TravelingDog

Prologue: Whitebay High School

 

        My friends and I arrived to the school which we would be attending this summer. We were all anxious as to what this summer, and school, had in store for us.

        Before spring break, our teachers warned us that we would be forced to attend an alternate school for the summer as our school would be undergoing construction. We were given a list of schools which we could switch to, some were as far as nearby towns and by some strange coincidence I had a relative in one such town. When he caught wind of this, he requested that I go to that school. Hesitantly, I at last agreed and the others all followed. Of course, the others included my best friend, his sister, and two other girls.

        The town which we arrived in was a medium sized town in a valley at the base of a mountain called Whitebay. I would be staying with my relative and the others would be staying at the student housing. The school which we would be attending wasn’t just a school, it was a well off academy with five separate buildings. Not only did it have a school for each age range from elementary to high, it also had a large building for dorms and a very well stocked library building. Do to some of it’s students, the academy didn’t even introduce students by last name.

        Before we had the chance to settle in, we had to get to school for our first day at the academy. We arrived a little later in the day, but the teachers had already been informed of that. As we got on campus, we made our way to the reception area and received a map of the school and campus grounds, along with the classroom we’d be in. With the map in hand, we managed to find the classroom but were surprised to find it empty when we arrived.

        “What the- there’s no one here!” Layne noted surprised as the two of us looked into the room. Hesitantly, we walked into the room and got a better look around while the girls stood in the doorway. Though there were books atop the desks and bags in seats, the room appeared vacant. Suddenly though, a rumbling noise coming from the back corner of the room caught our attention. Looking in the back left corner, we saw the teacher’s desk and after closer inspection, we realized that there was somebody sleeping with their head on the desk.

        “Is that the teacher?!” Amber asked shocked from where they stood by the door. Not having a definite answer, I turned my attention from her and walked back over to the desk, followed by the others.

        “Umm, Sir?” I asked hesitantly once I was standing next to him and the desk.

        “Hmm?” He lifted his head groggily, looking at us with dull eyes.The teacher looked to be around 28 or 29 and really didn’t look much like a teacher. He had a blue long sleeve shirt on that was pushed up on his forearms and narrow, black, thick-rimmed glasses on which he pushed back into place as he recollected himself for a minute. He also had medium long hair which was pulled back in a ponytail and had several loose strands, which was rather uncommon for teachers.

        “Are you Mr. Hunt?” I asked cautiously, still in doubt that this man was actually a teacher at such a prestigious school.

        “Yeah, who are you kids?” He asked confused after observing us, but not recognizing us.

        “We’re from North Ridge High.” This time, Jessica, Layne’s sister answered.

        “Oh, so you’re the transfer students.” He said now understanding the situation and seeming to be fully awake once again.

        “Mr. Hunt, where exactly are the other students?” Jessica asked.

        “Don’t tell me they ditched when you fell asleep…” Layne guessed jokingly.

        “No, no. It’s phys. ed. right now.” Mr. Hunt explained and stood up. I was surprised to see that he was actually rather tall, at least 6’ 2”. “Did you guys bring anything to change into?”

        “Not really…” Jessica scratched her cheek

        “We just dropped our stuff off at the dorms and came straight here.” Amber explained.

        “Oh well, that can’t be helped.” He shrugged it off and brushed past Layne and I, making his way back towards the door. “Follow me. I’ll show you where the class is for today. You can set your bags down in the back.” We did as he instructed and then followed him out into the hall. “The class is almost over anyhow so not having clothes to change into shouldn’t be a problem for today.”

        We followed Mr. Hunt out to the back of the high school building where there were several fields. As we came up to the soccer fields, we at last saw other students. Among the groups, we made our way towards a man standing off to the side in shorts and a short sleeve shirt. This man appeared even younger than the teacher as he didn’t appear that far off past 20. He had medium-short, light brown hair and had green eyes. He also wore glasses but his didn’t have a thick rim on them like the teacher’s did.

        “Hey, Kyle!” Mr. Hunt called as we neared the man. He looked over at Mr. Hunt surprised and then at us.

        “These your new students?” He guessed as Mr. Hunt stopped next to him to talk; meanwhile, we waited not far behind. Though I listened in, my attention was focused on the closest game as the jersey team stole the ball.

        “Seems like it. They don’t have any clothes for class today, but can you at least fill them in on the schedule starting now?” Mr. Hunt asked.

        “I don’t know if I’m the best one to do that. We should probably have someone from class show them around.” Kyle laughed as he scratched the back of his head.

        “I’ll let you figure it out,” Mr. Hunt turned and began to leave. “I have papers to grade.” Though Mr. Hunt left us in Kyle’s care rather abruptly, Kyle merely laughed and didn’t protest.

        Turning to us, he said “Welcome to Whitebay you guys.”

        “Ah, thanks!” Layne was the first to thank him.

        “Hopefully it won’t take you guys too long to figure out how things work here. It’s not too complicated in my opinion.”

        “So what should we do for today, Mr…” Jessica trailed, not knowing what to call him since we’d only heard his first name.

        “Just call me Kyle. I’m not really a teacher.” Kyle laughed. We were surprised by this “Our physical education instructor got into a really bad accident, so I was requested to fill in for him rather last minute, even though it’s been over a month already. Normally, I’m just the coach here for a couple of different sports though.” This at least explained his younger age. “As for what you guys should do today, don’t worry about doing anything for class. This class will be over in a little while anyway. I’ll just have one of your classmates show you guys around.” With that, he turned his attention back to the game closest to us, giving us all a proper chance to watch as well.

        After a minute, once again, the jersey team stole the ball back and were quickly running down the field with it. The person with the ball suddenly kicked it to one of his teammates towards the back near the opponent's goal. He wasn’t as muscular as some of the other players, but he caught the ball nonetheless. Turning towards their goal, he found an opening and kicked it in. When the ball made it successfully into the goal, the jersey team cheered.

        Kyle, who was clapping at the goal, called out “Alright guys, the jersey team wins. Go ahead and hang out for a little while as the other games finish. Loki, come over here please.” The players all broke off the field and made their way towards the drinking fountains along the wall of the school. The only exception was the kid who’d scored the goal, as he made his way up towards us. “Nice shot, Loki.”

        “Thanks. What’s up?” The kid, Loki, said between breaths as he pushed his medium-short brown hair out of his face and noticed us standing there.

        “These guys are the transfers in your class according to Hunt. I was hoping you could show them around before lunch, seeing as how you could use a break anyway, and help them out around school.” Kyle explained.

Loki turned to us surprised “Wow, I’m surprised there’s so many of you!” He then continued after wiping the sweat from his forehead “Yeah, I can do that. Welcome you guys!”

         “Thanks!” Layne laughed once again. I could already tell that this boy and Layne had similar, friendly personalities.

         “Alright, well, let’s start out over here I guess.” We began following Loki as he led the way towards the locker rooms. Loki began explaining as he said “So with our class, Class A, we don’t really have to hurry to change after phys. ed. since lunch is up next.”

         “Wow, that’s convenient for showering!” Amber noted pleased, being rather particular about looking her best.

         “Right?” Loki laughed. “We have phys. ed. every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Monday and Friday it’s just our class but on Wednesdays it’s integrated with the other three classes for our grade level.”

        “That’s kind of a weird setup.” Jessica noted.

        “Yeah, there’s four classes in the morning before lunch, so each class has phys ed during one of those hours on Monday and Friday. Class D has to do it first thing in the morning, then Class C, Class B, and finally us, Class A.” Loki explained in full detail. “On Tuesdays and Thursdays we have our alternative classes, so for instance, I have band those days.”

        “I guess that means Sebastian and Ashley are in your class too!” Layne realized, knowing that Ashley and I had Band. Layne was in Technology II and Amber and Jessica were in Home Economics III.

         “I’m Sebastian by the way and that’s Ashley.” I introduced myself and pointed out Ashley who like me had been silent up until that point. Ashley was extremely shy in general so she simply nodded in greeting; I on the other hand just wasn’t really a social person, unlike Layne.

        “I’m Jessica, this is Amber, and my brother, Layne.” Jessica took the liberty of introducing the rest of them as well.

        “It’s nice to meet you. As you know, I’m Loki, and yeah, that’s my real name.” Loki laughed as he officially introduced himself as well “Now that I think about it there were some other girls from your school that also came here, but I think they were in class B or C…” I wasn’t exactly thrilled to hear this. I’d hoped we’d be the only ones to choose this school since it was so far out of the way. Some of the girls in our class at our original school were rather… obnoxious. “Anyways, I need to run in and change really quick. You guys are welcome to check out the locker rooms, but if not I’ll be out in a minute.” Loki suggested as he headed into the guy's locker room.

        “Sure, let’s check it out real quick you two.” Jessica agreed and led the way into the girls’ room, dragging the unenthusiastic Ashley by the wrist while Amber followed behind slowly.

        “You wanna check it out?” Layne checked, turning towards me once we were the last two standing there.

        “Not really. It’s just a locker room.” I reasoned.

        “Umm, hey.” We were surprised when two guys came up from behind us, seeming to be heading into the locker room as well to change; having just run over to us from where the teams had been getting water. One of them, the one who’d spoken, I recognized as the guy who’d kicked the ball to Loki to score the goal in their game. He was a slightly larger built guy and wore a beanie with an intricate Celtic-like design on it. You could just see a little bit of short, brown hair sticking out from under it “We’re glad to have you here and everything, but, be careful hanging around Loki.” Layne and I were both shocked by this.

        “It’s nothing with Loki, he’s a great guy!” The other guy quickly said before we got the wrong idea. This guy also had brown hair though his was slightly longer and flipped up in the front. He wasn’t as well built as the first guy but he still had an athletic build.

        “Yeah, it’s just the guy that hangs around with him.” the first guy clarified as they passed us to walk into the locker room         “It doesn’t seem like he’s here today, but he’s trouble. You’re gonna want to avoid him.”

 

        After that surprising word of caution from our new classmates, Loki came back out a minute or two later having changed back into normal classroom clothes, and a little after that, the girls came back out after exploring the locker room.

        “So are you guys okay with heading to the cafeteria?” Loki checked

        “Yeah, that’s fine.” Jessica nodded.

        “Great! I’m always starving after that workout!” Loki laughed.

        “So how long have you gone here Loki?” Layne asked as we followed Loki over to another entrance into the school that didn’t require going through the locker rooms.

        “Well, you guys probably noticed that this place doubles as an all age boarding school since you’re staying in the dorms. I’ve been going here since I was pretty young, but there were a couple of years that I spent abroad in between; so I guess all but three years or so now.”

        “Abroad?! That’s awesome!” Layne commented intrigued. “We always wanted to do some schooling abroad, but we’ve never done more than visit for our parent’s business trips.”

        “Same.” Amber agreed. Unlike myself, Amber, Layne, and Jessie’s families were a little more well off than my own. Layne and Jessie’s parents were CEO’s of a large company and Amber’s mother was a well known fashion designer who was usually out of the country.

        “Haha, yeah, it was quite the experience.” Loki laughed at their reactions, but then admitted “To be honest though, I’m glad that I’m back at this school. It’s always strange to go to a different country with a different language and customs. That and it’s always a lot of work having to memorize those languages. Although, it does make foreign language classes really easy!”  

        “I bet!” Layne laughed.

        “So then, you stay in the dorms?” Jessica guessed.

        Loki shook his head as we followed him back into the building, entering a skylight lit hallway “No, actually. My mother and I have always lived here in Whitebay. It’s our home. I guess you could say it’s not just the school I missed when I went abroad.”

        By now, we had gotten to the end of the hall and took a right up a small flight of stairs where we walked into a large cafeteria. From there we got some food from the line and sat down at one of the long tables. Since we were early, we didn’t have to worry about crowds all that much, although students were slowly filing in.

        “Now that I think about it, I guess I also just assumed you guys are staying in the dorms. Is that right?” Loki suddenly recalled once we all sat down.

        “For the most part.” Layne nodded.

        “I have a relative in town, but the others are stuck in the dorms.” I explained briefly.

        “That’s lucky for you I guess. The rest of you though, you can come over here to the cafeteria for meals at dinner and breakfast.” Loki informed them.

        “Something tells me we’ll be spending more time here than we’d like.” Jessica laughed unenthusiastically. Suddenly, something caught Loki’s eye.

        “Ah, excuse me for a sec’ you guys.” Loki apologized as he stood up and made his way towards some of the people who’d just walked in. “Hey!” Two figures who walked in spotted him as he called over to them, so they changed direction and walked towards him. One was a very large guy, probably 6’ 2” or 6’ 3”, and was rather heavy set. He had short blond hair and headphones around his neck. The other was a girl only about 5’ 4” with long black, curly hair. She was strikingly beautiful and had a rather large bust.

        “Hey Loki. What’s up?” I could barely make out the girl ask.

        “You guys seen him yet today?” Loki asked rather vaguely, however the other two seemed to know right away who he was talking about.

        “What?! Don’t tell me you don’t know where he is?!” The guy now asked alarmed.

        “Oh gross, look at this.” A girl suddenly said as her and two more girls walked up to Loki and the other two. It was clear that she was talking to the two that we didn’t know, and not Loki. The three of them were surprised by the girls and turned to look at them. I was quickly annoyed as I realized that the three girls were from our school, and of course, they were the three that I was most hoping weren’t the ones that had come here. “Ugh, I hate the smell of loser. I guess that’s what you’d expect of the C class though.” Despite their pathetic jabs, neither of the two seemed insulted by these girls, the guy looked down at them unamused while the girl simply laughed. This seemed to urk the main girl who was teasing them, a girl named Laticia.

        “Hey, look at everyone…” Jessica suddenly said, drawing our attention from the scene. Looking around I was shocked to see that pretty much everyone in the room had stopped eating and walking around, and were now watching the scene.

        “Everyone looks freaked out and shocked! It’s like they’re expecting something to happen…” Amber summed up. Looking at Laticia’s annoyed expression, I could tell this was about to turn bad. We knew this girl and knew she was bound to start something in order to try and make something of herself in this new school, but I didn’t get how everyone else seemed to know something serious was about to happen.

        “You pathetic C class. Are you laughing at me?” Laticia asked intimidatingly, from the way her arm twitched, I guessed she was about to hit the other girl.

        “Laticia, enough!” I ordered suddenly, standing up and walking over to her. She looked over at me, at first annoyed, but once she recognized me, she became shocked and quickly flushed red.

        “Sebastian?!” She said in a slightly panicked voice “You all are here too?”

        “Honestly, it’s petty of you to act this way.” I scolded harshly, knowing this girl listened to what I said, since she was always embarrassed when I didn’t agree with her actions. “We’re guests in this school, you shouldn’t go messing with them; it’s just rude.”

        “Ch, it doesn’t matter which school we’re from when we’re still better than these two losers.” Laticia protested.

        “The hell?” A new voice suddenly spoke up as another guy walked up to us out of the crowd. I felt the tension in the atmosphere quickly peak from the onlookers as they now started murmuring uncomfortably, some people even moved further away from the commotion.

        “Agas!” Loki exclaimed surprised, he also seemed slightly alarmed that this new guy had shown up.

        “Who do these chicks think they are?” The new guy, apparently named Agas, said. Unlike the other students we’d met so far, this guy seemed abrasive and was definitely a trouble maker. His skin tone was slightly tanned and while his hair was pulled back into a short ponytail, it was shaved on the sides. This guy wore a black vest with large, baggy black jeans. There was a small knife scar under his left eye which immediately told me that this wasn’t a guy we wanted to mess with.

        “They’re not from here, they’re transfers…” Loki explained.

        “Well that explains the disrespect.” Agas said simply, but then added in a threatening tone “But it doesn’t excuse them.” I was alarmed as I got the sense that this guy was actually a potential danger, even though they were just spoiled girls messing around.

        “Laticia, just get going and don’t go picking any more fights while we’re here.” I instructed now before anything happened.

         “Yeah Laticia, let’s go, this guy is kind of scary…” One of her friends said as she shirked away from Agas.

         “Hmpf, fine.” Laticia finally gave in and walked off. I sighed with relief that they’d left before anything had really happened. I wasn’t the only one as a large amount of tension from the crowd went away and they went back to what they were doing, relieved.

        “Thanks for standing up for these two. They aren’t very good about doing it themselves.” Agas suddenly said as he turned to me, surprising me. “Let me owe you one.”

        “Don’t worry about it. I should be the one apologizing since we’re the ones who are their classmates.” I apologized, still embarrassed by their behavior in this school. “It would seem no matter the school, she just doesn’t change.”

        “Sebastian, this is Agas, Delilah, and Jessie.” Loki introduced them now. “There’ll probably be time for a better introduction later on…”

        “Seriously you two, think about it a little.” Agas reprimanded as he turned on the other two now, uninterested in the introduction “What would you have done if word got around that you let some pathetic high school chicks push you around? We’d have no end of trouble!”

        “It would have been cruel to beat them up though, it wouldn’t even be a challenge.” The girl, Delilah, pointed out rationally, surprising me. Though this girl wore darker clothing, she didn’t seem like the type that would get into fights.

        “We don’t have time to worry about that pointlessness, we should be focusing on finding him. Who knows what he got caught in...” Now the heavy set guy, Jessie, reasoned, bringing back their previous topic.

        “True, let’s head out and search for him.” Delilah agreed as the three began walking off.

        “He’s not here today?!” Agas asked shocked, not yet caught up on the situation as they walked out of the cafeteria. As the three left, Loki and I turned and walked back towards the table where the others were still sitting.

        “Is there a rational reason Laticia made such a big deal out of which class they were in?” I asked Loki as we sat down.

        “Well, here at the academy the students get divided up based on the quality of assignments and grades. A is the best and D is, well, lucky to not be failing.” Loki explained. “Some people think that grades means the same thing as intelligence though...”

        “That explains why you were so surprised there were so many of us joining the A class then.” Jessica noted. Loki simply nodded.

        “So those three you knew were in Class C?” Layne checked.

        “Well, those first two were, but Agas is in Class D. That’s why he arrived a little later.” Loki explained “If you ask anyone, they’ll tell you they’re trouble, which I guess isn’t entirely incorrect. Once you get to know them though, they aren’t all the bad.”

        “We can understand that. Back at our school, nobody messed with Sebastian! They knew they’d get worked if they tried anything after this one incident a few years back.” Layne said laughing lightly.

        “Well, what do you expect? I wasn’t about to let them get away with making fun of us, even if they were upperclassmen..” I recalled when some of the older students tried making fun of Layne, Jessica, and myself. It wasn’t fun taking on three of them alone however.

        “Haha, that sounds a lot like the others. Around here, nobody messes with them because of their reputation. That’s why everyone was so surprised when your old classmates actually tried messing with them.” Loki explained further “They usually only get challenged by the other high school's gangs because of all the rumors that fly around about them. Though, admittedly, most of those rumors are true…”

        “At least we don’t have to worry about trouble in our classroom since none of them are in our class.” Amber reasoned.

Loki laughed once again “Well, not quite…”

        “What?! There’s another one?!” Amber asked shocked. I was also just as surprised, having thought for sure the warning those guys had given us had been about that Agas guy.

        “Yeah, but don’t worry, nothing ever starts in school.” Loki reassured her “Plus, me and him are really close.”

        “Is that the guy the others went to look for?” I checked.

        Loki simply nodded. “It’s probably nothing though, I’m sure he’ll be back by tomorrow.”

        As usual, I woke up exhausted to the sound of the alarm ringing it’s obnoxious trill the next morning. Every part of me wanted to throw the clock out the window and go back to sleep, but unfortunately, like always, logic won out in the end and I had to push myself out of bed. I was still half asleep as I sat up in bed, but after a minute, I realized that I could hear the sound of the shower in the conjoined bathroom. Annoyed, I stood from where I sat and walked over to the bathroom.

        “Hey, what the hell?! You know I’ve gotta shower this morning!” I yelled aggravated as I opened the door.

        “Yeah, yeah, hang on.” The voice in the shower said unphased with a British accent. “It was a long night.”

       “Geez, there better be hot water when your done.” I sighed annoyed, realizing there was nothing I could do about it at that point. I mumbled annoyed as I walked back through my room and out to the living room “Always doing what he pleases...” I walked into the kitchen and looked around despite the fact that I already knew what we had. With little other choice, I grabbed a box of cereal and the milk, but not before eyeing the expiration date cautiously.

        As I sat down for breakfast before I had to leave for school, my brother came out of the room and sat down at the table as well, still drying his hair.

        “Come on man, you’ve got all day.” I began voicing my complaints “I only have so long before I have to leave in the morning, so why can’t you just wait?”

        “You really aren’t going to let that go, are you?” He asked uncaringly. “For the record, I have an engagement today as well which I am pressed on time for. Not only that, but I returned just three hours ago.” He threw the towel to the side of the room and grabbed a bowl for himself.

        “Is this really gonna work?” I asked scratching the back of my head “Why did I agree to come here anyway?” My brother and I were practically estranged. He’d been sent off to boarding school a long time ago, when he was pretty young, and since then had lived with our grandmother in the UK so I’d seen him only a handful of times. Now I was 17 and practically done with high school, while he only recently moved back into the country and was a 25 year old private investigator. With the serious age gap and the fact we hardly knew each other, it was challenging to get along.

        “Speaking of that, if you’ll recall I asked you here to help me with investigating that man.” August said suddenly.

        “Yeah. Harley Roels.”

        “Well, there’s something I need you to look into…”