other children.
It was easy, in principal.
Yeh-Ha, the elder Korean twin, was chosen first, most likely because of his ridiculous hair coloring, black with two misplaced yellow streaks just to the side of his forehead; it was supposed to be cute, but it gave him a rather mischievous look (a completely opposite image from his personality, as it was later revealed that he was a pretty quiet, calm sort of kid), and Ms. Dilworth said his name with her typical over-sugared voice.
“Yeh-Ha, will you try this first? I’m sure that you’ll like it very much.”
Kids that age think of the teacher as God, that adults can never be disobeyed, so the poor boy nodded, looking somewhat frightened, and headed towards the pathetic plastic steps. He was short, I remember, so he had trouble climbing up it, hoisting himself up onto the vast wooden surface with more than a little difficulty, and took his place at the edge of the table. His eyes were huge, the ideal Asian face with large round eyes and a cute little nose, and completely black, so I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell how much his pupils would have shrunk in nervousness, but I can bet that they would have been tiny at that moment.
Yeh-Ha turned. Heels aligned perfectly with the edge of the table. Toes curled inward. Hands clenched into sweaty fists and held at the side. Eyes closed, clenched close, brow furrowed. Sweat beading in little droplets around his forehead.
“I trust everyone here!”
His voice came out much stronger than he looked at the moment, and he tipped over backwards like some miniature organic version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, except, he went toppling over. We probably saw the whole thing in slow motion at the moment, and had no idea what to do. We’d been told to catch whoever was falling, but we didn’t know how, we didn’t know whether it would work, we didn’t know whose arm we should entwine ours with to make a safe net of hands that he could drop onto, we didn’t know this kid we were supposed to catch.
I still remember the muffled thud as he went dropping, the arms held out limply, each individually and with little eagerness, breaking his fall only a little before he went and hit the floor. Shiny black-and-white marble in a checkerboard pattern. The splay of neck-length black hair, streaked with two little strips of yellow, almost brown, almost white, whispy, like the snapped off wings of a dragonfly. The wide-open eyes, shocked, surprised. The half-open mouth, stuck somewhere between a yell and silence.
We gathered around him, babbling out apologies and worries, but not really meaning any of them, as we were silently blaming each other, thinking to ourselves, “I was ready to catch him, but everyone else wasn’t. It’s their fault.”
In the end, Ms. Dilworth had two of the other boys (a lanky Middle Eastern kid and a brown-haired shorter one) and his brother take him to the school infirmary to be checked over for any injuries. Even as Yeh-Ha struggled back onto his feet, gasping for breath with battered lungs and injured dignity, we could see that he’d be fine, if a little mentally scarred.
The mental scarring applied to all of us. We were told that, due to Yeh-Ha’s injuries, we would postpone the rest of the trust games to another time, and we all probably felt a little relieved. How could we leave our safety in the hands of other kids who we had just seen drop a classmate to the ground, simply watching with limp arms as he hit the ground flat on his back like a carelessly abandoned fish?
The teacher’d said that the games would take place at another time. We never actually finished them.
We all knew how they would have turned out anyway.
-----
The Best of the Day: A vicious glare, not unlike one that a gangster would give to his poor victim moments before beating him up.
Sugar/Caffeine had: Three small squares of dark chocolate to keep me awake. ^^;
Sanity: Eh, none, but that's usual, no?
Word Count (Daily): 2,404
Word Count (Total): 19,096
-----
Three - Through the Fox-Hole • Filming Stars
“…who are you?” It probably wasn’t the most polite of responses, but, to be honest, he wasn’t really in the mood to be polite. His ankle was throbbing slightly from kicking the door (he probably shouldn’t have done that, but humans do dumb things when they’re irritated), and this “mysterious” figure really wasn’t helping.
Rolling over on the branch it was lying on, the figure moved slightly more into the light. Bright orange hair at neck-length framing a narrow face, sharp nose and narrow eyes (cat-like and creepy, really) a well-shaped neck with defined collarbone, covered neatly by a deep-cut V-neck shirt, some sort of Asian-influenced clothing, revealing a flat chest. Male, aged maybe eighteen to twenty. His brain threw up these observations more as a shield against any impending panic rather than as something he was really interested in.
“A radial teen live six.”
The purring voice caught him in the middle of his next observation (a smooth forehead, and that my mother would probably have eagerly asked him to be a model for her new line of faux-fur coats). A radial.. “…what?”
The mystery figure merely rolled over again, lying on his stomach and smiled, continuing in that weirdly irritating and entrancing voice. “A vanilla ex-tie rides. Sex lied a variant lei. A saliva rend it exile. Larval tie die in a sex.”
“Excuse me.” That was enough. He’d gained some of my politeness back by then, courtesy of his expert control of his irritation in hopes that it would merit him some sort of proper answer and a way to open the Door. “But I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
A large grin, and a small laugh. A finger pointed at his chest, tipped with pretty, but dangerously sharp white nails. Ivory teeth, sharper than normal. “Alexias Valient Ride. Such an interesting name.”
“I don’t see what my name has to do with whatever things you were saying a moment ago, sir.”
Another laugh. It was starting to get on his nerves. What was so funny? “Oh, it has everything to do with it, Alexias. Everything. It’s just the matter of finding the connection, really.”
“At the moment, I believe that’s the least of my-“ …wait. How did he--? “…if you don’t mind me asking, sir, how do you know my name?”
There was a moment of silence while he seemed to think, shifting lazily on the branch, before turning, sliding down the trunk of the tree and dropping lightly onto the ground in front of Alexias, who couldn’t help but take a step back instinctively. He was a little shorter than, probably a little skinnier, too, and pretty good model material (my mother’d been pounding into me the definition of a model too long if I started thinking these thoughts all over the place, he thought somewhere in the back of his mind), but that was the least of his observations.
Point one: this new figure, he was wearing a skull on his head. Bleached, perfectly white, most likely a fox or a wolf, or something like that. The right side shattered off, the left eye-hole cracked all the way from the nose to the forehead. Fangs extending from the jaw, curving over his forehead, just down past his eye.
Point two: …fox ears. He’s thought they only existed in those cheap Japanese animations his roommate’s girlfriend liked so much; a rusty-reddish-orange like his hair, poking out of holes cracked into the skull, tufts of fur-
“Yes, they’re quite real.” His eyes were narrowed again in that foxy sort of way, meant to be deceivingly pleasant and succeeding quite easily in that aspect. “Would you like to touch them?”
“Uh, no thanks.” Alarm bells were going off all over the place in his head for a variety of reasons: “A guy doesn’t ever say that to you without it sounding creepy,” “Those ears can’t be real, it’s against all nature,” “Why is there another person, and a crazy one at that, here in the Door?” “What the hell were those phrases he’d said earlier?” and infinitum. But, of course, the Door came first. Coughing into his hand, the blonde cleared his throat and put on his best model face, smiling back just as pleasantly, but without the danger element.
“If you don’t mind me asking, would you help me with this Door? You see, I’m afraid I really must be getting back out of here, as I have lots of work to do. You do not look busy, so if you could take a look at this door…?”
The fox (Alexias, for the lack of a better name, decided to call him that for now) merely shifted in spot, arms gathered behind his back in a somewhat girly position, one knee bent with his boot-clad toes bouncing off the grass in a steady rhythm, the unchanging smile still on his face.
“…well, will you help me…sir?” Irritation was starting to get the better of him, though he hesitated, questioningly the logic behind calling a fox “sir.”
“I don’t think so.”
Alexias did a double-take, turning back to the ever-cheerful figure. “…excuse me?”
There was a soft laugh, the fox’s fangs almost glinting in the overly-pleasant sunlight, hand at his chin in the imitation of proper etiquette. “I said, I don’t think I will.”
Needless to say, it was taking Alexias all of his willpower and a little more by then to resist the urge to punch the strange in the face. Not helping was one thing, showing up irritate a stranger in trouble and spouting meaningless words before declining a plea for help was another thing-
Point three: the thing had a tail corresponding to its ears, the same rusty-red color, swishing back and forth behind lanky legs, sending the grass flattening onto the ground and the air rushing in a slight breeze.
“Though, I will tell you this, Alex,” the voice came purring again, just as irritating.
Shaking out of his observation-making panic-escape-method, Alexias looked up from where he’d plopped down to get a better look at the blasted Door. “…yes?”
“Have you ever read the wonderful piece of literature entitled Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?”
He thought back to the paperback edition he’d left on the park bench, something he’d picked up out of pure whim the other day as something to distract myself. Maybe this person was a stalker? Seeing how he knew his name and what he’d been reading? “…yes, I have. How does this make a difference?”
The smile widened a bit, just a bit, if that were possible, and he made a small noise like a running engine, as if pleased. “Of course, of course, just as I expected! How amusing this is!”
A cough, a clear of the throat. “Excuse me, sir, but I must inquire as to how that has any relation to my current-“
“Alice Liddel.” The name sounded like something from a cheap pornographic film, said in that lilting tone, too smooth, too connotative to be the name of the innocent main character from the book. “Alice Liddel. Do you recognize the name, Alexias?”
Alexias’ response came in the form of a quick shake of the head, a slight irritated frown crossing his face. “Alice Liddel is the name of the girl from whom Lewis Carroll drew inspiration for the creation of the character Alice, the main character of Alice in Wonderland.” Simple encyclopedia definition, really.”
“Exactly.” The eyes narrowed a bit more, and the tail swished back and forth once before curling up into a semi-circle, the fur quivering slightly in the air, seemingly in excitement. For a moment, Alexias could have sworn he’d seen a light glinting from the eyehole of the fox’s skull-helm, but he was soon distracted by the touch of the fox’s claw (right hand, pointer finger) a centimeter from his nose. Yellow slitted eyes crinkled in pleasure, the lilting voice said a series of words that he thought he’d never, ever, ever come to hear in my life (and he’d heard all sorts of dumb things at frat parties; drunk college guys will say all sorts of things):
“…welcome to Wonderland, Alexias. We’ve been expecting you.”
III - AAA • Yggdrasil Fallen
After introduction, our class went through the standard procedure of assigning seats, handing out books, et etcetera, et cetera. The desks there were of high quality, too. Smooth, polished wood, shiny enough to see our reflections in, the legs perfectly aligned and not all squeaky and wobbly like one would expect from a normal elementary school classroom. The books we got were less perfect, but still formidable. Bearing titles like “Advanced Phonics” or “Advanced Addition;” they seemed to like the word “advanced,” as if having a book that read “advanced” would make us smarter or faster or something like that.
The tests, the books, our cubbies, everything had a little label attached. But it wasn’t with our name, no, as soon as we were done with ice-breakers, we instantly forgot everyone else’s names. Instead, we were lined up according to height, girls and boys separately, and given numbers. So I was Boy No. 3. Third tallest boy. The only two that were taller than me were a lanky Asian kid (Chinese, I think), who already liked basketball, and a ridiculously tall red-head with fierce eyes and a strangely wild laugh. 20 boys, 20 girls, a perfect class of 20.
All of my possessions were labeled B03 from then on. The small white sticker with the letter and two numbers written neatly on it (thick, short pen strokes courtesy of Ms. Dilworth; she put smiley-faces in the O’s and dotted her i’s with little hearts, as if trying to show us how cute writing could be) was what I identified from then on.
If we ever misplaced an item, we would not know who to give it to, as we had no way of identifying names or handwritings (everyone’s was equally messy back then, with the characteristic too-hard strokes of a stubby pencil and jagged lines typical of little kids), so we were told to simply place it back in its corresponding cubby. And, of course, little kids lose their things a lot. We learned to make a habit of checking the floor for lost notebooks and pencils and “indoor shoes,” checking the number and slipping it wordlessly back where it belonged.
I think that, without that rule, we would have talked to each other a lot more.
Once that business was taken care of - introductions, material hand-outs, numbering, labeling, being told the “Buddy Cubby Return” system - we took a turn for the more…amusing, I suppose it was supposed to be. Trust games.
The word still send makes me grimace. I don’t know why, but those two words just sound fundamentally wrong together. Trust isn’t something you play with. Games are supposed to be honorable on default. But put these two words together, and it came out twisted. Playing with the sincerity and belief of another person just didn’t seem right.
In any case, the game was simple. Ms. Dilworth had us gather around a table; it was most likely just a normal table, wood, sturdy legs and nice carvings around the side, but to us little kids, it seemed huge, monstrous, a hulking beast made of oak with stubby thighs and no ankles. She would ask for a volunteer - no one volunteered, of course; we were all a bit scared of the table - then pick someone when everyone was silent. The lucky chosen person would climb the table using the miniature children’s step-ladder (it was a horridly bright Technicolor thing made of plastic) and stand at the edge of the table. We would turn so that our backs were to the rest of the kids. We would close our eyes. Take a deep breath. Yell out loud that we trusted each other. Then lean backwards until we plopped, safe, into the arms of the other children.
It was easy, in principal.
Yeh-Ha, the elder Korean twin, was chosen first, most likely because of his ridiculous hair coloring, black with two misplaced yellow streaks just to the side of his forehead; it was supposed to be cute, but it gave him a rather mischievous look (a completely opposite image from his personality, as it was later revealed that he was a pretty quiet, calm sort of kid), and Ms. Dilworth said his name with her typical over-sugared voice.
“Yeh-Ha, will you try this first? I’m sure that you’ll like it very much.”
Kids that age think of the teacher as God, that adults can never be disobeyed, so the poor boy nodded, looking somewhat frightened, and headed towards the pathetic plastic steps. He was short, I remember, so he had trouble climbing up it, hoisting himself up onto the vast wooden surface with more than a little difficulty, and took his place at the edge of the table. His eyes were huge, the ideal Asian face with large round eyes and a cute little nose, and completely black, so I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell how much his pupils would have shrunk in nervousness, but I can bet that they would have been tiny at that moment.
Yeh-Ha turned. Heels aligned perfectly with the edge of the table. Toes curled inward. Hands clenched into sweaty fists and held at the side. Eyes closed, clenched close, brow furrowed. Sweat beading in little droplets around his forehead.
“I trust everyone here!”
His voice came out much stronger than he looked at the moment, and he tipped over backwards like some miniature organic version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, except, he went toppling over. We probably saw the whole thing in slow motion at the moment, and had no idea what to do. We’d been told to catch whoever was falling, but we didn’t know how, we didn’t know whether it would work, we didn’t know whose arm we should entwine ours with to make a safe net of hands that he could drop onto, we didn’t know this kid we were supposed to catch.
I still remember the muffled thud as he went dropping, the arms held out limply, each individually and with little eagerness, breaking his fall only a little before he went and hit the floor. Shiny black-and-white marble in a checkerboard pattern. The splay of neck-length black hair, streaked with two little strips of yellow, almost brown, almost white, whispy, like the snapped off wings of a dragonfly. The wide-open eyes, shocked, surprised. The half-open mouth, stuck somewhere between a yell and silence.
We gathered around him, babbling out apologies and worries, but not really meaning any of them, as we were silently blaming each other, thinking to ourselves, “I was ready to catch him, but everyone else wasn’t. It’s their fault.”
In the end, Ms. Dilworth had two of the other boys (a lanky Middle Eastern kid and a brown-haired shorter one) and his brother take him to the school infirmary to be checked over for any injuries. Even as Yeh-Ha struggled back onto his feet, gasping for breath with battered lungs and injured dignity, we could see that he’d be fine, if a little mentally scarred.
The mental scarring applied to all of us. We were told that, due to Yeh-Ha’s injuries, we would postpone the rest of the trust games to another time, and we all probably felt a little relieved. How could we leave our safety in the hands of other kids who we had just seen drop a classmate to the ground, simply watching with limp arms as he hit the ground flat on his back like a carelessly abandoned fish?
The teacher’d said that the games would take place at another time. We never actually finished them.
We all knew how they would have turned out anyway.