[Xander – 12 years]

"I'm ugly. I'm stupid. I'm a worthless fucking piece of shit."

What was the next part? It was… at least three… right, at least three good things. Stupid brain, can't even remember something I've done several days in a row. I hate myself.

"I managed not to get yelled at yesterday," I say. "I managed not to get beaten yesterday. I managed to not break anything yesterday."

There. Three things. I'm not sure I can think of a fourth so I'll stick to three.

With this routine out of the way, I make my way downstairs and to the dining room for breakfast. Mr. Caldwell is already sitting at his usual spot, so I sit at the spot I usually sit at. For some reason, Mr. Caldwell wanted me down here for breakfast at 6:45 today rather than 'whenever you come down for it'. Since I usually wake up at five in the morning already, all it really meant was that I got out of bed and changed and did that stuff earlier instead of continuing to stay in the bed in the hopes of falling back asleep again for another half an hour to an hour.

Ms. Katie serves crepes with jam filling, strawberry slices on top, and powdered sugar dusted over them. Sausage links are served on the side along with scrambled eggs. I really don't want to eat the eggs but they were served so I have to. The way Ms. Katie makes them is definitely different than how I've had eggs before but I still don't really like them. Eggs taste funny

At least I get to have five crepes and ten sausage links. Also a peach from the trees as well as milk and orange juice.

"Xander," Mr. Caldwell says after I finish eating and Ms. Katie clears our dishes.

"Am I in trouble?"

"Did you do anything to get into trouble?"

"Um… I can't remember?"

"Something I've noticed over the last week and a half," he says. "Is that you call yourself stupid a lot. I've seen your school records, and you do have some pretty bad grades."

"I'm sorry I'm so stupid," I say. "I try studying!"

It's not just in school, too. I don't know stuff that it's clear I should know, like metaphors and smiles. I think that's what they're called, anyway. The comparative things that aren't actually the things.

"Hold on, Xander," Mr. Caldwell says. "I visited the home and asked Ms. Johnson if they kept copies of homework and tests that got sent back with the students. It seems they keep all of them, so I asked to look at some of yours, then spoke with Ms. Johnson a bit. Do you avoid asking for help when you're stuck because you don't want people mad at you?"

Yes, but I don't want to admit that. He's just going to call me stupid. Instead of answering, I stare at the table because I don't know what to do or say. If a punishment is coming anyway, I might as well earn it for not answering. This is scary.

"Judging by your grades," Mr. Caldwell says. "And your assignments, your teachers were passing you just so they don't have to deal with you anymore. That was wrong of them. They should have tried helping you and that's a failure on them. That's not your fault, Xander, that's a failure on the schools you went to.

"Remember how I offered to ask the swim teacher from Lucas's school to teach you swimming if you wanted?" Mr. Caldwell asks. "I can ask another teacher from his school to help you study during the summer. It would be for about an hour and a half each morning, only on weekdays. Sort of like classes in school. The first week would be some tests so that he can see where you are and what you need help with, then after that, it would be classes to help you catch up. The whole reason he'd be here would be so that you can learn and ask questions, so you don't have to worry about him getting mad at you for it."

Why would he go to all that effort for a waste of space like me?

"Do you want that, Xander?" Mr. Caldwell asks. "He'd be here just to help you catch up on some of what you're not good with and to help you prepare for the eighth grade. You'd be free to ask him and any all questions that you want. And again, I can make sure you two aren't alone if that makes you uncomfortable."

As much as I want to turn this down because I don't want him spending all that money and effort on me when it's just going to be wasted and I'm not worth it… this might be my only chance to get help. Refusing might be really bad for me, too. I don't want to know what the punishment would be if I said 'no'.

"Okay."

"Alright," Mr. Caldwell says. "Why don't you go do whatever it is you do after breakfast, and once you brush your teeth, come back down? I'll let him know you agreed, so the class will start at eight."

It's not until I'm in my room that I realize Mr. Caldwell already arranged for it. But it sounds like he told them he was going to give me a choice, rather than him making the choice and then giving me a fake one. That confuses me, so I lie down on the floor and wait until half an hour passes so that I can brush my teeth. While I wait, my phone goes bloop. I pull it out to see what the dork texted me.

Silver Bear Poker: Do you know what happened to my secret muffin stash?

Xander: No.

Silver Bear Poker: Do not worry, I have found it. I seem to have moved it for some reason.

I'm not even sure how I would have known what happened to it since it's been awhile since I was at his workshop. Maybe he thought I stopped by? But the dork likes chocolate chips in his muffins so I wouldn't have eaten them.

Wait.

He needs to not send his ninja friends to change his contact information in my phone. I'm not sure I want to know what the name means this time, but I have to ask because my curiosity is too strong and I know he'll answer.

His response is a picture of a sword. I'm pretty sure it's just a steel sword but the dork is probably pretending it's a vampire bear and that's the only way to kill it or something like that. He has a really active imagination and likes to play pretend a lot. Sort of like how he told me that he tamed all of the griffins within five hundred miles of here.

Even my stupid self can say how ridiculous that is. Griffins are far too powerful, willful, intelligent, and sapient. I don't know what that word means but I heard it makes an animal less beastly and that griffins have it. Supposedly, even powerful mages couldn't tame a single griffin.

The dork definitely has an over-active imagination. Playing pretend does sound nice, though. Unfortunately, I'd probably just get into trouble because it's lying and saying I'm something I'm not.

It's soon time for me to brush my teeth so I do, then I go downstairs to meet Mr. Caldwell. To my surprise, he takes me to the room that looks like a kid's classroom. After thinking about it, I had thought maybe it was used as a daycare for when he has an event and parents bring their babies and toddlers.

"I had some rooms renovated on Friday," Mr. Caldwell tells me once we reach it. "They finished up on Saturday. Used a little bit of magic to make things go faster. Your lesson will take place in this room. Another thing you mention a lot, Xander, is that you're weak. If you want, you can have a class after to help you get stronger. You can even learn martial arts, if you want. That way, you can learn to defend yourself if someone attacks you – such as trying to hold your head under water. Does that sound like something you'd be interested in?"

He'd probably ask his security staff to do it, since they're already getting paid to be here. I really would like to learn that sort of stuff, too. But am I really allowed to defend myself?

"Y-yes."

"Alright," Mr. Caldwell says. "Let's go in so I can introduce you to them."

Mr. Caldwell opens the door and lets me into the classroom. At the desk is a man in his forties, dressed in khakis and a light green polo. He stands when we enter and greets us, but he's not the only person in here.

Roderick, one of the security guards, is also standing in here. That makes me feel a lot more comfortable. Roderick doesn't mind me asking to look at his guns and he's even explained some stuff about them to me.

There are also two boys who look around my age in here.

One of them has platinum-blond hair like me but electric blue eyes, and he's dressed in black shorts with yellow stripes down their sides and a black sleeveless shirt with a bold yellow stripe down the right side of the front, along with a pair of black-and-silver sneakers with yellow accents. His arms are toned in a way that suggests he's really fit and could probably snap my bones in half with ease. That kind of scares me.

The other boy has brown hair and blue eyes and is dressed in an outfit similar to the other boy's, but with a brown shirt that has silver at the arm holes, neck hole, and waist hole. I think there's a proper name for those but I can't remember. Just like the other boy, he's kind of toned as well.

They both work out. Are they here told me down if I try to escape during the lesson?

The blond one looks familiar to me for some reason and it's not because we both have platinum-blond hair. It takes me a few moments to realize why.

"Sparky Boy!" I realize too late that said it. "S-sorry!"

"Sparky Boy?" He grins at me. "Don't get called that much!"

"His name is Lucas," Mr. Caldwell tells me, then looks at him. "Xander probably remembers more that you were covered in sparks in the pictures."

Right. Lucas. I didn't meet him when we dropped off the baked goods on Saturday as he wasn't there yet. If this is Lucas, then the brown-haired boy must be Parker. Mr. Caldwell told me they're good friends. They really are here to make sure I sit for the lessons, aren't they?

"I thought you might be more comfortable learning," Mr. Caldwell tells me. "If there were some boys your age around rather than just adults."

Oh. That makes sense. I was definitely nervous about it being just me and adults, even if one of them was a security guard who lets me look at his guns.

"So I asked Lucas's parents if they'd ask him about coming to join in the lessons. He volunteered after hearing about it. The other boy is Parker, his friend."

"And if you're wondering why he's not already babbling your ear off," Parker says. "His mom made him expend as much of his magic as he could before coming over. He tends to be a lot calmer when he's low on mana."

"It's a condition," Lucas says. "And I want to go by Luke now, Mr. Caldwell."

"Sorry," Mr. Caldwell says. "I'll keep that in mind, Luke."

A nickname, sort of like how I prefer to go by Xander and Nick prefers to go by Nick and Ms. Katie prefers to go by Ms. Katie. Since that's what he wants to go by, I'll try to remember it but I might forget his name entirely again.

"Alright," Mr. Caldwell says. "I need to get going or I'll be late, though I'll stop by for a minute between classes. You boys have fun. Not too much fun, Luke. You're here to make Xander more comfortable, not scare him off with your unreasonable amounts of energy."

"Understood!" Luke salutes.

Mr. Caldwell bids me a good day, then leaves. I examine teacher – who introduces himself as Mr. Massey – and Luke and Parker using my mage-sight. All three of them have a decent amount of magic. Mr. Massey's magic is like normal people's magic even if he has a lot of it compared to most I've seen.

Parker and Luke, though… their magic is different. Parker has a lot of magic and it seems to have some sort of lava aspect to it. I've never seen that in a person before, all of the mana I've seen in people has been plain.

Then there's Luke… if Mr. Massey makes normal people look like they have no mana and Parker makes him look like he has none… Luke makes Parker look like he doesn't exist. I think that's an appropriate comparison. Well, he's actually got a small amount at the moment but I can tell that his capacity is massive. He really does have a lot of mana and it has a sort of lightning aspect to it, too.

Not just that, but it also seems like there's actual lightning in his magic. It's also very calm right now, the sparks slowly flickering about. I didn't know that sparks of electricity could look calm and sleepy but they apparently can. The dork probably knows the explanation for it, but I'm not sure I'll remember to ask him when I have the time.

I turn off the mage-sight as I take a seat on a green beanbag. Luke is on a yellow one and Parker is on a blue one. Mr. Massey starts the lesson by handing me a clipboard and a small dry-erase board, along with stuff to write with and a packet. Parker and Luke both already have this stuff, but their packets are turned upside down.

"This is a test," Mr. Massey says. "To help me get a clear idea of where you're at and will contain a mixture of basics and stuff you might have learned up through the seventh grade. Fill it out as best you can, but don't worry if you can't figure out an answer. Just skip it and move on. This test is so that I can get an idea of where you are, alright, Xander? It's not for a grade, it's so that I know where to start with your lessons. And don't compare your time in answering to theirs, they only asked to do it so they could compete against each other. If they don't get a perfect score on it, they're each doing fifty push-ups."

I nod, then he tells us to begin. A lot of the questions are really hard for me and I don't have a calculator. My phone does, but Luke and Parker aren't using one so I think I'm supposed to do the math in my head or on the papers of the packet.

Even though Mr. Massey said to not worry too much, I still feel awful every time I give up on a question. There are far too many that I'm bad at and can't solve. Luke and Parker finish their packets in about thirty minutes, but I'm struggling with every question I'm on at that point and can't figure them out.

"Xander," Mr. Massey says. "It seems like you're skipping a lot now, do you want to stop?"

My face heats up as I nod. This is awful. I couldn't even finish the test.

"That's okay," Mr. Massey says. "It just means we'll need to look at the stuff needed for those problems and teach you them. It's possible your school didn't actually get to those lessons – some schools teach at different levels and the academy I work at tends to be a bit more advanced than public schools. It won't take me long to review the tests, just sit tight for a few minutes."

How do I sit tight? I don't know what that means and I'm scared to ask. Parker plays on his phone while Luke fidgets around a bit. He was fidgeting a lot during the lesson. I sneak a look at him and use my mage-sight again. The sparks in his mana are a little bit more active right now than it was when I first saw him and he's got more mana than he did before. I guess the more mana he has, the more active those sparks become.

"Alright," Mr. Massey says. "Luke, Parker, you two failed to score perfectly so you each need to do fifty push-ups."

"Hey!" Luke protests. "I'm pretty sure you put eighth-grade questions on that test!"

"I didn't put any questions on this test," Mr. Massey says. "Mr. Greene's the one who made it."

"He's the honors algebra teacher for eighth grade!" Luke exclaims. "That's not fair! You cheated! I want a do-over! We should-oi! Parker! No flicking!"

Parker flicked Luke on the nose while Luke was talking. If I tried doing that to someone, they'd probably beat me up and leave me for dead.

"Mr. Massey's just messing with you," Parker says. "Can't you see he's trying not to laugh?"

I sneak a look at Mr. Massey's face and find that he is, indeed, looking like he's about to laugh. Then he does laugh, so I guess it wasn't that he was trying not to laugh but that he was about to laugh.

"Xander," Mr. Massey says. "It looks like you're still on basic math – addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Proper equations seem to be a little bit out of your grasp for the most part, especially as you solve problems in order rather than using the order of operations. We'll start with that. Why don't you boys take a few minutes to stretch your legs, then we'll start with the first lesson?"

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Stretch my legs means stand and stretch, right? I stand and try to remember what the leg stretches are but can't.

"Hey, Xander," Luke says. "My mom said you're the one who made some of the cookies and brownies and cake and muffins that were waiting when I got home on Saturday. Is that true?"

"No."

"You didn't?"

"I only helped," I say. "Ms. Katie made them."

"Oh!" He exclaims. "Well, they're pretty good! The perfect thing for me after I came home from using my magic so heavily for two days! My expectations were getting woken up while carried through the house to the smell of bacon and eggs and other foods but I got woken up to those smells and saw platter upon platter of tasty treats on the counter as well! I was surprised there were so many lemon-flavored ones since I've only met Mr. Caldwell a few times, but he apparently asked my parents what kind of snacks I liked and they told him I like chocolate and lemon-flavored cookies and cakes and bread and Parkerwhyareyoupinchingmyear?"

Whoa. Mr. Caldwell was really serious when he told me that Luke has a tendency to babble. Someone was carrying him through the house? Probably his mom or dad, not Parker.

"You're babbling again," Parker says.

"Oh, right," Luke says. "Sorry, Xander! I was told not to talk a lot around you, but it's hard for me to not. I try really hard but it just happens. Hey, do you want some food? I brought some of the cookies you made so we could snack on them."

I glance over at Mr. Massey.

"It's fine," Mr. Massey says.

Oops. I probably looked over too much. It seems like he's printing something right now. I didn't notice the devices but there are a couple of machines in here that I don't remember seeing the other day.

"O-okay."

Luke plops back down onto a beanbag chair and opens up a backpack I hadn't noticed before. It looks like both he and Parker brought backpacks. From his backpack, Luke pulls out two plastic containers. One has chocolate-chip cookies in it and the other has lemon cookies.

"Have what you want," he tells me. "I've got plenty. Also! I brought milk."

Would it still be good after all this time?

Luke pulls out two bottles of milk that have some sort of weird sleeve on them. It's semi-clear but has a frosty look to them and a slight sparkle, too. Frosty as in actual ice kind of frosty, not the 'frosty' of some glass styles. The bottles themselves look like individual serving size ones instead of bigger ones meant to be poured into cups. After handing me one of them, Luke pulls out another and hands it to Parker.

"Never seen a refrigeration sleeve before?" Luke asks and I realize I was examining it.

I get the feeling that if I weren't an orphan, I'd have experienced something like this before now.

"Um… no?"

"Don't worry," he smiles at me. "It's not something most common folk would ever use. They're somewhat expensive. You put it in the freezer and it'll charge up and store the cold it absorbs, then you slip it onto something it fits onto and keep it cold. These ones are refrigeration sleeves rather than freezer sleeves, so they'll keep it cold as if it were in a refrigerator. You can tell the difference because the freezer sleeves have little snowflakes all along the top and bottom instead of just the big one. The sparkly look is a result of the coldness – as it loses power, the sparkly begins to fade as well."

That's pretty neat.

"They cost about two hundred each," Luke tells me. "But are extremely versatile since many companies actually design their soda cans or bottles to fit in them. Beer cans, too, and even individual-size milk bottles like these."

"Part of that cost is to make sure they're durable," Parker adds. "Since it'd be a complete waste of money if you bought one and then accidentally tore it with your fingernails or by dropping it onto concrete or something."

I'm not sure how I feel about holding something so expensive in my hands. Luke seems to treat it as if the cost is nothing, just carrying around three of them in his backpack for a snack. That doesn't make me feel like they're nothing, though.

But I don't want them to look at me weirder than they already do so I try to enjoy the milk and cookies. Mr. Massey starts the lesson a few minutes later and doesn't tell us to put the food away. Luke and Parker don't put their snacks away, either. Parker has pretzels and baby carrots that he's sharing with us. Me not having snacks to share makes me feel awful even if they aren't saying anything about it. It's not right that I didn't bring any but get to eat some of theirs.

What Mr. Massey starts us off with is order of operations. I probably learned it at some point and then forgot it because of my stupid, worthless brain. Though the fact that I'm not that great with even basic math in the first place probably doesn't help me at all. Despite my stupidity, Mr. Massey acts really patient with me and even helps walk me through the basic math problems when I mess them up.

I really want this to end because it's making my head hurt and I'm just getting more and more frustrated, but I agreed to do this and I don't want Mr. Caldwell getting mad at me for quitting.

When it's time for the class to end, Mr. Massey hands me a packet and two laminated charts. I set them on the clipboard I was given and examine them. Each one is an eleven-by-eleven grid, one having "ADDITION" printed on the top and the other having "MULTIPLICATION" written at the top. The top row and left-hand column are highlighted green, while every box on the grid except the top-left one has numbers in them.

"Xander," Mr. Massey says. "This one here," he points at the one for addition. "If you add a number from the left-hand column to a number from the top column, you'll get the number in their shared box. So if you see the seven here and the four here, and you follow the seven over to where it intersects with the column for four, you'll get eleven. That's seven plus four. If it helps, you can use these."

He hands me a pair of laminated bookmark-like items, each one about ten inches in length and one in width. There's a gap running down the length of each, like a sort of window. The laminate covers that as well, but it's clear so I can see through it.

"You can lay them on the chart like this," he lays one down with its top edge lined up with the bottom of the row for the 7, then the other with its left edge lined up with the right side of the column for 4. "And see where the two connect. As you can see, it meets at the eleven."

This is really cool.

"You can do the same for the multiplication one, too," Mr. Massey tells me. "Try lining them up for the seven and the four on there."

I do so, and the shared box is 28.

"That's because seven times three is twenty-eight," Mr. Massey says. "It's seven four times, or seven plus seven plus seven plus seven. You can use that as a sort of cheat sheet when you do work for now, until you get the basic math down and don't need it anymore."

Then Mr. Massey puts a packet down on top of those. It's three pages, front-and-back.

"This is a practice packet," Mr. Massey tells me. "It contains a lot of problems that require using basic math, but with a few extra steps like you learned today. Order of operations. Don't think you have to get it done today. This is just to help you practice a bit and I won't check it until next Monday, so you have a full week to try and get through it, okay?"

"Y-yes, sir."

"Alright," he says.

"Can I get one?" Luke asks.

"Here," Mr. Massey drops one on Luke's head. "Knock yourself out. Xander, here's one more helpful thing for you."

Mr. Massey hands me a laminated card that shows the order of operations, a note at the top stating to do each part as they appear in the order listed on the card. Another note states that items on the same line are done in the order they appear. Then a note for multiplication and division states that they're done in the order they appear together when it's their turn rather than multiplication first, then division. The same goes for addition and subtraction.

I really am stupid to need something like this to remind me of the rules when I'm going to into the eighth grade and I hate that others know it. But at least I didn't have to ask for it because then I'd feel even worse. Mr. Massey isn't like my other teachers, he knew I had a problem and made some help for me.

"T-thank you."

"Can I get one?" Luke asks.

"If you need one of those," Mr. Massey says. "Then I'll be letting the school know you need to go back several years."

"Nope! Never mind! Not gonna repeat fourth grade!"

"Who knows," Parker grins at him. "Maybe it'd be the first grade."

"I'll first-grade you!" Luke tackles Parker and starts wrestling him.

Scared of that but also a little bit curious about something, I check Luke's mana. He's got more of it than before, and his sparks are a little bit more happy now. Even after more than an hour, though, he's recovered less than a fiftieth of his capacity. I'm pretty sure that's not from a slow rate, though, as it seems like he's recovered significantly more mana than Parker can hold.

By a lot.

Scary.

"That's all for today, boys," Mr. Massey tells us. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Bye, Mr. Massey!" Luke waves at him.

"Bye, Mr. Massey," Parker tells him.

"Bye," I tell him.

Mr. Massey leaves and about two minutes later, Mr. Caldwell enters.

"Xander," he says. "You did mention wanting to learn how to swim, so I talked to the swim instructor from the school. The class begins at nine-thirty, do you want it at the indoor pool or the outdoor one? The room for the indoor one is enchanted so that sound doesn't echo around like it would at a normal indoor pool."

That makes that option much, much better. I'm already going to have to be in swim trunks instead of pants and a long-sleeve and that will make me feel naked. The echoing is always too loud, though, even if I don't go into the pool. Being outside would make me feel extra naked like that because of all of the open space so I'd rather be inside. Without the echo, that would be better.

"Inside."

"Alright," Mr. Caldwell says. "You can show Luke and Parker the pool, and you can leave the worksheet in here or take it up to your room if you want."

"Okay."

Mr. Caldwell leaves, and I decide to put my worksheet and help sheets and card up in the office in the room I'm using. Since there are other boys here and I'm supposed to be hanging out with them, that means I'm supposed to invite them up to see the room I'm staying in, right? I don't remember the right protocol here! Now I can't remember if I ever learned it!

"Hey! Can we see your room?" Luke asks.

That answers that question. Before I started crying, too. At least it's delayed Luke saying he hates me and beating me and then saying he won't help me learn anymore.

"I'm staying upstairs," I say.

Luke and Parker follow me up to the room and Luke lets out a 'whoa' when he sees it. Why is he impressed? His bedroom should be fancier, isn't Gatewood Energy even richer than Mr. Caldwell? I looked them up after Mr. Caldwell told me about them and found that they don't just own magitech power plants, they also manufacture and sell magitech backup generators. Their family is a well-established titan in the energy market, second only to the energy company within the Lumaria Group.

"Oh, my goodness! That bear is so cute!" Luke squeals and starts to dash forward.

"Don't grab it!" Parker grabs Luke and pulls him back. "You've gotta ask first."

"Sorry!" Luke exclaims, then looks at me. "Can I hold the bear? I wanna feel his fur!"

I don't want him to hold Trenton, who's currently sitting the my bed (which is properly made) in front of the pillows. At the same time, telling people 'no' gets me into trouble. How do I get out of this?

"You don't really have much in here, do you?" Luke looks around. "I was expecting, like, a lot of toys and posters set up on the walls! I have a lot of posters on my walls, mostly posters of the MCs of some of the anime I watch. Do you have anything hidden under your bed? Aw. You don't. That's where I hide stuff I don't want my parents seeing."

Looks like the problem solved itself. I put the homework and help cards down in the desk, then return to the bedroom part of the quarters and find Luke examining the closet. Parker looks at me and sighs.

"Sorry about him," he says. "Luke's a bit off in the head."

"Oi!" Luke exclaims. "Am not! How come you have so few clothes? Parker and I went shopping the other day and I bought, like, fifty new outfits."

"Twenty-three," Parker says. "And only because you couldn't find anymore clothes that you liked. Stop running around, Luke, and we've got to get down to the pool. Can you show us where it is, Xander?"

I nod, then lead them out of the room and down to the indoor pool. Mr. Caldwell is in there, along with Roderick and a man in his late thirties who's wearing a pair of grey board shorts and a whistle around his neck and that's it. Now I'm really scared and find myself moving behind Luke a little for some reason. Probably to hide myself.

This was a bad idea. I'm really scared of this man. I didn't think this through at all and I don't want to be here. I don't want to be here at all. Not only will I have to be exposed in front of an adult, but an adult's exposed here! He's gonna hurt me. He's gonna beat me. He's gonna make me take off my trunks and do other stuff to me and it's gonna be awful and I want to run but my body won't move! Breathing starts getting difficult for me as memories of what my old foster family did start coming back and I think I'm going to cry and it's awful and I-

"Xander," Roderick steps in front of me and shows me his gun, including that it's loaded and the safety is off and there's a bullet in the chamber. "Look in my eyes. If he does any thing inappropriate to you, I will shoot him. Okay?"

Roderick is telling the truth. That… makes me a little bit more comfortable. Still really scared, but I don't want to run away anymore. I don't want to be too close to the swim man, though.

"Xander," Mr. Caldwell calls over and Roderick steps out of the way. "This is Coach Evan, he's the athletics teacher at the middle school that Luke and Parker attend. He's agreed to help you learn how to swim. I've put swim clothes in a locker for you, that's the door to the locker room. Parker, Luke, you can change in there as well. Remember to shower before coming out."

We go to the locker rooms – I did remember their location – and shower and change. Lucas pulls off his sneakers and socks first, then his shirt, and I find that he's wearing some sort of skintight shirt underneath. Or… outfit? I'm so confused by it that I'm still staring at it when he pulls down his shorts and it apparently covers his upper legs and crotch as well. It looks like it's all one piece and it's made of some sort of metallic yellow material.

"You're confused by this, right?" Luke asks, and I nod. "It's made from a special fiber blend that's naturally-resistant to lightning and lightning magics, then treated with a special alchemical solution to make it even more resistant. That treatment is actually what gives it the metallic look. I wear the leotard in case I have to use certain lightning magics while I'm wearing clothes that aren't resilient to it – so that I don't end up naked when my clothes are destroyed. Do you remember the weird glow and sparks on me in the pictures from the rescue efforts? That's a special lightning spell that charges my body full of it. It would destroy normal clothes, but the outfit I was wearing then was made of a similar material to this, so it was fine."

"Oh."

That's really cool. I wouldn't have ever thought about something like that in his shoes. Having a second outfit on as a backup, I mean. How does he take it-oh, there's a zipper on the back.

Luke changes into a pair of blue shorts with yellow lightning bolts on them (he does take off the leotard), Parker changes into a pair of brown shorts with some grey rock-like patterns on them, and Mr. Caldwell left two outfit choices for me in the locker that has my name on it. One of them is a pair of dark green shorts with a light green pattern toward the bottoms of the legs, and the other is… a dark green unitard (I called it a leotard but Luke says the longer arms and legs means it's a unitard).

I almost put that one on, but then realize that Luke and Parker will probably make fun of me for it and I don't like getting teased. There's already enough taunts about me being a fake King and while these two obviously don't know my last name yet, I want less things for them to make fun of. Better to be made fun of for being skinny than shy even if I really hate not having my body completely covered like normal.

So I wear the shorts. It's hard for me to breathe, but I do my best.

Once we're ready, we go out to the pool. I don't know how I'm supposed to learn to swim when I can't even brave getting within a few feet of the edge of the pool.

"Xander," Coach Evan says, standing about fifteen feet away. "You don't have to get into the water today. We can start with small steps, just getting close to the edge over by the shallow end."

"Wait, hold on," Luke says. "Xander, I want to do something fun real quick! You look really tense and it's probably better if you relax. I know you're really shy and stuff – Mr. Caldwell told me you'd probably wear the unitard swim suit – and are being really brave. But it's clear that you're past your comfort boundaries. So if you're okay with it, then can you close your eyes and let me spin you around? Then I'll take you to the end of the pool so that you don't have to see how close you are. You could be five feet away or five inches or somewhere in between or outside of that range. We can stand like that for a minute with you not knowing how close to the edge of it you are and when you open your eyes, you can see that you're a little bit closer than you're normally okay with!"

I don't see how this is fun but Luke seems like he really wants to help, so I agree. Too scared and stressed… I didn't think it all the way through and jump when Luke touches me to spin me around. But I agreed to this and I don't like going back on my agreements, so I close my eyes again and let Luke spin me around.

He leads me to the end of the pool and turns me, then brings me to the side. He even spun me again at the corner. This is too scary. What if he's really going to push me into the pool? I shouldn't have agreed to this. No, no, no, no, no!

Luke has me stop walking and turn, then waits for a few minutes. I keep my eyes closed but the panic is still here as much as I don't want it to be. What if we're at the very edge of the pool? But Luke seemed like he really wanted to help me so he's probably got me a couple of feet back.

"Xander?" Luke asks.

"Y-yeah?"

"You're doing really good," he says. "Move your left foot forward just a tiny bit, okay?"

I do as he says and quickly find my toes not being on the ground anymore. I really am at the edge of the pool.

"You're right at the edge," Luke tells me as I feel my breathing get more difficult again. "It's okay, Xander. Can you take a really long deep breath and hold it? It might help you calm down a little."

It always does when Mr. Caldwell asks me to take deep breaths when I wake him up with my nightmares, so I give this a try. Maybe it'll work and I won't be such a scared baby anymore.

As soon as I start holding my breath… someone grabs me from behind, covering my mouth and pinching my nose at the same time while pinning my arms to my sides. Then I find us shoved forward and into the water. I try to panic and flail but whoever is holding me has my arms pinned tight and I'm not strong enough to break free. I also can't breathe because they're keeping my mouth and nose shut.

Then my head is above the water again and they're still holding me, but not pinching my nose shut anymore. My eyes are open and I can see Parker, Coach Evan, and Roderick running along the sides of the pool toward us but I can't see Luke. It's Luke. He's the one who did this. They're saying something but all I can think about is that I'm going to die. This is it! I'm going to drown!

Why won't he let me go? I can't scream! Let me go! I'm gonna drown! Let me go! Stop! I want out!

Eventually, even my panic wears out. As it does, I realize that Luke is murmuring 'deep breaths' over and over. That does seem to help me calm down, so I give it a try and the panic wears out even faster.

"I uncover your mouth, you're not going to scream, right?" Luke asks once my body kind-of relaxes. "You won't try to break free if I loosen my grip?"

I shake my head, scared. I can't swim. If he stops holding me I'm going to drown, aren't I?

"Alright," Luke says. "Going to readjust my grip on you, okay? You might dip down a little, but you're not going to drown. I've got you."

Luke lets go of my mouth and my head does dip into the water a little as he adjusts his grip on me. I start to panic but Luke quickly pulls me back up.

"There we go," he says. "Treading water was really hard like that. I'm gonna pull us over to the shallow end."

Luke shifts our positions so that we're leaning back with me on top of him, and he starts doing some weird kick thing with his feet to turn us around, then swim us over to the shallow end. Once we're there, he keeps hold of me until my feet are firmly planted on the floor of the pool.

"There we go," Luke says as he lets go of me and moves around so that he's a few feet in front of me. "Sorry for scaring you, Xander, but Coach Evan's suggested plan for getting you used to the water was really boring and might take all summer. He wanted to start with having you get as close as you were comfortable, then closing your eyes and taking a step forward. Do that until you're able to get that much closer to the pool with your eyes open. Slowly work your way up to the edge. But that way could take all summer to get you in the water and I thought maybe if you went straight in and got to see you weren't drowning, you'd be cool! I'd heard that for people with drowning fears, diving straight in can help deal with it. Really sorry for scaring you, Xander. But don't worry! In preparation for this, I asked Trey what kind of foods you like and brought you two cheesecakes as an apology! They're waiting for you in the kitchen. I asked Parker's parents to make them. My dad's good at some things but he's not good at custards and cheesecake is basically a custard. Well, so I guess that means Parker brought them, not me, but I arranged them as an apology. I understand if you don't want me here anymore, but I hope you understand why I did it. Look! You're in the water!"

It's only when Luke points it out that it hits me. I'm in the water and I'm not drowning. I'm still scared, but he must have really wore my panic out because now it's just me being scared. That was still really mean of him, but I was looking in his eyes as he spoke to try and spot even the slightest lie and… it was all truth. Luke really did want to help me, even if it was in a really mean and terrifying way.

He also seems… scared. Roderick probably won't shoot him, though, so why would he be scared?