Chapter One

Tyler rubbed his eyes slowly, trying his best to get the thudding pain pushing against them to ease up. He had taken three Aspirins before he left home but they did not even begin to touch the fire that was burning in his skull. He reached into his backpack and pulled out his sunglasses. It was a cold, rainy day and he was pretty sure that he would not see the sun all day long, but he just needed to turn the brightness down a little. In his mind he could almost see the little bar at the bottom of television screen and he willed the notch to move to the left.

"Late night?"

Tyler lifted his head off of the headrest and looked at the man driving the car.

"No," he said. He voice sounded a little rough and he cleared his throat. "No. I didn't get much sleep last night. I'm just a little nervous is all."

"Big day today?" the man asked.

"I'm new in town," Tyler answered. "This is my first day at this school."

The man nodded and began talking about how he was always nervous on his first day of blah, blah, blah. This was the only thing that Tyler hated about riding in a taxi. The smell and the filth of sitting in the same backseat as a million other passengers behind a man that nearly lived in a car was bearable. It was the constant chatter that he hated.

Normally, he would not be in a taxi. Most of the time he would either drive himself unless he was in a new city, which happened a lot. If he was not sure of where to go his father would have one of his drivers take him where he needed to go in one of the cars. The cars were not as fancy as you would imagine. They were usually either a late model Ford town car of some sort. His father hated limos and he refused to buy anything that was not made in America.

Today, however, he was being driven to school in a taxi. The reason for this was the school that he was being driven to. Tyler's father was the owner of several museums all over the world. Over the past six years they had lived in four of the biggest cities in the world. London, New York, Tokyo, and Atlanta. Last year the company that his father had worked for went under and he had to quickly take a position with a company here. The pay was not much less, but there were not any of the private schools within fifty miles of Urban City. Tyler did not care very much. He hated going to school with a bunch of rich spoiled brats even though he realized that he was one of them. His father hated that he had to put his son into a public school and he promised that it would not be long before they were on to something else.

Tyler decided that it did not matter. Public school might be a nice change of pace. He hoped that at least he could meet some people his age that cared about more than how much money everyone else's parents were worth. But he also knew that if he wanted to make any friends at all then he had better not show up for his first day of school in a town car with one of his father's drivers behind the wheel. He didn't know enough about the city to drive himself so a taxi was the next best thing.

When the car pulled up to curb outside the school Tyler looked at the rain that was pounding on the window and the puddles that were forming on the sidewalk. He sighed as he pulled his wallet out of the pocket of his jeans.

"How much is it?" he asked the driver.

"Seven fifty," the man said. He sounded a little put out and Tyler guessed that he had realized that he had not been listening to what he had been saying for the past several miles. It was enough to make Tyler feel a little bad but not enough to warrant an apology. That would probably just make it a little more awkward.

"Seven dollars and fifty cents?" Tyler asked. "That's not a whole lot for an eight mile trip."

The driver chuckled. "I forgot you said you was from outta town. We don't do dollars in Urban City. We is on the credits. Comes out to 'bout twenty-three bucks."

Tyler sighed. He was used to Atlanta where they were still doing both. The credit system had started a couple of years ago, but it takes time to get an entire planet to accept the same currency. He hadn't had time to have his money transferred since he had gotten to town. He hoped that his father had put some credits on his account for him. He pulled his driver's license out of his wallet and handed it to the driver who swiped it through the machine mounted on the dashboard. Instantly, the image of Tyler that the government had on file was displayed on the little screen. Beside it was his name and a green light that had the word "Accepted" written on it. Tyler let out a little breath. His father thought of everything.

"Alright, Bud," the driver said. "You're good to go. Welcome to Urban City. Good luck to ya."

Tyler let a slight smile pass through the haze of pain pounding through his head and stepped out of the taxi.

Before he could get two feet from the curb his hair was already a soaked mess. He pulled his umbrella from his backpack and opened it. A gust of wind nearly pulled it from his hands and he got another grasp on it. This time he clutched it like he was welding a Samurai sword. The wind was blowing hard enough that the rain seemed to be coming in from the side and not really from above. He was tempted to turn the umbrella toward the wind and use it more like a shield but he decided that it would not be a good idea. He was not sure of how many people might be watching from the windows of the school. He held his umbrella above his head and got soaked.

He finally reached the front door of the school and stepped into the main hallway. There were umbrellas and raincoats lining the wall, dripping the morning rain all over the linoleum floor. There was a "Wet Floor" sandwich board sign standing in the middle of the floor and he guessed that a janitor with a mop would be there within a few minutes. Tyler closed his umbrella and propped it along the wall with the others.

"Are you Tyler McDawn?"

Tyler had been in the middle of adjusting the collar on his raincoat when he heard his name. It took a second for him to register. He had not expected anyone at this school to know who he was. He looked up and saw a young girl leaning against the wall. She looked to be about fourteen and had blonde hair down to her shoulder with a dark streak of black right at where it was parted. She was thin, wearing a pair of skinny jeans and a sweatshirt with a panther on it. The Panthers were the school mascot.

"I'm sorry?" Tyler asked.

The girl chuckled. "I asked you if you were Tyler McDawn?"

"Uh, yeah," he replied, adjusting his backpack onto his shoulder. "Yeah, I am."

"I'm Donna," the girl said. "I'm on the welcome committee. I'm supposed to welcome you to Western Heights High."

Tyler looked around and smiled. It was just the two of them in the hallway. It was not the biggest of welcoming committees.

"You're the welcoming committee?" he asked.

"No," she replied. "I'm on the committee. There were two other girls here a few minutes ago. You're kind of late."

Tyler pulled his phone out of his pocket and glanced at it. "The rain slowed me down. But it's only three minutes after eight."

"School starts at fifteen minutes before eight," she said with a laugh. "It's no big deal. Mrs. Edwards told me to hang out for a few minutes to see if you showed." She made a gesture in his direction. "You did."

Tyler smiled. "I did. Thanks for waiting. What happens now?"

"Well, I'm supposed to take you to the office to get your schedule and then take you to your first class."

Tyler gestured down the hall. "After you."

They walked down the hall past a series of posters advertising a car wash to being put on by the cheer leading squad, a bake sale for the debate club, and a menu of the cafeteria lunches for the entire month. The school was nice. It was not fancy like the schools that he was used to attending. If he had walked this far down a school corridor in the past he would have already passed a lounge, a huge library, a theater, and a cafe. So far he had passed a few classrooms, a couple of banks of blue lockers, and the restroom. He could see a sign at the end of the hall that there was a sign leading to an auditorium.

"How many kids are in this school?" Tyler asked.

"I dunno," Donna replied. "Three or four hundred I guess."

"Really?" Tyler said. "That's not that many."

"This side of town is mostly buisnesses and stuff," she said. "Most people live over on the east side or out in the suburbs. There are schools out there, too."

"What grade are you in?" Tyler asked.

"I'm a freshman," she replied. "You're a senior?"

"Junior," he said.

"I'm a teacher's aid in Mr. Eldrige's fifth period class," Donna said. "That's a junior algebra class. Maybe you'll be in it."

"Maybe," he said. "I actually took junior algebra last semester at my last school. But I'm not sure if the credit will carry over."

Donna looked confused. He had forgotten what if was like to be a freshman. All that talk of credits and semesters went over your head the first year of high school. She would not really start to comprehend all of it until next year.

They came to the office which was a lot further from the front door than he would have thought it would be. Tyler had always imagined public schools as having guards at the door and bars on all of the windows. He guessed that he had seen a few too many movies.

They walked inside. The office was pretty small. They were in a small reception area with a desk that had a young red haired lady behind it. She was busy talking on the telephone. She held her finger up to them to indicate that she would be with them in a moment. The call was apparently not business related since she was telling the person on the other end of the line about what kind of salad she had eaten for lunch the day before and what kind she was planning on eating today. Other than her the room was filled with a couple of chairs and filing cabinets. On the opposite wall there was a Norman Rockwell print of a young boy sitting outside of an office much like this one. The boy had a big purple black eye and a huge grin on his face and the title written at the bottom of the print was "The Shiner".

The young lady that liked to eat salad for lunch hung up the phone and glanced at them before turning her attention to her computer. "May I help you?" she asked.

"Ms. Lacey," Donna said turning and motioning toward Tyler. She had her hands completely covered by her shirt sleeves and was grasping them tightly. This was a nervous young girl. "This is Tyler McDawn. Mrs. Edwards said to bring him to the office when he got here."

"I'll let her know he's here," Ms. Lacey said. "Thank you, Donna. You can run along to class now."

Ms. Lacey picked up the telephone again and began speaking as Donna nodded and moved back toward the door to the hallway.

"Thanks for the welcome committee, Donna," Tyler said as she opened the door. "It was nice meeting you."

"Nice meeting you, too," she replied shyly. Something about the girl said to Tyler that she did not get a whole lot of thank you's and compliments. She did not really seem like she knew how to accept them. She walked out of the room and closed the door. A second later another door on the other side of the room opened and Mrs. Edwards stepped out of it.

"Mr. McDawn?" the woman asked, looking down at a piece of paper in her hand and glancing up in his direction.

"Yes, ma'am," Tyler said. "Tyler."

"Come in my office, please," she said. She did not seem to be very happy and Tyler dreaded getting off on the wrong foot with the school's principal. He walked into the office with her and sat in the chair that she indicated across from her desk.

Betty Edwards was not really a short woman, but she was not a tall woman either. She was a little bit shorter than Tyler, who at seventeen had already nearly reached six feet. She was a black lady with skin that was just a little lighter than chocolate and a flat top hair style that had probably gone out about fifteen years ago. But she knew what hairstyle worked for her and she kept it.

Her office was not very large, but it was efficient. There was not one thing that seemed out of place. No papers laying strewn across her desk. No books turned the wrong way on the book case. A place for everything and everything in its place as they say.

"First of all, I would like to start by reminding you that the school day begins at 7:45 AM," she said as she sat down beside her small, but well cared for wooden desk. "I believe that I mentioned that to your father when he registered you last week."

"That may be true, Mrs. Edwards," Tyler responded. "I apologize for being late. My father has a lot going on with the new exhibits opening at his museum this week. I'm lucky that he took the time to register me at all. If he could have left it up to me then he probably would have."

"You're father is a busy man," the principal said as she looked over something on her computer screen. Tyler supposed that she had his file up in front of her. "He owns a museum?"

"He owns a lot of museums," Tyler said. "The one here in Urban City is his newest one. It's also the biggest one that he's ever built."

"Why would he choose to build it here?" she asked. "We may be a large city, but we're nothing compared to New York or Los Angeles."

"Well, he already owns a museum in New York," Tyler replied. "But he's starting to get into a phase of giving access to things to people who haven't had them before. I guess this city hasn't had a way to see a lot of historical artifacts or works of art, so he wants to bring one to it. He's big into education. That's why he's always had me in the best schools."

"Until now," Mrs. Edwards said, the slightest hint of a scowl crossing her face.

"I'm sorry?" Tyler asked.

"You were about to say that your father has always had you in the best schools until now."

Here it comes, Tyler thought. He was used to it. Everywhere that he went people expected him to be some kind of a snob or a well-to-do jerk just because his father had a lot of money. Tyler did not really think of himself that way. While it was true that he was used to having pretty much anything that he wanted available to him, he always thought of himself as being normal. After all, it was not his money. It was his father's. But, then again, he had never had to live in a lower income home, so as far as he knew he may actually be a well-to-do jerk.

"I wasn't going to say that," Tyler said. He felt his pulse speed up a bit.

"Mr. McDawn," Mrs. Edwards said, and Tyler could tell this time that she definitely was not happy. "I have been the principal of this school for six years. I was the vice principal for three years before that. And before that I taught nearly every class that we have to offer. I hand picked every teacher in this building and I review all of the curriculum that is taught to my students. I can assure you that even though this is a public school, the education given here is just as good if not better than the one provided from your ivy league private schools."

"I wasn't trying to...," he started, but she began again.

"And while we're on the subject of your past education, let's talk for a minute about Trailwood Academy in Chicago."

Tyler sighed. He was starting to wish that his father was here. He was usually too busy to deal with things like this, but he had a way of talking to people that eased tension.

"Yes, ma'am?" Tyler replied.

"Were you expelled from that school?" she asked.

"I was," Tyler said. "But I wasn't given a fair chance to tell my side of the story."

"All it says on your record is that you were in an altercation with another student and that there was a knife involved," she said.

"I know," Tyler said. "May I tell you what actually happened?" Mrs. Edwards nodded and leaned back in her chair. "Two guys got into a fight. It wasn't anyone that I knew. It was just a couple of freshmen fighting over a girl or something. They had started yelling at each other in the hall and a whole group of people gathered around and started trying to get them to fight. One of them jumped on the other one and they started crawling around on the floor, beating on each other. One of them got hit pretty hard and there was some blood. I jumped in to try and break it up."

"And one of them had a knife," Mrs. Edwards said as if she knew the rest of the story.

Tyler nodded. "It wasn't a big one. Just a little pocket knife. But he stabbed me right here." He pointed to a space between his third and fourth rib on his right side. "The doctor said that if it had been my other side it would have hit my heart and killed me."

Mrs. Edward drummed her fingers on the top of her desk for several seconds. Looking at Tyler and then looking back to the information on her computer screen. She picked up a pen and made a note on the paper in front of her.

"Well," she said. "That's more information than I could find in your file. But I also haven't been able to find anything different from what you just told me. I had a talk with your father last week. I like him. He seems a bit eccentric and he spends a lot of time studying history. But he may not have a very good grasp on how things work in the real world...outside of history books."

"You're right about him," Tyler replied.

"However," Mrs. Edwards said. "He did tell me the same story that you just did and I'm inclined to believe him. You have to understand that it took a lot of meditation on the subject before I agreed to let you attend this school. When I heard about your altercation I almost sent a notice of protest to the school board immediately. There hasn't been an incident of violence in this school since I took over as principal and I wasn't about to let you be the one to break that streak."

Tyler looked from the woman and down to his hands that were lying, clasped together, in his lap. "You don't have to worry about that, Mrs. Edwards," he said. "I've never liked violence. But, I can tell you, that experience had an effect on me. I've been seeing a counselor for the past few months since it happened. The threat of violence sends me into a panic."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Mrs. Edwards replied. "At least you're dealing with it well. I've seen your transcripts and your grades are very good. You seem to have a good head on your shoulders. So, I'm going to say welcome to you. I hope that you enjoy our school." She stood up and held out her hand. Tyler stood and accepted it in a handshake.

"Thank you," he said. "I'm sure that I will."