First Draft Chapter 4

All right reader, beware, for my narrative is about to explode into a stream of characters.  Each one must be introduced and described, while I must be careful not to let the thread of my story be forgotten.  Hang on.
It is the first day of school.  In years past, I had to walk Abel to school with me to make sure he arrived safely.  This year I began classes much earlier in the morning, and so my father had arranged for Abel to walk to school with his two friends from church.
I biked into school, and arrived while light was just beginning to pierce the sky.  It was the first day, and my enthusiasm was as high as it would be all year.  I arrived a half-hour early.
Most of us were early.  David and Simon were standing outside the school, as where a host of others.  The other names are important, but they are not important right now.  I joined Simon and David, and talked to them.  With only ten minutes left till class began, we were joined by another.
I grimaced when I saw him approach.  He was fourteen, like the rest of us.  He truly could have passed for sixteen or seventeen, however.  He was tall, and well built.  For as young as he was, his body still seemed to bulge with muscles.  His face was spotless, without a single blemish.  His hair was perfect.  His clothes were always in style.
Ah, but I haven’t even begun.  He was an athlete, and what an athlete.  Star of the football team.  Star of the basketball team.  Star of the Baseball team, star runner, star swimmer, star wrestler.
And sports weren’t all he excelled at.  He was gifted in music as well.  He could sing with a voice like an angel.  He played several instruments and played them well.  And he was smart.  A genius really.  His grades were always top notch.
He was smooth.  He always knew the right thing to say.  He was charming.  He was funny.  He was loved by all, and there wasn’t a girl in our class who didn’t dream about him at night.  He was like a bright light, like a morning star.  He was lucent, like a son of the morning.  His name was Orion.
Orion seemed to be on some sort of quest to make my life miserable.  Ever since we were young boys in the beginning grades, he took it upon himself to destroy everything I was proud of.
“Well, well.  Hello Jonny,” his voice boomed.  “I’m glad to see you’ve made it today.”  His voice was louder than usual.  He wanted everyone to hear.  The crowd realized this, and quieted down.  There were probably only about fifteen or twenty others there.
“Hello, Orion,” I said cautiously.
“I’ve ah” Orion turned to face the crowd, “I’ve been hearing little things about you Jonny.”
“Really?”
“I hear you’ve become quit a rebel.  I hear you stole a hat from a Strate.”
“You heard right.”  I answered proudly.
“I don’t believe it.”  Orion’s voice was challenging.
I had the hat with me in my book sack.  I reached behind me, and produced it proudly.
My fellow students immediately crowded around Orion and me, jostling each other to get a closer look.
Orion’s eyebrows raised.  “Impressive Jonny, Impressive.  You’re quite a hero, aren’t you?”
I nodded.  Orion’s tone was condescending, but so far he had only increased my popularity.  I didn’t understand.
Orion swung his book bag off of his shoulders.  He reached in.  The crowd leaned forward to see what he would pull out.  I caught myself leaning forward as well.  Orion pulled his hand out to reveal – a Strate’s hat.  My jaw dropped.  He had one too?  How?  I saw a Strate take his hat off and leave it.  Could the same thing have happened to him?  That would be too much of a coincidence.  But how else?
“I grabbed it right off of the Strate’s head,” Orion said proudly.  “The sucker couldn’t even get close to catching me.”
Of course he couldn’t.  Track star Orion probably could outrun all of the Strates.  Orion grinned at me proudly.  “Now, how did you get your hat?”
I was tempted to make something more impressive up, but I knew Orion probably already heard the whole story.  “The Strate took it off.”
Orion’s grin turned into a wide smile.  The bell rang and we flooded into class.  A crowd of adoring girls followed Orion.  Orion went into one class, I went into another.  I sat by David as I always do.
And there were other people in the class too.  Can I delay the ejaculation of knowledge any further?  Streams of description long to burst forth.
Clodius and Joshua.  Yes reader, I grew up with both Clodius and Joshua.  Those are now household names in Fabula.  I was deeply shocked to find out they are unknown overseas.  The fact that I knew both Clodius and Joshua in my childhood, a fact which I took great pride in, became meaningless overseas.  Now I must describe them to an audience who has no idea who either is.
Clodius was the son of a prominent lawyer.  His family was certainly middle class, but not wealthy by any means.
But how best to describe Clodius?  This is somewhat difficult because I was never particularly close to him, and at that age I largely ignored him.  He wasn’t really quiet, and he certainly wasn’t shy, it was just that he was interested in none of the things we were interested in, and we couldn’t care less about the things he was interested in.  While we congregated to play basketball, or while we ran through the halls creating trouble, Clodius preferred to sit in a corner and read.  He loved to read.  And nothing I would have been interested in reading either.  He read a lot of history books, of all things.  In fact, I still have an image of him sitting under a tree on a fall day, where he spent the entire afternoon engrossed in a history book.  And philosophy.  He loved philosophy, probably even more than history.  He checked out volumes of philosophical works form the library and just devoured them.
As may be expected, Clodius was academically inclined.  However, he was far from the teacher’s pet.  That work that he chose to do, he did excellently, but often he would choose not to do an assignment.  He only did homework that interested him, and so the terrible grades he received masked the brilliant mind that acquired them.
And the questions he asked.  Understand reader that Fabulae, for all its liberal sounding rhetoric, ceased to be a free state long ago.  The schools were a state owned institution, reporting directly to the Duke.  Even as children we knew that.  One had to be very careful about the questions one asked in a school setting.  Clodius must have known this.  He chose to ignore it though.  I remember one class (and I forget exactly when this was.  It could have been as much as a couple years earlier.  Clodius was a precocious young boy), when Clodius asked why our history book still insisted Fabluae was a democracy despite the fact that current events obviously showed otherwise.  I still laugh when I picture the teacher’s shocked face.  Clodius was quickly escorted out of the classroom where I can only assume he was taken to the principle’s office and a futile attempt must have been made to instill some common sense into him.  It didn’t work.  The inappropriate questions continued, and the teacher’s did their best to keep Clodius out of more serious trouble.
I can picture Clodius in my mind. He usually had a thoughtful expression on his face.  His hair was pitch black and curly.  I want to say it was long and out of control and he constantly had to brush it up to keep it from covering his eyes.  At this age though, it was still short and relatively controlled.
Still with me reader?  Can you handle another description?  I still need to introduce Joshua.
Joshua was a bastard, literally speaking, meaning that the man his mother lived with was not his father.  No one, including, I believe, Joshua’s mother, knew who Joshua’s father really was.  In the conservative setting of Fabulae, this was quite a stigma that poor Joshua had to grow up under.  Orion in particular I recall bugged Joshua about this relentlessly.
And what is there to say about Joshua?  Like Clodius, I never really got to know Joshua when he was a schoolmate of mine.  It is well known that all sorts of myths have sprung up in Fabulae about Joshua.  Some of these myths, in varied form, have even made their way overseas.  I would like to once and for all put these myths to rest.  Joshua was just like everyone else.  He was ordinary.  There is nothing about him that even sticks out in my mind when I attempt to describe him.  He was just ordinary.  Ordinary, ordinary, ordinary, I can think of no better description.

Okay reader, still there?  Let us return to the narrative.  Clodius and Joshua were both in the room and both will be featured in my story later, but for now it is just me and David.
The class was assembled, and everyone was talking while we waited for the teacher.  I leaned over to David.  David knew what I was thinking.  “Tough break, huh?”
“It was incredible.  He’s got all the attention now.”
“That’s probably what he wants.”
Way to go for understatement of the year Dave.  “That’s exactly what he wants.  He’s always trying to ruin things for me.”
David always wanted to see the good in people.  He had a hard time imagining someone who was up to no good.  “Do you think you might be a little paranoid Jon?”
The teacher entered the classroom.  “Good morning class,” she chirped.
“Good morning,” the class unenthusiastically repeated.  In fact, it was like her greeting was being returned by a chorus of grunts.  None of us were happy about being there.  The teacher was not a novelty to us by any means.  It was the same few teachers that taught at the school every year.
“How is everyone?” she asked.  Again, the grunts repeated themselves.  Well, no need for long introductions here, everyone knew each other.  The teacher began.  “Today, we’re going to look at the early stages of Fabulae history.  Now does anyone know what economic conditions lead to the beginning of the resistance?”
Clodius’ hand shot up.  No one in the class even bothered.  Why compete with Clodius?  He knows this stuff cold.  The teacher, however, was hesitant to call on Clodius.  One never knew what kind of an answer Clodius would give.
“Kevin, do you know?”
“No Ma’am.”
“Katie?”
“No Ma’am.”
“It was unavoidable.  “Clodius, you have an answer for us?”
Clodius beamed at being recognized.  “The nobility was no longer able to exploit the poor with the new Imperial legislation, so they decided to break away from the empire.”
Now reader, I realize that you have no knowledge of Fabulae history, but what Clodius was saying was not orthodox history.  It was not a direct attack on the Duke, but it was not a patriotic answer either.  It was not the answer he was supposed to give.
The teacher shifted her weight unhappily.  “No Clodius, that answer is incorrect.  Please see me after class.”  I can only assume that after class the teacher would try and convince Clodius of the foolishness of his answer, and make a doomed attempt to get through his thick skull the dangers of expressing such opinions publicly.  The teacher would also want to know where Clodius had come across such information, since any history book expressing such an opinion would surely have been banned long ago.  The teacher did not realize what a bright boy Clodius was.  He could read behind the lines of a history book very well.  It was quite possible that he had formed that opinion on his own.
“Would anyone like to tell me what really happened?”  Silence.  It was like pulling teeth.  Didn’t she realize none of us cared?  Just give us the answer and let’s move on.  “Matthew, what about you?”
I hate history.  Five minutes into the period and already my mind is moving to other things.  I leaned over to David to finish off the conversation that had been broken off earlier.  “You don’t understand Dave,” I whispered.  “He’s been on my case forever.”
“Huh?”  David’s face was confused.  It took a few seconds for his brain to remind him that this was what we discussed earlier.  “Oh.  That still.”
“I mean, everything I ever had he’s got to ruin.  Do you remember second grade?”
“Yeah.”  David was answering my questions to be polite, but he hated talking to me in class.  He was always afraid we were going to get in trouble (which we frequently did).  His face was always worried, and his answers were brief.
“You remember how he ruined my presentation?  He had it in for me even back then.  And in third grade.  And in fourth grade.  In all the grades he’s always hounded me.”
“He must have a reason.”
Now this was the part I could never get David to understand, so I watched my voice carefully to make sure it stayed at a whisper.  I didn’t want to get carried away here.  “No, see Dave, that’s just the point.  He has absolutely no reason.”
“He must have some reason.  Have you done something to him?”
“I never did anything!”
“Jonathon!  David!”  We’d been caught.  Did I raise my voice too loud on that last statement?  I’d like to think I’m more cautious than that, but I suppose in my enthusiasm my voice could have gotten away from me.  More likely is that the teacher caught us whispering out of the corner of her eye.  “Will you two please shut up and listen to the lesson?”
“Yes Ma’am” we both answered.  She did not look happy; but then, she was never happy.
I, of course, was inwardly outraged.  I was talking about something important here and she has to intrude on us.  Who does she think she is?  I mean, really, what gives her authority over me?  I’m only in this classroom because I have to be, and I’m not disturbing the class I just want to talk to my friend.  Is it a crime to talk?  And now she was seeking to bury my relevant material under a sea of meaningless names and dates that couldn’t have applied less to me.
She glared at us for a couple more seconds, then addressed the class again.  “Now, after our founding fathers secured the coast, there still remained the problem of blah blah blah blah…”
I hate this class.  Why am I in this class?
I leaned over to David again.  “The only thing I can think of is that making fun of me makes him become more popular.”
“Jon, shut up.  You’re going to get us both in trouble.”  The teacher, who was still keeping on eye on us, I think saw the exchange but chose to let it go.  All we got was a dirty look.
I sat through the rest of the class period in silence, with my attention running all over the place.  After fifty minutes, the bell rang, and we packed up our stuff.
“What’s with you?” I asked David.
“Jon, listen, it’s the first day of school.  Do we have to get I n trouble on the first day?”
“But I was talking about something important.”
“We can talk about it at break,” David answered, as he swung his backpack over his shoulder.  David exited the room while I was still packing up my books.
The next two classes I spent without David.  As I sat in class, I sorted things out in my mind.  Orion had beaten me.  He had effectively taken all the glory.  What was my recourse?
My immediate response was impulsive.  I had to out do Orion.  If he had stolen a hat, I must steal a jacket.  Ordinarily at this point David would have chimed in.  “What are you, crazy?  How are you going to get a Strate’s jacket?  Jon, promise me you’re not going to do this.”
But David was not here now.  It was just me and my thoughts.  I was forced to come to that conclusion on my own.  There was no outdoing.  the very prospect of obtaining a Strate’s jacket was ridiculous.
So what was there to do?  Again, if David was here he would have answered, “Nothing Jon, just let it go.  Just forget about it.”  My fictional David was again correct.  Orion had outdone me, victory must be conceded.
I met David at break.  The hallways were flooded with students, and it was hard to hear anything over the thunderous din of hundreds of conversations all taking place at once.
“Okay Jon, what did you want to talk about?” David asked.
“Nothing Dave, I got it figured out,” I answered.
I was later to find out how Orion really obtained that hat, and then I was certainly glad I did not try to out do him.