ONE -- S · O · U · T · H

Danny dribbled the basketball side to side, through and through.  The defense wouldn’t get off his back.  Danny dodged right, hoping to sneak under the arm of the boy who was guarding him – nope.  He shunted to the left – the same boy’s arm was in the way.  He kept on dribbling, thumping the concrete with the worn rubber of the basketball, and hoping that somebody would be open for a pass.

He stepped to the right, and immediately swerved around to the left, speeding down the rest of the court.  He was dribbling now – he couldn’t stop – he was almost there –

“Ah!”  Thump.  Danny tumbled to the ground, banging his knees and scraping the back of his hands, adding to the scars of the day before and the day before that.  He rolled over and over, stopping at the foot of someone’s shoes.

“Ah – haha!” laughed the boy who had stuck out his foot, and tripped him.  It was Cory Caine, a big, chubby, but nevertheless swift and powerful basketball player.  A bully by nature, a bully forever.  He picked on kids smaller than himself, which counted for just about every student in the school.  He was fueled by other peoples’ terrors, and craved attention that involved winning.

Cory Caine laughed out loud, and his friends pointed at Danny and laughed along with him. 

“You and me, one on one,” Danny challenged, picking himself up.

“Oh, you wanna fight me?  Is that it?  You wanna fight me?” Cory mocked, making a circle around him.

“One on one, you idiot,” Danny spat with contempt.  “With the ball.”

The ball was passed to Cory, and everyone cleared off the court.  Interesting, they thought.  One on one.   Cory Caine versus Danny Speare.  Cory passed it to Danny, and when he passed it back to Cory, the game began.  Cory, with all of his mass and weight, tumbled with incredible velocity like a high-speed train.  Danny stepped out in front of him, hoping to block his shot before he tried to make a basket.  Just like before, Cory knocked him over like he was a bowling pin, running him over as the ball when swish through the basket.

The crowd ‘ooh’-ed.

It was Danny’s turn to go on offense.  He picked himself off the ground, and started the game.  Just like before, he bounced the ball, displaying his dribbling moves.  He stepped left first this time hoping to stray from his usual pattern.  This time, Danny speed up the court, and made a lay-up into the basket.

“Yes!” Danny cried out.  Danny ran around the court, catching fives from the watchers.  They patted his back, and congratulated him with words of encouragement.

Out of the corner of his eye, Danny saw Cory hurl the basketball at his head.  It was too late to act

Wham!  The ball bounced off the side of his head where it hit him in the temple.

A second time Danny fell to the ground.  He was stunned, and rolled over on his back, clutching his head.  Cory grabbed the front of his shirt, lifted him off his feet, and shoved him against the fence.

Cory was pushing him so hard and his evil face was so close… Danny’s thoughts swam.  He had to focus – Cory was just a little too close to him for his comfort field.  Think… He brought his knee up to his groin to kick him off him.  He needed something would prevent them from pulling him off Cory…  Quickly, Danny unhooked the chain that he wore around his neck, jumped on the bigger boy’s back, and looped it around Cory’s neck.  Danny knew that this was very dangerous, both for Cory’s life and for Danny getting in trouble.  But it was better than getting hurt, he told himself.  If the eighth graders were going to pull Danny up, the chain would still be around Cory’s neck and they would be responsible for nearly lynching him.  Not a good.

Did they see that?

“Freeze!” Danny shouted.  Danny heard them stop walking. 

He turned his attention on Cory.  He yanked the chain threateningly before saying, “Well?  What will it be?”

When Cory didn’t say anything, Danny pulled tighter.  On the inside, he regretted it.  Whatever type of torture this was, even though it wasn’t severe, was eating Danny from the inside out.  On the outside, Danny appeared serious and cruel.  He had to get what he wanted. 

A second jerk made Cory cry out, “Mercy!  Let me go, please…  Please!  Just let me go, don’t hurt me…  I wasn’t going to hurt you… it was just a little game of basketball, that’s all!  Just let me go!  I won’t bother you! Please, please…”

In a quick movement, Danny unhooked the chain and jump off his back, the tension causing Cory to thump his face flat on the ground.  Cory looked like he was about to cry. 

Danny didn’t want to see it.

The large boy turned and left the basketball court, his friends following in his stead.  Danny watched his back and he waddled out of the court, and turned the corner of the school building. 

Someone grabbed his hand and pulled him up on his feet.  “Sorry we didn’t stand up for you, man,” he said. 

“I know, I know,” Danny sighed.  Cory Caine was at least a full year older than most of kids.  He had come on the court just to bully on the sixth graders, especially Danny.  Danny was the only one who ever had a chance to stand up against him.  He was only person brave enough to stand up to the bullies.  Perhaps, Danny thought, the only person stupid enough to.  He did it, though.  He faced three people, all bigger than him and defeated them.

“I’m going home.”

With that, a frustrated Danny stormed off school campus, holding a hand to a throbbing head.

He felt bad about the stalemate.  He felt like a cruel, evil person.  Desperate to get what he wanted.  In that position, it would not have been very difficult to kill Cory, just with a jerk of the chain.

Then again… it was Cory’s fault.  He started it, and he made Danny do that.  Everything was his fault.

As he walked down the sidewalk on the way home, Danny fumed at the humiliation and pain that Cory Caine had caused on him.  Every day while he and his friends were trying to play a light-hearted game of basketball, Cory Caine and his cronies always had to intrude and hurt one of them.  After discovering that most of the boys were no fun to trip, and didn’t put up much of a resistance, he also discovered that Danny always fought back.  He always stood up for what he believe in, and got in a fight nearly everyday watching out for the other boys.

In some way, they thought that he was their leader, their hero.  In some ways, they were tired and annoyed with his insistence of standing up.  Why wouldn’t he give up and just let it all go?  He was wasting time anyways, and making a fool of himself. 

“Danny!”

Danny looked up.  It was his mother in the red Jeep, slowing down the vehicle and rolling down the window. 

“Do you want a ride, hon?” she called out.

“No.”

“Are you sure?  It’s a while back to our house, and it’s getting dark,” she said.

“No, I’ll walk.”  Danny looked into the tinted windows of the back seat – Peter was in there.  Not only that, but his friend was also.  Danny would avoid at all costs sitting in a car with his younger brother and his friend.

“Well, okay then,” Danny’s mother said with a worried expression on her face.  “What’s wrong with your face, honey?”

“Nothing, I’m fine,” he answered tightly, letting the anger and annoyance show in his voice, hoping that she would take the hint to leave.  “Just go.  I’ll see you at home.”

She drove away.

Danny sighed bad-temperedly.  He continued walking downhill, away from the school and into the residential neighborhood. 

His neighborhood was average on the scale of being rich and being poor.  The houses were larger than most neighborhoods, but many of the neighbors were rowdy and unkempt, especially the seniors.  It was a much better neighborhood than the one he grew up in.  He moved here a year ago.

As he approached the lane that would lead up to his home, he heard someone call out to him, and his heart sank into the pit of his stomach.

“Yo, Danny-boy!”  It was Cory Caine.

Danny continued to walk, holding his head in a dejected way.  Cory Caine decided to move his bulk, and ran to catch up with him.  Nobody else was with him.  At least, not for the moment, Danny told himself.  It might as well be a trap.

“Hey wait up!”

Danny didn’t pause.  He wasn’t looking for a fight, he told himself.  He hurt people too much today.  He wasn’t going to hurt anybody else.

No matter what.

“Hey you, dimwit.  Stop walking.”  Cory Caine panted to catch up with him.  He grabbed Danny’s shoulder and turned him around. 

“I was talking to you!” Cory demanded.  On his face was an expression of friendliness, and sincerity.  However, Cory’s grip on Danny’s shoulder was digging in like a vice.  His big, fleshy hand was so strong, that as hard as Danny was trying to act cool, he couldn’t help wincing.  This was some kind of trick, a trap.

“So, how was your day today?” said Cory amiably.

“Fine,” Danny grumbled.

“Thatta boy!”  Cory shook him, grabbing on the back of his neck.  Danny grimaced.

Suddenly Cory’s expression turned from happy to sour.  “You didn’t mention how you beat the big boy at basketball today, though did you?”  His grip tightened.  Danny was wondering why Cory didn’t mention the three-on-one after basketball.

“Well, that wasn’t exactly a good thing….”

Cory shook him again, his fingers digging into his throat.  “Oh.  You don’t call beating Cory Caine at basketball, a good thing?  It’s a great thing to do, you know.  I’m the best basketball player in school, and you beat me today.  You shouldn’t forget it.  You should be glad that you won, because I had mercy on you today.”

“And does that count for beating me up too?”  asked Danny, trying to pry those strong fingers away from his neck. 

“No!  You’ll pay, you bastard!”  Cory said sweetly.  His fist flew at Danny’s face.  A numbing blow hit Danny, and his hands flew to his nose.  It hurt like fire, and more yet – it was bleeding.  Cory’s other hand was still grasped around the back of his neck and he was choking him.

“Let go of me!”  Danny cried, barely able to speak.  “What’s wrong with you?  You’re going to beat me up just because I beat you at basketball?”

Cory responded by throwing him to the ground.  “Well looky here,” he mocked, inspecting his bloodied knuckles.  It was Danny’s blood.  “Your filth is on my hand.  Your blood, you bastard.”

“I’m sorry you punched me, geez,” said Danny.  Cory shuffled towards him threateningly.  “No, wait.  Just leave me alone, will you?”

Cory strode towards him, and Danny tried sliding away from him, frantically pushing his feet out in front of him.  Cory bent over, and heaved Danny up like a rag doll, whirled around, and pinned him against a tree.

Danny was helpless now, because Cory had his hand on his chest, over his heart.  One push from that overweight body, and Danny could die.  He was panting now, for mortal fear.  Today could be the day that he was killed.

“Don’t…”

“I’m not going to kill you, you idiot,” Cory laughed.  I’m going to break you face.  Count how many times I hit you before you go blind!”

Danny cringed, shrinking away from the hand that was pushing against his chest as much as possible, even though there wasn’t much he could do when the space between his shoulder blades were being pushed against the tree trunk.  He was deflating, Danny thought hysterically.

“Oh, and one more thing.  If you live through this, never tell anyone that you beat me.  I’m going to kill you.”

Danny’s hands flew to his face, but Cory pulled them away.  The first blow came swinging from his left, and hit the swelling bruise that had been the result of the basketball. 

Danny fell to the hard asphalt, winded, with adrenaline flooding through him, and half unconscious.  He was going to die.  He held up his hands up as a sign of last resort, closing his eyes.

For seconds, nothing came.

No hot hands waiting to choke him.  No stunning blows to his head.

He realized that there was a light, and opened his eyes. 

Cory Caine was frozen, staring disbelievingly at Danny’s hands.

The first thing he saw was that a strange, electric light was issuing from the palm and fingertips of his hands.

The second thing was that Cory had stopped dead in his tracks.  He was in the middle of a violent stride towards Danny, who was lying helplessly on his back, his nose flowing with blood, and half-blinded by the powerful hits that came to his head.  Cory, on the other hand, was completely frozen, staring at the light that came from Danny’s hands.

Danny himself was mesmerized.  He turned his hands so that they faced him, and saw that issuing from each of his fingertips was a thin stream of crackling electricity, or something of the sort.  Gathering in each of his palms, the light formed into a sphere.  A sphere of glowing, radiating light and in the shape of a small tumbleweed on fire.

The most fascinating sensation was that Danny could actually feel the power surging through his arms, his body.  He could feel it shooting through his forearms, and tingling through his fingers, like a strong volt of electricity.  So this is what it’s like to be electrocuted, he thought amusedly. 

He turned his hands outward again, and he could sense that Cory stepped back.  Cory didn’t step back because not only did he think that something strange was happening, he was receding because of undeniable fear.

Danny pulled himself up to his feet; his hands still facing outward, and the ball of energy still cackling, on fire, and in the palm of his hand.  Now he was standing erect, blood still seeping from his nose, and smothering his shirt. 

Cory made one step towards him, deciding to ignore the fact that Danny had two balls of electricity in his hands.

“Take one step…” Danny warned, his voiced hoarse, but sweet with the promise of vengeance.  He couldn’t wait for Cory to walk into the trap… he couldn’t wait for the chance to hurl these two fires at him, and see what would happen.  See what the harmful effects would be…

Cory grinned nervously, trying to comfort himself that Danny was harmless.  Cory hesitated, and he confidently took another step.

With eagerness, Danny brought his hands together to form one larger fire, and hurled it at Cory, a current trailing from his fingers.  The cackling, sizzling ball of electrical charge, shining with voltage, zoomed towards Cory and it hit his shoulder.

From the impact point, it burned and sizzled with heat, and from it blue charges of lightning coursed through the rest of his body.  Cory stood there, his body shaking and convulsing with the charge, and his whole self was immersed in a bluish light.

He had just caused Cory to be electrocuted without even touching him, but Danny knew that it was with his own power.  He was fascinated.  How did this happen, he wondered vaguely.

Within moments, Cory returned back to normal.  Danny was surprised, and disappointed.  But not that disappointed for an ugly black mark still sizzled in his shoulder, a mark of Danny’s new found, curious, mysterious power.  Cory had a mask of fury upon his face, but it was clear that he was exhausted.  His hair was smoking and standing on end, and he slouched, eager to collapse on the spot.  “I’m going to get you, Danny,” he threatened breathlessly.  “Just you wait.”

Danny chuckled to himself.  There was no way anybody, in any way, could hurt him now.

Danny had gone home, done some of his homework, and took a nap on his bed.  It was obvious that he too was exhausted.  He was tired beyond belief.  When he woke up, he found that it was almost impossible for him to move his arms, and wiggle his feet for that matter.  When he tried to get up, the end result of rolling side to side was falling off the bed and hitting the floor.

“Agh,” he groaned.  The impact reminded him of all the sores and bruises he had received that day.  He lay facedown on the floor, lured by the invite to fall asleep again.  He felt that all of the cells in his body were deflated.  If there was supposed to be any oxygen in his system, he thought, there was a minimal amount.  He just wanted to sink through the floor and rest in deep slumber.

Then his stepfather opened the door to his room.  “It’s dinnertime.  Want to come down and eat?”  He paused.  “What are you doing on the floor?”

Danny mumbled something incoherent.

“What?”

“I jumped off the bed, and I’m stuck to the ground,” he said.

“Stop joking around kid, and get to dinner.”

With strength that Danny didn’t know that he could muster, he pushed himself off the ground, got up on his feet, and followed his stepfather downstairs to dinner.  He felt like his whole upper body could swing off his legs at any second.

At dinner, Danny was so fatigued that even his family members could sense that he was feeling different today.  Tired, perhaps, they mused.  Nobody in his family paid much attention to Danny, and disregarded him like an unwelcome guest.  Likewise, Danny would’ve been a terrible guest.  He was dark and moody, yet very unemotional, which was why his family members chose to ignore him.

Did he want to be ignored?  No.  Most humans craved for attention – it was in their natural instincts.  He missed conversations with his parents, conversations where he was allowed to be stupid and naïve.  Especially his mother – she was a good person to talk with.  She always appreciated Danny’s jokes, small or large, dumb or smart.  Somehow, within the past few years, a wall had grown between them.  Maybe, no… Danny thought.  Not maybe.  Definitely, he told himself, because of Peter.  It was when she married another man, and they had a child.  So they disregarded him in answer to their newborn baby. 

She stopped talking to him, so he stopped talking to her.  It was simple as that, Danny thought bitterly.  However, he liked the cruel irony.

“So Peter,” Danny said friendlily.  “Where’s your friend?”

Peter’s wide, six year-old eyes looked up at Danny with a mixture of intimidation, awe, and curiosity.  When did Danny ever speak to him?

The rest of the table, his mother Mrs. Sorres, stepfather Mr. Sorres, and older sister Teresa, stopped what they were doing to watch.

“He went home.  He was feeling sick.”

“Oh.  And was that from mom’s driving?”

Peter didn’t answer.

Mr. Sorres frowned upon this.  “Daniel, what sort of disresp --”

Mrs. Sorres laughed out loud – maybe too nervously.  However, she did little to ease the tension, for Danny turned to his stepfather and said rather coolly, “It was a joke.”

Mrs. Sorres put her hand on her husband’s knee under the table.  “I appreciate the humor,” she chuckled.  She turned to Danny.  “No, Ivan went home because he was having a runny nose.”

“I see.”

“Yeah!  And it was like, gushing out of his nose--”

“I don’t need the details, thanks,” Danny said coldly.  Peter’s face fell.

Mr. Sorres stood up.  “Now Danny.  Don’t treat your brother that way.  He’s trying to make friends with you.  Why do you push him away?  As a matter of fact, why do you push everyone away?”

Danny didn’t reply, and punctured holes in the pasta with his fork. 

“Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

“I don’t have to!” Danny exploded, throwing down his fork and standing up.  “If I don’t want to look at you when you’re trying to humiliate me, then I won’t.  I don’t friggin care about what you think I am.  You – you’re nobody to me, so don’t tell me what to do!  If I don’t want to look at you when you’re trying to – to humiliate me, then I won’t.  As for the pushing away everybody part, that’s just who I am.  That’s the way I am, and you’re gonna have to accept it.  Don’t try to change it. You can’t – I won’t let you.”

Danny said the last part with calm dignity.  It took him all of his self-control to put the fork down, which for the first part he was waving it around his head threatening to stab something.  He left the table and went upstairs.

Upstairs, he went in his room, slammed the door, and flopped back on his bed with headphones jammed on his head.  After a few minutes of undistinguishable hard rock, the player rotated to Linkin Park.  Danny put his hands on top of his hungry stomach, and interlaced his fingers.  After having staring at the ceiling for several minutes, he closed his eyes.

“I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I’m close to something real, I wanna find something I wanted all along; somewhere I belong,” he whispered, following the words of the song.  Realizing the correlation of the meaning of the lyrics and the meaning of his life, he collapsed inwardly.  The weight of everything that had happened that day finally sank into him, pushing him down.  He found that after finally relaxing every part of him, he realized the true exhaustion he was beset with.  He didn’t know how he would eventually be able to get up to face the world again. 

Getting up in the next five minutes?  Impossible.  Tomorrow?  Who knows.  To get up and use the bathroom?  Even if he really had to go?  Highly unlikely.  That was how tired and miserable he was, he berated himself.  Why would anyone want to go out there anyways?  Cory Caine would be at school tomorrow to beat him up, or get him in trouble with the school… it was more likely that he would get knocked out in the middle of the school day.  Then he would have to go to the bathroom to stop that bloody nose like it was a routine procedure, then explain to the teacher why he was twenty minutes late to class and there was gunk (which would actually be blood) on his clothes… it was a weekly thing.

“Gah!” he growled, slamming his pillow over his face in frustration.  There was nothing good in his life, was there?  He was forced to be the tough boy of the school, because everybody expected him to be.  Why did they think that, he thought indignantly. 

Then he remembered – he was the first person in sixth grade to ever stand up to a mob of eighth graders.  From then on, his reputation was the street-smart, tough boy, serious-faced, and dark-humored kid of his class.  It was cool reputation, but at this point in his life, Danny knew that it was worth nothing.  So what if he was cool?  He basically had no friends, save a few.  He wasn’t anybody special – just a bully-magnet.

Not even in his own home was he anybody well distinguished.  Teresa, his fifteen year-old sister was the straight-A student, pretty, popular and independent child of the family.  She had gone off by herself to register for driving lessons.  When Mrs. Sorres found out, she was delighted, and exclaimed that she was so “so proud of her daughter”.

Peter on the other hand, was self-contained, but was surreptitiously wild on the inside.  One crazy and infectious smile of his could send his mother bursting into laughter.  He was very cute, half-Hispanic boy, sine Mr. Torres was from Panama.  His eyes were bright, and deep brown-colored; even his distant older brother of five years had to admit that Peter was rather sweet.  Even though Peter was a klutz in things such as dressing himself to snatching cookies off the forbidden counter, he was appreciated all the same.  Being terribly shy, he was the complete opposite of Teresa’s responsible personality, but he wasn’t close to being like Danny’s sharp wit, and he wasn’t near being as courageously independent as both of them were.

Constantly wondering why Peter received as much attention as he did, Danny came to the conclusion that it was because Mrs. Sorres needed someone to baby.  Who else to take care of than Peter?  She must’ve felt that she was finally becoming a good mother.

Danny sighed.  He felt like crying, sobbing silently in the privacy of his room.  This was a good time to do it, since he felt so tired and hopeless and unwanted.  Drowning in his despair and exhaustion, he waited for the tears to come.  They didn’t.  He wanted to cry – it would make him feel better about himself.

Danny disgusted at the fact he couldn’t produce tears when he was at his lowest moment of despair.  Laughing silently at himself, he fell asleep.

The next morning, Danny faced his hardest encounter with climbing the steps of the bus.  After all, he had managed to get out of bed, brush his teeth (though half-heartedly), stuffed a few morsels of food down his throat, and pushed the heavy front door open.  Not to mention walk five minutes worth of a downhill slope to get to the bus stop.

Short of breath and nearly late, he mustered all of his stamina to jump off the curb of the sidewalk and onto the first step of the bus.  Once he was on there, he balanced for several seconds, threatening to fall backwards out of the bus.  The bus driver gave him a queer look, and Danny dragged his feet up the rest of the steps, and took a seat nearest to the front.  Rather, he collapsed in the first seat that he could find.  Seconds later, Gary, his weird friend, took the seat next to him.

“You look tired,” he said.

Danny mumbled.

“What?  Have a fight with your parents?”

“Sort of… not really,” Danny mumbled.

“Then what?”

“Got beat up by Cory Caine yesterday.”

“Oh…” Gary said thoughtfully.  He could fully understand.

“Twice,” Danny added, holding up two of his fingers.

“Ouch,” Gary winced.

Danny considered telling Gary about the electric power that had come over him before Cory Caine managed to beat him up completely.  Nah.  It would be too weird to explain.  Why would Gary, or anyone believe him?  Plus, it would take too much energy to explain it anyways.  He dozed off.  Thinking about it… he could use some of that sizzling energy that had made him feel so alive just the day before….

In first period science, Danny scribbled in blank pages of his science notebook to keep him awake.  It made him look busy, so the teacher wouldn’t notice that he was on the verge of falling off to sleep.  Doodling, scribbling lines and shapes had a strange way of having Danny occupied and intensely interested in his work.  He would draw optical illusions and show them to his tablemates.  Lately, he had been making distinct, otherworldly symbols.  He would trace them on paper as if some force was guiding his hand, and when he finished running his pen through the outline over and over so that the engraving in the thin paper was dark and well defined.  They were mysterious all right, but just looking at them, at the equal balance throughout the shapes and the shapes’ sharp clarity, brought a sense of satisfaction to Danny.

His focus was suddenly pulled back to the real world when the teacher put a packet in front of him. 

“Put your notebook away,” she said, moving on to the next table to pass out tests.

“What’s this?” he said to the person sitting next to him.  He closed his notebook and tossed it to the ground beside him.

“Test,” she replied, writing her name on hers.  “It’s the Unit Six test?  Worth thirty percent of your grade?  Hello?”

Danny grabbed at his hair, causing it to stand on end.  “What’s on it?”

“Stuff about DNA.  You know… what we’ve been talking about for the past few weeks?” she said.  “Let me guess.  You had no idea.”

Danny shrugged.  “Nope.  No idea.”  He put his pen on the table, and irritably read through the questions.  He flipped the page… and flipped the page… and flipped the page.  He picked up his pen, twirled it, and began contemplating the chances that ‘a’ would be the answer to the first question.  What enzyme is used to unwind DNA for replication? DNA polymerase, lactose, or helicase?  “Or b?” he muttered to himself.  He sighed, and put down ‘c’ in the empty space.

The classroom phone rang, but Danny didn’t pay any attention to it.  He had to decide whether the case that was being described on his paper was meiosis or mitosis.  If he didn’t know the answer to the question, it could cost him his grade.  If his grade didn’t improve… then he would be in trouble at home….  Danny rubbed his eyes.  With a jump he realized he had nearly gored his eye with the point of his pen.

He looked around the classroom.  The teacher was listening to the phone call, and replying in a soft voice, “No, he is taking a test at the moment.  Perhaps I can send him down when he’s finished?  Oh, about…” the teacher looked in his direction.  Danny quickly ducked his head making it look like he was busy with his test, and not eavesdropping and on a conversation across the room.   “Not for a very long time,” she finished exasperatedly.  Then she listened again.  “Hm.”  She seemed annoyed, he noticed out of the corner of his eye.  “Very well then.  He’ll be down in a minute.”

 “Ah, Danny,” she called across the classroom; slightly surprised that he was already standing up.  “Go to the office.  Please be back as soon as you can.  You only have one period to take this test.”

Danny left.  Walking down the halls to the office, he wondered about why the office wanted him.  Danny bowed his head, thinking that this was all Cory Caine’s fault.  He was going to be told off for supposedly beating a guy who was two years older, and weighed twice as much as him.  He could plead the fifth.

Kicking a piece of trash, he also wondered why the office wouldn’t let his teacher have him finish his test first.  Usually they would do such things.  So it must’ve been pretty urgent, which would mean that he was in deeper trouble than he imagined.

He opened to the door to the office and walked in.  The receptionist looked up, and told him, “They want you in the principal’s office” and pointed to the door down the hall.  As Danny made his way there, he could feel the lingering glance of the receptionist.

He pulled open the door that was labeled with ‘Principal Olivier’; it was French – he had never noticed that.  He had heard the Principal Olivier was very fair – much more lenient than his Assistant Principal.  He stuck his head in.  Inside, sitting at a large conference desk was the balding principal himself, a foreign man, and a foreign woman.  From exactly which country they were from, Danny couldn’t figure out.  Funny thing – he could barely tell what part of the world they were from.  Where they Hispanic, African-American, Asian, or European?

“Come in Danny,” the Principal said cheerily putting a small smile on his face.  Despite his attempts, the smile was strained and didn’t mask the strange look in his eyes.  Danny stepped inside and closed he door behind him. 

The foreign man had brownish skin, but was blond, so he must’ve come from a tropical place; otherwise, he looked quite European.  Despite looking very formal in a dark suit and white dress shirt, Danny could tell by the inefficient job of the distasteful bright purple tie with glittering suns on it, that this man was not use to wearing clothes of this style. 

The woman was dressed somewhat appropriately, in a red skirt and suit, with her brown wispy hair thrown in a bun.  She was wearing strangely shaped glasses.  Both looked at the specimen standing before them – a skinny eleven year-old boy who had pale skin and dark features, and who looked troubled, otherwise tough and streetwise. 

The man and woman shared a glance.  He was typical – a runt in his own school, and he fit the typical appearance too.  What would they get out of kid with no telltale signs of particular talent?  A second glance said that it is our duty to recruit anyone who seems to belong in our world.

“Daniel, this is Mr. Cortes and Mrs. Santero.  Mr. Cortes, Mrs. Santero, this is Daniel Torres,” Principal Olivier introduced, standing up.  They stood up to shake his hand.

The guests raised their eyebrows, appealing to the Spanish-rooted surname so much like their own.  Their expectations were dashed when Daniel corrected the principal by saying, “Speare, not Torres.  That would be my step dad’s name.”

And then he took a seat, trying to act cool and unemotional.  Inside, he was deathly apprehensive. 

“Danny, according to eighth-grader Cory Caine, you guys had a fight after school yesterday.”  He looked at Danny over his glasses.

“It was off school grounds…”

“That’s not what I’m concerned of.  I’m concerned with the fact that you did beat him.  How you beat him is the matter here.”

“He’s not that hurt, is he?” asked Danny – he highly doubted it.

“No…  The fact is that he received a burn mark in his shoulder, and that he cared to report being beat by a sixth grader important enough to make noticed to the school office.  How did you manage to burn him?  Was there fire?”

“No.”

“Well, you’re telling the truth there, my boy,” said Principal Olivier, looking disappointed at the fact that Danny wasn’t lying.  “The nurse took a look at it this morning, and claims that it was more likely to be a volt of electricity.  Can you explain that?”

“No,” Danny said uneasily.  He had even thought about explaining the matter to himself, since he had been avoiding thinking about this paranormal event.  “I don’t know what happened… I mean, I know that I did it – I’ll fess up to that.  I don’t know how.”

“Why, then?”

“He… I have to defend my life, sir.  I thought that he was going to kill me, or something.  I…” stuttered Danny, struggling to find the words to describe it.  “I don’t know what happened.  By all rights, he should’ve seriously injured me.  I was defending my life, you see.”

Principal Olivier nodded.  “I understand.  I know what you mean.  Therefore, we are not going to punish you.  You obviously wouldn’t have started the fight, would you?  The person that we should be punishing should be Cory himself, but right now would not be the right time…” he stroked his mustache.  “That’s all I needed to hear – the truth,” he pondered, looking upwards.

“It is the truth.  So can I go now?”

“Actually…” the principal looked at Cortes and Santero.  “Mr. Cortes and Ms. Santero would like to talk with you.”  He focused his gaze at Danny.  “Outside, I think.”  If there was some sort of message that he was trying to give him, Danny didn’t get it.

Danny stood by the door, waiting for Cortes and Santero to lead the way.  However, they had a different idea in mind – they paused for him to go through first, Santero standing patiently behind Cortes.  Danny had his head bowed, but after a few long seconds he looked up at Cortes, dark eyes against brown skin and blond hair.  Cortes watched Danny expectantly.  Who was going to go through the door first?  What was this, a challenge of common etiquette?

Their little mind game ended when Principal Olivier bustled impatiently through Danny and Cortes, and away from them.  After he was out of sight, Cortes, who was trying to be friendly, held out a hand.  “It’s nice to meet you Danny.”

“Likewise,” Danny answered, grasping the man’s hand.  He noticed that Cortes’s hand was considerably larger than most grown men.  His fingers were long and lithe, his hands calloused and brown-colored without a sign of wrinkle.  Danny compared them with his own hands, which were scratched and dirty.

“Let us go outside,” the woman said kindly, putting a strangely long-fingered veined hand on his shoulder.  “We’ll have better reception outside.”

Reception? 

And what was up with their hands, Danny wondered.  Maybe it was some sort gene-thing, like where he was learning in science class where whole populations were affected…  but that was adaptation.  What kind of adaptation did these people need?

With Cortes in the lead and Santero bringing up the rear, the three of them walked out of the office in a single-file line.  Out in the chilly air where the likelihood of rain was very likely and imminent, Cortes stopped, turned around, and asked Danny, “Where on this campus is there an open space where we will not be seen?”

Danny’s curiosity was piqued.  “On the track, up the hill,” he answered, pointing in an easterly direction.

Cortes and Santero headed off with briskness in their step, as if they were nervous, impatient, and self-conscientious at the same time.  Danny tagged along a few meters behind them.  At the end of the school, they headed uphill and onto the track.

“A circular road…” Cortes said to himself, amused.  They continued walking, their hair being tousled ferociously by the wind since they were on a plateau.  Light rain sprinkled down.  After a few more minutes of walking, when they had made it to the far side of the track where it was farthest away from the school.

What did they want?

Did they bring him all the way over here, these strange foreign people, so they could do something weird to him?  A crime perhaps?  Danny made himself think that he was being ridiculous, but in cases like these he always prepared for the worst. 

So they could be here to abduct him (or possibly kill him) out of sight of any witnesses.  Danny looked around him.  Trees and empty parking lots surrounded the whole track.  Not a soul was visible.  The center of the measly red-dirt track was a thick lawn of green grass.   It was the perfect place for abduction.

They stopped.  Cortes and Santero turned to face him.  “The reason that we were summoned here is that there were reports of phenomena in this neighborhood.  It is our job to recruit people who can produce such phenomena, because they don’t belong here.”

“Then where do they belong?” Danny interrupted.

“They belong in the School of Yovay.”  When Danny didn’t reply, Cortes continued, “It is much like a boarding school – almost like a college, but for children of all ages.  If you pass a small test, you will be able to go to this school.”

“Where is it?”

“South.”

Danny’s eyes widened, because the word hit him like a lightning bolt.  His heart raced.  “South?” he croaked.  “As in Iquaza?”

He couldn’t believe it when Cortes and Santero nodded firmly.  It was like a slap in the face.  He stepped back.   “I’m going South?”

“Only if you were correctly identified as the person who electrocuted the boy called Cory Caine.”

“I didn’t electrocute him!  I only… I only…” he looked at Cortes who nodded for him to go on describing.  “I don’t know what happened.  One minute I thought he was going to knock me out, and the next minute, I have two balls of fire – no, electricity in my hands.   They were like…” Danny struggled to find the words to describe it.  “It was like it came out of my fingers…”

They nodded in approval.  “That was the Basic Self-Defense spell.  When your life is in danger, the first time it is in mortal danger, balls of electricity will be evoked.  One of the most powerful, especially when you’re young,” Santero explained.  “Has this happened before?”

“Not that I can recall.”

“Alright,” she said.  They headed out on the springy grass, which was wet from the sprinkle of rain.  “Daniel, or would you prefer to be called Danny?”  Danny nodded to the latter.  “I am going to evoke a simple spell.  It will appear as a symbol in the air to you.  I am going to toss it to you, and I want you to catch it.”

Danny nodded nervously, pursing his lips and wetting them with his tongue.  He moved into the basic athletic stance, bending his knees and holding his hands out in front of him like he was going to catch a football.  Santera shared a quizzical look with Cortes.

Santero stood on the grass, with a pose that somehow reminded Danny of a wizard conjuring a spell, which was exactly what she was doing.  With one quick hand movement, and the fluttering of her strong fingers, a shining symbol glowing with the color of fire and gold, appeared in the air. 

It was in the shape of a triangle with a line through it – it was only about two inches wide and tall.  Danny gasped.  He faintly remembered sketching a figure just like that this morning in his science test.  It was like a star woven with gold ribbon, but he knew that it wasn’t.  It was bright as the sun, and probably just as full as energy, and the possibility that something like that was floating in the air was just unbelievable.

Santero let Danny stare in awe at the figure she had conjured. Danny surmised that he didn’t need to assume the pose for catching a football anymore.

 When he put his tongue back inside his head, she curled her fingers behind the triangle and quickly yet gently extended them, almost as if she were flicking something away with her hands.  The symbol tumbled through the cold air like a sailing comet.

Danny snapped back into his senses.  He extended his fingers forward, and felt the shape settle in an invisible net held by his fingertips. 

He caught it.  “Wow…” he murmured.

“Good job,” Santero said.  “You caught it.  Toss it back to me.”

Like a shot put, Danny mimicked Santero’s move and pushed it out in the air again.  He realized that he actually needed to mentally disconnect with the symbol in order for it be free of his clutch.  It sailed, and Santero made a move with her hand as if she were drawing it in.  Then she vanquished the symbol by quickly closing her hand.  It disappeared in a wisp of smoke when she opened her hand again.

“Good,” Santero said.  This test told her that Danny was a natural at maneuvering with the signs.

It was Cortes’s turn.  He would give Danny the most important test.  Compared to the previous one, this one was a final compared to a pre-test.  “Now Danny,” he said, standing next to him.  “Do you remember when you conjured that, um, electricity?”

“Not really.”

“Oh.  Well.  I see.  Hum.  Usually, children are able evoke the power naturally.  Without any help, you see.  Schools are set up to help them harness and tame their power.  Some children are unable to find the power, and therefore they need guidance.”

Danny raised his eyebrows.

“Of course, I’m not saying that you need guidance.  It’s probably because you don’t know what you’re doing, and you’ve never been brought up around the Cryole ways.  I’m going to tell you the steps that one would normally, um, dictate to a ‘challenged child’.”

Danny again, raised his eyebrows.

“Now, hold your hands out in front of you, palms facing up.  No, you don’t have to stretch them so much.  Pretend that the Ving is resting on your hands, your arms…”

“What’s ‘the Ving?”

“Oh!  I should’ve known,” Cortes said, knocking his forehead with his knuckles.  “Ving…  erm…” he struggled to describe it, now seeming quite unsure of himself.  “It’s the force that we depend on.”

“Right…” Danny said, not understanding at all.

“The ability to… um… to evoke the force is dependant on the Ving.  It is like the thing – no, not thing.  I would say ‘supply’ of the energy that we take, but it’s not a supply.  It’s more like a string of consciences that are everywhere and help us… we also call whatever we conjured ‘Ving’.  Like a Ving-Sign.”

“Oh!  Like, ‘the force’ in Star Wars?” Danny said enthusiastically, using his hands to make quotation marks around ‘the force’.

“What’s Star Wars?”

“It’s this movie about Jedi Knights who can do Kung Fu, and fight alien races and stuff….Oh, never mind.  It’s just that the people inside the movie often say, “May the Force be with you… it just reminded me of what you were describing.”

“Yes…” said Cortes, unsure.  “Ving is not simple… it doesn’t have a definition.  You just have to know whatever you conjure, is referred to as a Ving, or the Ving.  The Ving’s power is all around us, and when you are able to feel its presence, you will be able to draw upon its power.”

“That makes… a little more sense,” Danny said, nodding.

“So, hold out your hands.  Try to feel it.”

Danny tried to ‘feel’ it, like trying to feel the weight in his arms.  It didn’t work.  Then he pretended that his fingers were drawing in electricity from the air.  That didn’t work either.  He dropped his hands in frustration after a full minute.  He felt stupid, just standing there, waiting for some fiery mark to appear in his hand.  How did he think it was going to happen?  It wasn’t working.

This was the final test!  If he didn’t pass, then what was he going to do?

He didn’t want to stay here of course.  Going South was a scary prospect.  People who were rumored to be like witches and wizards, doing strange things that were impossible.  Like lighting a stick on fire without touching it, or lifting an object with a person’s focus only.  Danny desperately wanted to do that.  He wanted to know that he could do it, because he had already done it the other day.  He knew he could do it.  It was maddening when he couldn’t when he wanted to.

“Relax, my boy.  We have much time,” Cortes said, putting his hand on his shoulder. 

Danny paused – then he laughed a little.  Cortes almost sounded like Yoda from Star Wars.

Danny tried again.  He held out his hand, only one hand, and faced it upwards.  He looked back on what it felt like when he had those balls of electricity in his hands yesterday.  He remembered the warmth in his arms, shooting from his torso and through his forearms like a spreading fire.

Just imagine, he said to himself.  He would pretend that the ‘Force’ was with him.

Closing his eyes helped a lot.  That was when he could hear… and it seemed like he was hearing everything.  He concentrated on listening to the wind blow through the pine tree branches… the echo of the busy city nearby… the silent roar of the actual space around him.  He never thought that space could have a sound.  He listened to the soft pitter-patter of the rain, and imagined what clouds would sound like.  Listening was relaxing.  Just standing there with his hand out in the cold air, his eyes closed, and just experiencing the waves of sound… he never knew that it could be so relaxing.

He opened his eyes, refreshed. 

“Well?”

“Oh…” Danny remembered when he snapped back to the real world what he was trying to do.  Looking at his hand, he imagined if he could bring sound in his hand.  Perhaps it could be made into a symbol.

BAM!

A clapping explosion burst in the palm of his hand.

Cortes stepped backwards, his hands next to his ears.  Santero, who was half-watching from the distance, stepped forward, her eyes wide.

“Wow.”  That was cool, he thought.

Imagine, he told himself.  Make yourself imagine that something is going to appear in his hand.

Then something hit him.  What was supposed to be in his hand?  He realized that he knew what Santero had conjured earlier, and that would be something that he could do. 

Nah, he said.  He would surprise them.  He chose a symbol from his mind that he remembered he had drawn in his lab notebook, and focused on that.

A circle with a triangle in the middle of it, with its edges jutting out.

A heat quickly grew in his wrist, and within a second, just like he imagined it, the particular symbol he was thinking of appeared in his hand.

Danny almost cried out in delight – relief even.  He held himself just in time, and just made himself act pleasantly surprised, staring curiously at the object in his hand.

It was only about three inches wide.  Like a golden ribbon twisted and folded into shape, it revolved slowly…  It could’ve been a hologram, purely two-dimensional.  But it was golden, with a hazy sort of flame growing from the edges.  It was also somewhat translucent.  Danny bet that if he tried to touch it, it would disappear.

Could he make another one?

Almost effortlessly, a second one, a different symbol appeared in his other hand.  Then another.  Then another.  He held them in a string in the air, as they seeped from his fingertips, like fiery liquid.

His hands were very cold, which was surprising.  They were freezing, and clammy, which was completely opposite of what he what conjuring fire would be like.  Instead, only the tips of his fingers were hot, and they felt very, very hot.

Santero and Cortes had a very surprised, but pleased look on their faces.  “Well done,” Santero said breathlessly.  She shook Danny’s hand.  With a wave of her arm, the string of symbols that Danny had just so effortlessly and miraculously created, disappeared in a small wisp of smoke.

“That was…” said Cortes, “Fantastic.  You definitely have a great talent.  Quite powerful…” he mused, stroking his chin.  He looked perplexed by Danny’s show of spells.  “Quite powerful, don’t you agree Professor Santero?”

“Yes, indeed.  Oh, don’t worry,” she said, turning to Danny who wasn’t worried at all.  “We normally wouldn’t expect Creole who were brought up by Northerners to be able to do a string of spells.”

“We wouldn’t expect anyone of Danny’s age to be able to do a string of spells,” Cortes said in an undertone.

“It has been known to happen.”

“Not here,” he muttered.  “Not in the North.”

“So?” she replied.  “It just so happens…” she noticed that Danny was listening.  They turned to walk back to the school, Danny having no choice but to trail behind them.  “It just so happens,” she whispered, “That this is the first time we have a powerful Creole from the North.  It’s not a big deal.”

Cortes nodded in agreement. 

They stopped, and Cortes turned around to face Danny.  “It is quite clear that you are a powerful Karta,” seeing the clueless look on Danny’s face, “Someone who works with the Ving… No doubt we think you belong in the South.  In a school, at the very least.  What do you think?  Would you like to go Iquaza?”

“Let me think about it,” Danny said.  “Yes.”

“Pardon me?”

“Yes.  I want to go South.  I don’t… it’s not that I don’t like it – well I do like it here, this is my home.  But I don’t think it feels like home…So I just want to go.”

“Wouldn’t you like to talk with your family first?”

“Um, let me think about that – no, again.”

“Well good, because you won’t get to speak with them,” Santero interrupted.

“Ever again?”

“Well once you graduate you will be free to come and go as you wish.  Right now, you have to make a decision.  Tell me – in a complete sentence – do you, or do you not want to go South?”

“Yes.  I want to go South,” he said slowly.  How many times had he said that?

Santero pulled out a form from within her jacket, and pulled out a pen for him to write with.  “Fill this out as a signature of your consent to do as you wished.”

Reading something similar to English, Danny saw where he had to fill out his name and put his signature.  He didn’t own a signature yet, so he just penned his name twice on the paper.

“Okay.  Can we go now?”

“Why?  Why do you want to go so fast?” asked Santero.  She had a feeling that he was being too hasty.  Perhaps she was pushing him too much…

“No regrets before I have a chance,” Danny said shortly.  “Okay.  Now can we go?”

“Should I go get my stuff then?” asked Danny.  He was almost jumping as they walked back to school.  He was more excited than he had been in weeks, months, perhaps years.  Excited wouldn’t be the right word, he said to himself if he was talking about years.  Happy.  He had been excited before a basketball game or something, but never purely happy.  He was ecstatic right now.  He couldn’t remember what it felt like.

He felt almost foolish, jumping up and down like a little child.

Santero pursed her lips, concerned for the fact that perhaps Danny was too happy.  He was supposed to be nervous, scared even.  Why wouldn’t he?  Most kids were afraid to go into a new world by themselves.  Danny was the opposite.  He couldn’t wait to leave.  “If you’d like to get your stuff, you may.”

Danny dashed off to his locker.  He ran faster than ever – faster than his fastest sprint in PE.  He snatched open the doors, and raced inside.  Skidding to his locker, sneakers screeching on the dirty floor, he spun the combination.  His heart was pounding so recklessly that he missed the numbers on the dial three times.  On the fourth try, he finally wrenched open his locker.  Danny pulled out his black Jansport backpack, which had some snacks and lunch money in the pockets, but otherwise having nothing in its contents. 

Then he considered going back to the classroom to get his binders and books.  He would be saying a jubilant ‘good-bye’ and his classmates would be deeply mystified about where he was going.  And why he seemed so happy.  That would be something that they would be talking about for days.

As much as Danny would’ve liked to depart with a bang, he was even more excited to leave as soon as possible.  In the end, he reasoned that leaving after a mysterious phone call and never coming back, was just as good.

Swinging his locker shut for the last time, he strode down the hall, backpack slung on one shoulder, and light sports jacket over the others.

He had made it to the end of the hall, and opened the door into the office.  As he entered, he felt all eyes resting on him.  The hustle and bustle of the office had gone into a hushed silence.  It wasn’t that people were actually staring at him, but it was sort of an edgy, looking-out-of-the-corner-of-your-eye look.  When he looked to the row of students sitting in the chairs, they pretended to look busy as if they weren’t looking at him.  Then when Danny glanced at the administrator’s office, all the men and women quickly looked down at their computer terminals, nervously pretending to type.

The people who were pretending not to see Danny had their eyes locked on Mr. Cortes and Mrs. Santero.  It was obvious that they were foreign, even though they had olive skin, and blue and hazel eyes.  They were dressed accordingly to American culture (except for the fact of Mr. Cortes’s ludicrous tie).

Danny considered addressing Mr. Cortes, and Mrs. Santero considered saying ‘good-bye’ to the office secretaries, but they both thought better of it, and left the hushed office space without a word.

Cortes and Santero walked briskly to the school parking lot.  Danny noticed in curiosity that neither of them were carrying a bag, nor purse.  When Danny caught up with them, which was when they were out of sight of any prying eyes from the windows, he said, “So how are we going to get there?”

“Good question,” said Cortes, clapping his hands and rubbing them together.  “We’re going to teleterra.  Do you know what that means; is?”

“Teleterra?  Tele as in… long distance phone calls, and terra as in dirt?  Travel across the land?”

“Right on.  That is exactly what we are going to do.”  Cortes outstretched his arms on either side so that Santero and Danny grasped it, and Santero held on to Danny’s other hand.  They formed a sort of circle.  “Hold on tight, make sure that everything is safely attached or packet away.”

Danny let go of their hands to stuff his jacket into his empty backpack.  “Ok.”  He held their hands again.

Suddenly, Danny could feel a stream of warmth flowing through his hands.  They warmed him with a golden sort of feeling, filling his heart with a sweet sort of heat.  Suddenly he felt that his chest was constricting, but it wasn’t painful – he just felt that he was leaving the air around him; leaving this dimension.  He could feel himself elongate, his cells twisting and crunching into his inner center.  In a second, the sensation was gone.  He no longer felt a part of this world.  He was gone.

Danny tried to open his eyes, but he found that he could sense much more without opening them.  It was dark; there was nothingness around him.  He wasn’t sure that he could feel Cortes and Santero’s hands clenching him – as a matter of fact, Danny wasn’t sure that he could feel anything.

Things were passing through his body.  Warm things.  He would’ve thought that this strange, dimensionless environment would be a frozen barren existence, but with all the streams of golden warmth rushing through his body, hundreds at a time, he faced a strange sense of being both cold and warm at the same time.  He didn’t feel alive.

Alive? He exclaimed, as the thought shot through his mind like a dart.  Was he even alive?  Danny didn’t think so.  He didn’t feel so.  He couldn’t feel the nerves in his hands, or the beating of his heart.  However, he could try listening.  That worked last time, didn’t it?

In this void of no dimensions, he could hear so many things.  They were mainly thousands; no, millions of whispers, everywhere, surrounding Danny like a maelstrom.  They were so loud!  But yet, so hushed.  They could be voices, Danny thought curiously.  He tried to speak.  That was when he realized he felt that he didn’t have a mouth.  Another sound was the rushing of the sweet warmth, which continued to bathe Danny in warmth and comfort.  It sounded a fast recording of pipes being played.  It was a whistling sound, and as it resonated with the rushed whispers, Danny could feel himself reminisce the feeling of life.

And there it was.

Life.

A pull at the back of his mind.  If he had a head, there would be a hook reeling him back into the world.

As soon has he felt the tug, he snapped back into life.  He stood stock still, not believing it.  He clenched and unclenched his fingers.  He dared himself to open his eyes, and open they did.

A train station.

Standing on a concrete platform.  Danny was alive.  He was under a roof, with Cortes and Santero standing on either side of him, and it opened up to the busy world of a train station.  They had let go of his hands.  In front of him was a deep-violet train with steam puffing out of its funnel, framed by a sunny blue sky with blindingly white puffy clouds.  However sunny it looked, it was still quite chilly.  Behind the train was a lawn with lush green grass.  On the lawn were numerous stone-lined paths that turned and crossed at many points.

There were people.  People dressed quite unlike Danny.  They wore many different styles of clothing – from brightly colored cloths draped on their bodies, like some of the traditional African clothes; or long, stiff surcoats with billowy sleeves like some ancient Asian clothes; flowing pastel-colored robes like what monks would wear….

Danny looked to either side and saw that Cortes and Santero had instantly changed into their native clothes.  Santero in robes of navy blue with shimmering scarlet lines stitched on as decoration, and Cortes donning a black apron-looking thing over his white robes.  How did they change clothes so fast?

“Are we…” began Danny.  He looked around, blinking his eyes to make sure they were not fooling him, and seeing the faraway-time landscape, and people and things that he had never before seen anywhere in his life, he finished, “in the South?”

“Yes,” Santero said, acting like being transported to the most mysterious part of the planet in a few seconds, was no big deal.  She bent over closer to Danny.  “Most people here wouldn’t call it the South. Once you enter the domain, our world is generally referred to as Vayr.”

Danny nodded.

“Come along.  We’re going to get your ticket,” said Santero, acting motherly.  She set off at a brisk pace.  Danny noticed that she always walked fast, no matter where she was going.  Cortes had already disappeared.  Probably off to do some business

“Ticket to where?”

“To your campus.”

“And where’s that?”

“Where your school’s at.”

Danny hated asking questions.  “And where is my school?”  He paused.  “Wait, I’m going to a school?”

“Yes,” Santero said.  She approached some sort of ticket window.  A man from behind the glass asked her a few questions that involved buying a train ticket, and presented her with a slip of paper.  Danny had picked up a brochure at the side of the kiosk.  Santero handed the ticket she had just bought to Danny. 

“Do I have to pay for this?” Danny asked, holding up the brochure.  He was studying the different maps inside.

“Yes,” said Santero.

“How much is it?” asked Danny.  He was sure that he had some change somewhere in his backpack. 

“Fifteen kharans.”

“And that’s how much?” Danny had a dollar bill and several quarters in the palm of his hand.

“Worth… seventy five cents.”

Danny walked up to the window of the kiosk and passed the clerk three quarters.  “It’s seventy-five American cents; you can go trade it at the local bank, or whatever.”

The clerk shrugged, and passing his hand over the coins, they turned into five small, bronze hexagonal coins.  “Thanks, and have a nice day,” the clerk said, heading to the back of his shop.

“This is your ticket to the city of Mosarine.  When you get there, it’ll be about 10 o’clock in the morning.  It’s 8:30 right now.  The train station opens to a village where you have to find your way to the Ecolades Harbor.  There will be a ferry that leaves at… I think it’s one-thirty in the afternoon, and buy a ticket for three saquillas – that’s worth about a dollar.  That’ll take you to your new school.”

“New school?” said Danny.  “I mean, it was November back in… um, the North, so shouldn’t the school year already be started?  How am I going to enroll?”

“Don’t worry,” said Santero.  “We’ve already sent a letter to enroll you.  Besides, it’s still summertime here in Vayr.  It’s lucky that we found you when we did.  This one is one of the last schools that start their school years late.  Do you think we’d go searching for students in the middle of the year?  Anyways,” she said, pushing him towards the train.  “You’ll find out about… this world soon enough, I suspect.”

With that, Danny headed towards the train.  When he turned around, Santero had vanished.

Danny stepped up onto the train.

It was a fairly old-fashioned thing.  The main corridor was on the left side, with compartments on the right.  Windows framed both sides of the train.  Danny slowly made his way down the main corridor, glancing in the compartment whenever he saw that it was open.

Most people were dressed in some sort of trousers and linen shirts.  Most of them wore different-colored plain robes over their ordinary clothes.  Some of the women wore what most people, the men were wearing, and some of them wore long flowery dressed covered by pearly-white robes, which Danny identified as a special class of people.  Most of the compartments were filled with people, and as the train jerked to life, Danny jumped into the next train, hoping to find an empty compartment that he could have all to himself.

There was an empty compartment in the back of this train, and Danny slid the door closed behind him.  For the rest of the trip he watched the lush and mystical scenery pass by his window.