(OCTOBER 2010)

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RICH MUTATIO

One minute I was sitting in my room finishing up my watercolour painting. The next minute I was back at school.

No "poof". No sound effects. No nothing.

I was in my room. I blinked. I was at school.

The class was chatting amongst themselves and it was clear everyone was growing restless.

I shifted around my seat, searching the room. "Where's Mr Darley?"

Everyone around me just shrugged their shoulders.

"You didn't see him today?"

"No," Annie answered. "Mr Cranston was the one who took us here."

"Supply teacher?"

"Supply teachers wouldn't be this late."

Ten minutes passed before Mr Darley finally walked into the room. He clapped his hands together. "Okay, class, I know you've been eager ever since I told you last week. So I would like to introduce your new classmate."

He gestured for someone at the door to come in and a girl with short messy hair reminiscent of a bob cut walked up to him. She was small, her arms and legs were skinny, and she wore a pink hoodie and a pair of bright dark blue jeans.

"Alright. Introduce yourself."

The girl switched her gaze from one person to another as she waved. "Nice to meet you all. I'm Zoey."

"Please show her around and make friends with her. She just moved here from The Philippines and doesn't know anyone other than family. Group three, please move your things off the empty desk so that Zoey can sit between Rich and Charlie."

Charlie and I removed our stuff from the extra desk.

Charlie raised his hand to get her attention. "I'm Charlie. Hi."

I waved at her. "Ayo!"

She placed her bag on the desk. "Nice to meet you," she told us before sitting down.

The next thing I knew, I was back in my room, paintbrush at hand.

Weird.

That was more than a dream. I usually forgot what my dreams were the moment I woke up. But I couldn't stop thinking about that vision.

It even took a while for me to fall asleep that night, but after a couple of hours, my drowsiness took over.

I opened my eyes to the sun beaming into my room. It was unusually bright for 6:30 in the morning. I checked my alarm clock—7:50.

I overslept...

I hopped out of bed and rushed downstairs to make my breakfast. I had forty minutes to get to school. If I ran, it'd take me fifteen minutes at most. That meant only twenty-five minutes to get ready.

Sorry personal hygiene, you'll have to wait...

I stayed home yesterday so I shouldn't smell that bad.

I jumped into my clothes whilst wolfing down toast. Once I was ready, I sprinted out of my house, only stopping to make sure it was locked.

What a bad way to start the week...

Bond and Mallory were still waiting at the playground. I stopped beside them to catch my breath.

Mallory had her hands on her hips. "You're late."

"I know. It wasn't my fault this time, though."

"This time?"

"I fell asleep at like two in the morning."

"That is completely your fault!"

The geese at the playground had their eyes on me. They took cautious steps towards us before raising their torsos and flapping their wings.

Mallory hopped on my back. "Run, run!"

"Why are you jumping on me?"

"It's a force of habit, run!"

The geese began to nibble at our legs.

"I said run!"

"Get off of me!" I threw her on the grass and rushed to school. "I'm not gonna carry you while geese are after me!"

She followed in pursuit, also being followed by the vengeful birds.

"I'm surrounded by idiots." Bond smirked before breaking into a light jog to keep up.

The bell rang by the time we made it to the front of the school. Luckily, the geese had given up. We made our way inside, catching our breaths at the water fountain.

"Ugh! I'm so sweaty," Mallory complained.

Bond wiped his lips with the sleeve of his oversized white hoodie. "That tends to happen when you run."

We found the door to our classroom open which was odd since Mr Darley always closed the door as soon as the bell rang.

Our entire class was inside, talking amongst themselves. Mr Darley wasn't.

"Late again?" Conan pointed out.

"You're really making our group look bad," Charlie said.

I took my seat. "Where's Mr Darley?"

Everyone around me shrugged their shoulders.

"You didn't see him today?"

"No," Annie answered. "Mr Cranston was the one who took us here."

I was about to ask if we had a supply teacher, but my mind and mouth simply froze.

Wait a minute...

"Supply teacher?" Mallory asked on my behalf.

"Supply teachers wouldn't be this late."

Ten minutes passed by before Mr Darley finally walked into the room.

Zoey...

"Zoey..."

My group looked at me. "What?"

"Nothing. Ignore that."

Mr Darley clapped his hands together. "Okay, class, I know you've been eager ever since I told you last week. So I would like to introduce your new classmate."

He gestured for someone at the door to come in and a familiar-looking girl walked up to him.

"Everyone, this is Zoey," Mr Darley started.

My group peered at me and I stared down at my desk.

No way.

No way no way no way no way no way.

I lifted my head and glanced at her. She was peeking at me but looked away once we made eye contact.

Mr Darley looked at her then at me then back at her again.

This couldn't be real. Of course; it had to be that vision again. I slapped myself in the face as hard as I could. My face stung and I'm sure I left a red handprint on my cheek.

I found myself still in class with everyone's eyes on me.

Not a dream.

"You okay, Rich?" Mr Darley asked.

"Why wouldn't I be?" I said followed by an anxious chuckle.

I moved me and Charlie's things off the empty desk.

"Group three—Okay, you're getting ahead of me. Zoey, you'll be seated between Charlie and Rich."

Charlie raised his hand to get her attention. "I'm Charlie. Hi."

I waved my shaking hand. "Ayo..."

Zoey placed her bag on the desk. "Nice to meet you," she told us before sitting down.

Why the hell is this happening?..

"Why the hell is this happening?.."

Zoey turned her head towards me. "Did I do something?"

"I said that out loud didn't I?"

"You didn't even hesitate," Mallory giggled.

I turned towards Zoey. "Listen, I didn't mean it like that."

Out of all the sentences I could have said.

"You know what, Rich? Take Zoey and show her around the school. Take a drink or use the washroom if you need," Mr Darley instructed.

"We'll miss the science lesson."

"We'll switch our art and science lessons for today. Zoey just joined us and you don't need a lesson in art. You two can afford to miss some of class. Just give her a tour and do what you need to do."

"Uh. Sure." I got up from my desk. "Follow me, I'll show you around."

The two of us exited into the hallway where she began following me to the stairwell.

Her first impression of me was me slapping my face. Now I'm giving her a tour of the school?

What an introduction...

"No lockers?" Zoey asked, glancing around.

"No. Our desks have space in them and they're basically our lockers. Except there's no lock to keep people from grabbing whatever you've got in there."

"So people steal each other's stuff?"

"Well, they can. But stealing was never a problem to begin with."

"What about the other grades? Has someone from another grade stolen someone's stuff?"

"No. Each class is designated a room and only teachers and their class can go inside."

"Oh, I get it. This kind of trust would never happen back home."

"Philippines, right? That's where you're from?"

"Yeah, Mr Darley said earlier."

Oh yeah, he did.

"Oh yeah, he did. You know I'm Filipino too."

"You are? Do you know how to speak Tagalog?"

"Nope. I was born here and I've been speaking English my entire life. And speaking of English, yours ain't that bad."

"Thanks. After I found out we were moving here, I began to practice."

"We? Do you have a sibling or are you talking about your parents?"

"I have an older brother. He's a year older than us."

"Ah. It's just your accent. It gives away that you only started speaking English recently."

"Does it sound weird?"

"Yes, but in a good way."

We descended to the ground floor and made our way inside the gym. The fifth graders were playing a game of dodgeball while Mr Cranston stood on a bench, watching over them.

"This is our gym which also serves as the auditorium and stage. Our school is just broke like that. That bald man over there is Mr Cranston, he's our PE teacher in the afternoon."

Mr Cranston noticed us and I waved. He climbed down the bench and came over.

"What's going on, Rich?"

"Morning, Sir."

He turned to Zoey. "And you are?"

"Zoey. Rivera. I'm new."

"Oh, you're the new girl. Nice to meet you. You know, once Mr Darley told the class that a girl was transferring, everyone got pretty excited. Especially the boys. Right, Rich?"

"Sure."

Why the hell would he say something like that?

Zoey stood there side-glancing me with a red face.

"So, why are you two out of class?"

"Mr Darley told me to show her around."

"Ah, I see. That's nice of him. Anyways, I'm Mr Cranston and I'm your gym teacher after lunch. I'll see you later."

One of the fifth graders started yelling: "Anton, I got you, get out of the court."

"It only skimmed me, it doesn't count."

"If it touched you, you're out."

"No, it has to make direct contact."

Mr Cranston climbed back on the bench. "Skimming is touching and touching means you're out, Anton. Play fair."

I gestured to Zoey for us to leave and she followed me to the music room.

"What did Mr Cranston mean by you guys were excited?"

"Nothing really. We haven't gotten a new classmate since grade four, so everyone was pretty excited."

"Oh."

"Yeah, so once the guys found out you were a girl, we kind of made it a competition to see who could get with you first."

"W-We?"

"As in the boys in general. Not me. But don't worry, everyone's all bark." We stopped at a closed classroom with music seeping out. "This is the music room and we have music class here every Tuesday and Thursday with Mrs Vitelli."

We continued to walk down the hall.

"We have music? What do you play?"

"I sucked at trumpet and clarinet so she assigned me a flute."

"I never did music. I mean I did, but it was mostly singing."

"You'll probably be a flute too then. It's the easiest thing to play. But we are short on clarinet players so she might assign you there." The main office was near the music room so we headed there. "This is the office. Pretty sure you've been here."

"Yeah, last week when I came to register."

"This is where the morning announcements are made and where we drop off attendance."

We continued our way down the hall.

"Mr Darley said you didn't have to worry about art. What was that about?" she asked.

"Oh. I'm the best artist in class and Mr Darley always makes me go near the end to not discourage anyone."

"Are you really the best in class?"

"Probably the school even." We passed by a room with rows of bookshelves. "This the library. There are also computers in the back and we have computer lab here every Wednesday."

We headed back upstairs.

"I like art too."

"You like doing it or are you good?"

"Both, I think."

"Both? What do you like doing the most?"

"Sketching," Zoey said. "But anything with colours is my speciality."

"Since Halloween is this weekend, do you know what you're gonna be?"

"No, not yet. I've been busy moving in so I hadn't really thought about that yet."

We stopped by a water fountain so I could drink. "I'm thinking that our group should have a theme."

"Who's in our group? I know you and Charlie."

"Yeah, you've met Charlie, he's the one with the glasses. Conan is the big guy that sits in front of him. Bond's the guy with the blond hair. Mallory's the girl with black hair and bangs. And I'm Rich. Richard officially, but that name sounded too regal so I shortened it to Rich."

"Regal?"

"Regal. Kings and queens. There's a lot of King Richards in history if I remember correctly."

"Why don't you want to sound regal?"

"I don't want to sound like I'm above anyone."

"Are you stupid? Then why'd you shorten it to Rich?"

"Shut up. I didn't realize until I got used to it."

We made our way back inside the classroom and I glanced at the clock.

Twenty-five minutes? How on Earth did we take that long?

"You two took a while," Mr Darley said, interrupting Stacy who was in the middle of presenting her art piece.

"We went to the gym and Mr Cranston talked to us for a bit."

"I'll trust you guys. Go sit and let Stacy continue."

Zoey and I returned to our desks and gave Stacy our attention.

"Hey, Zoey, I haven't introduced myself. I'm Conan," he whispered.

"I'm Mallory."

"The name's Bond."

"Yeah, Rich told me your names. Nice to meet you."

Mallory grinned at me. "You two got to know each other fairly quickly out there, didn't you?"

"Yep."

After Stacy finished, Justice, Carrie, Moses, and Hunter went up to present their pieces. Last to present was me. When it was my turn to present, I showed my piece to the class before passing it around.

The new girl had her eyes on me. The only time she took them off was to look at my piece. But even then she only glanced before passing it on and staring at me again.

Once I finished my presentation, Mr Darley handed a math textbook to Zoey. "Everyone, please open your books to unit two, chapter two."

While everyone was flipping through their books, I studied Zoey's features. Every detail about her was identical to the girl in my vision. It was so freaky.

What a bizarre vision, or was it inaccurate to call it that?