“I think Mr. Trald and Ms. Pentint are dating,” Delano North said, rubbing his left eye furiously with one hand as they walked down the sidewalk. “He keeps looking at her the way Eroms looks at milkshake, and she keeps making jokes about him eating her plate clean when they think we can’t hear them.”

His left eye was red as an apple with orange streaks, and was beginning to swell. It was also tearing up.

“I thought you said you were getting that checked.” Melmarc, held a ball under his arm while they walked back home from school.

“I did.” Delano rubbed a little less furiously. “The doctor said I’ve got some kind of eye irritation. I got eye drops, and some pill the size of my thumb. Say’s I’m supposed to swallow it whole.”

“How else are you supposed to take pills?” Eroms, the third member of their group asked, genuinely curious. “I always take mine whole.”

“Oh, you innocent thing,” Delano cooed, patting Eroms on the back. “There are many other ways to take a pill, my massive friend.”

A few years ago, Eroms had been ‘my fat friend’ to Delano. Then a year ago he got his growth spurt. He didn’t lose much in the way of his fat, but now, he looked less like a fat kid and more like a huge kid. He stood over most kid by well over a head.

All three of them had left school almost thirty minutes ago. Normally they took the school bus but they’d stayed behind because Delano really wanted to play a game of basketball so they’d missed the bus.

“I’ve still got the pack in my bag, if you want to see.” Delano was maneuvering his bag around his shoulder so he could reach it. He was wearing a dark hoodie with the symbol of the bank where his dad worked emblazoned across the front, simple black pants and a white shoe. Rummaging around in his bag he looked like a sketchy drug dealer.

Despite his size, Eroms looked like a teddy bear, at least that was how Ninra described him. Melmarc didn’t see it. All he saw was a really tall boy with a lot of size on him. Maybe it was because he’d known Eroms since he was the same height as the rest of them.

He was also very innocent, and it showed in his curiosity as he patiently waited for Delano to be done rummaging in his bag.

From the sounds Melmarc was hearing, Delano wasn’t bringing out the entire pack from his bag.

His brows furrowed. “Are you opening one right now?”

“Yep,” Delano answered easily. He pulled out a single pill and held it up like something sacred and to be venerated. “Behold! The eye healing pill. Affordable at pharmacies near you.”

He scratched his eye again, and Eroms smacked his hand away.

“Stop that,” he complained. “It’s making me want to scratch mine.”

They had stopped walking to look at the pill, and while it wasn’t as big as Delano’s thumb, it was definitely on the larger side of pills Melmarc had ever seen.

“That’s very big,” Eroms said. “But I still don’t see any other way to take a pill.”

“There are suppositories,” Melmarc said on an off-hand then bounced the basketball once, looking away from the pill. The sound of the bounced ball rang loud.

“Why would you go and make me think of that?” Delano complained. “Do you see the size of this thing? Why would I want to—”

“What’s that?” Eroms asked.

Delano turned to him. “It’s a pill you put up your ass.”

Eroms eyes widened slowly, then his face scrunched up in disgust. “Why?”

“I know right, why would he make me think of putting something this big up my—”

“No,” Eroms interrupted him. “And stop talking about putting things in your ass. I meant why would anyone put pills up their bum?”

Melmarc shrugged, and they started walking again. “I don’t know. That’s just how the pills are made. You’re supposed to…” he made a gesture of slipping something up a hole with his finger, then shrugged again. “It’s just how it works.”

Eroms shivered visibly. Winter was close, but the first snow had not fallen. And with his sweater with a brown bear design on the front and his grey pants, there was no way it was from the cold.

“Why would anyone want to be putting things up their bum?” he asked, not wanting an answer.

But Delano was more than happy to give him one. “Well, sometimes it helps you—”

“No!” Melmarc said hurriedly, cutting him off.

“But he’s a big boy.” Delano was grinning, the topic of the size of his pill forgotten. “He’s sixteen, he should know these things.”

Melmarc could always trust Delano to take any chance he got to tell Eroms things Eroms would later wish he’d never learned. For instance, different situations that led to suppository usage, and any other bum related transactions.

“Stop trying to teach Eroms things you aren’t qualified to—”

“They’re getting married next month.” Eroms adjusted his bag, staring ahead of them as they got to an intersection and waited to cross the road.

“Sorry, who?”

“Mr. Trald and Ms. Pentint. I heard the principal talking about it last week. He was trying to get substitute teachers to take over for when they’re on their honeymoon.”

“One month ahead?” Delano snorted. “Talk about thorough.”

The road freed up enough and they crossed it to the other side. They all lived in the same general direction. It would be a few blocks before each of them would have to go their separate ways. But their homes weren’t very far from their school so walking wasn’t much of a big deal.

Melmarc adjusted his bag. The thing kept slipping from his shoulders everytime.

“It’s a backpack,” Delano said, reaching forward to tighten the strap on the hand. “Emphasis on backpack. You wear the straps over both shoulders. If you keep wearing it over one shoulder, it’ll keep slipping.”

He tightened the strap Melmarc had over one shoulder. “That should keep it from slipping now.”

Then he adjusted his, tucked it over his shoulder once more.

Melmarc stared at the boy pointedly, looking from his face to the simple strap of his own backpack worn over one shoulder.

“Really?” he said flatly.

“What can I say. Do as I say not as I do.” Delano adjusted his backpack once more. “Anyway, looking for a substitute teacher one month ahead is just overkill.”

“It beats looking for a substitute teacher at dying minute,” Eroms countered.

“True. But he can meet it half way, right. Look for a substitute teacher just before they leave. That way it feels more natural.”

Melmarc smiled a bit. “I don’t think that’s the general consensus for natural, D. I think that’s just you.”

“Says the guy taking self-defense classes at a local gym when his parents are actual Delvers.”

“I’ve told you before,” Melmarc said with a sigh. “You can’t expect my parents to teach me how to defend myself. I’m sixteen, and they’re Delvers.”

“Yeah,” Eroms said, voice slightly muffled. “One mistake and he could go splat.”

Melmarc looked at him. “Yeah, exac—where’d you get a donut?”

“Lunch lady.”

“I don’t understand how the lunch lady keeps getting you these things when the cafeteria food is honestly horrible,” Delano said. “It’s like they’re duty bound to make sure we don’t go back for seconds.”

Eroms paused. “I go back for seconds.”

“Eroms.”

“Yes?”

“No offense, and I say this from a place of love, you’re like a raccoon. You’ll eat anything.”

Eroms gave it some thought, then shrugged.

“And that’s why he gets donuts from the lunch lady, and she always gives you the part of the chowder that tastes weird,” Melmarc said.

“I swear she’s out to get me.” Delano brought out his wallet from his pants pocket and was looking around. “Do you know I’m the only one who’s chowder tastes funny on chowder Tuesdays. Trust me, I’ve asked around. It’s like she makes a special portion she only brings out when she sees me coming.”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“You called her food prison grub.”

“But it’s true. My Uncle Edwin went to prison and the food in the cafeteria tastes the way he describes food in prison. And how was I supposed to know she was standing right behind me. That only happens in cartoons and shitty comedies. You’re not supposed to run into the cafeteria lady in the hallway. It’s like running into a snow man in spring.”

Finding nowhere he could spend his money on whatever he was looking for, Delano slipped his wallet back into his pocket. “Also, I said I was sorry.”

“No, Eroms said you were sorry. All you did was mutter something about not seeing her there while he bent your head and made you bow.”

“In my defense, I didn’t see her there.”

Eroms finished his donut, reached into his backpack and brought out another one.

“You see.” Delano pointed at him. “How does he get two donuts? And this one’s glazed. How’s that fair?”

Delano had a point. It did seem kind of unfair. It was no rumor in school that Eroms got the best cafeteria treatment on account of being the lunch lady’s friend.

The donuts looked good. And Eroms certainly looked like they were.

“Do you have any more of those?” Melmarc asked him.

Eroms nodded and pulled out another one easily. It was in a paper wrapper and was sprinkled with sugar. Standing between them, Delano watched the donut change hands.

Melmarc bit into his donut. These are actually good.

Delano looked between both of them. “Uhh… there are three of us. Don’t I get a donut?”

Eroms looked at him. “No.”

Delano sighed. “Sorry. May I please have a donut.”

Melmarc chuckled. Eroms had developed a new method of interaction with Delano sometime last year, and was sticking to it. Delano had to learn to use words like please, sorry, and thank you where appropriate anytime he needed or wanted something from him.

At first Delano had said it wouldn’t last, and Melmarc had been inclined to believe—the boy didn’t have one polite bone in his body. But it had been going for one year and counting now so…

“I don’t see why I have to say please and sorry,” Delano complained. “Marc didn’t even ask for a donut. He just asked if you had any more, and you gave him.”

Eroms simply stared at him, brown eyes waiting.

Delano sighed. “Please?”

Eroms folded the wrap of the donut he just finished into a square as small as it could get and put it in his pocket. “No.”

Delano’s jaw fell. “Why not?”

“Because you called me fat.”

“But that was in middle school. I didn’t know better.”

There were fully into the residential neighborhood. Soon they would split. Melmarc would take a turn and walk the rest of the journey alone while Eroms and Delano would go further together before they separated.

While his friends went back and forth about who’d offended who and what retributions and amendments had been made, Melmarc bit into his donut.

It was as sweet as it looked.

Off in the distance, just outside the residential streets, a large billboard stood high and wide enough to be seen. On it was the bright smile of one of the country’s Delvers. The government didn’t have a monopoly on Delvers but they did the best they could to train the best they could.

The man on the poster had a wide smile with white teeth and sparkling blue eyes that could be seen despite the glasses he was wearing. He wore a spandex with bright colors that mixed in yellow and red. It made him stand out, which was the intention. On the billboard, next to his bright smile was a simple line.

LOOK TO THE SKY AND KNOW IT’S ALRIGHT WHEN IT’S ALL BRIGHT!

It was a corny line as far as lines went. But Melmarc had a feeling whoever had pitched the line to the advertisement agency had just really, really wanted to use that rhyme. He couldn’t blame the guy for it, he blamed the ad agency.

On the billboard the Delver looked happy, jovial even. He looked like the kind of guy you’d trust to watch your kid while you stepped away to do something quick. Which, if Melmarc was being honest, was a creepy thing when he really thought about it.

But All Bright—the Delver—was one of the good guys. There were never negative speculations about him on the tabloids or the news outlets, and the only bad light he was ever caught in was from glancing blows simply from his association with the government.

Melmarc found himself remembering something Ark had once said.

A year or two ago, before Ninra had moved to college, they’d been sitting in the living room, watching a re-run of one of the news reports where it had been found out that a string of bank robberies had actually been orchestrated by a gifted with the ability to mold metal.

He was eventually stopped by a Delver, but he’d successfully robbed eight banks before that happened, and there had been casualties.

The news had speculated that the gifted had ties to the government, and had, at one point in time, been a government sanctioned Delver. According to the news, the government had since destroyed all files and evidence linking him to them.

Ninra had made a comment about how the government was giving Delvers a bad name and how only private contractors really did right by Delvers. Apparently, the politics involved in governments were preventing Delvers from doing only the right thing.

Ark had looked up from one of many comic books he liked to read and simply said, “There’s politics everywhere, Nin.”

Ninra had frowned before taking a sip of her vegan smoothie with so many vegetable-based contents that it was basically swamp green. “What I’m saying is that it’s the government. They’re always hiding something. A Delver with ties to them robs a few banks, and instead of owning up to it, apologizing and doing better, they’re hiding and destroying evidence.”

“And the news tells you that their only evidence suggesting the guy was tied to the government is that they say so. But they can’t prove it because the same news claims that the government has destroyed said evidence that supports their claim.” Ark had returned his attention back to his book. “Sounds a bit suspicious to me.”

“It’s the government,” was all Ninra had said. “They’re always doing something shady.”

“Most powerful people are always doing something shady. The government. The number one Delver in the world. The contractors. I’m sure the principal at my school does shady things, and he’s just a principal.”

Melmarc hadn’t given it much thought then, but he had sided with Ark on that one. Besides, the news had been reported by Channel 12 which was notorious for their constant attack on the government and government appointed Delvers.

As Uncle Dorthna liked to say, the day Channel 12 says something good about the government would be the day a Delver rode reindeers on a sleigh in the middle of a winter night and gave presents to kids.

Then again, he had once been a government sanctioned Delver before retiring for reasons no one talked about, so perhaps it was safe to say that his opinion on the news channel wasn’t entirely objective.

But he couldn’t agree with part of all powerful people doing shady things. It was like saying Delano didn’t have a filter all the time. Well… he kind of didn’t. But that wasn’t the point. Sometimes he at least knew when not to say something, even if he was going to say it eventually. Still, Melmarc couldn’t bring himself to agree that all powerful people did shady things.

Their parents were powerful, after all.

“Marc! Oh, Maaarc.”

Melmarc turned, jostled from his mind. His thoughts fell and he looked up to find Delano and Eroms looking at him.

“You think he heard anything we said?” Delano asked Eroms.

Eroms shook his head.

“I think so, too.” He gave Melmarc a worried look. “You good? I said your name like twice.”

Melmarc shook his head as if clearing his thoughts. “I’m fine.”

“You sure? You looked really deep in thought.”

“Was just thinking about All Bright.” He gestured at the billboard. “Which led me to thinking about that gifted that was robbing banks and how one of the news channel said he was related to the government. Do you think he was?”

Eroms and Delano shared a look.

“You know why I spend time with you, Marc?” Delano asked.

“Because nobody’s willing to put up with you, and Eroms likes hanging out with me, and you have a crush on my sister, and you think I have secret government information because my parents are Delvers?”

“And you don’t have any other friends,” Eroms added around a bite of another donut.

How many did the lunch lady give him?

“No,” Delano said, then scowled at Eroms. “And no. But I do think Ninra’s fine—”

“I thought you had a crush on Jennina.”

“I used to have a crush on Jennina. Then I met your sister. She’s like a plum blossom at the tip of a martial blade. Spotless.”

Melmarc winced.

Eroms chuckled. “You should see your face.”

“As I was saying,” Delano interjected pointedly. “Those aren’t the only reasons why I spend time with you, even though I know for a fact that you are keeping at least two government secrets from me. Another reason is because you have that weird thing you do.”

“What weird thing?”

“The one you do with your thoughts.”

Melmarc looked to Eroms, confused. Their friend’s response was a shrug.

“Wait, you really don’t know?” Delano looked between the both of them. “You had a thought that had you spacing out, then, when I ask you, what do you do?”

“I tell you,” Melmarc said slowly.

His friend snapped his finger at him. “Exactly. A normal person would say nothing. But you… you say exactly what’s on your mind.”

Melmarc scratched the back of his neck. “Do I?”

“Uhuh. Like the time you spaced out thinking about how many chickens it takes to feed the entire town and how many farmers can breed how many chickens. Which led you down a spiral of how many farmers are in the town.”

“Turns out the country actually has a main chicken farm that distributes chicken throughout the country, which supports normal chicken farmers. Other countries have something similar too. I found out when—”

His phone vibrated. He reached into his pocket and pulled it out. It was a call from Ark.

Delano peeked over his shoulder and shivered visibly.

Melmarc let out a sigh as he answered the call.

“You really have to get over your fear of my brother," he told Delano.

“I would, but I’m not a fan of that much violence. Just last week he bashed Ebu’s face in for looking at you funny.” Delano shivered again.

“Ebu’s a bully,” Eroms pointed out. “I think he got what he deserved.”

Delano thought about it before nodding in agreement. “But how didn’t your brother get expelled?”

“Because there was no evidence, and Ebu didn’t report it,” Melmarc said, then he put his phone to his ear. “What’s up, Ark?”

“Where are you?” his brother’s voice came in from the phone. He sounded in a hurry, and excited.

“Uhhh…” Melmarc looked around. “You know that place where you get a good view of All Bright?”

“That horrible poster?”

“Billboard,” he corrected. “But yes. That’s where I am.”

“34th and Mane. Good. You’re not far. Hurry up, I’ve got something you’ve got to see.”

“This better not be another baby snake. Uncle Dorthna already said you can’t keep those.”

His brother laughed on the other side of the phone. “Not that. I promise you’ll like this one.”

He hung up on Melmarc without a goodbye, and Melmarc stared at the phone, confused.

“What’s up?” Delano asked.

Melmarc shrugged, then slipped his phone back into his pocket. “He’s got something he wants to show me. He sounded really excited.”

“Another baby snake?”

Melmarc thought about it and shook his head. “I don’t think so. I asked and he said it wasn’t.”

“You think he’s learned new ways to bash people’s head in?”

“No.” Melmarc’s brows furrowed as he thought about what could have his brother so excited. “And you’re going to have to get over that. He’s got a condition. He went to therapy last year, and the doctor said he has something called an IED.”

Delano blanked, confused. “He’s got an Improvised Explosive Device?”

“No. An Intermittent Explosive Disorder.”

“I don’t see how you almost get killed from an Intruder attack but your brother’s the one with the PTSD… But I think I get it. You don’t have to almost die to have one of those. I have two uncles in the military. The one that got blown up by an IED has a good bill of mental health, while the one that did the blowing up, has military mandated therapy for his PTSD.”

Eroms grabbed Delano by the ear and steered him to the side.

“Ow!” Delano whined. “You’ve got meaty fingers, that hurts.”

Eroms didn’t stop. Instead, he looked to Melmarc and said, “You should hurry home. Apart from the snake thing, I don’t remember the last time Ark called you home.”

Melmarc agreed. On days when he didn’t take the bus, Ark was always content with waiting him out back home. He turned and was going when Delano asked a question.

“Isn’t Ark seventeen?”

Melmarc didn’t have to think about it. “Yeah.”

Delano chuckled as he was steered away. “Isn’t that like the age people get their first skills? Imagine if he’s calling because he just got a skill.” Then a terrified look crossed his face. “Somehow the thought of your brother having a skill doesn’t make me feel very safe.”

Melmarc couldn’t help but think about it as Delano and Eroms waved him goodbye. He waved back as he turned to the road that would lead him home. He thought about Delano’s words, not the safety part, the skill part.

Was it possible? Had Ark gotten a skill? Was he gifted now?

Well, I won’t know till I get home.