Midnight Rivalry

[Hayleigh]

The night was calm. No wind blew and nothing stirred in the forest. You would think after doing this for a few years that anyone would have just given up. But when this whole thing runs in your family, you don't have much of a choice.

-----

The school bell rang and all of the students slowly walked into the school. Desiree caught up with her friends and walked in the middle of a conversation.

"Yeah, it was the scariest thing!" One of her friends was going on about what had happened with her boyfriend the night before. She spoke up wanting to know what was going on. "Wait, what happened?"

"DESIREE! I tried calling you soooooo many times last night! Where were you?"

"Oh I had some family stuff going on. But anyway, what happened last night?"

RIIINNNNNGGG!!! The stupid bell. "I will tell you before practice today, Desiree!!" Great, now she had to wait for some good gossip.

[Elli]

The crunch of the leaves and the bite of the autumn air awakened the senses. Flynn felt alive in the forest he was trotting through. A short stop at a creek revealed the school he was looking for in the distance. Flynn then smiled, tongue lolling out of his mouth. He had finally made it.

It had been a close call last night with a local pack, but he survived. Now, it was time to blend in. Trotting over to a small bush, Flynn began the painful process of turning back into a human.

Oh yeah, see Flynn is a wolf, but also a human. Ignorant people would call him a werewolf, though his father told him to call himself Draufgänger. He was told that it meant Wolf in German, but really it help him deal with the fact that he was not normal.

Done with the change, Flynn walked dressed and walked into the school office smiling. "Sorry I'm late. I got lost on the way out here. I'm Flynn Carver. I was told to check in here to get my class schedule."

[Jack Spinner]

(You mind if I join this?)
"Uh huh," said the secretary.
He was late. Disgustingly, deplorably late. Lateness was a vice she could not tolerate, which was odd for someone her age. She was, after all, only in her late twenties. Or at least she appeared that way.
"Well," she continued, "Mr. Flynn Carver." She snapped the desk-drawer shut and stood up with enough precision to make any military man feel ashamed of himself. With halting steps, each one sounding like a gunshot on the cheap tiled floor of the school office, she walked to the file cabinet.
"Mr. Flynn Carver," she repeated, opening the drawer marked 'C' and withdrawing his specific file. It was quite blank, aside from the sheet of paper depicting the roster of his enrolled classes.
"Here you are, Mr. Flynn Carver." Repetition, she had found, was an ideal method of intimidation.
She handed it to him, almost daring him to take it, while she stood at her imposing height of 6'3", without the aide and abet of high heels.

[Elli]

Flynn smiled up at the secretary, "Thank you. I really am sorry for being late Ma'am. It will not happen again. Promise." He reached out to receive the schedule and then looked at it. It was not anything special, just an average student's schedule. Already, the schedule was committed to memory.

"I'll just head out then. I should be able to find my class."

[Jack Spinner]

"Have a nice day, Mr. Flynn Carver," answered the secretary.
He had smiled at her. Smiled, as if a showing of neatly aligned teeth was any way to absolve the dreaded sin of tardiness. She wondered if he would smile at his teacher. Perhaps he might fail.
Oh, this was spite, she told herself, spite! A lack of punctuality was not yet a federal offense. But spite was so enjoyable, she begged herself, Spite was fun!
She shifted her glasses and let down her hair. It was a wonderful length and color, nearly gleaming in the grim fluorescent lighting of that dull office. She let it shimmer down the length of her back, covering her green cardigan. Letting her hair down, she found, was almost more fun than spite. It pacified her, at least.
She took out a post-it note and wrote, in loopy letters, Mr. Flynn Carver, LATE. This she tacked to her own personal bulletin board, to remind her of that smiling boy's cardinal sin.

[Daeiel]

((Would you guys mind if I joined this? Let's see...we have two students and a grumpy secretary...how about a student teacher?))

This was his first job.

No, it wasn't a job. That's just what he'd told his parents. It was potentially a job, if he did well here, he could possibly get a full-time paid position, and then it would be a job. And that made all the difference.

James Nuit, most often called Jamie, was a student teacher, still enrolled in some classes back at the community college. A history major, he was more accustomed to writing exceedingly long dissertations, not dealing with high schoolers.

"I promise," the real teacher had said, "They're not so bad."

When someone says 'they're not so bad', in Jamie's experience, that could also mean 'not so good'. He gulped.

He was already sweating, and it class hadn't even officially started yet.

Jamie was in trouble.

[Hayleigh]

Desiree walked to her first class, flirting with some of the guys on the football team. The quarterback, Nick, carried her books into the class room and put them in her normal seat. She always like to sit up front so she could actually pay attention in class. Even though she was popular, she liked keeping her grades up. Not only for her benefit, but because her father would be angry with her otherwise. In the corner of her eye, she noticed someone she had never seen. A new student, she thought. I wonder what brings him here? But her thought process was cut off when Nick stood in front of her, trying to get her attention back.

Desiree smile up at him as the final bell rang, signaling that class was to begin. With her legs crossed, she pointed herself towards the front of the room. Looked like the boy wasn't the only new person at the school. There was also a student teacher.

[Daeiel]

"Um," stuttered Jamie, "Um, everyone take your seats! Class is, uh...well, it's started, hasn't it."

He turned around, hoping his hands weren't shaking. He uncapped the EXPO marker with a sharp 'pop' and promptly dropped the cap. It didn't matter, he was too nervous to even try to pick it up.

The marker squeaked across the poorly-cleaned whiteboard as Jamie, in strangely neat handwriting, wrote out Battle of the Bulge.

"N-now," he began, placing the uncapped marker back on the metallic lip running along the whiteboard. "Wh-who here c-can tell me about the Battle of the Bulge?"

He waited for volunteers. Or for his voice to come back, whichever came first.

[Hayleigh]

The student teacher seemed to be a little nervous, but thats normal. "Wh-who here c-can tell me about the Battle of the Bulge?"

Desiree looked around the room to see if anyone would answer. Of course, everyone just looked away, not going to say a thing. Its how class always was. Looking back at the student teacher, she noticed that it would probably be a while before he could actually speak again. So she decided to ease his tension. "The Battle of the Bulge, fought over the winter months of 1944 – 1945, was the last major Nazi offensive against the Allies in World War Two."

[Daeiel]

"Good," he said, "Good!"

Ha! She knew it! Jamie was beginning to feel less tense, but only a little.

"R-right," he continued, "And many consider it to be H-hitler's last stand...why?"

[Hayleigh]

A smile came across Desiree's face. She was helping him relax a little bit. It made her feel good to help him get going on his own career and make him feel comfortable. But of course when he asked his second question, no one would even try to speak up. With a heavy sigh she answered again. "It was considered his last stand in order to break apart and defeat the Allied forces. Hitler believed the bond was weak between the British, the US, and Russia. Hitler thought that he had enough troops left to launch a surprise attack on the Western Front through the thinly held line in the Belgian Ardennes Forest. He also believed that factors such as bad weather, bad terrain, and the Christmas holiday would help him to catch the Allies by surprise, but in the end it just ended up a big disaster."

Desiree started to play with her blonde curls. She was still tired from last night and just wanted to go home and sleep it off, but she still had cheer practice after school. Hopefully, her father would give her a bit of a break tonight and just let her brothers go out.

[Elli]

Flynn sat and watched the student teacher, he could practically smell the nervousness that washed over the classroom off of Jamie. They were obviously learning about World War II, something that he knew a lot about, thought it seemed that the girl did her homework ahead of the time.

Leaning back, Flynn's eyes jumped around the room, taking in everyone around him. A smell hit his nose though and he stiffened. Quickly his eyes jumped around the room, trying to find the source of the smell, but to no avail. Someone here either encountered a wolf, or is one.

[Daeiel]

"R-right," he stammered.

Well, for one thing, the blonde girl had done her homework! Homework. That triggered something. He was supposed to collect it!

"Um, that, uh, that reminds me...if you guys could pass in your short essays on the Battle of the Bulge, I, well...you won't get a zero on this homework."

He had originally planned to say 'I would appreciate it', but that made no sense. So he went with the 'zero' bit.

"Yeah, so, uh, just...just pass them up front, please, and I'll collect them."

[Elli]

Flynn raised his eyes to watch the teacher, wondering if someone told him that there was a new student in here. Surely not the secretary, whom even after Flynn gave her a kind smile, still felt disdain for him. Also, it looked like the presiding teacher just dropped the poor guy into the water surrounded by sharks.

[Hayleigh]

Desiree passed in her homework like the rest of the class. She really didn't want to be there. It's not like she had much of a choice though. Her brothers make her go just as much as her father did. Her mother never had much say in things since she didn't really understand the wolf-thing.

Exhaution was overcoming her. Why did we even have to go out last night? Nothing is ever here. Her thoughts kept on roaming as the teacher went on.

[Daeiel]

"Uh," he began, which was how he always began, "Thanks. Thanks, guys. And now, uh, i-if you'll just turn in y-your books to page...uh...."

He risked a glance down at his planner. It was impeccably neat, inhumanly neat. Handwriting which could have passed for block letters addressed even the minutest detail. Pg. 698, said the planner.

"S-six ninety-eight," he stammered, "And, uh, if...if, uh....you," he pointed with one trembling finger at a random student. It was the only student who hadn't raised his hand when roll was called. New, said Jamie's mind, while the rest of him said, "Yeah, you, i-if you could just r-read that, uh, c-caption under the photo."

He had some smashing point, he knew it. All of this stammering was going to lead into Stalinist Russia and the Yalta Conference at some point, brilliantly, of course. He knew it.

But he was just so good at side-tracking, at confusing others. It came quite naturally, even if he tried not to.

[Elli]

Flynn coughed slightly behind his fist. "Uh, sorry sir, but I'm new. I uh, don't have a book yet." His hands gestured towards his empty desk. His ears caught the tittering of two high school girls whispering about him. He tuned it out, really, being able to hear everything was not a blessing, but a curse.

"If you would please issue me a book, I'd be happy to read." Really, Flynn tried to be polite, though he was pretty sure that he did not come off as such.

[Daeiel]

"Oh, um," Jamie blanched, again. He stared at the new student for almost ten seconds, before shaking a bit, coming out of his flustered stupor. "Oh. Okay, well, I-I guess I'll just read it."

He cleared his throat. "Um, ah....okay. 'The Battle of the Bulge signalled the beginning of the end of the European theater in World War Two.' Okay."

He snapped the book shut and set it on the podium, his hands still shaking, but at least his thought process had come back!

"All right," he said, "So the Battle of the Bulge was considered 'Hitler's last stand'. Keeping that in mind, we're going to skip time a bit, staying in the European theatre, of course. Can anyone tell me the name of the conference held near the end, dealing with Europe?"

The true teacher leaned forward, raising her hand. "But before you do that, um, new guy? Flynn Carver? You need to go to the office and talk to the secretary about getting a book, okay?" She smiled, before throwing her hands up and leaning back in her chair. "Interruption over. Please continue."

[Elli]

Flynn leaned hsi head back and let out a slight groan. He nodded and pushed his chair back. "Yes ma'am." Slowly he made his way back to the office.

Why couldn't the school be just like any other school? You know, issuing books from the classroom and not the office. He wondered if the secretary would even give him one. A couple minutes later, he was back to where he started.

"Um, excuse me, ma'am? I was sent back here in order to receive my books. Is it possible that I might get them please?" He tried smiling.... a normal smile. The secretary was weird in his mind.

[Jack Spinner]

"Well."
The voice was like a gunshot, not in its loudness, but in its sharpness. Firm, commanding, immediately captures attention, etcetera. Flynn Carver had returned.
"Well, Mr. Flynn Carver," said the secretary, well aware her hair was still down, "You need your books, do you?"
She stood up with some sort of inhuman intensity, staring at this boy (who had smiled, smiled again) with her weirdly luminescent green eyes.
"You are quite the dare-devil, aren't you, Mr. Flynn Carver, coming in late, now coming in to demand books. Quite the dare-devil, or as the Germans would say, 'draufgänger'."
She liked German. It was just as harsh and intense as she, and she spoke it fluently, never missing an opportunity to educate an unfortunate in the beauties of that particular dialect.
"You shall have your books, Mr. Flynn Carver," she stated, walking with halted steps towards the filing cabinet, ignoring the screeching of the drawer as she examined his file. She stared at the boy again, clearly irritated, before splicing the manila folder with its contents and sliding the drawer shut.
"You are in need of eight books, Mr. Flynn Carver," she said, pronouncing each syllable like a death sentence. She withdrew, with equally harsh and distinct steps, to the back office, returning with a stack of Mr. Flynn Carver's required eight books. It seemed far too heavy for a woman as willowy as she to carry, yet she was managing perfectly well, her fingers cleary wrapped around their outer edges, the books themselves nestled in the crook of her elbow.
Only a freak of all kinds of nature would see she was carrying them with her hair.