Even after thinking about the rankings at home, I couldn’t figure out how Gentrei and Harry’s stories scored so high. Since I couldn’t read their stories without asking them, I could only base their effort on what I saw them do during the contest.
I only ever saw Gentrei whenever she decided to terrorize our table, but Harry never seemed very busy whenever I sat with him at lunch. Of course, I never met any of them outside of school, so I couldn’t exactly say they were doing nothing with their time at home.
Sitting at the lunch table, I decided to ask Harry himself. Harry, after all, would have the most knowledge on what he was doing during the contest.
“How’d you do it?” I asked him, “Your story got second place.”
“Oh, that thing with the writing contest?” Harry spoke between his messy munches, “I just wrote whatever, it wasn’t so hard.”
“It wasn’t hard?” I questioned, “Since when were you so good at writing?”
Harry, cheeks full like a squirrel, stared at me dead in the eye. I inwardly hoped he wouldn’t open his mouth to speak with all that food. After a couple of swallows on his part, I sighed in relief.
“Was it ever implied that I wasn’t good at writing?” Harry replied, “I can write enough to get by.”
“I guess you do need a certain level of skill to survive high school, I guess,” I concluded, “but I didn’t think you’d get the second place prize.”
“All it takes to succeed is a little effort,” Harry said, “and time, you need to multiply speed and time to get acceleration.”
“Speed? Time? Acceleration?” I parroted, “I didn’t know you paid attention in physics class.”
“Huh? Of course I do! I wouldn’t have made it this far if I didn’t!” Harry exclaimed, “although, I kind of got lost after that first lesson, do you think you could help me with the others?”
Immediately after impressing me, Harry let me right back down. Some part of me thought he did that on purpose.
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Harry’s antics usually end up having a bigger effect than I would initially expect. For example, he saved me from Gentrei when I first met her. Every time, I think he plans each antic, but I always forget about it. Now though, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Harry was thinking a lot more in his head than he cared to share. His ranking on the writing contest showed just how much he’d been hiding.
After lunch, I continued to figure out what Harry could be hiding, when I remembered a fact about him that I usually ignored. Last year, Neuire Moddes uncovered a group of serial killers within our school. Those serial killers had Harry on their target list, and apparently, if it weren’t for Neuire, Harry would have been killed.
When Harry told me this, he told me his luck saved him. From what I know, this could be true, but I did not know the entire story behind him. One thing I wanted to at least learn was why the killers targeted Harry. While I knew he could be infuriating, I didn’t know what kind of connection he may have had with the killers.
To answer my questions about Harry, I caught Neuire himself before he shuffled away from the lunch room with the rest of the crowd. Despite being the hero of the school last year, he kept his head down around others.
“Hey! Um, Neuire Moddes?” I called out to him, “I have a few questions, if you don’t mind me asking.”
“Alright,” he came towards me, “What do you need?”
His eyes were disinterested, but he came to me like doing a task that he’d gotten used to. He must have had a lot of people ask about the murders last year. I hoped I wasn’t bringing up any bad memories.
“I’d like to know more about Harry,” I explained, “like, uh, do you know why he was targeted by the serial killers?”
“That? Oh,” Neuire Moddes took some time to think, “I actually don’t know either.”
“You don’t?”
“The only people I know they targeted are myself and my mother,” Neuire Moddes shared, “And we were both targeted for getting too close to revealing their identities.”
“So you’re saying Harry was the same?”
“No, not at all,” he shook his head, “I’m just saying I only know two instances, and that they could have been targeting Harry for anything.”
“Oh.” I must have been looking too deep into Harry. It’s not like he would lie or keep secrets from me, so I could have just asked him during lunch.
“Although,” Neuire Moddes started speaking again, “Harry did act pretty stubborn in some cases…in fact, he’s the reason we were able to lock up the serial killers.”
“Wait, what?”
“Yeah, he really pulled an incredible move back then,” Neuire Moddes frowned, “he turned the tables after working behind the scenes.”
“Wow, that’s amazing,” I commented. Maybe my hunch was right, and Harry did think through his eccentricities. But why did Neuire look so down?
“I tried to negotiate with one of the killers to plead guilty,” Neuire said, “but she went against her word.”
“And?” I asked, starting to understand why Neuire felt bad.
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“Heh,” Neuire chuckled, “Harry went and got three of the other killers to plead guilty instead. The fourth guy that pleaded guilty was the guy that told us the plan.”
“Harry went and did that, huh…” I mumbled. Harry never told me this. Neuire’s story practically made him out to be a hero.
“That’s right,” Neuire nodded, “does that help you?”
“It does,” I answered, “thanks.”
Before I could turn around and leave, Neuire added, “Oh, you should ask some others about him, if you really want to look into him. I only knew him for a short span of time, so I don’t know what he did after or before the serial murders or anything.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I replied, “thanks again.”
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Harry Ballman was a hero. I had no idea I had been sitting with such an incredible person for so long. I learned a lot just from reaching out to Neuire Moddes. Despite appearing to be the average messy teen, Harry had an amazing history. Still, I didn’t find the answer I was searching for.
Walking through the halls, I thought through everything I learned from Neuire, but I couldn’t answer the initial question. Was Harry actually planning all of his antics, or was he just incredibly lucky through a very large set of coincidences?
Neuire himself suggested asking others if I wanted to learn more about Harry. Following his advice, I decided to ask his teachers. If anyone knew anything about how Harry thought, his teachers would at least be able to point me in the right direction. Teachers, after all, take a lot of time to assess their students. Plus, teachers see whom their students interact with. Harry only ate with me, but he could have friends in other lunch periods.
I decided to stop by Harry’s first hour teacher before I headed for my seventh. He would only see Harry tomorrow, and Harry wouldn’t see me interrogating his teachers about him. Plus, he seemed like a teacher that would answer any question, no matter what. Plus, his subject was a very interesting one too.
“Hello? Mr. Saturation?” I knocked on his door, “Are you free?”
“Yes, what do you need?” Mr. Saturation opened his door.
“I was just checking in to ask about Harry,” I explained, “I was wondering what you’d think about him if he were to tutor me in this subject.” I made up a little lie.
“Hm? Oh, he’s tutoring you?” Mr. Saturation asked, “He does well in my class, yes, so I believe he would be adequate in teaching at least what he knows about psychology.”
“Well, he’s not exactly tutoring me,” I elaborated, “just sharing a little about the subject.”
“Oh, I see,” Mr. Saturation responded, “Well, he’s as reliable as a student can be.”
“All right, thanks,” I told him, “I guess I’ll be going now.”
“Of course,” Mr. Saturation replied, “but may I ask why you’re asking me? Are you interested in joining the class?”
“Uh, I won’t deny that it interested me,” I answered, “but I kind of just wanted to know a bit more about Harry.” I did my best to not lie, but not tell too much.
“I suggest checking the class out sometime,” Mr. Saturation recommended, “and if you want to know more about Harry, don’t you think you should just ask him? He’s not the type to lie, from what I know.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” I agreed, “I’ll ask him sometime, thanks.”
Leaving Mr. Saturation, I heard his door click behind me. Only after turning around did I realize how hot and sweaty I had been feeling when talking with him. I must have looked very suspicious to him. Now though, I knew that Harry had a passable proficiency in psychology, and that I was horrible at hiding the truth. I hoped the psychology teacher didn’t notice.
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Just because Harry succeeds in psychology class doesn’t necessarily mean that he always looks into the psychology of others. He could simply be good at studying. Harry, after all, can know a lot and still be dumb. That hypothesis would work as to how he scored highly in the writing competition.
Entering my class, I sat down and thought. The only person I really had to ask was Harry himself, unless I wanted to ask every one of his teachers about him. Obviously, one of them would eventually leak to Harry that I asked about him, but I’d rather keep it at a simple number. After all, I could always hide the idea of being interested in psychology as an excuse.
When it comes to what I know about Harry, my list of information is surprisingly small. I still don’t know if he hangs out with anyone other than me, or occasionally Gentrei when she comes to terrorize our table. I also didn’t know what he did after school or what he did before we met. Harry, for the first time, has become an unknown variable to me.
After approaching two people about him, I learned a lot more than what I did before. I doubted Harry hid these things from me, but I did find it crazy to learn something new each time. Harry is a hero, and he does well in school. The latter was actually a little less groundbreaking, but Harry didn’t seem like the type to have smarts.
A new idea came into mind. Out of my list of unknowns, I had one I could get through asking others. If I approached his homeroom teacher, I could ask whether he goes to any clubs or does any extracurriculars after school. In places like that, he’d probably have other friends, and I can get a general idea of his life before we met.
Doing my best to retain my class’s topics, I tried to recall where Harry went during homeroom. I recalled him talking about Mrs. Transparency. I had an idea of where her room would be, and I immediately took off for her classroom at the end of the class period. For a while, I loathed the length of block scheduling, but after leaving, I embraced the longer passing periods that I heard Taireah High School was popular for.
“Mrs. Transparency, I have a question,” I stated as quickly as possible, “do you know if Harry goes anywhere after school?”
“Huh? Um, no, not anymore,” she answered, “why?”
“No reason in particular,” I replied vaguely, “what do you mean by not anymore?”
“Well, he used to go to the private investigations club before they disbanded,” she responded.
“Thanks!” I said, before quickly closing the door and leaving her room.
My new approach to the teacher probably threw her off. Instead of getting her suspicious of me, I decided to just go with giving her a state of confusion. Mr. Saturation’s scary face stuck with me, after looking into his eyes that seemed to see through you. Mrs. Transparency’s eyes seemed to be more of the type to look past you.
In hindsight though, the more confused someone is, the more they’ll ask. Using confusion as my weapon may backfire, since she might just ask Harry about me the next time she sees him. Still, I could probably come up with an excuse of thinking of clubs to join, or something.
Now, what in the world was the Private Investigations Club?
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Mrs. Transparency already stated that they disbanded, but I looked at the club meetings board anyways. On the board, I found nothing relating even a little bit to the old club. Instead of looking at that, I decided to try old yearbooks. Since I didn’t know when they disbanded, I couldn’t limit too far back, but I did know that Harry had some part in it.
If I looked in a yearbook of his sophomore or freshman year, I could probably find something about the club. The problem was that I didn’t have any yearbooks, because we couldn’t afford to waste money on them. Seventy-five dollars for just ten years grew very near a thousand dollars. That kind of money needed to be saved.
Another idea I had was asking a senior about the classes. Teachers could have something to say about it, but I already found myself running out of time in the passing period. I decided to put it off until later. After all, Harry wasn’t going anywhere.