Work of Day Two

            The second entry from my work today, I plan to work a little more tonight, but this is what I have thus-far. Hope you like it.

            Gabe couldn’t concentrate the rest of the day, even in math class, something he enjoyed. The prospect of seeing Melody the next day had a drug-like effect on his mind as he was flooded with the possibilities for the next evening. While his teacher described functions and parabolas he was busy laying out how he wanted the date to be.

            Would he walk down his steps in a sharp sports-coat and ask her what she thought so he could be wearing something at least as nice as she probably would be? Oh, no, that was way to self-centered, this wasn’t about him, it was all about her. He’d bring her a gift, but what? Some chocolates maybe, flowers, they were typical choices, but he knew she would love them all the same. She would probably be worn-out and tired, through, it was a long flight.

            Right about as school was ending he decided he would ware one of his softest tee-shirts and just give her the biggest hug when she arrived. After that he would see if she could come over to his house to watch her favorite movie and have some hot-chocolate with ice-cream. If she wanted to do more – his heart fluttered at the prospect – it would be left entirely up to her. She might be too worn out for kissing and such, though it would be nice . . .

            When the last bell of the day rang a general sigh of relief permeated the student body. Another Monday was over and survived with minimal damage. As the various students moved to the double doors to leave they would surge with new energy, and those who were falling asleep at their desks were now full of energy for videogames or basketball in the park.

            Gabe joined up with Kyle as he was crossing the street. They pulled off their ties and loosened there collars, just a few exchanged words and they had agreed to go to Kyle’s house. This was a usual practice after school. Kyle’s mother welcomed Gabe into the house with open arms and her overwhelming personality.

            “Oh, it’s so good to see my boys, we missed you over spring break, Gabe. Where’d you go?” After being released from her powerful bear-hug, the two boys situated themselves at the kitchen table. Gabe reached across the checkered tablecloth and plucked an apple from the fruit bowl.

            “We didn’t do much; drove to Chicago to see my aunt and uncle, hung out with my cousins, just a family get together.” He buffed the fruit on his sleeve and took a bite.

            “Were these the older cousins or the annoying ones?” Kyle asked, un-tucking his shirt and leaning back in his chair.

            “The annoying ones; they’ve just gotten Guitar Hero 3 and they’re crazy about it. The eleven-year-old’s fine, he just likes to play it too much. But Mark, the thirteen-year-old, insists on us playing against each other and he’s already playing master or whatever. I always end up creamed.” Kyle started to chuckle at Gabe’s sour expression, “This kid is insane, and he has to rub it in even though it’s obvious he’s got me beat.”

            “How’s the littlest one?” Mrs. Adam asked filling three glasses with ice-tea. “She’s fine; she’s gone crazy about Harry Potter so we were reading that together. I was watching the movies again this morning, only got a little ways into the first one.”

            “She’s only nine, right?” Kyle asked taking one of the glasses his mother had put on the table for them.

            “Same age I was when I discovered HP.” Gabe took the other glass on the table and drank half of in a few gulps. “No one makes tea like you do, Mrs. Adam.” She laughed, her massive bosom trembling, “Sure they do, hun, you’ve just never gone that far south.”

            Mrs. Adam took her glass into the laundry room, patting her son’s head as she passed him. Gabe took another bite of his apple and frowned, “it just don’t taste as good after something that sweet.” He glanced over at the slow secret grin spreading across Kyle’s face.

            “I just thought of something.” Kyle said, giving Gabe a wide grin.

            “What?” he asked unsuspectingly, taking a sip of tea.

            “Professor McGonagall and Madam Hooch.”

            Gabe thought about this for a second until he realized what Kyle had been implying by the statement. Then his eyes bulged, “Oh-mah-god, Kyle, no no!” He was coughing and sputtering his tea at that point. Kyle leaned back in his chair laughing uproariously at his friend’s reaction. “If you’re going to be doing that sort of thing choose someone like Herminie and Ginny, but – jease, Kyle, I’m never going to look at them the same way again.”

            “If Mel-Mel and Kristin can have their Snape and Lupin yaoi, I figured I could live a little too.” Kyle joked.

            “That’s even worse! I can forgive them for Ichigo and Rinji, but that Snupin, Lape – whatever they call it – ruined the third book for me!” Kyle was about to fall out of his chair and even Gabe was starting to chuckle around his words, “I mean, every time Snape would say something to Lupin it just reeked of innuendos.”

            “What is it you boys are laughing about?” Kyle’s mother walked through the kitchen with a pile of folded laundry in her arms. As she disappeared into the living room Gabe shouted after her something he only would have told Kyle’s mother.

            “You son’s having fantasies about old ladies having lesbian sex.” The two boys buried their faces into their hands, smothering their own laughter as they heard Mrs. Adam call, “What’s this about old lady sex?”

            “Nothing,” Kyle called, his dark cheeks taking on a purple tint. His mother strode in and leaned against the kitchen table with a hand on her hip. “Well, old people do it too, if they didn’t retirement wouldn’t be near as fun.” She grinned maliciously, the boys’ jaws dropped and neither of them knew whether to laugh or just sit their stunned. Mrs. Adam went back to work, her laughter heard all through the house. The boys leaned back in their chairs. Gabe was the first to speak.

            “You know what’s really creepy?” He asked, grinning. “Snarry.”

            “Snar-? Oooh!” Kyle buried his face in his hands, “Now that’s just sick, man, I mean, Snape’s like thirty years older than him and what-junk!” The two were cackling again, “That’s so wrong right there, Gabe, that’s just sick!”

            “I know, Kyle, I know . . .”

            Gabe took the seven o’clock train home after spending the rest of the afternoon with Kyle. Luckily their homework load was minimal and they were able to enjoy a few rounds on Mario Cart and even a game of basketball in Kyle’s driveway before his father had arrived home from work and reminded Gabe of the time.

            He was riding alone again, but that didn’t bother him. As the train went over the bridge Gabe could see streetlamps coming on, lighting the maze of streets along the docks, and the barges turning on their lights as they continued to roll in and out beneath the cranes. When he came to his stop it was less crowded then it would have been a few hours earlier, but there were still a decent number of people waiting to get on the subway home. He slipped through the crowd at the ticket gate and took the long escalader to the street.

            The streets were brightly lit and clean, and all the shops on either side were run by kind or at least safe people. Walking several blocks didn’t seem much of a danger for Gabe, though others seem to worry about a seventeen-year-old in the city at night. In his part of town he was safe. Not like what it would have been at the docks. He had always been curious about going into that part of town when he took the subway across the river, but he had heard enough horror stories to respect his parent’s wishes that he stay away from that side of the water.

            Arriving at his nice apartment complex, Gabe darted in a jogged up the seven flights of stairs to his apartment. It was open and his father was already home washing dishes from the night before. It was something he considered therapeutic after work. He dumped his rucksack and his shoes in the hall closet before coming into the kitchen.

            “Hay Dad,”

            “Hi Gabe, have a good day at school?”

            “Okay, I guess; typical Monday.”

            “I had one of those,” his father laughed softly. They continued talking about the bare necessities; ‘have you done your homework’, ‘what would you like for dinner,’ and other basic items of interest. Afterwards Gabe took a glass of juice and disappeared into his room. He checked his email and Facebook, nothing from Melody yet. He leaned back in his computer chair and turned himself with his foot, he didn’t have much of anything to do. After a while he brought up Harry Potter on his iTunes and watched the movie from where he’d left off.

            About half an hour later he sat down to dinner with his father. They ate, chatting lightly about nothing in particular. Gabe cleared table, they started the dishwasher and the evening was technically over. Gabe returned to his computer and continued the movie. Right about ten his mother came home from work. He paused the movie as he heard her knock on his door.

            “Hi Mom,”

            She walked in and wrapped her arms around his shoulders where he sat. She rested her chin on his head and looked at the computer and the frozen image of Ron Weasley sitting on a white chess piece.

            “You enjoying yourself?” She asked. Gabe could hear that she was tired, but she still had that inexhaustible cheerfulness in her voice. “Yep,” he nodded slowly so her head could move with his. They laughed softly together and he bent his head back to look up at her. She kissed his forehead and reminded him to get to bed soon. He smiled warmly at her and she returned it as she walked out of his room.

            “Goodnight Gabriel,” His mother was the only one that called him by his full name, and she was the only one he didn’t mind it from.

            “Goodnight Mom.”

Work of Day One

             This is my work for NaNoWriMo, these entries are up to date and pretty much in their original, unedited state. You're welcome to leave comments about what you think will improve the sections, but I won't be answering them until after November. Thanks.

Prologue

            “How sad, it is, when youths such as these are unbefitting there post. It is ever sad.”

            “Why sad? Who are unfit?”

            “You know the ones. Ever so sad, they were both so young and promising, each with their own strength that could have been so beneficial for us all, but now . . .”

            “What’s wrong with them? They are a wonderful pair of –“

            “No, not a wonderful pair. You need to understand that the strength of an individual Cydarien must grow when connected to their rightful match. It was not so for these two; they were a flawed match.”

            “How are you sure?”

            “My friend, you are still too young to understand the delicacies of a Cydarien pairing; it is something delicately handled, not something left up to happenstance. This matching was false.”

            “What are you saying . . . ?”

            “They are a defected pair.”

Chapter One

            “It’s the wand that chooses the wizard, Harry. It’s not always clear why –” The rest of John Hurt’s worlds were lost as the subway came roaring down the tunnel and came to a screeching halt in the station. Gabriel Nelson pulled his ear-buds out and wrapped them around his iPod once he paused the movie. Moving around the human herd lumbered off the subway, the lanky boy slipped into one of the now empty subway cars. No one would be taking the ride from the city center to the suburbs at seven in the morning. He knew he would be one of the only ones. He dropped his rucksack in the seat next to him and leaned his head against the window.

The subway rumbled and roared through long stretches of black tunnels coming to another stop. Gabe looked over his shoulder across the track. There was a crowd waiting for the train going in the other direction, but on his side the platform was empty. He leaned back and closed his eyes as the subway pulled out of the little station. It disappeared back into one of the tunnels, plunging Gabe back into the cocoon of noise. Then he heard it open; a subway’s sound has a specific closeness when in the tunnels, but in the open air, that sound is swept away by the wind not bounced back by concrete walls.

When Gabe heard this change he opened his eyes and smiled at the view outside the subway windows. The sun was rising at his back and shedding its warm dawn light over the river and the town. It wasn’t a town of little white houses and neat gardens, but of warehoused and ship docks. The cranes that laded the ships towered over the squat brick warehouses, already active in the early morning, they stretched on for miles along the broad river, standing life the skeletons of some prehistoric creatures in the slowly lifting fog. Even over the sounds of the subway train Gabe could hear the low bellow of a barge horn as it slid slowly under the suspended train tracks.

The train swept past the river and ran over the tops of streets and buildings. The scenery began to change from warehouses to office buildings, and then to shops and apartment complexes. They all bore a similar dankness and ruddiness as if they had all had the same mix of dirt and ash smeared over their walls. The vividly colored graffiti was the only things that was bright and fresh. This morning, though, the golden sunlight flushed new color into the pallid facades and made the dirty and dark windows glow. The view was lost when the train was enveloped by another tunnel. It came into another station, this one closed in by rough brick walls, but an open ceiling criss-crossed with bare I beams and wire. The platform was almost empty save for a wizened old woman with her head bowed and her back bent with the weight of the bags in her hands. When the subway stopped she shuffled into one of the cars.

They were soon underway again. Dark tunnels of concrete and graffiti adorned complexes began to give way to hedges and suburbs. The next stop was as empty as the last save for a girl about Gabe’s age. She stepped into his car and sat across from him with her legs crossed. She wore a headscarf and a skirt down to her ankles, and though it was spring and already starting to get warm, her blouse sleeves reached her thin wrists. He gave her a smile hello, and a nod. She gave the same back, if much more shyly. He could tell from the blue-plaid of her skirt and the crest on the sweater in her lap that she was from one of the other private schools, but he didn’t mind. Unlike many of the other members of his school he wasn’t as fiercely competitive against the other two in the area. It just wasn’t his nature.

Arriving at their stop, Gabe and the girl got off the subway and walked out of the station. When they arrived at the street they walked in separate directions. While walking he paused at a street corner to tuck his shirt in to his khakis before he crossed the street and went in the front gate.

Saint Blasius School for Boys actually wasn’t a religious school despite its name. Its school colors were red and white, and it’s crest bore two crossed candles, and there was no way of mistaking it because the school was always smothered with team regalia. The parallel all-girls school was Saint Catherine’s. Normally Gabe would have walked across the grounds of St. Blasius to the back fence which faced the back of St. Catherine, but with Melody still away, there was no point. Instead he took out his cell phone and texted her.

Morning Melody,

Hope u slept well,

Luv u,

-Gabe

With a smile he walked up the front stoop past some other boys waiting for the doors to open. He took a tie out of his rucksack and tied it in front of his reflection in the double-door’s glass panes.

“Man, you ever come dressed right?” one of his friends came up behind him. Kyle was a big, rough-voiced New Yorker who had moved into the area the year before. He looked like the usual image of a black thug, but Gabe had learned the first day of school that year that he was the sweetest most considerate guy in St. Blasius. “Here, let me help you with that.” He took Gabe’s tie and straitened it neatly against his neck. Gabe smiled and the two walked in together as the bell rang.

The school day went by with the usual sluggishness of a Monday. Just because it was an expensive private school didn’t mean its student’s felt that much different than any place else. Gabe found that even these rich uppity kids still did the little silly things some of the public school kids did. To his dismay one of those things landed right in front of his as he was about to fall asleep and slip out of his hand, the one thing keeping his head up.

“Folding paper airplanes, Mr. Nelson?” His English teacher asked threateningly as she plucked the offending object from in front of him. He looked up surprise, but she didn’t wait for a response so he didn’t offer one. He glared down the line of desks when he heard some snickering, but when one of the boys mouthed an apology he waved it away.

The next class was even less eventful. Gabe sat staring out the window at the Victorian spires of St. Catherine. He missed her so much. The image of the gentle smile floated back to him and he imagined her in California on the beach with her family. She would probably have started to tan by now. Gabe imagined her with her rich dark hair hanging around her shoulders, her dark eyes glittering as she grinned. What kind of bathing suit would she be wearing? His mind dressed her in a frilly yellow one-piece; it was something she would have liked. He then considered one more sexy and found himself in his mind’s eye standing behind her as she tied the neck of a sky-blue string bikini and his heart fluttered as he imagined seeing her bare shoulders in the light of a sunset over the water.

“Will you grace us with your presence this morning, Mr. Nelson.” Gabe turned abruptly back to his teacher, blushing as though he could read his thoughts. “That’s better,” his Physics teacher smiled going back to what he was writing on the board. Being a favored student had kept Gabe on the good side of most of his teachers, to his good fortune. But even as he stared at the board and listened to Mr. Collin’s explanation of electromagnetic waves, his mind was on the beach kissing Melody’s neck and holding those perfect shoulders.

“Wake up, Gabe, where’ve you been?” Kyle asked as they gathered their lunch.

“Physics class, same as you.”Gabe grinned as he plucked up a plate of chicken breast.

“No, man, I’m talking about where you’re head’s been.”

“Guess what’s happening tomorrow.” He said excitedly, completely ignoring Kyle’s statement. The guy gave a sigh befitting his large stature, “I don’t know,” Kyle said sarcastically as if he hadn’t already heard Gabe tell him every day for the last two weeks, “You’re getting a puppy?” He had run out of inventive statements last Thursday.

“Mel-Mel’s coming home!” Gabe said it with such a wide and cheerful grin that Kyle couldn’t help but smile with him.

“Alright, lover-boy, let’s see if we can find a place to eat.”

“Oh, come now,” Gabe put on something like a mock-Shakespearian air, “How can thou think of food over the thought of our love returning to us?”

“Your love, Gabe, not mine.” Kyle sat at one of the cafeteria tables, “My girl’s at collage; I’m not going to get to see her till the weekend.”

“If I’m lucky I’ll get to see her after school tomorrow!” Gabe said excitedly sitting across from his friend. Kyle laughed softly to himself, shaking his head as he began to poke at his green beans. He chose to describe himself with two words; “Is ignored.”