A Feast For The Vampires

VII

Kimi held the shirt with the embroidery to his chest as he sat against the headboard, the rainstorm clouding his hearing. His thoughts were dangling from a hook, above a deep, rippled pool of tiredness.

I hate night times, he thought as he looked at his wall clock. Midnight.

An exhausted sigh escaped his parted, crisp lips and he worked to blink away tiredness. A tiny squeak caught his attention and he looked towards his window. A gecko crawled out of the shadows, an ant hot on its heels. Kimi watched the gecko shrink into itself, away from the taunting ant. It went on for a minute before the gecko suddenly latched the insect.

Kimi scoffed silently. What a dark horse.

*

Everyone bustled onto the field, their chattering slowly diminishing as they approached their teacher who stood in the middle of the field like a soldier, the sun highlighted against his dark skin. They silenced themselves as they stopped before the teacher.

“Today, midgets, is the day we have soccer tryouts.” A few excited exhales filled the field and the teacher glared at his students, the rays of the sun glistening against his grey, thick framed glasses. “Both boys and girls are participating in the tryouts. As you all know, tiredness is not an excuse.”

“But we have a zombie in our midst,” muttered Clover to her pack of followers, who snickered in response.

The teacher raised a daring eyebrow. “Miss Mikher, why don’t you open the field for us. Five shots. Redo it if you miss.”

Clover gritted her teeth, her face mirroring that of a pampered fiend. “Okay.”

The teacher nodded in affirmative and threw the ball at her, not caring if it smashed her face or buried her in the grass. “Orpheus and Homer you’re both benched, as usual.” He looked at the clipboard in his hand. “Can I talk to Kimi Mikaelis?”

Kimi raised his head, everyone turning back to look at him. “What?” he questioned with a stony glare.

Students piled away from him to file before the goalpost, his name on the tip of their tongue and centre of their gossip. Kimi walked to his teacher, stiffening when the brothers walked past him on either of his sides.

He looked up into his teacher’s dull, crosseyed amber eyes. “Yes Mr.—?”

“Just call me Coach Tobe,” the teacher said with a wave. “Let’s take a seat.” He motioned to the rolls of benches at the edge of the field.

Kimi nodded and followed his teacher to the benches, only to freeze as he watched his teacher sit beside the brothers.

“Come on. I haven’t got all day,” Tobe muttered as he patted down his mop of spongy afro.

Kimi locked his jaw and took a seat beside his teacher. “What do you want to talk about?”

Tobe looked down at the clipboard. “It says here that you aren’t fit for exhausting exercises. And you don’t do well with sports.” He sighed. “Let’s just say that, since you need to pass physical education in order to graduate, I’ve decided that you and the twins will assist me in the handling of tools and equipments.”

“What?!” the three students exclaimed in differed tones.

“Really?” questioned the smaller of the siblings in glee.