The Foolhardies 221 Midtown Moments

He was leaning over to his left with a hand over his mouth so that no one else in cla.s.s could hear our conversation. Not that it mattered as the other soph.o.m.ores rarely listened to the chitchat of the three nerds sitting at the back of 10th Grade World History. 

Arah, who was sitting on the seat to the other side of me, nodded her head at Ty's question. "He was really lucky Dean got there before things got too serious…"

"Man, I wish I was there to see it," Ty said, slumping back into his own seat. "Donar had me memorising the rituals from the Book of Fay Arcanum again…"

The idea of Ty sitting alone in a room while Donar Firemonger taught him magic one-oh-one most nights now and then having to sit through the slog-fest of Mr. Tenor's cla.s.s made me pat him sympathetically on his back. 

"On the bright side, there haven't been any deaths, injuries, or magic-induced accidents in a while," I reminded him. "Let's enjoy this lull while it lasts, yeah?" 

Ty chuckled softly to himself. "I guess this is the longest break we've had from war, isn't it?" 

"War is coming soon enough…" Arah sounded so ominous that watching her scribble down notes from Mr. Ternor's lessons on the Peloponnesian War was a little surreal. "So, have you decided what to do with the scroll the Dominion commander gave you?" 

"I sent it to Darah," I answered. "Above my pay grade really…"

"What note?" Ty asked. 

"The scroll that had a message on it requesting a meeting between Lord Rah and Great General Darah to discuss the possibility of Sunspire Dominion and Trickster Pavilion alliance," Arah replied offhandedly. She was still busy with her note taking. 

"An Alliance?!" Ty repeated in surprise. 

Unfortunately, his loud voice caught everyone's attention, and as all eyes turned on him, Ty was visibly trying to shrink his tall form back into his seat. 

"I was actually just getting to the old Greek alliances during the war, Mr. Cruz," Mr. Tenor said in a wheezy voice. "Perhaps you can join me up front and poi t out to your cla.s.smates which states had allied with Sparta against Athens?" 

He beckoned Ty over with the pointer in his hand, forcing Ty to reluctantly get up from his seat. His eyes glazed over the expectant cla.s.s before landing on me. 

"Help," he mouthed. 

---

Mr. Tenor had held Ty up after cla.s.s so he could be reprimanded properly for disturbing lessons with what Tenor called, "Innane teenage babbling."

This meant Arah and I had to wait for him outside the cla.s.sroom before we could all leave Midtown High for the afternoon. 

"Candidates," Arah said under her breath while her eyes glazed over the students moving across the hallway. 

"What?" I asked in confusion.

"That's what the freaks in your vision called them," she reminded me. "Candidates who would inherit a gift of sense…"

My eyes turned on a small group of freshmen hanging around on the other side of the hallway, and the intensity of my stare might have been the reason they scampered off quickly. 

"Mudc.r.a.p," I said. "You actually think the candidates they were talking about could from Midtown? No way…"

I glanced up at the white ceiling and the florescent lights above. Then I turned my head over to the white-washed walls and the appropriately dressed kids in their white sleeves and khaki pants who all looked like they were just going through the motions. Nope, if magic existed in Mudgard, Midtown High was not the place you'd go to find it.

"This place is as mundane as it gets," I said out loud. 

"You're from Midtown," she reminded me. "So is Ty, the so-called 'Chosen One'."

"Yeah, sure," I conceded. "But, Arah, lightning doesn't strike the same place twice."

"It does in the Fayne, Dean," she countered. 

Our debate would have continued if Ty hadn't escaped through the cla.s.sroom door at that exact moment with both his fists pumped into the air. 

"Free~eedomm~m!" he called to us. 

This earned him another reprimand from Mr. Tenor who was still inside the cla.s.sroom. 

"No shouting in the hallways, Mr. Cruz!" Tenor called after him. 

But the three of us were already gone and on our way out of the Mundaneness that was Midtown High.

---

"Does aunt Lena even ask where you get your cash now?" Ty asked while he gazed down at the pile of Leprechauns I'd dropped down on the counter. "I mean, has she even seen how big your bank account is now?"

"Nope and nope," I said satisfactorily while knowing Ty had to fabricate a part-time job just so he could justify to his dad why he'd been spending wads of cash on his brand new gaming rig. "I don't flaunt my earnings the way you do."

The shop we were in had the bland interior of a local arts and crafts shop. Displays of locally-made tools and figurines lined the immaculately clean shelves on either side of the walls. Stacks of old movie videos and vinyl discs could be found in carefully labelled containers. On the old retro gadget shelf I liked to frequent, one could find an old Playstation One sitting snugly between an Atari and a Nintendo Family Computer. 

The man opposite the counter, a muscular, bald-headed, tan-skinned, middle-aged man with a goatee named Byron, was a Lep Trader affiliated with Shanks' General Merchandise Store back in the Fayne. 

"This amount of Leprechauns totals around this much, Dean-o," he said as he raised his a.n.a.logue calculator to my eye-level. 

"That's just way too many zeroes for a teenager to make in a month," Ty whistled. "You really should give me a raise, Dean…" 

"I pay you enough," I countered. "You'll just waste it if I give you any more."

I placed my thumb on the scanned Byron pushed over the counter toward me. 

"I'll take two thousand in hundred dollar bills now and you can put the rest in my savings account as usual, Byron," I instructed.

"Sure, Dean-o," Byron said happily. "Anything else I can do for you kiddos?" 

"Actually," Arah raised a hand. "You guys have a delivery service, right, Byron?"

"Of course," he said as he raised his arms wide, "Guaranteed one night express s.h.i.+pment to any location in the Fayne except for the Isle of s.h.i.+elds that lie across the Gemsea and Dwarzamor which lies past the Iron Mountain Range… My guys would need at least a week to cross the Mines of Morgan which is the safest route through the mountains …"

Arah dropped a shopping bag full of girl clothes onto the counter. 

"I'd like for these dresses to be s.h.i.+pped to Hoodwink Tower in the Westmarch," she said. Then she glanced sideways at my and Ty as we were both giving her a questioning look. "I promised Aura I'd send her samples of the latest styles to add to her wardrobe." 

Byron inspected Arah's package with a fine-tooth comb before asking the obvious question, "It's just these dresses and shoes right? No contraband?" 

As he said this, he pointed to a poster in the back wall that was carefully hidden from view so that mundane shoppers wouldn't take notice of it. 

It was a list of contraband that wasn't allowed in the Fayne which included all sorts of drugs, firearms, tech stuff, teddy bears, Dungeons and Dragons items, and My Little Pony memorabilia. 

Arah spared one glance at the poster, paused at the end, reread the last item on the list out loud, and then shrug. "Nope, it's just the clothes." 

"Alright," Byron said as he took the shopping bag off the counter. "I'll find a gold chest for this so you guys can be on your way." 

"Thanks, Byron!" Arah said happily. 

---

Thirty minutes later,and we found ourselves sitting in our favourite booth at Ed's Chocolate Bar opposite my two favourite spies, Collin and Connor McCord. 

I slid two envelopes over the table to them. 

"A thousand bucks each as usual," I said. 

"Why are you paying them again?" Arah asked. "Don't they already get paid by the unit's coffers every end of the month?" 

Admitting to Arah that I was feeling guilty over the twins risking their lives for us all the time and giving them a bonus whenever I could might get me an earful from my unit's tactician. So I just shrugged back at her. 

"You're such a softy, Dean," she teased, obviously hinting that she understood my line of thinking regardless of any admission on my part. 

"Anyways," I cleared my throat, "What's so urgent that we had to meet now?" 

Connor, the less dependable twin, spoke first. 

"You're being watched," he blurted out. 

This caused his brother to smack him in the head. 

"That's not verified, idiot," Collin chided Connor. 

"So… which is it?" I asked nervously. 

"What Connor means is that your school is currently under observation by Scarlet Moon observers," Collin corrected. 

Observers, it was a word — which if used in context to the Fayne — was a word I hated from the very bottom of my heart. Observers were what you called fairies that watched young humans they thought were promising right before they kidnapped them. 

My eyes narrowed into slits. "Why?" 

"That's the thing…" Collin scratched his head. "We're not exactly sure why… and that's why Connor thinks it might be because of you guys but it doesn't make sense as fairies are forbidden to attack viseres in Mudgard." 

"We overheard General Spellweaver talk about it with one of his lieutenants recently," Connor added. "Something about finding candidates in Midtown High."

As the words 'Midtown High' reached my ears, I suddenly felt like I wanted to puke. Beside me, Arah's hand had grasped my s.h.i.+rt sleeve. But I refused to look at her despite how hard she pulled on it. 

"Mudc.r.a.p," I sighed.