7. False Answers
The next morning, I wake up and find my vision completely filled with light. It's like the sun is right there, directly above my head. Everything is so bright. My head poundS like a beating drum. Where is all this light coming from, anyway?
"Urghh" I groan, wipe my eyes and carefully sit up in bed. I look around and with each glance I find my room completely different from how it was when I fell asleep. It's like... someone's taken all the walls away and replaced them with glass. I can see my mother in the kitchen, making herself eggs - I shouldn't be able to see this. What the... I carefully look up, and find the source of the blinding light. The roof is gone.
No, wait, is it? I can see the outline... I think... I blink a few times, and my vision temporally shifts back to normal, and the room becomes dark again, but only for a second. It's soon swamped with light again. I can see the sky through the roof... and was the sun always that bright?
I blink a few more times and harshly bang my head on my hand, before looking around again. The room is back to normal... I think. I hop out of bed and carefully open my curtains. It's a bright day. Not a cloud in the sky. Still confused, I slip on some clean-ish looking clothes off my floor and stumble my way into the lounge.
"You're late," my mother tells me, from the stove.
"What?" I mumble, confused.
"You got up late." She takes a quick glance at her watch. "If you want to catch the bus, you've got five minutes. Otherwise you're walking. I'll be busy down in the shop all morning, so I can't give you a ride."
"Right." I mumble, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl.
"Brush your hair." She orders and I groan. "Or I'll cut it."
"Good luck." I tell her, grabbing my bag from where I left it, beside the couch.
"I'll knock you out first." She threatens. I shrug. "I'm being serious here." She warns.
'I know that.' I think. 'I was just thinking of how that would probably result in your accidental electrocution.' I roll my eyes at her and walk back to my room and grab a hairbrush off my dresser.
"Better." She says, as I re-enter the lounge/dining/kitchen area, hairbrush in hand. I roll my eyes again at her, before quickly pulling the brush through my locks. I throw it on the couch when I'm finished, and she gives me a disproving stare. I sigh and take the bloody thing back to my room. I hear a beeping outside, and literally sprint down the stairs and out the door, just in time to catch the bus.
It's a weird bus ride. I keep on seeing the sky through the roof, even though that should be impossible. When I get to school, Josh is waiting for me in the courtyard.
"Mornings, SuperBoy." He greets me, with a wink.
"SuperBoy?" I ask.
"It's a hero name, one I made up for you."
I give him an unamused stare. "That, is the most lame ass name I have ever-"
"Dude, relax." Josh chuckles to himself. "I was just trying to annoy you." I sigh at him, before laughing it off. He rolls his eyes. "Well? Have you thought of a hero name yet?"
"I was meant to think of one?" I ask, confused.
"What, are you just gonna save people without one?"
"It's not necessary, is it?" I pour fake confusion in my voice, and he laughs, seeing that I'm obviously joking.
"Yes, it is." He nods to himself, trying to sound a lot smarter than he actually is. "You'll need a costume, too."
"Oh, great." I roll my eyes.
The bell rings, and we trod off to class. "What's this?' He says. "Did you change your mind about being a hero?"
"Nah." I sigh. "Better than being the bad guy, anyway."
First up today is social sciences, and it's also, according to our crazy, hippie, environmental freak and dreadlocked teacher, pop quiz time. Mr Rao is the kind of teacher who likes to put his students through stressful and embarrassing situations just to laugh at them, and as I see today's maniac grin plastered across his face as he excitedly hands us our quiz slips, I know today will be no different.
Great.
After he hands them out, he sets a time limit, and then, barely containing his excitement, he jumps up and sits on his desk, frantically surveying the room with wide, eager eyes. After several moments he can no longer contain himself, so he reaches into his desk, grabs a slip of paper that appears to have 'answers' written on the back and strolls causally down the aisles, attempting to tease us with the solutions to the questions.
Knowing full well that Mr Rao has absolutely no intention of actually giving them to us, I sigh and read the first question of the quiz.
1. How old am I?
What the...
2. What is my middle name?
However these are social science related questions, I have no idea. It would also be nice to, say, know who it is that all these questions are referring to. I can only assume that they're questions about himself, Mr Rao... but he's obviously just trying to piss us off. I sigh, and lean back in my chair. His big, hawk like eyes spot my relaxation straight away, and he darts over.
"Finished, already, are we, Mr Darlag?" My only response is to grin at him, and he snatches the sheet from my desk. "You haven't even started." He shakes his head at me, as if disappointed, as he reads over my answers, (or lack of). He pushes the sheet back onto my desk. "Finish them by the end of this period, or I'll be keeping you after school to finish them." He grins at me and turns to walk off, but not before I can left out a groan.
"But... Sir... these questions are ridiculous. Most of them are questions that only you know the answer to!" I grumble.
"Sir, he has a point," adds one of my peers, one whose name I think is Michael, or Mitchel, or something like that. I do know he's a nerd, and is one of the guys who like to spend all their free time in the computer lab, playing games against each other over the school's server. "None of these questions are ones that you have previously taught us..."
"Oh then?" Mr Rao grins crazily at us, his class. "Well it's too bad then that I have the answers, right here, then huh?" He walks over to me, and as if to prove his point he waves the answer sheet right in front of my face. I watch it for a second, and commentate to myself how much I would want those answers. Well, I would give up my pets for them, but only because I don't actually have any. I would definitely give up my sister for them, actually, he can have Amy, free of charge. I've got this old sweater in my room, one that itches at my skin when I wear it, he can have that too...
I stare off into space, absentmindedly debating what I would give up for that answer sheet, before I notice the walls and desks and several other objects around the room start to turn see through. Whatever is again happening to my vision, I don't know, but I suppose it could have its uses... I flick my eyes over to the answer sheet and notice that... hold on... it's blank on the other side?
Oh, what a...
"Sir." I say suddenly, before I can help myself. "You do realise that your answer sheet is actually blank, right?"
"What!" He cries, looking it over. "Cheater! Why were you looking..." He gives me a look of suspicion.
"Well, you had the answers, right there..." I counter.
"Cheating in class!" He yells. "Detention! No, wait. I've changed my mind. To the principal's office!" He walks over to his desk and reaches for a red slip.
"Oh, come on." I grumble. "That wasn't even a crime worthy of..."
"Principal's office!" He yells again, his eyes red with anger and I grumble, not wanting to argue with a psycho maniac. He shoves the red slip into my hands and shoves me out the door and into the hall.
"Right," says our Principal, giving both me and the slip a formidable look. I gulp, knowing there a good chance that he's probably still mad at me for running in his corridors yesterday. "Mr Rao sent you here for... using X-Ray vision to cheat in class?"
"He what?" I snatch the paper off him, reading over it in confusion. "But I don't have..." I think carefully over the day's events, before sighing. "Oh, maybe that's what that was..." The principal gives me a look of incredible amazement, the kind you give someone when you honestly can't believe they could really be that stupid.
"So, what have you got to say for yourself?" he asks.
"Er... I'm sorry for being such a disappointment and ruining Mr Rao's fun game of tease the students with the fake answers?"
He sighs, and scribbles something down on the back of the slip. "Back to class. And if I catch you loitering around the ladies bathroom with this supposed power of yours..."
I wink at him. "Gotcha." He sighs again, before passing me back the slip.
"I'm being serious. And can you tell Mr Rao that if he pointlessly sends another student to my office, I'll personally send him to my office instead."
"Gotcha," I say again, grinning as I leave the room.
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