A Different Descendant: Freshman Year 1

Chapter 20

    Physics class. We were in class waiting for our teacher, Mr. Mcoy.
    “Mcoy’s never this late,” said Blake.
    “Now that I thinnk about it, I haven’t seen him today,” Liz added.
None of them were aware about Freya and I being together. We both agreed on telling the crew at lunch.
    “Good morning class. Sorry I’m late,” said a female voice, wallking into the classroom.
    ‘A new teacher. Why?’
   She had raven-black straight hair, just like Elizabeth’s. She wore a black leather jacket over a plain white shirt and a tightly fitted leather skirt with heels.
     She was drop-dead hot and all the boys in my class stared at her with hungry eyes.
    “I’m Mrs. Lever. I’ll be taking over from Mr. Mcoy.”
    She walked in between the desks as she spoke.
     When she got to my seat, my body enterd into a troubled state. I got the same feeling as the one I felt when I had the dream about an explosion. In seconds, my head began to hurt.
    “You there, are you okay?” Mrs. Lever asked.
I didn’t know she was referrring to me until I saw everyone staring at me.
“I’m alright,” I replied, regaining composure.
    “Maybe you should go to the nurse,” she suggested.
    “I’m fine,” I replied, looking her straight in the eye.
     There was a bad vibe coming from her. She was trouble and I could feel it.
*************
    The class ended, and it was time for lunch. Just as I was about to leave the class, Mrs. Lever stopped me. She waited for everyone to leave the classroom before talking.
    “What’s your name?” she asked, smiling at me.
    “Henry. Henry Collins,” I replied, giving her a blank expression.
    “I see. Do you take any sport Henry?”
    “Is there something else you’d like to ask. I have something to do right now. Ma’am.”
I didn’t have anything important to do as well. I just couldn’t stand the hellish vibe I got from her.
    “The look you gave me earlier in today’s class, don’t give me that look again. It’s not the look a fourteen year old--”
    ‘Thirteen,’ I corrected in my head.
     “--should have.”
    “Understood. I’ll mind the way I look at people.”
I immediately left the classroom and walked towards the cafeteria with haste.
    ‘Does she have something to do with what I fear is coming? If she does, how?’
    **********
    When I got to the cafeteria, I pushed the thought to the back of my head and headed for my usual seat with the others.
    “What are we talking about?” I asked, taking a seat next to Freya who immediately held my hand underneath the table.
    “That’s rather odd of you,” said Daphne
    “I just need a distraction,” I replied.
    “Well, we were just talking about Erica and Clyde joining the dating world,” said Daphne.
    “Well they’re not the only ones,” said Freya.
Freya raised our interlocked fingers for them to see.
    “OMG! When did this happen?!” Erica asked with excitement.
    “On Friday of course,” Freya replied with pride in her tone.
    “That’s intense,” Clyde added.
    “It was about damn time,” said Blake.
Our friendship circle was like a seven-man version of Archie, Veronica, Betty and Jughead in the famous Riverdale series.
    “Anyway, my birthday,” she said changing the topic.
    “That’s not until December,” said Freya.
    “Preparation makes perfect. Not to mention,        I am going to be older than all of you.”
   She was going to be fifteen before any of us, and making herself feel superior was a Daphne Henderson thing to do.
      “No no no. If I remember correctly, which I do, Henry turns fifteen in November. The twenty-fifth if I’m not mistaken,” said Erica.
    “Ha! Your reign has come to a close,” Blake teased.
     “Actually, no. I won’t be turning fifteen,” I said, taking a sip of water.
There all stared at me, lost on what I was saying.
     “Sixteen?” Freya asked.
     “Fourteen.”
The awkward stares repeated itself.
    “You’re only thirteen right now?!” Blake exclaimed.
“You act sixteen!” Daphne added.
    I smiled. “Relax.”
    It was a quite shocking for them to know that the teacher and student’s newly found favorite student was a youngster. Usually, the ones younger are usually very immature and delicate. But Henry L. Collins is cut from a different fabric.
    “Anyway, how far have you two gone with your investigation”? Erica asked.
    “Glad you asked!” Blake said with enthusiasm. He pulled out his laptop from inside his bag, typed in his password and turned it towards me. On screen, was the footage of the vandal caught from different camera angles.
    “What are you driving at?” I asked.
    “I noticed she always entered into range of the cameras from the right.”
I rewinded, and what he said was true. A really minor factor.
    “So here’s my deduction.” He pulled out his phone and zoomed in on a map of Mystery Falls.
    “She either comes from Gryphon Road, Shira Street or the stream closest to those two streets.”
    “Well there are no psychopaths on my street, so check that box.” Daphne said defensively. She lived on Gryphon Road. A street for the rich in Mystery Falls.
    “Later, I’ll carry out some more investigation. What do you have?” he asked, clearing his laptop from the table.
I dipped my hand into my bag and pulled out the corsage I picked up at coach’s street.
    “I found this at coach’s car wreck. MFHS and MFMS were the only schools that had a dance on the weekend.”
    “It’s a student of MFHS.” said Elizabeth.
Her certainty had me shocked a bit.
    “The middle school used blue corsages on Friday. We used white.”
    “That makes things easier,” said Blake. I put the corsage back into my bag. The case was slowly coming to a close, but I wasn’t all excited about it. Blake was thrilled by the mystery coming to a close and him solving it would do a great deal to his crime-solving abilities.
He indeed was his father’s son.
**************
     Two weeks later, everything changed for the Collins family. Alexis called in sick and wasn’t able to go to school for about three days. She refused to go to the hospital as she said she was just stressed.
     Then one fateful weekend;
   Mom, dad and Heather were out, leaving me and Alexis at home. I was downstairs, watching a basketball game in the living room when I heard a disturbing noise coming from Alexis’ room.
     On hearing the noise, I hurried upstairs, towards her room. On getting to her door, I heard the sound again. It echoed, so I knew she was in the bathroom. Most likely, puking.
     I entered her room slowly and her bathroom at a much slower pace. She was on the floor with her eyes half open. The smell of vomit filled the bathroom atmosphere. There was a hint of white vomit on her T-shirt and she was quite pale.
    “You okay?” I asked.
She jerked herself up on hearing my voice.
    “I’m fine,” she said hurriedly.
She pushed past me and headed for her bed.
    “You don’t look fine,” I said as she cleared some sheets of paper from her bed.
    “I’m fine Henry. You can--”
Her cheeks suddenly inflated. She rushed into the bathroom and vommited into the toilet seat.
    I pulled out my phone from my back pocket.
“That’s it, I’m calling mom.You’re really sick and--”
    “I’m pregnant.”