Demon Accords 05.5: Executable (3 page)

Ah, Monday mornings at Castlebury High.  The noise, the confusion, the sullen glares, the gossipy girls, clowning boys, and all those oh, so public displays of affection.  What joy to look forward to.

I parked my Toyota in the spot that was fast becoming its usual place, the back of the Senior parking lot in the shade of an old oak.  September in Vermont is still capable of hot days, and I loathe getting into a stifling car.  Plus, it keeps my Beast far from the popular crowd’s cars.  No use tempting fate.  Most of the school would leave my car alone, but there are a few, a small number of individuals whose mental capacity is so low that they probably view common sense as a super power.  One or two of those might fall prey to peer pressure or might attempt to show off for the higher-status kids.  It’s happened before, although not for quite some time.

The last incident was about a year ago, when I had just gotten my car back from the body shop, which is about the time that Rory started to call it the Beast.  The Junior car lot is a bit more secluded, and in my excitement over the metallic green paint that gleamed over every inch of my rebuilt Cruiser, I foolishly thought Junior year would be different. 

Colin Sefert, acting no doubt on a suggestion of Trey Johnson’s, had showered my car with a full dozen eggs.  He showed a little cunning in that he did it during a fire drill, when everyone was crowded at the front of the building.  I had known something was up when Rory and I crossed the lot at the end of the day and the whole popular gang was hanging around, trying to act nonchalant.   They had laughed long and hard at the look on my face when I saw the crushed eggshells and yellow yolks all over the Cruiser.  When all the parking lot lights suddenly turned on in the bright daylight, they had fled the scene, still laughing, but a few of them seriously spooked.  Trey was the last to leave, with his girlfriend, Jessica Connors.  Shaking his head in mock dismay, he still couldn’t hide a tiny smirk.  Jessica, on the other hand, looked truly mortified, which made me wonder at her choice of friends for maybe the six hundredth time.

Of course, Colin, being a cretin, hadn’t really thought about the fact that the kid who fixes most of the school’s computers would be able to access the security camera footage.  After that, Colin began to have cell phone trouble.  Quite a bit, actually.  His expensive smartphone failed rather spectacularly, losing all his photos, contacts, and favorite apps in the middle of English class, which I happened to share with him.  So did the next three replacement phones, almost as soon as he got them—and all in the same English class, where I got to watch.  I heard that when his family’s cell plan had started charging full price for replacements, his father made him use his little sister’s old phone, a much older model that had been lovingly decorated with rhinestones and flower stickers.  Never actually saw him use it, though.

My car was left alone for the rest of the year.

“Another day in Paradise,” Rory Tessing said as he climbed out of the passenger side of the Cruiser.  It was a bit rigorous for him, as he’s only a hair over five feet tall and built on the slim side of gaunt.

“Awesome,” I agreed.

Inside, we split up, heading to our lockers, which were half a school apart.  Rounding a corner, I saw a single figure standing in the middle of the corridor, kids swirling around her as she studied the rows of lockers.

“Having trouble?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

The girl from the restaurant, Sarah, looked up, frowning.  She was wearing the same jeans and running shoes as the day before, a long-sleeved black t-shirt that had
Terratex, Inc.
emblazoned in white letters across the back, and absolutely no makeup. 

“These lockers do not appear to be laid out in any organized manner,” she said. 

I laughed.  “They installed the lockers in blocks two years ago, and the contractors mixed them up.  By the time they figured out something was wrong, school was due to start and they just left them that way.  What number do you have?”

“B2233,” she said, frowning even more at my explanation.

I thought about that for a moment, then led her around the corner, where the lockers started at B2100, and over one wing more to where the B2200s were.  “Instead of putting them in sequentially, they put each block in a separate wing before going back and installing the next batches.”

“That’s absurd,” she said, looking offended. 

I laughed again. “Welcome to the backend of nowhere.”  

She frowned again, then moved to her locker and dialed the combination without looking at her papers, opening it on the first try.

“Do you need help figuring out where your classes are?” I asked, thinking I would be helpful.

“Do I look like a complete moron? I saw the school map, I know where all the rooms are,” she said, her voice sharp.

“Whoa there.  Just asking.  Have a nice day,” I replied, locking down the words I really
wanted
to say.

I left her and headed to my own locker, trying to rein in my temper.  Kids in the hallway took one look at my face and veered quickly out of my path – except one girl who deliberately stepped in front of me.

She was arguably the hottest girl in the Senior Class and captain of the cheerleading teams… all of them. 

“Declan, you alright?  You look pissed,” she commented.  Not many people would ask me that.

“Hi, Jessica. Just having a morning.  What can I do for you?” I asked.  She smiled, and I lost some of my anger.  Jessica Connors has always had that effect on me despite the fact that I had no shot with her.

“My dad bought me a new iPad and it’s not synching with my Cloud.  Would you take a look at it?” she asked, holding out the offending tablet, which was sporting a light blue cover.

“Sure Jess.  Same passwords?” I asked, taking the tablet.

“Yup.  Thanks, D.”

I nodded and headed past her and her flock of cheer girls.  Behind me, one of the girls, Chloe Bledsoe, piped up loud enough for me to hear.  “You let him know your passwords?”

“Of course.  Declan does all my tech stuff for me.  But really, Chloe. Do you think he even needs them?”

“Yeah, there is that,” her friend agreed.

My first class of the day was Calc
.  Despite my awesome skills with computers and technology, I suck at advanced math, so I got to start my day with my worst class.  At least Rory shared this one with me, and the little brainiac could help me with my homework in study hall.

My oldest friend was hunched over his textbook, his thin shoulder blocking the text.  I snuck up behind him and leaned down close.  Pitching my voice low, I rumbled, “What’s this, Mr. Tessing?  Pornography?”  He jumped upright and I reached under his arm to snag the magazine picture he had been obsessing over.  Torn from a tabloid, it was a rather revealing photo of a young Hollywood starlet in a skimpy bikini.

“Asshole!” he said, color already returning to his face.  Then he looked over
my
shoulder and his eyes widened.  Rory is a sucky actor, so I had a mild moment of panic as I spun around. 

“Ah, hi Mr. Crest.”

“Ah, Mr. O’Carrol.  Just the student I was looking for.  The Smartboard is acting up again.  Perhaps you’d be so kind as to take a look at it for me.  Oh, and give Mr. Tessing back his pornography,” he said.

Calc might suck, but Dan Crest was a pretty chill teacher.  Oddly enough, although he was obviously good at advanced math, he had issues with the school tech on a regular basis.  About a quarter of my grade was probably extra credit for helping him with his computer.

“Sure thing, Mr. Crest.  Just let the master at it.”

“Masturbator is more like it,” Rory said under his breath.  I leaned closed and slipped his eye candy photo back onto his book.  “He was talking to me, not you… Mr. Bator.”

I can’t go around drawing runes on my hands all day without people noticing, but I always have a few choice ones drawn on the backs of my class notebooks, and I dragged the one with Cen, which is the rune of knowledge, on it to the front of the room.

Mr. Crest was about to tell me what the Smartboard had been doing wrong when the new girl walked in.

“Hello.  New here?” He smiled at her.

“Yes.  I’m Sarah Williams,” she said, her expression bland.

“And do you have a slip for me from the office?” he asked.

She looked puzzled.

“Little tear offs at the bottom of your schedule,” I offered, meeting her eyes for a moment before getting back to the desktop computer that was networked to the Smartboard.

She quickly found the slip, ripped it off, and handed to Crest, who directed her to an open seat.

“We’ll be having a quiz today, Sarah, but you can sit this one out till you get caught up,” he told her.  The class groaned at the quiz part.

“Actually, Mr. Crest, I would prefer to take the quiz anyway.  I’ve had some calculus before,” she said.

“Wow, that’s the spirit.  Okay then, why don’t you get settled and we’ll get started as soon as Mr. O’Carroll gets us back on track.”

“Done,” I said, getting up from his desk.  The new girl’s distraction had given me free rein, and the problem had been easy to solve once I knew the issue.  Internal software conflict with two programs – both photo management – fighting for dominant position. 

“Alrighty then.  Here are the problems for the quiz.  Show
all
your work.  Go ahead and start when you’re ready,” Crest said as I slipped back into my seat and pulled out my calculator.

The smartboard now showed
eight problems.

Sarah was sitting three rows over and a couple seats ahead, right in my field of vision.  She pulled out paper and pencil and started to work quickly through the quiz.  She didn’t have a calculator.  It wasn’t slowing her down.

Forty-two minutes later, I took my paper up to Crest.  I was second to last.  He was already grading some of the early papers.  Sarah had been done first, followed quickly by Rory.  I could see both their papers and the grades they got.

“How’d ya do?” Rory asked as I sat back down.  I shrugged.  Certainly not as well as him or the new girl.

“
You
got a hundred.  New girl got a ninety-seven.”

He fist pumped.  “Still the Boss!”

“Yeah but she didn’t use a calculator,” I replied, bursting his bubble.

“What?  No way!  You can’t do that stuff in your head.”

“Way,” I said.

Ahead and to my right, the girl in question raised her head and glanced our way, almost as if she’d heard us from across the room and over the voices of our classmates.  Her eyes met mine, narrowed a bit, and then looked away.

Aunt Ashling’s word popped into my head…
uncanny.

I saw her again in English, but we didn’t acknowledge each other, and we were seated on opposite sides of the room.  Another quiz, but English is one of my stronger subjects, so I knew I had aced it.

When lunch finally came, I found Rory already at our table in the back corner of the cafeteria trading Chuck Norris jokes with Jonah Patel.  As tall as Rory was short, Jonah was brainy like Rory, but while he was also on the skinny side, he was a naturally gifted athlete, a standout on the school’s soccer team.

“Chuck Norris counted to infinity—twice,” Jonah said.

“Chuck Norris can cut through a hot knife with butter,” Rory shot back.

The table’s third occupant, Candace Ricci, ignored their sad humor, keeping her attention on whatever today’s flavor of poetry was.  Also recognized as one of Castlebury High’s brightest, Candace was our little group’s champion club joiner.  She was in the Debate Club, Math Club, Environmental Club, Robot Club, Science Team, Spanish Club, Writers Club, and of course, the Poetry Club.  As a seventh grader, she had published her first book, a children’s story in both English and Spanish that was currently in use by many teachers across the country.  Despite her Italian last name, her mother was from Puerto Rico and she grew up with Spanish as a second language. The royalties from that little story were going to pay her way through college.