eelee345Join Date: 2012-03-19
Post Count: 6255 |
Chapter 2 - ONE, TWO, THREE, POI, SPORTS, EEL
“Dude, that freshman just got demolished by MarcalMesh,” came a sardonic response to Eel’s wide eyes epitomizing the very essence of fear. Glancing backwards, Eel saw Poi approach him. Poi had filled out much more than Eel over their years together, with Poi looking more and more like an adult every day - broad shoulders, 5’10”, wiry brown hair over a face that was shaved twice a week. “In fact,” continued Poi, “it reminds me of someone else I used to laugh at when they got demolished by MacralMesh.”
“I’d rather not take pride in another’s suffering, Poi,” Eel blustered, aware of what Poi was implying.
“You know, it quite reminds me of another freshman who got on the wrong side of MacralMesh with his urge to explain why the pyramids were built to within an inch perfection,” Poi continued, while Eel stared straight ahead, attempting to shake Poi off the topic by not reacting.
“It’s actually quite useful knowledge. Almost five thousand years ago, people were building massive monuments to near perfect-” Eel stopped, knowing he had failed in his endeavour. “Shut it. Let’s just head over to the cricket field, I’m not in the mood to get stampeded to death by gossip-seeking teenagers today.” Eel picked up his backpack and began to make his way to the glass double doors that led to the field, only to be swept back to Poi by the converging mass of students.
Sighing, Poi shouldered his way through the crowd, and Eel figured that if he just stuck behind Poi, the two of them would survive this stampede of students. “Out of the way,” Poi snapped at a tiny freshman, shoving him out of his path.
“Well, that was rude,” Eel bantered, “but I suppose, not under you.”
Poi glanced backwards as the two of them exited the school through the double doors into watery, early morning sunlight, “I’m surprised you didn’t come up with a better word than rude. Your vocabulary is typically more expansive than that.”
“It’s probably you changing my lexicon and preventing me from expressing my knowledge to its full potential.”
The two of them strode across the field at a steady pace- the cricket pitch was one of the farthest from the school, considering that very few people played cricket in SF High School. Eel considered himself decent at cricket, an exceptional wicketkeeper- the man who fielded the ball behind the stumps- and an average batsman, in his eyes. The fact that he was ambidextrous also helped, so he never had a non-dominant side to field to.
“Hey, guess who’s already over there?” Poi asked Eel, his voice breaking the steady noise of the squelching of feet against the early morning grass.
Eel took a moment to ponder, and it became blatantly obvious who was the only person that could be over there at this early a time in SF High School- Sports, the completion of their trio. “Sports?” Eel guessed, scratching his short brown hair.
The question had an answer as Eel glanced up and saw a left-arm paceman, muscles rippling all over his body, bending his back over and over, blond hair flying in the wind bowling at the set of stumps- the three sticks in the ground- sending the ball crashing into them, again and again, dislodging them from their original position.
“Sports.” Eel affirmed, and raced over, reaching in and grabbing his cyan wicketkeeping gloves from his backpack- wicketkeeping gloves were just like normal, hockey, gloves, with a few exceptions. Padded on the fingers, thumbs, they also had webbing between the fingers and the thumb, leaving a small cove for the ball to rest into when the ball was caught. As well as the outer, webbed gloves a wicketkeeper also had to wear inner, thinner gloves. With no padding, the sole purpose of these gloves was just to allow the ability to throw more accurately when the outer glove was removed.
“Hang on, it’s my turn to ‘keep.” Poi shoved Eel out of the way, pulling out yellow and red wicketkeeping gloves as he did so. Poi was also a wicketkeeper by trade, but Eel was far superior at both batting and wicketkeeping- Poi was more of the all-rounder, having played more sports such as swimming, hockey, and soccer.
Putting his wicketkeeping gloves back into his backpack, and fishing out a cricket bat in its place, and then making a purposeful stride toward the crease, Eel got into his batting crouch against Sports.
“Planning on wearing a helmet? The speedgun says I’ve been reaching 140 kph,” asked Sports, in his deep baritone voice, and Eel shook his head.
“Nah, I like having my helmet off for the first couple balls of practice,” he responded in a comparatively much higher voice.
The next twenty or so minutes were followed by Eel ducking and weaving against the high pace of Sports, and soon grudgingly admitting it was too dangerous to continue at this high pace without a helmet. While Sports was definitely testing Eel, he never managed to get Eel out, the closest he got was a shot that was hit straight to Poi, but dropped.
“Nice catch, Poi,” quipped Eel, but Poi dismissed his banter with a wave of a yellow-and-red clad hand, glancing at his watch.
“We’re getting late for Theoretical Sports Education, Eel,” Poi remarked, and then when met with a questioning glance, he elaborated, “you know, the horrible class they added to the timetable so that we wouldn’t have spares?”
“I quite like this idea of no spares and thirty to forty-five minutes of free time before classes begin, honestly.” Sports interjected, while starting to walk off to the change room perched at the edge of the field, “I have Phys. Ed., so I’ll see you guys at Lunch.”
“Right, see you, Sports.” Poi called after him, “come on, Eel, I hear it’s a new teacher, since Mr. Oyis got suspended for, um, ‘things.’”
“‘Things?’” Eel questioned, “what type of things?”
“You, really, really, don’t want to know.”
After a quick pit stop in the change room in which Poi spent flaunting his abs, the two of them were on the path back to the school. When they entered the school, the relative silence was a direct contrast to when they had first arrived. Together, the two of them began to make their way up the stairs to their class, which was on the third floor.
“Judging by the lack of noise, I’m guessing we’re late?” Eel asked rhetorically. As the two of them ascended to the top floor of the school, speed walked down the hallways (running was against the rules, apparently,) and entered the classroom, it was obvious that this class was full of the rowdy students. The students varied from Sun, a confused freshman with three fathers and trench coats, a small, baby face accompanied by tidied blond hair, to DEATH RAGE, a fairly strong senior with short brown hair, and a penchant to /e dance on defeated enemies.
“No, Sun, you don’t understand. Politics are a great part of Sports.” DEATH RAGE was saying as Eel and Poi took their seats.
Another debate was taking place between two seniors- Obby, and “Eric,” whom everyone called Officer. Officer was an inch or two larger than Obby, and his face was scarred with many battles with MacralMesh(probably over politics)- and also wore a trench coat, apparently that was a fashion.
“You see. . . I am mysterious… so I speak like this…” Officer said, disjointedly, “MacralMesh is crazy… who votes Green in this day and age…”
“MacralMesh has better political views than you.” Obbert retorted, bluntly, and Eel remembered- this 6’5”, brown haired man with green eyes was Macral’s second-in-command, his right hand. I should stay clear of him, Eel thought, as the bell signalling five minutes of class rang.
“Alright. This is Theoretical Sports Education. Don’t talk about politics here.” The teacher had arrived, having ghosted to the front of the room among the gossip and talk about voting. “I’m Mr. Perran, and I am your new teacher.” |