I wasn’t the first to homeroom class, but I was still well before the bell. Of course, just like yesterday, almost everything that anyone could talk about was the game. None of the chatter I heard in the halls or from those at the front of the classroom was particularly interesting, however. Or, well, it was likely interesting to them, but nothing I heard in passing would be important or useful to my group. Just people talking about their experiences, reliving their battles, talking about basic skills and even more basic strategy.

Sure, I wasn’t an expert-level strategist myself, but I wasn’t the one bragging about sneaking up behind a neutral little monster for a surprise attack bonus. That, like the positioning of Ace’s golems prior to engaging wasn’t something that we were going to be able to do once we graduated from fighting training mobs.

Anna looked up from the book she was reading and greeted me as I passed her desk. “You look sleepy today, James. What did you do? Stay up all night playing games?” She winked.

“You could say that. How’s being a Cryomancer treating you? Still putting the freeze on any rat trying to fight you?”

“Yep. Icicle Incarceration is treating me well, so I Tiered up its ability, Cryo Control, a second time when I made level three.”

“Whoa, level three already?” I asked.

“Three and a half. I hope to hit level five tonight, and then I’ll go further out of town than hanging out near the wall and fighting easy rats,” Anna said.

“Still, that’s pretty impressive. I’m only a bit over level one. I guess I just level a bit slower,” I said. But it might not be just that. It sounded like Anna was in a regular zone rather than in one of the training zones. Maybe the experience penalty we took for being in a safe, private instance didn’t balance out with the loss of experience for competing for spawns in a more populated instance ….

“Hey, James!” Monica practically bounced down the aisle between desks. Rather than her cheerleading uniform, she was dressed casually in a fitted tee and flare legged jeans. “I had fun last night, thanks! Let’s do it again.”

“Whoa? Really?” Anna exclaimed. “Do tell! When did you start dating!?”

“Not like that, Nanners,” Monica said, shaking her head, though she winked at me. “DVI. I bumped into James’s character in town, helped fight off a few PK-type jerks, shopped, and fought a bunch of rats. Too many at once, once, for a tougher fight than we wanted, but we did okay. I even leveled up.”

It was the next-to-last fight for the night that she had got the little fanfare -- more of a pop music guitar riff -- and pillar of blue and gold light. Ace, unfortunately, hadn’t leveled before the end of the night; They still had a bit more than fifteen percent to go.

Ka’Moni had put her stat point into Agility, which was already Moderate, but it was apparently the closest of her easy-to-upgrade stats to going up to the next category. She said that if she got a point every level, she’d hit High Agility when she hit level 10.

“You never did say, Monica, what you put your development and ability points in,” I said.

“No,” she laughed, “that flappy rat interrupted us. I bumped Team Spirit up to the next tier. That’s the one with the sustained cheers. Making those better will be more useful, I think, then improving Fighting Footwork. At least, for helping others. My new ability is Cheering Aura Support. I’ll have to look again at what the skills it gave me were, but it’s supposed to be a bit like that ability you didn’t take.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, making the effects of cheers on allies better, or something. But it’s not a passive ability like yours would have been.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Anna interrupted, “James, you got a cheerleader ability?”

Both Monica and I spoke at once.

I said “No, a healer ability.”

Monica said, “Not yet.”

Anna looked back and forth between the two of us. “Hmmm ….”

“Well, they are both support classes,” I said. “Although Monica is more of a fighter than I am. I could have diversified with some damage, but it’s not what I need right now.”

“That’s not what I was thinking about,” Anna said.

I feigned ignorance.

“You’ve been reading too many of those novels again, Nanners,” Monica said, gesturing to the hardcover propped open, spine-side up on Anna’s desk. I didn’t recognize it, but I wasn’t the target audience for her paranormal and urban romances. Anna, however, seemed to have a different book almost every day.

“You can never read too many books!” Anna protested.

I don’t know if she was leading Anna on, teasing me, or just off in her own world, but Monica took a seat -- on the edge of my desk rather than at her own -- and said, “I don’t know. That last one you loaned me was probably one too many.”

“Oh, that, yeah the premise was a bit unbelievable, a secret fairy queen in Seattle, but I really liked the characters. Jaqueline was a bit flighty at times, but what do you expect a fairy to be? But the guys, all three of them were dreamy. The childhood friend, of course, had the unfair advantage, but I really was rooting for the ‘white knight’ Ka’ramosh Niamoc.” She sighed gustily. “There’s going to be a prequel focusing where he’s the main character. A classic fall and redemption arc. That makes me think the sequel will have Jaqueline and Ka’ramosh together.”

“As long as it isn’t that corrupt police chief,” Monica said. Then she shook her head, “Sorry, James. Didn’t mean to leave you out.”

I shrugged. “Not my genre, so I haven’t read it. I wouldn’t have anything to contribute.”

Anna picked up her bookbag and pulled a book out, “Here you go. Give it a try. What else are you going to do during homeroom? Oh, what is your genre by the way?”

I looked dubiously at the book and didn’t reach for it, so Monica took the book and placed it on my desk next to where she was sitting. “James is more a gamer than a reader,” she said.

“Hey, that’s not entirely true,” I said.

Monica laughed, “Quest text doesn’t count.”

“I’ll have you know that I read the entire Hardy Boys collection at the library in fifth grade. And a lot of Nancy Drew and a lot of the Three Investigators.”

“Ooohh, mysteries?” Anna exclaimed. “I’ll bring in a different book tomorrow. You’ll like Alex Noir’s Midnight Magic Detective Agency. It’s more of a cozy than one of those with corpses and gruesome details.”

“Anna! One book at a time,” Monica smiled. “Let’s see if he can get through Jacqueline Ever After first.”

At that moment, the teacher came in. “Miss Ruuki! Chairs, and not desks, are for sitting on,” she said with a disapproving glare. And when Monica hopped off my desk, patted Anna’s book and pushed it to the center of my desk, and sat at her own, the teacher continued. “Okay, now that all the desks are properly occupied, we can begin.”

* * *

The bell ending homeroom rang while I was halfway through the second chapter of the book. Anna was right about one thing -- what else was I going to do in homeroom? I would read more, actually, but unlike Anna, I bought my books digitally, and I wasn’t going to get in trouble by looking like I was playing with my phone in class.

“See you in gym, James,” Monica said with a smile and wave as she headed out the door. I waved, finished the paragraph I was reading, and bookmarked my spot with one of the handouts from homeroom. Anna may flip her books over to keep her spot, and this book already showed spine damage from that treatment, but I wasn’t going to contribute by doing the same or dog-earing a page. Paper books are expensive, especially hardbacks like Anna tended to have.

“So, what are you thinking, James?” Anna asked as she gathered up her books and papers.

“Well, I’m only on chapter two, but ….”

“Not that!” Anna interrupted.

“Huh?”

Anna shook her head and sighed, “Boys.”