Enlightened A Light Tamer Novel (The Light Tamer) (5 page)

“Dude, slow down.  You’re giving me indigestion just looking at you. 
Food should be savored, not swallowed whole,” Shawn said.
  “My mama would
swat
your hand.”

“Good thing your mama isn’t here then, huh?” 
Thorne shot back.  “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. 
At my old school
,
you had only fifteen minutes for the entire lunch.  You learn to eat fast.  Plus their food was gross, not worth savoring.”

“What school was that?”  Amber
asked
curiously.  If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought her eyes turned to slits like a cat.

“Just a
school in a different lifetime,” Thorne replied
demurely
. 

Shawn and I watched Amber as she
sits
stunned that he didn’t answer her. 
Caleb, obviously amused with Amber’s lack of comeback
,
happily ate his salad.  We chatted quietly about nothing in particular and Thorne finished his mac-n-cheese and ignored our chatter.  I watched in amazement as he pulled out a copy of
The
Lightning
Thief
and started reading.

“Thorne, I don’t mean to bother you while you’re engrossed in your children’s book, but I have to
,” Amber says sugary sweet.
 
“
Listen, there were things that happened this summer and for whatever reason I got stuck with these two.”  She pointed at Caleb and
me
accusingly.  “I have a reputation to uphold, and you my dear are my solution.”

His right eyebrow lifted
,
and
his face broke out in a grin.  “That sounds mildly interesting.”

“Mildly
interesting
?  I’ll show you
mildly
interesting
.  I’m sorry, but this has to be done,” she
stands
up abruptly
and walks
over to where he
is sitting
.  He
stayed
silent, probably curious about the crazy girl with the wild hair
.
  She pushed
the table
out of her way. 
He was sitting with his legs stretched out
,
and feet crossed at his ankles.
 
If I didn’t watch her
with my own eyes, I’d never
believe
she
is
so
bold.
 
She put one leg over his lap and both hands over his shoulders as she straddled him.  Without warning, she lean
s
forward and
kissed
him.  The book
falls
silently to the floor as he put
s
both hands on her waist.  People in the lunchroom started to take notice of our table and cat calls began to be chanted
.  I scoot
closer to Caleb, he put his arm over my shoulder and
nudges
his chair until we
are
hip to hip.  Shawn’s
mouth falls
open
,
and
I’m pretty sure she
isn’t
breathing.

Thorne was
incontestably not
o
bjecting to Amber.
  As uncomfortable it’s
making me, I
can’t quit
watching.
 

Caleb whisper
s
in my ear that Major Yukmouth
is
on her way.

“Yukmouth?”

“She retired from the Air Force as a Major, and her
last
name is Yukkamoth
.
She is
disgruntled from not being a real police officer.
”

A teacher
wearing
smart
shoes and a perfectly starched white shirt and khaki pants
marched over
(literally)
and cleared her voice loudly
,
causing the two to come up for air.  “That is unacceptable behavior, both of you should be ashamed of yourselves.  The two of you practically having sex on the lunchroom floor is
the
reason
for detention.  I’ll meet you both here after school to scrub all of the tables and chairs.”  Her finger
is
waggling
so hard that her cheeks jiggle
.
 
As she walks
away, she yell
s out
for us to
mind
our
own business or everyone
will
be here after school.
 
As
though
a giant mute button was pushed,
silence filled the room
.

“How was THAT for
mildly
interesting
?”
Amber
asks as she wipes
her mouth with the back of her hand.

“I don’t know
,
can I get an instant replay?”  He replied coolly.
 
Without missing a beat, he picked
up his book and start
ed
reading again.

Shawn and I
struggle to
contain
our
laughter.  We laugh
until tears
are
streaming down our faces. 
Every table that was within eyewitness
shot
was laughing hysterically. 
What a way to start our first day of school.  Between our early morning meeting in
Miss
Wards office to Amber randomly kissing a stranger.  Grandma Gayle is going to die when I tell her about today.

My next class The Arts
is
broken up in different segments throughout the school year.  It starts with art history for a week
,
and then
it
goes into sketching. 
Several girls asked me about Caleb and what it was like to live in New York.  One
girl
tried her best to sound like a New Yorker but failed miserably.  I took public speech classes since the ninth grade to learn how to hide my accent.  I thought it worked
,
but realized it couldn’t hide the fact I don’t have a southern hitch. 
Maybe
,
this won’t be so bad.
 
It’d be so much better if fourth period would get here already.
  I’m the only dork on earth that wishes
Historiography
class would hurry up and arrive.  I bet girls are hitting on Caleb.  I wouldn’t put it past that Carmen girl to try
to
break us up.  She’s crafty that way.  I have a sixth sense about stuff like that. Is the bell ever going to ring?  I wonder where the bathrooms are. 
The more I thought about the bathroom, the more I fidgeted.  I wiggled until my bladder screamed at me that we needed to go and when it says
go
it means it.
  My hand shot up into the air.

“
Miss
Lucente
, can I help you with something?”  The copper-hair teacher asked.  She wore a copper colored
nametag
that matched her hair perfectly.

“May I go to the restroom?”  In that moment, I realized, no one has asked
to go the bathrooms
all day.

“Let me find out if I can get an escort for you, it’s
about
time for the bell to ring.  You can’t wait another fifteen minutes?”

I turned 77 shades of red.  “Eh, hem, no ma’am, I need to go now.” 

“Of course you do. 
Jasmine will you escort
Miss
Lucente
to the bathroom.”  I turned quickly to my left to see who she is talking to and almost peed myself when I saw her.  Beautiful long black hair,
big
brown eyes
,
and skin so bronze that she’d mak
e a perfect suntan lotion
model.  She is also the ex-gir
lfriend to Clark, the guy that was bonded to her, but I fell and he caught me, breaking their bond.
 
By the look on her face, she
is
none too happy about
taking me to the bathroom
.

Why in the hell does my life have to suck today? 
Great, now I’ll have to worry about her beating the crap out of me in the bathroom.
  I know a few Puerto Rican
girls from Harlem that put the f in fear.

Jasmine turns to me.  “Someone told me that you and Caleb are
re-bound
together.  How did you do it?”  She flips her long hair over her shoulder.  “I have to get Clark back.  He and I were perfect together, until
you
and that weird Underworld guy
ruined it.  He’ll be 18 soon, and instead of trying to bond to me, he is out making out with every hoochie
he can find.”

I
know the pain she is in.  It’s
just like when Caleb and I kissed and I felt the pain of us being
unbound
.  “I honestly don’t know how we reconnected.  Have you tried to kiss him?”  I followed her as we walked to the other end of the hall.
  “Fairy
tales say that true love’s kiss will break any spell.  Have you tried that?”

Jasmine stops
and pushes me into a locker pinning my back to it
.  I feel the lock embedded in my back.  “You’re freakin’ kidding me
,
right
?  This isn’t
an
F N fairy
tale
,
you idiot.  We’re
Light Tamers
, you
know…the
good
guys.  I’m in jeopardy of
losing
everything I’ve ever trained for and you’re over here saying stupid things like
true love’s kiss. 
I knew better than to ask you.  You’re no better than anyone else in this school.  I don’t know why they’re making such a
big
deal out of you.
  Freakin’
faerie-ass
.
”  She
is
so close that we
are
boob to boob. 
Awkward.
  She abruptly stepped back and pointed to a light blue door that
says
GIRLS.  “Go…remember, you had to pee so
bad
you were doing the pee pee dance in your seat.”

She has some nerve
, ‘fairy-ass’, what the hell?
  So much for the sweet girl I thought she was. 
I didn’t bother replying to her outburst and straightened my shirt as I walked into the bathroom.    My hands
tremble
so
hard
, I barely get the toilet paper off of the roll. 
Don’t cry, don’t cry.  No tears, please don’t cry.
The mirror th
reatened to betray me as I look
in
it.  “Shit, is that the bell?
”  I
turn and run
out t
he door, bumping into a girl
who
was coming
in.

Thankfully,
Jasmine was nowhere to be seen. 
She probably left as soon as I walked into the bathroom.  I
wonder if
Caleb
will
ditch
Historiography
. 
Like magic I look up and Caleb is standing
in front of me
with my backpack.

By the
look of concern on his face, he knows something is wrong.  “Jess, are you okay?”  He pulls me to him and wraps his arms around me. 
It is m
oments like these, the world stops spinning on its axis and begins revolving around us. 

I shake my head up and down.  “I’m okay, especially now.  What are the chances that we can ditch
our next class
?”

“Hmmm, since I’ve never heard of anyone ditching this school, I’m guessing we can’t.  Come on, at least we have it together. 
Do you want to go to the library after school?  Amber said she’d meet us there after she is finished with detention,” Caleb asked. 
We walked around the corner and down the math hall. 

“Yeah, that sounds good.  I have to be home by 5:30 for dinner. 
Good
gawd
, t
his class is huge.”
  We crossed the room and took the two back chairs farthest from the door.
  I pull
out
a
paper and a pen out of my backpack.  I watch as the now familiar hooded figure walks into class. 
I wonder why he keeps that hoodie on. 
Amber said it felt like he is in
terrific
shape, but she didn’t get enough time to explore completely.
 
Oh, I did NOT just think that!