The New Kid

The Place Where Promises Aren’t Kept [Chapter 9]

The first month of school had passed. I guess it wasn’t that bad. Maybe I had just tricked myself into getting used to everything, even the schedule. The strange thing about having a different class and teacher each hour is that it makes time seem to go faster.

Mrs. Carpenter had us beginning on our stories. We followed the drafts we made and had to decide how we would get to the main conflict. She called this the rising action. The first half of class, she would talk about the structure of a story, how to describe a character, how to write characters talking, or even how to use a thesaurus to find better words. Uh, more… enlightening words, if I wanted to practice what I had learned.

It was a Thursday when a new kid came to us. He had a buzz cut like my cousins had. That’s when the hair is super short and it all sticks right up in the air. People in the military have that kind of haircut. I think people like it because it’s easy and you can’t wake up with bed hair when it’s cut that short.

This new kid wasn’t super tall or short. He wasn’t thin like me, or big like Jakey either. I guess he was just average. The big thing about him I noticed, though, was that he didn’t seem nervous, even being at a new school. That’s what surprised me.

“Good morning, everyone. I want you all to welcome Kyle to Northview,” Mrs. Carpenter said for his introduction. She had her hand on his shoulder. He just stood there, backpack still on, looking back and forth at everyone. “He just moved here, and as you all probably know, that can be hard. So let’s give him a warm welcome. Some of you might even be seeing him in some of your other classes, too. I imagine some of you can serve as a great guide for him at our school. While I get Kyle a class number and tell him about what we’ve been doing, how about all of you pull out your story papers and do a little bit of writing to start off the day.”

A few minutes passed. I was so absorbed in my writing that I didn’t see the new kid and the teacher come up behind me.

“Alright, Kyle. We’ll put you here right beside Mike. Mike,” Mrs. Carpenter said. She was talking to both of us there at the back of the room. “I was just telling Kyle about our story project. I was hoping you could tell him what we’ve been learning, and show him what you’re writing. You seem to have the most progress, after all.”

“Uh, sure,” I said. I didn’t want to, but I didn’t have a choice either. The free seat behind me was going to be filled up anyways.

The buzz-cut kid looked at me with blank eyes. He finally hung up his backpack and sat down after Mrs. Carpenter left. “The teacher said your story is cool,” he said. I don’t think he cared if it was cool or not.

“It’s good enough,” I said. I wanted to hide my writing paper under my arms. I knew I had to be one of those good students and help out the new student. “It’s about a knight and his squire.”

Kyle leaned in and tried to pull the papers out from under my arms. “Really? Do they fight with swords and stuff?”

I jerked forward to keep the papers under my control. “Yeah!” I said. I wanted to make sure he heard it from me and not my paper. “They fight goblins and defend their kingdom. The conflict— that’s the challenge that the characters go against—“

“Goblins?” Kyle interrupted me explaining the details of the assignment. He was still trying to look at my writing, half hidden under my arm. “I kill those guys all the time in this game, Rune Quest.”

“Rune Quest?” I almost shouted. Some of my classmates turned around like I had just screamed that the room was on fire. When everyone had turned back around, I said the words again, this time in a lower voice. “I play Rune Quest too!”

“Really?” Kyle said. I think he smiled for the first time I had seen that morning. “Oh yeah, then do you know about the new area that just came out?”

He was testing me. I answered perfectly. “The Goblin Stronghold,” I said proudly.

“Yeah!” Kyle said back. “The Goblin King is hecka strong. But he drops a lot of gold, too!”

“Oh…” I said, deflating. “I haven’t had a chance to fight him once, yet. Me and my friend are still training to take down his guards. Well, mostly me. I’m a lower level than him…”

I wanted to talk so much more with Kyle about the game. He was the only other person beside Jakey who not only knew about Rune Quest, but was just as excited about it as us. Unfortunately, Mrs. Carpenter called us to attention.

Since she had given us the first part of the class to write, she talked for most of the rest of the period. When the bell finally rang, I turned to Kyle again. “What classes do you have?”

“Uh…” He pulled a crumpled paper from his pocket and smoothed it just enough to read the words. “I have math next. I think I saw the classroom on the way here…”

I looked at his schedule. “We don’t have any other classes together,” I said with a sigh. “But if you know where the computer lab is, you should come there during lunch. You can meet my friend who also plays.”

Kyle nodded. “I’ll see if I can find it.”

We went our different ways, heading to our next classes. I couldn’t wait to tell Jakey about another person we could play with.

---

I didn’t see Kyle that day at lunch. I just figured that he wasn’t able to find the computer lab. I guess he was like me during my first day. He wanted to make sure he was following each and every rule, even if he didn’t really know any of them.

That next morning in our Literature class, Kyle was in the same spot as the day before. Mrs. Carpenter did her teaching and then we got our work time. Kyle and I turned it quickly into our talking time, which I think the teacher was okay with because I was telling him about the assignment.

“Do you know what conflict your story is going to have?” I asked. I wondered if he might have a story like mine.

Kyle was scribbling in the margin of his notebook instead of writing. “I don’t think I’m going to do it. Mrs. Carpenter said I didn’t really have to since I just came here.”

I shook my head and tried to pep him up. “No, we just started, actually. You have plenty of time!”

“Meh. Writing kind of sucks. This school is really huge, though” He suddenly changed the subject.

“I guess it’s bigger than my old elementary school,” I said back.

“Yeah, my elementary school had like not even 100 people.”

“No way!”

“Yeah,” he explained. “Even this whole city here has a whole lot more people and places than the town I just moved from.”

“This isn’t a city,” I said back. I was shaking my head. “I moved here like four years ago from a real city. Sacramento. There are real skyscrapers in the city there. You have to wear a suit just to go inside of them.”

“I couldn’t get in, then. I don’t own a suit,” Kyle said. “I’d have to ask my dad if he has one.”

“My dad still has some,” I replied. “They just stay hung up in his closet. He doesn’t like wearing them. That’s why we moved. Oh yeah, speaking of suits, what armor does your Rune Quest character have? I want to make sure I don’t die when fighting the Goblin King.”

Kyle shrugged. “I have full Mythril.”

“What!” I almost shouted. It was like my words were forcing a lot of air out of my lungs, but it wasn’t actually loud. I didn’t want a repeat of the day before. “That’s a whole level of armor better than mine. You’ve got to come by the computer lab today! Jakey will want to know what skills your character has leveled up.”

Kyle shrugged again. He did that a lot. “I think I might be able to find it. I’ll try and meet up with you there.”

“Yeah. If you see the big building at the center of the school, that’s the library. It looks like it has two floors, but it’s actually just taller than normal. Off to the side near the front of the school is the computer lab,” I said, explaining the best I could. Before I could add more details, I saw Mrs. Carpenter wandering about, looking over people’s work.

---

I kept looking around for Kyle on my way to the computer lab that day at lunch. I even went slower than normal in case I saw him being lost. I was pretty much dragging my feet by the time I was at the door. Jakey was inside already. He didn’t take his time.

I realized I had forgotten to tell him about Kyle. “Jakey, guess what?” I said as I sat down beside him in my usual spot.

“Huh?” He huffed. He was already absorbed in a flash game and a soggy-looking sandwich.

“I forgot to tell you, but there’s this new kid in my English class. He plays Rune Quest too!”

The door opened right at that moment. The bright daylight glared from outside and invaded our sanctuary. I noticed the short haircut right away. Adults would say the words ‘speak of the devil,’ for things that happen right as you’re talking about them, but I think that sounds a little bit evil. I waived my hand up in the air. Kyle noticed right away.

“I found it,” he said proudly as he came up to meet me. “Easy-peezy.”

I pulled out the chair beside me as an invitation. “Welcome to our domain,” I said, ready to tell him everything I knew. “Mr. Tate over there probably wants you to hear the rules, like not making crumbs or pouring water on the computers. Also, this is Jakey. He’s my neighbor up the road a little ways. He’s in eighth grade. Also a veteran of Rune Quest.”

Jakey leaned back a bit in his seat and scanned Kyle. “Greetings and welcome,” he said simply before returning to his game.

“Dang,” Kyle said. He clicked his tongue. “You’re like huge, dude.”

“Yeah, I have a mirror at home,” Jakey said back without moving his eyes from his screen.

“Like, really massive,” Kyle added.

I leaned in between them as a distraction and spoke up. “My mom says it’s an extended growth spurt. Hey, pull out that paper with your schedule. We look at your school log-in stuff.”

“Can we play Rune Quest here?” Kyle asked, looking about the room.

“No!” I said quickly. I wanted to answer before Jakey. “But we can do the next best thing. Here, do you know what a wiki is?”

Kyle looked at my screen while I logged in and pulled up the game’s Tomes of Knowledge. “Behold,” I said with a swipe of my mouse.

“Eww,” was his response. “The wiki? That’s noob stuff. Just learn from the game, man.”

I stopped. I looked at Kyle for a bit, then over to Jakey. My old friend had stopped his game, but he didn’t seem like he was going to say anything.

“I mean…” I muttered. I didn’t know what else to say. “I mean, we can’t really play here, so we kind of just kind of plan out our adventuring for when we get back home.”

“Everyone knows all this stuff already. I wrote some of those pages forever ago,” Kyle said plainly.

“Which ones?” Jakey finally spoke up. “I mean, that is the power of the wiki. The average person can add their own bits of knowledge.”

“I don’t know, man, it’s been a while,” Kyle said with a shrug.

I recalled suddenly what he had said that morning. “You said writing sucked. You didn’t want to write the story for Mrs. Carpenter.”

“Yeah, well, if you’re writing stupid stuff like that. That sucks. I wanted to write the pages on the wiki because that’s not boring. It’s stupid that you can’t get on the game here. Help me log in, Mike. There must be a way.”

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