Tales of Allesteur and Beyond, Part 2

[zesty_pinto]

Class Time

From that gap between getting to class and getting from homeroom to class, I have spent my time running from one point to another. Between the twelve floors that all my classes are involved with, there’s about 20 minutes, which is a nice little gap, even though going from stairs to stairs just to get there means I end up making it to class with five to half a minute left before the teacher lectures me about being late. There’s an elevator, of course, but taking the elevator is just another way to get slapped in the face with five g’s of force. Despite what you may think, even in those perverse minds you have, getting from floor to floor in one second is not worth the nosebleeds and headaches. Anyway, there’s nothing significant that you need to know. No wait,

During my third period class, Philosophy of Animal Nature, one of the girls, Lana, gestured me to a window. Philosophy of Animal Nature was on one of the lower floors, so we could look out into the large yards from time to time. Lana was an animal lover and deemed herself “Ambassador of the Animal Kingdom” for some reason or another. Didn’t I tell you already that most of the people here are nuts? Anyway, she pointed me to a window and I saw there, with my own two eyes, a group of raccoons on the lawn were gathering some bundles of paper. It took me awhile to realize that they were those fliers for the Church of The New Element crap that was caked all over our lockers before. I wasn’t sure what it meant, until I then saw them break out a lighter and burn it. For the next half hour, the entire school began to shriek with a fire alarm with a sound as painful as getting your teeth torn out. I would have said that the entire school was about to empty, but thankfully security stopped us. The cameras, before they were destroyed with random raccoon bricks, showed us a picture of a bunch of angry raccoons with power tools. If you thought raccoons with power tools was scary, you should see some that are angry: they were breaking into the pavement and vandalizing the school like it was nothing. We all gathered around in the hallway as security brought out their riot equipment.

“What’s all this about anyway?!” We all turned to Lana since she probably knew more about this than the rest of us. Lana usually is a very outspoken person when it comes to the defense of the animals, but damn it, she was being quiet then and we were all pissed with wanting to know why.

“Missus Carp,” Even Dr. Jekins was disturbed at this turn of events “Please.”

She turned to us and looked unusually calm, but calm in a nervous way “I… don’t know.”

“Whoa, I thought you were the ambassador of animals, damn it!”

“Phil,” Dr. Jekins thought I was going to far, but even now, looking back, I don’t think I was going far enough. I shut up for him all the same. He turned back to Lara “How do you not know?”

”Relationships with the raccoons in the council have not been as steady as we might like you to believe lately.” I never got over the fact that she talked like she was some sort of royalty. I guess it was because she actually was, which disturbed me even more.

“So what is that supposed to mean?”

“It means…” she sighed afterwards “-that there is not going to be any easy way around the situation. The raccoons have not been happy since Article 13 passed.”

I looked at her like she was babbling complete nonsense, and frankly, it sounded like complete nonsense “and just what the heck is Article 13 supposed to be?”

Levi the scholar, who was one of the many others looking at this situation, answered me “Article 13 made trash pickup on Thursday morning instead of Wednesday night.”

“…and…?”

“Raccoons are nocturnal! How are raccoons supposed to get the trash at a time they’re supposed to be asleep?” you could see from the expression in her eyes that she was starting to well up with tears as though she was trying to pass something that she did not want to happen. Personally, it still sounds like a whole crock of bullshit even as I say it now, but whatever.

“So you’re saying they’re mad… about garbage.”

“Drew…!” Dr. Jekins always thought I was picking on these people. I can’t help it that I don’t understand this damn town! Shut up, of course I know more than you guys, but that doesn’t make me Nostra fucking damus, okay?

About this time we saw the raccoon with a huge mallet bash down the flagpole in front of the school right after the other one drilled through the pole several times. Scary shit. The fire alarms went on. And then I realized that they were actually the emergency alarms blazing on. The emergency alarms are exactly like the fire alarms, except they don’t scream the words “FIRE” into your ear every ten seconds just so you run the hell out.

“Okay class… assembly hall!” He motioned it and we followed.

The assembly hall is the second floor. Actually, it’s almost the entire second floor, split between that and the cafeteria and a small janitor’s lounge devoted to a custodian that acts like he’s some part of the WWII French resistance. Yeah, keen.

I met up with Steve, Phil, Andy, Lars, and the others by the wall.

“0111. 1110110?” Hey Drew. Did you notice the outside?

“How couldn’t I? Did you see how they sawed down the flagpole?”

“Ah shure did,” Lars replied “wuz lak sumtin from the great beyon.” If you couldn’t tell, Lars was more hick than a smoked sausage. Shut up, the metaphor made sense to me and he made it up himself.

“Andy, can’t you aim some of that napalm at them or something?”

She was still wearing a gas mask, but you could tell that there was more wear and dirt on it than usual. I knew enough to tell that it was just enough to say that there was probably an incident at the firing range. What exactly, I wish I had known “You’re as bad as those Lugosi kids. Even if I wanted to use my E-napalm (I guess the “E” meant environmental), the instructor is against the use of firearms against innocent creatures. Besides, who could hurt something so cute?” As you could tell, Andy was both an environmentalist as well as a gun nut. Scary, huh?

“So what then? We let them kill us?”

“Geez Drew, you’re making it sound like the end of the world or something.” Phil held his glasses close to his nose with the end two fingers of his hand while twiddling a pen. He may have been a musician, but his glasses were terrible against his nose.

“Uhhh, maybe because it is? There are angry raccoons out there that might kill us!”

“Fear not, fellow, for the holy Atom will save you all!”

“Oh god.” I slapped my forehead.

Barrister. No, not Barry, Barrister. Out of all the arrogant, pompous sons of the “elite” that I ever had the “joy” of meeting, it had to be him that was the leader of the Holy Element cult. I didn’t even want to think of him as over there. He was… not someone that I wanted to know about, not normally. In fact, if I ever knew him back in New York, there’s a good chance I would have had him beat on for being such an S.O.B. Since they know that though, and since he has control over a very sizable portion of the town with his crazy talk, I just tolerate him.

But today… was not a day I wanted to hear from him. Okay, anyday is a day I wouldn’t want to hear from him. Shut up.

“10101,” Steve was laughing at me again. I refused to remove my hand from my forehead and only told him one thing,

“Oh shut up,” and he did so. I could tell Andy was giggling through her gas mask. I turned up a bit just to confront her.

“And what do YOU find so funny about this?”
Andy’s laughs are fucking scary when you hear them echoing through her gas mask. You could scare even the bravest of people that way very very easily (she told me that people thought she made a very convincing Darth Vader because of that mask, though Lars always says that she lacks the “spirit” of the feel). Perhaps that was one of the things that really scared me about her; she knew how to get to me… and she was absolutely brilliant at it.

“You really do have this passion against him, don’t you?”

“How can you not hate him? He practically reeks of what I hated dealing with in the past.”

“You mean back in New York?” She giggled politely, I knew that, but it STILL felt goddamn sickening. If you think I’m bad now though, you should have seen me when I first saw her laugh. I literally wet my pants after that one.

“Oh, don’t you start too! Steve was giving me the same treatment like I was here to kick everyone’s ass.”

“11110110” Actually, I thought that I actually was going to get my butt kicked. You can be so scary sometimes. I just slapped my forehead and sighed.

“I don’t know what Steve said, but I bet I know what it involved,” Andy shook her head and turned around to watch Barry spout his shit about the perfect atom being and bullshit like that.

“Naw, don’t be all uppity aroun’ and whatlike, Drou.” Lars gave his friendly grin and then pulled out his handbook on proper Stanislavski methods. Steve was talking to his cellphone (yes, literally), and I think Andy was busy thinking about the differences between the ballistics reports of a Walther P38 from one year to another. I just tried not to listen too intently to Barrister’s crap.

“Selenium will save us all! Holiest of Holies, oh glorious element of the world, oh how wonderful it is and what wonder it will bring to us all. Only through the examination of life will we fully understand what we must endure and encounter! These raccoons are only but a sign of the impending doom to befall our race, but from then, we will be able to become he basest of elements again to return to the great periodical chart in the sky! We should let them in and-”

“ATTENTION… ATTENTION STUDENTS…”

“Thank god…” I was just glad someone could shut him up and it did work ever so effectively. I listened to the loudspeaker as the principal talked.

“THERE IS A RACCOON PROBLEM WITHIN THE VICINITY. UNFORTUNATELY, DUE TO THE PROLEMS OUTSIDE AND THE INABILITY TO QUELL THE CURRENT SITUATION, WE WILL BE FORCED TO KEEP YOU INDOORS. ALL MILITARY SCIENCE STUDENTS AND INSTRUCTORS PLEASE COME TO MY OFFICE FOR FURTHER ORDERS.”

“Finally.”

“Like hell if the professor thinks I’m going to flush out raccoons.” She crossed her arms with a distaste that everyone saw she had about the situation.

“It maht bee the onlee thin’ we cud do fur the mom’nt.” I immediately agreed with Lars.

“I agree, Andy. You may be defensive against the environment, but do you think the raccoons will care if you won’t lay a hand on them while they bash your head in with a sledgehammer?” A shame, but she didn’t seem to understand, and just continued to cross her arms.

“I don’t care. I’m staying firm.”

“Phil, tell her.” Of course, about that time, I missed seeing Phil because he disappeared somewhere “Bastard was smart enough to mind his own business right at the time I neded him.”

“10101.”

“Shut up Steve.”

“1.” Lars gave his usual hick laugh as the other Military Science students went by in their BDUs and backpacks the size of lockers. It soon became noticeable that Andy was the only one left there in military uniforms.

“Anderson!” Dr. Salinger stormed towards her. She unconsciously stood up and held a salute to him “Anderson, what the fuck are you doing standing still?!”

“Sir! I do not agree to this idea! Sir!”

His large meaty hand slapped her in the face. I almost felt compelled to hit him but Steve stopped me before I realized what I was about to do. Andy was on the ground.

“You agree or die! That’s the way of war, Anderson!”

“Sir, yes sir…!” She muttered through her gas mask as she started to stand up slowly.

“Get going. NOW!” With a sort of circular motion, she marched to the halls, with Salinger not too far behind.

“She’ll find some way to get out of it… I know that much.” I remember giving a sigh because she was that kind of girl.

“00011001011101011001.” You shouldn’t worry, she’s tough enough to handle herself anyway. Why you should worry about her is beyond me.

“I worry about everyone, bud, even crazy binary-speakers and hicks like you and Lars.” I tried to give a smile but somewhere in my mind I had a feeling that something bad was bound to happen.