Infinite Time: Time Travel Adventure (2 page)

I feel like the person that creates my school schedule is invisibly spying on me, dragging me to the worst classes then giving me a little bit of hope with others, making me not want to completely skip school forever.

Most of my day sucks. First is algebra with Douglas, and he likes to rub it in my nose how much better at it he is. I know I could be the top of the class, but why bother? I let Douglas have that. Next, English is with a group of giggling cheerleaders who make it nearly impossible to hear the teacher’s lecture. Kimi’s in that class as well. Comparing our sketches is the only thing that keeps me awake. After that is biology with the football team, yippee frigging yay.

Finally, I have the jewel of the day: history, the best hour of my day. I’ve always liked history and learning about the way in which the world was molded and normal by one crazy person’s idea, and how if you changed just one thing the outcome could be very different.

But the real reason I like history is because Clara’s in my class. The only thing that makes it less than perfect is the fact that Travis has that class, too.

Clara sits in front of me. The golden strands of her hair neatly rest on the back of the seat. Travis sits behind me, which means I can pretend to be listening in class, but actually stare at the back of Clara, and Travis can’t do anything about it.

That’s exactly what I’m doing when I feel something hit the back of my head. Travis’s favorite game is tossing spitballs in my hair.

“Jesus Travis, grow up,” I say.

I use my sweater sleeve and wipe the spit off my head, only to be greeted with the muffled laughter behind me. Travis and his friends are laughing at me.

Great. Just what I wanted to do today, a big joke for Travis and his friends.

Kimi doesn’t laugh with everyone else. She stares at Travis like she’s ready to leap from her chair and attack him. She doesn’t stand for his crap, which makes her a bigger target for his taunts. Kimi doesn’t help herself; she wears the weirdest clothes, as if she’s still stuck deciding between her Japanese subcultures look and US style. Today she’s wearing heavy black boots with a raised platform, a tartan mini skirt, and a sports sweatshirt on top. She is unique. But after two years of her living here, one really would think she would have worked it out.

“Travis, if you and your friends would like to pay attention, even you might find this next bit interesting,” Mr. Conrad, the teacher, calls from the front of the room. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, just as I do when I’m frustrated or bored.

The laughter quiets down, but doesn’t disappear completely.

Mr. Conrad waits next to his desk and slowly, very slowly, the class finally quiets down. If I have to guess, I would say he is my mom’s age. He dresses like he’s trying to be a cool school teacher. He’s not as stuffy as the other teachers here. Plus, he dislikes Travis just as much as I do—well, not Travis himself, but kids like Travis. After class one day he kept me behind and told me that I need to stand up for myself.
Easier said than done.

“If you will turn your eyes this way.” Mr. Conrad points toward the smartboard hanging at the front of the room. With a stroke of a key on his computer, a picture of six Asian men with very impressive tattoos on their backs appears on the board. Immediately there are hoots and hollers all around the room.

“Quiet down,” Mr. Conrad says. “Some of the kids are here to learn!”

They never actually shut up. Some of the guys behind me, Travis included, start whispering about the geishas displayed in the tattoos. You would think they had never seen the artful rendition of a woman before. And some of them wonder aloud if the ones with men tattooed on their backs are gay.

“No,” Mr. Conrad says. “The tattoos can depict almost anything, from a fallen comrade to an ancestor of the man wearing it.” He looks pointedly at the boys behind me. “And you might find it interesting that those tattoos do continue below their clothing.”

“Everywhere?” someone calls out.

“Everywhere,” Mr. Conrad says, his face reddening slightly. And that, more than the words themselves, sets the class to laughing again. It takes a minute before they calm down.

“These men are members of a group that is referred to as Yakuza. The police consider them criminals, but there is a great deal of tradition among these groups.

“Founded in the seventeenth century, they are believed to have derived from gangs that consisted of wandering samurai. Today, they are considered some of the most powerful of the criminal underground that exists in Japan. They are divided into many groups—”

“Like the motorcycle gangs on
Sons of Anarchy
?” someone asks.

Mr. Conrad nods. “Very much like that.”

“Why the tattoos?” someone else asks.

“Good question,” Mr. Conrad says, clearly warming to his subject. “These tattoos, known as
irezumi
in Japan, most likely began as a spiritual symbol, a way for the tattooed person to show the world his beliefs. However, this changed. Tattoos became a way to mark a criminal to show society that the person could not be trusted.”

Kimi nods her head as if agreeing with Mr. Conrad. Guess she learned about this in her old school.

“That sucks,” someone says.

Laughter again flows around the room. I look up, having lost myself for a few minutes sketching one of the tattoos onto a page of my notebook.

“Thinking of getting a tattoo?” Travis hisses in my ear as he reaches around me and grabs the notebook. “Damn perv picks the prettiest girl to draw. Like he’ll ever get a girl that looks like that,” he says, holding the notebook up where his friends can see the depiction of a wide-eyed, pale-skinned geisha.

They laugh, but I’m so used to it I don’t even think I care anymore. I just want my notebook back because it has my notes for next week’s test in it.

“Speaking of criminals,” Mr. Conrad says, marching over to Travis’s desk. “You want to give that back?”

Travis looks up at Mr. Conrad like he’s the most innocent guy in the world.

“What? I didn’t do anything, Mr. Conrad.”

“That’s not your notebook.”

“Sure it is,” Travis says, closing the cover as he bends to toss it into his backpack. Unfortunately for him—or me, as I’m sure I’ll pay for this later—my name is written clearly on the cover of the notebook in permanent ink.

Mr. Conrad just holds out his hand. As Travis hands it over, Mr. Conrad says, “Go the principal’s office right now. I will not tolerate any more of your lies.”

Mr. Conrad hands me the notebook, but all I see is Travis glaring at me as he backs out the door.

“Okay,” Mr. Conrad says as he returns to the front of the classroom, “if you’ll pay attention, we’ll cover the rest of this material so that your reading assignment for tonight will make sense.”

Everyone groans. Everyone except Clara. She turns and glares at me.

“You know he’ll make you pay for that, right?”

Yeah, I know, and he will have the perfect chance in the next class, PE.

As if on cue, the bell rings to signal the end of class.

Everyone hurries out the door except Kimi, who hangs behind. Both Kimi and Mr. Conrad stand in the front of the classroom watching me leave, as if they are waiting for me to say something about Travis spitting at me. There isn’t a chance I’m going to do that.

“Wait up, Parker,” Kimi yells as her Converse sneakers bound down the hallway toward me. I shake my head back in response.

“Parker,” she says, taking me by my shoulder when she finally catches up to me.

“What?”

Kimi takes her hand off me, and looks disappointed.

I sigh. “What did you say to him?”

“Nothing. Nothing.”

“Kimi, you know you suck at lying.”

Kimi’s shoulders sink. “I… I was just talking about the homework assignment.”

“Really?” I frown.

“Yeah. Stop having a go at me,” she says, rubbing her eyes under her glasses.

Oh no.
Please don’t cry, don’t cry.
There is nothing worse than making someone else feel bad when they have done nothing wrong.
Way to go, Parker
.

I throw my arm around Kimi. “Sorry. Go on, tell me what I am,” I prod with a smile.

“A jerk,” she says, peeking over her glasses.

“Yeah, I’m your jerk. It could be worse; you could have Travis as your jerk, like I have.”

Kimi shakes her head.

“Damn, you’re right. Sorry. Right now it’s not about my problem with Travis, it’s about me being the jerk. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”

Kimi stares at me for a moment. “You can… take me—,” she stops then shakes her head.

“Take you where?”

Kimi’s cheeks turn red.
Where does she want to go?

“To…” she shakes her head again. Wow, she really didn’t take her meds today.

“To lunch. Come on, you can buy me lunch,” she finally says, nudging me toward the cafeteria. I can’t read girls, but if I could, I would have guessed she wanted to go somewhere else. But hey, I’m not complaining. All I can afford right now is a taco lunch for Kimi from the school cafeteria, anyway.

“Over here,” Douglas waves to us. He does the same every day, and each day I tell him we know where he is. We always sit at this table, the one by the bins, the only one we can sit at. And I guess we will be at this table until we graduate from school.

“Looks like Douglas is saving our seats,” I say as I smile at Kimi. It takes Kimi a second and then she smiles back. Something else is on her mind today.

“Are you okay?” I ask Kimi as we walk toward Douglas.

“Yes, why?”

“You just don’t seem to be here.”

Kimi laughs, then pauses. “Just my… sister.”

“Oh. What’s Isamu doing now?” I don’t have any older siblings, and if I did I couldn’t think of any worse of a sister than Isamu. I did always want a little sister, but that’s not going to happen now.

“Just the normal.” Kimi’s parents are hardly ever at home; out of the two years we’ve been friends I’ve never seen her parents. Most of the time, Isamu is in charge, and being in charge is what she loves. She controls everything Kimi does.

“Taco Tuesdays are the best,” Douglas gushes as food pours from his mouth.

“Douglas.” I shake my head.

“What?” he replies, then picks up the taco shell that fell from his mouth.

“Nothing.” I smile.

I lean sideways, away from the oncoming lunch tray. Other kids throw their trays, targeting for the trash, but sometimes they land on my lap. These seats really suck, except for one thing: I bag the seat with a view of the doorway. I get to watch Clara walk in. She normally gets a salad with the other cheerleaders, then sits with Travis and the other jocks.

On cue she walks in, and I sigh. Travis’s arm is draped around her like a cheap shirt. She could do so much better than him—she could be with me. As if Travis is reading my thoughts he snarls at me, annoyed for loads of reasons, all of which are going to result in my getting a beating.

I push my tray out in front of me as I lose my appetite.

Douglas looks down at it like a hungry hippo. “Sure, take it,” I say. “Just don’t be sick on me during gym.”

Oh, gym. Great. I’ll have to be out in the field, where Travis can beat the crap out of me and get away with it.

“Hey,” Kimi says, “my sister is out this afternoon. Why don’t you skip gym and come to my place? I’ve got the new Call of Duty game, remember?” She pulls it out of her bag, waving it under my nose.

“Skip class?” Douglas whispers. He looks like he’s going to break out in hives just thinking about it. “Parker, that’s a bad idea, a very bad idea.” He shakes his head before I can really think about it.

I take a sip of coke, letting the bubbles pour down my throat. “Skip gym, huh?” I nod, twisting the cap back on the bottle. I like this idea.

“You can complete the game before anyone else.” Kimi waves the game, like candy to a kid.

I reach out to take it, and she lets me. Jeez, the graphics look so cool. This idea does sound way better than getting a beating.

“I’m in.”

Douglas leans toward me. “Are you crazy? They will call home. And…” Douglas stops. He dislikes my mom’s husband, Neil, just as much as I do.

The excitement drains out of me at the thought of Neil finding out. His beating would be lighter than Travis’s because mom would stop him, but the grief he would give my mom about me skipping class would last for weeks.

“Damn, Douglas is right. Can we come after school?”

Kimi looks more disappointed than me. “Sure,” she says, pushing her food around.

“How do you get these before anyone else?” I ask.

“Yeah… You know, my cousin,” she mutters.