Chapter 2: Morgan

School was a like Time Square on a Monday morning when we got there, students running here and there, nerds holding their projects, cheerleaders chanting about their dates, bullies staring up trouble, football team guys talking about sports. As a guy I always wondered why sports never had my attention. It was in my view, just a typical morning in Rock Sky High.

I waved my Rose good bye as I walked away. We were both seniors, Rose was in eleventh grade while I was in twelfth grade. I was looking at the Halloween banner placed in the corridor when I bumped into someone.

“So sorry! My bad!” I bumped into Amy, the friendliest girl in my class, high jump champ of seasons and also let’s not forget, Jake’s girlfriend since fourth grade. Amy was 5’9, dark haired, very pretty face, with light brown colored eyes. She had a mixed feature of both an athlete and a model.

“It’s ok” she said. “I see the banner caught your attention too,” she continued, brushing her hair as she looked at the banner. “It’s quite better than the one they put up last year, hope the main night is lives up to the impression that the banner gives off.” I watched as she smiled, letting her eyes linger at the banner for a few seconds before turning to me.

“You and I both know you won’t even show up, you rarely do.” I smiled now because I knew she was right, and she returned the smiled because she knew that I that knew that she saw right and she took satisfaction in that. Parties were not really my thing I was all about enjoying my solitude, reading, playing video games and watching movies.

“Well! We will see about that this year, won’t we?” I said as we walked through the corridor and entered the classroom.

The class filled up in no time, with kids going on about the Halloween party. This went on that we didn’t notice Mr. Barns standing in front of the class.

“So are we gonna keep going on about Halloween or are we going to talk about… Impossibilities” He said as he wrote it on the board, with the entire class falling silent. “Now can someone tell us about an impossible experience he or she had or witnessed?”

The class didn’t just remain silent, but felt like some froze time, and in with a quick jolt along my spine, I know he was going to pick me.. “How about you tell us... Mr. Light”. He looked squarely now at me and so did the entire class. Nothing pissed me off than being asked to speak in class, it wasn’t that I was shy or anything, but I just liked to speak on my own terms.

“Err….i once saw a girl jump across an alley effortlessly and fazed through a wall.” I answered with the memory of what I saw in the alley that day coming to life in my eyes. But of cause he didn’t believe me, I could see the expression on his face, like the one a parent had when a child spoke of something amusing. I knew no one would believe me, hence the reason I kept that incident to myself ever since it happened.

“I believe that’s from a movie Mr. Light,” Mr. Barns made a little laugh. At this the whole class began to laugh as they found it funny except Amy and Jake who looked at me with concern.

The laughter died down when the vice principal walked into our class with a girl, I guessed to be a new student. “…class! Say hello to your new classmate, Morgan Smith.” She sized up the class in an instant, she didn’t look one bit intimidated like most new students would but rather she looked at the class in sheer confidence.

There’s something about this girl I said to myself as I watched Morgan walk like an amazon to a vacant sit on my right. She was almost as tall as I was, had a bright red hair, a pretty face that had brown colored eyes. She had a perfectly toned body shape that matched her princess warrior strides. She wore a white T-shirt, black pants and blue jacket. Something about the way she walked to her sit and carried herself got my attention in a scary way.

I turned to find Jake and Amy starring at Morgan, well the entire class was starring. But there was something strange about the way both of them looked at her. Then suddenly I felt it, a strange vibration in me I wasn’t sure what it was but was certain that Jake and Amy felt it too, with the way they started looking at me and then to Morgan, as if they were waiting for me to do something, between their looks and the vibration, I was highly uncomfortable and would have given anything to get out of the classroom at that moment.

For the rest of that class and all the other classes that came after, was nothing but irritating, my uncomfortable status had graduated to anger and now a serious irritation as I had to deal with the continuous weird looks from Jake and Amy and then the annoying vibration in me that started as Morgan sat next to me. What the hell was going on I said to myself.

The bell for lunch rang, and for me, that was the sound of liberation. Grabbing my bag, I felt the vibration increase and a hand touched my shoulder. I looked up to see Morgan, smiling at me.

“Looks like I have myself an instant admirer, I wonder what his name might be”.

“Light…Bruce Light and I’m not an admirer.” I sat up looking directly into her eyes for the first time since she sat beside me.

“Oh you are not”, she breathed out with a smile of approval.

“Yes I am not,” I confirmed. If she found it reassuring or something else, that was completely up to her.

“So how do you explain the fact that you looked at me at every ten minutes interval,” she gracefully relocated her books to her back without taking her eyes off me.

“It’s a bad habit am trying to stop,” I lied. I wasn’t a fan of it, but right now it was the only way I could see. “I tend to look a lot at cute girls a lot when I meet one.” She said nothing but smiled. I looked at the door and I saw Jake and Amy still looking at me, this time with a worried look. I could identify fear on Amy’s face, like she was scared something bad was going to happen to me.

“Friends of yours” Morgan inquired with a nod towards the door causing Jake and Amy to get out of sight.

“Nope” I answered, “I don’t really have friends, I tend to keep to myself, I‘ve always considered having friends an extra weight”. She watched me closely as we walked to the door.

“Now that Bruce, is one thing we have in common, I see friends as unnecessary weight that just weighs you down”, she said as we walked through the busy corridor.

“I think we will get along just fine,” she said giving me soft punch on my back

“You bet, what happened to you don’t keep friends,” I caught several faces starring at us as we walked along the corridor.

“I never said we were gonna be friends, I don’t need friends,” her voice went from being confident to being defensive while she looked like she was looking for the right word to say what she needed to say next.

“So what do you need, since friends are out of it?” I asked.

“Well right now I need a tour guide and someone to help me get up to speed with school work.” She said with a smile

“And I’m your choice?”

“Yup” she replied.

I couldn’t help but notice that the closer she got to me the higher the intensity of vibration got, and the less close she was to me the lower the intensity vibration was. This entire development looked like the start of a very bad super hero movie that I didn’t care to star in. Not too long ago, I was in an accident that should have killed me or left me badly injured, but instead I walk out of the scene of the accident without so much as a scratch on me, not that I want to be dead or anything but that was unusual. Then there the mysterious girl that jumped across an alley and phased though a wall, like is that even possible. And then what is the deal with the weird vibrations I get from Morgan and how exactly do, Jake and Amy fit into the whole mix. I have known them for years and their attitude in class today was purely uncharacteristic of them and I wasn’t finding any part of it amusing, not one single bit.