Chapter Seven: Flying Under the Radar

I woke up early the next morning in the same place I had fallen asleep on Patrick's basement floor. I lazily turned my head and saw Patrick. He had one hand behind his head, the other half in his pants, legs crossed and his mouth was wide open. I started to chuckle a bit at the sight and lied there for about five minutes just watching him snore. The smell of pancakes started lingering carelessly in the air, and patrick woke up like a dog, sniffing the air as if trying to find the source. "Morning sunshine" I said mockingly "Morning" he repeated as he rubbed his eyes. It seemed as if last night had never happened, Patrick didn't say a word about it and I was in no hurry to open up and talk about the army man. We hurried upstairs and sat at the table across from each other while Mrs. Fox made us breakfest. She stood completely silent after serving us. Unknowing and nieve, Patrick and I began eating without paying any attention to her. "Boys I need to talk to you both about something" "What" patrick said with his mouth full, spitting little bits of pancake on to the table "Do either of you know a boy named DeeJay Jenkins?" Patrick and I exchanged a cold glance at eachother. I knew I could trust him to not give me up, but at the same time I knew he hated to lie. Mrs. Fox would have known I was in detention with him at the time, and would be wondering why I hadn't told her about his hand. "Yeah I know him, didn't he hurt his hand yesterday?" I said before taking another fork full of food. "It's a little more serious than that Timmy. The doctors couldn't reatach three of the fingers on his right hand, and had to operate to remove pieces of wood from his chest. He's really lucky to be alive" she said sincerley. An awkward silence filled the room, I wasn't quite sure what she wanted me to say. We sat quietly before Mrs. Fox told us there would be guidence counselers at the school on monday if we needed to talk, but until then she would have a spare ear if we needed it. She kissed Patrick on the head and slowly walked out of the room. Patrick took a deep breath once she left and shot me a smile then we headed back down to our basement home. Since we weren't doing anything and didn't have plans for the day Patrick got us some paper and sprawled out on the floor with several pencils of different sizes and colors and started to draw. Patrick was a really amazing artist, atleast at the time I thought he was. He had the uncanny ability to draw things that had already happened with scary accuracy. He was no Picasso but he got the point across. I was no good at drawing so I decided to try my hand at oragami. I started to make one of those little paper frogs that jump when you press down on the top part when I noticed Patrick staring at me. "Hi there?" I questioned "What are you doing" he asked "Making a frog" I replied "Really Tim" he asked dissapointedly "I'm bored, what do you want me to do?" I asked "No, not like that. I don't care if you make a frog or whatever, but you're really using your hands?" he said He had a point, I needed practice and paper was the easiest thing I could practice on. The feeling started and I found it was disgustingly easy to move paper after having lifted the army man. I also noticed that I was able to start the feeling without having to meditate first, I only had to think about the feeling and it started. I began moving the paper with ease and found it was more dificult to fold an object than it was to simply move one. Not only was it difficult to fold an object but it was even harder to specify the point in which I wanted the object to fold. After the first three or four frogs turning out like crap I decided to give it a break for a while and sat back in the cool leather chair just staring at the wall in front of me. I turned my head to see Patrick pointing a video camera at me. "Can I help you?" I joked "Oh this is great, this is going right on the internet." Patrick remarked "Whatever" I said and reclined back as I put my arms behind my head. The rest of the time I spent at Patrick's house was great, we just sat around in our boxers and watched T.V or played video games or played with action figures. It was a classic elementary school sleepover and there would be many more like it. Unfortunatly school wouldn't wait for boys to play and was the cruel but nessecary part of my childhood. Boondock Elementary School was one of my least favorite places in the world, but in retrospect it was actually a really nice school. Looking back, all of my problems were with students and if I would have asked a teacher for help I probably would have really enjoyed it. The actual school was shaped like a giant upper-case letter "T" the horizontal part of the "T" was the gymnasium / auditorium, and the vertical part was one big hallway with classrooms on alternating sides in asscending order from kindergarten to fourth grade. Patrick and I were in fourth grade at the time and it seemed like we were complete outcasts. We weren't weird, we just each seemed to be content with having eachother as friends and didn't need anyone else. However, the crazy concept of people putting themselves through hell so they don't have to be alone is what drives the world as we know it. The lesson here is that people at any age want to be known and will naturally follow people who are popular. It isn't nessecarily a bad thing if you are the person following the popular one, but when your the popular one and you think people like you for who you are, it's horrible when the truth comes back in your face. Fotunately for me I wouldn't have to worry about that lesson for the time being because nobody followed me or would go through hell to be around me, but that was alright because I had Patrick and he had me. The following Monday when Patrick and I showed up for math class Mrs. Hal was nowhere to be seen. It was about noon when the principal walked in, he whispered something to our substitute teacher and then asked me to follow him to his office. Our principal was a gray haired, ex navy-seal who seemed out of place at an elementary school, but loved children dearly. At 6' 10" and 350 pounds of muscle he was looked on by the students as a gental giant becuase of his caring nature and soft voice. I followed him down the long hallway and into his office which was adjacent to the kindergarten classroom. He opened the door and behind his desk stood a tall, short haired, skinny man in a police uniform. His shiny metal nametag had the word "JOHNSON" etched in it. The uniform seemed like it had just been cleaned because the yellow chevron showing his ranking as a private in the police department stood out against the navy blue backround. His uniform even seemed out place, as if it was too large for the pale heap of flesh and bone it was obscuring. "Private Johnson is going to ask you a few questions Mr. Banks, I'll be right outside when you are finished" the principal said before closing the door. The police officer stood for a long time staring at the door smiling as if he was waiting to be interupted in complete silence. Finally he licked his lips and whispered "Good morning Timothy." "It's just Tim" I said "This is no time for lying" he said as he sat down at Mr. Palinski's desk. He opened each one of the drawers in front of him as if he was looking for something before leaning back in the leather desk chair. He started whistling a tune and twirling a pen over each one of his knuckels and seemed to have gotten lost in his own world before I got up enough nerve to ask "Is there something you want to ask me?" "Who me? No, no no, Timothy, you're free to go!" I got up slowly half-expecting the policeman to tell me to sit back down and then hurridly opened the door and had half of my body in the hallway before I heard him say "Timmothy, please close the door. It would be very rude not to." I closed the door and then rushed straight past Mr. Palinski, down the long, cold hallway and into the safety of the math classroom.