Max Baker: Guardian of the Ninth Sector (6 page)

As Max attempted to flip the gigantic body over, he thought he heard more footsteps behind him.  He pivoted around, but there was nothing behind him.  The city still sat in the darkness, and the fields to his left and right remained quiet.  In the distance, he thought he heard voices.  He thought he could hear someone whispering his name.  He closed his eyes and tried to listen more intently, but the voices had grown silent.

Max turned back to Gorthon, but the creature’s body was no longer lying helplessly on the ground.  Instead he towered over Max with the giant sword cocked back far over his head; the blood covered edge of the blade shined red in the moonlight.  Max had no time to react.  He stared up at the beast who smiled down at him.  Gorthon swung the blade down.

Max screamed as he sat up in his bed.  He quickly flipped on the light beside the bed and hastily surveyed his surroundings.  There was no Gorthon.  He was no longer in Arressnia, but rather the comfort of own bed.  His sheets were damp with the same cold sweat that enveloped him.  The red digital display of the alarm clock read 4:15.  He had only been asleep for a couple of hours.  His feet were achy and sore, as if he had been walking for miles. An odor of burnt hair hung heavy in the bedroom.

The next day at school, Max couldn’t shake the feeling that at any moment Gorthon was going to come bursting through the classroom door.  In English, he sat staring at the door nervously.  He had never had a dream so real or so vivid before, and even now he wasn’t quite sure that he was completely awake.

The English teacher, Mr. Shook, rambled on about the results from the recent test the class had taken.  A week ago, he had assigned the class to read
The Odyssesy. 
 Max wasn’t overly concerned about his grade; he felt quite confident that he had done well on the test.  He had always been a bit of a bookworm, so he fancied any opportunity to escape from his sad little world to hunt at the footsteps of Mount Parnassos alongside Odysseus and his uncle.  He relished opportunities to be aboard the Pequod, chasing down the elusive great white whale with Captain Ahab in the deep waters of the Pacific. Hanging out with Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect comforted him. Joining Project Mayhem allowed him to escape. These adventures took his mind off of his mother passed out in the living room, or his absentee father. These stories provided refuge.

Mr. Shook scribbled ‘Polyphemus’ up on the chalkboard.  He was one of the few teachers who still used the archaic device.  Most of them relied on overhead projectors or huge dry erase boards.  Mr. Shook was the epitome of old school though.  He had been the head of the English Department since the school had opened 30 years ago.  Before that he had taught in Brooklyn, or maybe Boston…Max could never remember.

He was a shorter man, and his tweed sports coat looked a size too large for the man’s small frame.  His elbow patches were faded and worn. He was bald on top, but had a thick mane of gray that hung around the sides and back of his head.  He had a bushy gray beard that matched.  It was thick and full and reminded Max of a pirate who had been out at sea for months, or of an offensive lineman toward the end of the regular season.

Mr. Shook continued to drone on about the Isle of the Sirens as Max turned his attention to Kennedy; she was not focused on the lecture, but instead on the cellphone that was hidden discreetly in her lap.  In one hand she held her pencil with the point pressed haphazardly on the blank white page of her notebook, pretending to take notes. She texted with her other hand, her thumb rapidly mashing buttons and then pausing for a response. 

Probably talking to Corey, Max thought to himself. He could feel contempt simmering inside.  

Kennedy had been the girl of Max’s dreams since she had moved to Forest Valley in the third grade.  She had been awkward looking back then, a stark contrast to how she looked now.  She was gawky as most 10 year olds are, hiding behind an oversized pair of thick glasses and a mouth full of braces.

She had started midyear, and Max could still remember getting so angry when his friend, Roger Smallwood, called her a nerd as she stood in front of the class as the teacher introduced her.  He had no idea why it had made him so angry, but Max retaliated by telling everyone at recess that Roger had spent the night over the weekend and wet the bed not once but twice. 

Ever since that day, Kennedy had sat with Max and Noah at lunch.  She would split her unwanted oatmeal raisin cookies with the two of them.  They would go over to Noah’s house after school and play freeze tag or red light, green light in the backyard.  They would have sleepovers in the summertime, and they would watch scary movies until Noah’s mom would make them all go to bed, and then they would stay up talking late into the night.

The trio had remained close until shortly after the sixth grade had ended; although the sleepovers had stopped in fifth grade when Mrs. Allman caught them playing spin the bottle.  During their summer vacation between the sixth and seventh grade, Kennedy’s grandmother, who lived in Topeka, had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given a few months to live.  To help with the passing, Kennedy and her mother went to Topeka for the summer, planning to return in time for the seventh grade.  However, Kennedy, who had always been close to her grandmother, refused to come back home while she was still alive.  As the summer drew to an end, Kennedy’s mother made the decision to enroll her at a middle school in Topeka. 

Max called her every single day – every single day until Evelyn received the first month’s phone bill.  After that, they were allowed to talk every Saturday for half an hour.  Then one Saturday, Kennedy’s mother answered the phone.  She was sobbing and told Max that it had finally happened.  She told Max that Kennedy would call him back once everything calmed down.  He remembered waiting by the phone every Saturday for three months for Kennedy to call, but she never did.

When Kennedy returned home a year later, she did not come back as an ugly duckling, but rather she had transformed into a beautiful and graceful swan.  She had shot up almost a foot, making her one of the tallest girls in the class.  Her average frame had morphed into a very sleek and slender one.  She had traded in her thick black frame glasses for contacts.  She had shed her pale skin for a membership to a tanning bed salon, and she had dyed her auburn brown hair to a soft onyx color that accentuated her vibrant, icy blue eyes.  In the course of a year, Kennedy Coleman had gone from the girl next door to the super model of Forest Valley.

Max and Noah had tried to approach her on the first day of school, but she had been surrounded by a flock of girls that wanted to know where she had gotten her cute pink cardigan and who did her nails.  With the new looks came an increased popularity and little room for Max and Noah, who had always been hell-bent on being as anti-popular as possible.  The three of them had always reveled in the fact that they were as far away from the norm as possible.  Exiled from the mainstream, they would spend their Saturday afternoons making fun of the stupid cheerleaders who walked in packs around the mall and talked about makeup, and clothes and stupid football players.

Max remembered the first weekend of their eighth grade school year very well.  He and Noah had gone to the mall to get pretzels and skateboard out in the parking lot.  That was the day that they saw her, a herd of the popular girls following her around.  She walked right past them that day with not so much as a wave or acknowledgment.  She had joined the dark side, and the two had no choice but to turn their backs on her.

Now sitting in the classroom, he couldn’t help but sneer at her as she texted and twirled her hair – oblivious to the world around her.  She was clueless to Max sitting behind her with his heart still broken from three summers ago.   Max remembered how she used to be the most awesome girl that he knew.  Now she was just fake.  He remembered how she used to be a part of them, the third wheel of the tricycle.  Now she was just pretty and vapid.  He couldn’t help but to sneer again.

“Mr. Baker?” he heard Shook’s voice boom, bringing him out of his trance.  As Max looked around, he could see that the entire class’s attention was focused on him.  Even Kennedy’s.

“Yes sir?” Max asked meekly. He could feel the blood rushing to his cheeks.

“I was just hoping you could tell the class what exactly I need to do to help you focus on my lectures,” Mr. Shook said. His voice was loud and in command of the classroom.  It didn’t match the small, frail man that was standing in front of Max. 

“I’m sorry,” Max said, feeling his cheeks turning rosier by the second. “I was just-”

“There’s no need to apologize Mr. Baker,” Shook said, cutting him off.  “However, I am quite upset that you haven’t told anyone about your secret powers.”

“What secret powers?” Max asked, dreading Shook’s answer.

“Well isn’t it obvious?” Shook asked, pacing back and forth at the front of the classroom.  Everyone’s eyes darted back and forth between the teacher and Max, with the exception of Kennedy, who was sinking lower in her chair and staring straight ahead.  “It’s clearly evident to me that you possess some form of telepathy.”

The students’ apprehension hung heavy in the air as they waited for Mr. Shook to finish the onslaught.

“Telepathy?” Max asked as Shook leaned against the cluttered desk at the front of the room.  The old man smirked as he watched Max’s puzzled face twist up.

“Well I figure that you
must
be telepathic since you have been staring so intensely at Miss Coleman for the last 10 minutes of my lecture.  You must be telling her that as much as I hate for students to daydream about cheerleaders, that I hate texting in my class even more.”

Max’s face went from warm to boiling hot.  The entire classroom burst into laughter, and Max watched as Kennedy also turned a bright shade of red. She slouched even further down in her seat.

“I believe that the easiest solution to these annoying little interruptions is to pair you two together for our upcoming research project,” Shook said with a smile.  “Perhaps the answer lies with the two of you spending some good quality time together.  Maybe then you’ll both be able to focus once you step into my classroom.”

Max sat there sulking for the rest of the period, refusing to take his eyes off of the notebook in front of him.  Kennedy did the same as she doodled on the notepad in front of her, pausing once to shoot Max a glaring look.  As Max thought about how his day could not possibly get any worse, Mr. Shook took the liberty to assign the rest of the students into pairs for the research project. 

The bell rang, and Kennedy was the first to grab her books and dart out of the door.  As the rest of the class made their way toward the exit, Mr. Shook asked Max to stay behind.  Max listened as the remaining students filed out of the door, snickering about the incident.

Noah peeked his head in the classroom.

“Max,” he whispered loudly.  “It’s fish taco day.  Let’s go.”

“Mr. Allman,” Shook said, “I would suggest you give me and Mr. Baker a few moments to ourselves.  That is, of course, unless I could interest you in detention later on this afternoon.”

Noah looked at Max and shrugged.  Without an objection, he gave the old man a quick nod of respect and then disappeared back into the bustling hallway outside.

Max sat back down at his desk and stared venomously at the blank notepad in front of him.  He sat there brooding as Shook moved from his own desk to the one in front of Max’s.  The old man turned the chair around to face Max and then took a seat.

“You’re upset with me,” Mr. Shook said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs.

“You think?” Max snapped at the old man.  Max had never been cross with a teacher before, but Mr. Shook had stepped over the line.

“Your sarcasm is unwelcomed here, Max,” Mr. Shook said.  The old man paused for a moment as he stared deeply at Max.  “It is unnecessary as well.”

“Did you really need to embarrass me like that?” Max asked. He did his best to avoid eye contact with the old man.

“Yes,” Shook said quietly and stroked his beard.  Max, who had not been expecting him to answer with such bluntness, shot the man an angry look.

“Mr. Baker, I have been on this earth for a very long time,” Shook began, his voice barely above a whisper.  “One thing that I have learned is that we only have a limited amount of opportunities with certain people.”  The man looked even older than he had when he was standing in front of the room.  Up close, Max could see long hairs poking out from Shook’s elongated ear lobes.  His eyes were sunken and droopy.  His lips were pursed together in a stern manner.

“What are you talking about?” Max asked.

“You are one of my best students, Mr. Baker,” Shook said. He continued to stroke his bushy beard; the act made him look like a super villain with an evil plot in mind.  “However, you are such a quiet boy.  The school counselor refers to you as introverted anytime that your name is brought up.”

“Why is my name being brought up in front of the counselor?” Max asked worriedly.

“That is of no importance,” Mr. Shook said.  “What is important is that you are afraid to speak up for the things that you want and desire.  For example, you
wanted
me to be quiet today as I embarrassed you amongst your peers.  You wanted me to let the incident go, but instead you sat there without so much as an objection.”

Max didn’t respond to this, nor did he know how.  He wondered why Shook was telling him all of this.  He looked into the old man’s sunken eyes and instead of seeing anger or disappointment, he saw that they were gentle and kind.