Young Writers Society

Ken studied the boy for a moment but didn’t let his suspicion show. “Eh, it’s alright. Ms. Shephard’s a saint as always.” He raised his voice a little louder than needed and smirked when he saw her smile out of the corner of his eye. “And you?”

"The classroom atmosphere and teaching skills as a whole is mostly mediocre. I do not enjoy Algebra II as a subject either."

The bell rung as Cloud was finishing the sentence, "Thank you for chatting with me. You can call me Shelly."

Ken raised his eyebrows. “Well then, it’s nice to meet you Shelly. You need a place to eat lunch on your first day, I got you. Just seek me out.” He smiled.

Lunchtime. Such an interesting thing. Back in the day when Cloud had lived in Rome, lunchtime was a small occasion-- a snack. However, in this new "enlightened" society, Cloud felt that lunch was the main course of the day. How subtly humans can change.

Remembering what Ken had said about the first day lunch, Cloud walked over to a table Ken was sitting at.

"Hello there," said Cloud, "Er, uh, what's up?"

Ken smiled. “Not much. How were your other classes so far? What’d you have?”

"I, uh," Cloud tried to recall, but found it hard to sort out in the clutter of his memories, ". . . don't remember. Um, is there an archery class here?"

Ken smiled, but his eyes narrowed. “Not that I know of.” He paused, then said, “but maybe it’s a new addition this year.”

Cloud suddenly felt very uncomfortable and exposed. At that exact moment, he remembered his classes.

"For this morning, I had Archery, Roman History, and, wait," Cloud paused, "No, no, I, um . . . it's the twentieth century, right?"

Ken laughed, like the kid was joking, and watched Shelly nervously laugh along. There was something off about this freshman, something that made Ken want to give a wide, sharkish grin. Different was good. He could work with different, especially seeing how easy it was to intimidate Shelly. “Centuries are moved a century ahead, so it’s the twenty-first.”

"Oh, yeah," said Cloud, pretending to seem surprised. In fact, he knew that centuries moved one century ahead, but he thought that it was a 1930 art school. Feeling a little disoriented today Cloud growled into his mind, "Sorry."

Ken shook his head. “It’s alright. Lots of kids get confused with it.” Ken watched him carefully, before smirking a little and taking a bite of one of the small carrots from the school lunch.

Cloud felt that he had been standing there too long, so he sat down and began to eat his lunch in silence. He knows something. Is he the manipulative type or the assertive type?

Seeing Ken staring at him so intently, Cloud guessed that he was the manipulative type.

Ken raised an eyebrow in confusion. “Uh... why’re you looking at me like that?”