Brave (New Earth Saga)

Ch. 8

Here it was... the moment I was dreading this whole time. It was my turn to confess for my sig-gram... oh and deal with the not so small factor that I needed to be issued a giant sized sig-gram, that I wouldn't be able to exit the building with... what am I supposed to do, give my dad a human sized one?

"Alright, um, Morgan, nice to meet you," Mr. Green introduced himself to me, because unlike the other students present, we'd never met before. Mr. Green made his way over to the human seating area and held out his finger that had a small human-sized tray containing a human sized sig-gram on it for me to take. I looked at the sig-gram, and then up at Mr. Green.

God, I needed to open my mouth and speak!

Mr. Green must have thought he was making me scared or uncomfortable, because he pulled his finger away, and said, "Um... I can place this over here for you if you'd prefer."

"No," I stated as I stood up from my desk and walked closer to Mr. Green's hand. When I was in reach of his hand and the sig-gram, I looked slightly up to meet his eyes. Luckily it wasn't so difficult since he'd crouched down to almost my level, a gesture I greatly appreciated.

"Um, I have to use a giant-sized one," I said as I felt my skin heat up with embarrassment. Why was I embarrassed? It shouldn't be weird who my dad is... but after experiencing school today, I had a feeling people would react with some type of surprise and judgement that I didn't want to deal with.

"You what? Could you speak up, I couldn't quite get that," Mr. Green said softly like he was telling me a secret. Ughhh, nooo. Don't make me speak up, I'm trying to tell you this in hushed tones.

"My dad is a giant, so he needs a giant sized sig-gram."

"Oh," Mr. Green replied as his coincidentally green eyes grew wide from what I'd told him."Surely you have a human parent somewhere, I'm assuming?" questioned Mr. Green.

Oh sh#t. Don't make me say it. I can't say it. Saying it makes it real.

"I only have a dad," I admitted as I felt hot tears pool in my eyes. I looked to the ground embarrassed. No, no no Morgan. You cannot get emotional here.

"And your dad's a giant?" questioned Mr. Green with a look of bewilderment on his face. It's like he needed to keep saying it, because he couldn't believe it.

Oh... and let's top this off with the fact that he just outed that my dad was a giant loud enough for the rest of the giants in detention to hear. Luckily there were only four others, but considering how gossip seemed to spread around here, I'm sure more than four would know soon enough.

"Yeah," I answered once again. I didn't think it was possible for Mr. Green's eyes to grow wider, but they somehow did.

"What did you say your last name was?" Mr. Green asked.I wanted to respond that I didn't say what my last name was, but I think I was feisty enough earlier today. I just wanted this over with now.

"Mangello," I answered.

"No way! As in Joe Mangello is your father?" Mr. Green asked, or more like announced with a gasp.

"Yeah," I replied, looking at the floor and honestly praying I'd somehow manifest the power to fast forward time to later today, where I'd be away from all this.

"I thought he married a human woman?" asked Mr. Green.

God, this cannot be happening.

"My mom is no longer with us," I said with my eyes fully looking at the ground. The tears were no longer just a threat, they were here. Noooo. I couldn't help it. This was actually the first time I myself had to tell someone she was gone. My mom was actually gone, and not coming back.I took a quick breath and wiped my eyes.

"I am so sorry for your loss," Mr. Green whispered to me. Finally meeting eyes with him I could see his expression shifted to furrowed eyebrows with sorrow filled eyes. He was also really close to me at this point. He must have caught that I was upset.

"It's okay, I just need the other size sig-gram," I said, trying to move past the brief crack to my hard shell.

"Of course," Mr. Green said as he moved back to his desk, to then return to the human area with the giant-sized sig-gram.The giant-sized sig-gram tablet was literally bigger than me. How the heck was I supposed to get this to Joe?

Welp, couldn't worry about that just yet, cuz now was my turn to "confess".

Mr. Green pressed the record button on the sig-gram and nodded to me giving me the 'go ahead' to begin.

"I'm in detention because I bit another student and I shouldn't use physical violence against anyone," I said, in what I thought was a clear voice.

When Mr. Green pressed the red button again to stop the recording I knew something was wrong... words came up on the tablets screen and Mr. Green read them with a confused look on his face.

"Oh dear, I'm sorry, we have to do it one more time, and can you speak real loud for us. I think this gram is calibrated to pick up a giant's voice so it didn't get that.

No! This can't be real.

Releasing a heavy breath, I repeated my confession, and this time much louder. I would honestly say uncomfortably loud, at least to me.

Much to my horror, the sig-gram didn't work again.

Mr. Green picked up the sig-gram and was tapping on the tablet with a frustrated look on his face. He then asked me to try one more time. This time was absolutely humiliating. I was literally shouting. When I finished my confession once again, the same message popped up on the sig-gram. Mr. Green's eyes grew wide again and he suddenly stood up to his full height.

"Um, hang tight Morgan, let me web search this," Mr. Green finally said as he headed back to his desk and began web-searching on his computer.

After a minute or two Mr. Green came back over to the human area and crouched back down to my level before speaking.

"Okay, so the web is telling me that there is some type of feature that can differentiate the vibrations from a human voice versus a giant voice... so basically the giant sig-gram can't record a human voice and vice versa to protect against fraud. Lame if you ask me... so... I have an idea!" Mr. Green explained.

Mr. Green retrieved the tray with the human sized sig-grams and had me take one. He then asked me to say my confession one more time, but at least this time I didn't have to yell at the top of my lunges. He then took out a giant-sized scrap paper and wrote a message from himself approving of this sheet of paper with his signature, and then he drew a line for Joe's signature on it. After this, Mr. Green folded the paper carefully to get it as small as he could. Once it was about the size of a poster-board to me, he instructed me on how to proceed.

"Have your dad listen to the sig-gram, and then bring his signature back to the main office with the sig-gram tomorrow. I'll let Principal Howard know the circumstances, and you should be fine," Mr. Green concluded with a friendly smile spread across his face.

"Are you kidding me? That's not fair!" declared a voice from the back of the room... I let out a gulp when I turned to see who had just spoken... of course it was none other than Billy Sharp.