"Braedon, at least tell me why are you so angry?" Calvin pleaded. Braedon had been fuming all morning and refused to talk to him. 

"How long has this been going on?" His voice was deathly calm and still.

"What?" 

"Steve." 

Oh. 

Steve.

"Braedon it's nothing to worry about."

"Nothing to worry about?" Braedon shrieked. His voice raised. "Nothing? Calvin, he's calling you names."

"So do you." Calvin's voice was raised too now.

"But..." he said, and then spoke in a more softer voice, "Does my name calling bother you? I didn't mean to bully you."

Calvin sighed, "No Braedon. That's what I am trying to tell. Steve doesn't bother me." 

"Calvin, I may not be able to read people's bodies. But I know Steve's bullying bothers you."

"Thanks for caring, Braedon."

"Oh, this not the end of it. I'm gonna have a talk with Steve." 

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Calvin was in the library. After he had awkwardly made his exist, he had come to the library. He was currently lying in an upside down plank pose, with his feet hanging on the backrest of the chair and his hands on the floor reading his textbook. 

This was the reason that when the door opened, he fell on his head and ended up lying face first in the carpet. Good thing they have carpets. 

The panicked voice of Alex came to him, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"It's okay, I guess. I didn't break my nose like last time." He said, ignoring Alex's questioning look. He didn't need to know about that time, "Did you need me for something? I swear it isn't dinnertime yet." He tended to lose his sense of time while reading, but it hadn't been too long yet, right?

"Uh, no? Lady McKay said I was supposed to come wait on you?" 

Wait on him? Oh.

Calvin wasn't oblivious. He had read enough historical fiction to know what he meant when he said 'wait on you'. And honestly, he wouldn't be surprised if people like Alberta had someone hired just to get them a glass of water, and stuff like that.

But he refused to believe his mom would instruct someone to do that for Calvin. 

"Mom said that?" 

"Well, she had given instructions for things for my mom and dad to do, and nothing for me to do, so I figured..."

Calvin made an 'oh' motion and said, "I'm pretty sure that's not what she meant."

Alex shifted unsurely on his feet, "So what do I do?"

"Uhh..." Calvin said, "Why don't you come in?" This was really awkward. Alex shuffled in. Calvin sat down on a chair, straight up this time, not upside down. Alex hesitated before sitting on the chair opposite his. 

Another awkward silence. 

"So, do you like to read?" Calvin asked, trying to defuse the tension.

He shook his head, "No... Uh... The words all get around jumbled for me." Calvin's mind went to the conversation they had in school after the tests, and how he said he had flunked the written test. Dyslexia could be a reason. 

"What I said earlier," Alex started hesitantly, "I didn't mean it. About your parents, I mean." 

"I know. I don't hold it against you." Calvin said, "Are you dyslexic?" 

"What's....that?" 

Uh huh. 

"Sort of like, the words gets jumbled, that's what you said. You can't easily read a book." Alex nodded.

"So, there is no medication of mental disorders in the elemental world?"

"What are mental disorders?" He seemed to perk up now, not as awkward as before.

"Sort of like, things are wrong with your brain. I mean, not exactly wrong, like it is wrong, but not wrong-wrong, Ugh." Calvin tried again, "Basically a condition of your brain that affects you day to day life in a way that cannot be seen." 

Calvin continued,  "Like you said, words getting jumbled up, not being able to focus on something or hyper focusing on something."

"They just call me lazy." Alex said in a subdued voice.

"But you're not. It's just the way your brain is, and it doesn't make you lazy or something."

"Oh."

They got into another silence, partially comfortable this time. 

------------------------------------------------------- 

"Calvin!" Susan's voice rang into the house, "Where are you?" It was four in the evening. He had almost finished his second textbook of the day and he wasn't in the mood to get up before finishing it. 

Susan, being the extremely rude girl she was, burst into his room. He regretted not locking the door. 

"Come on." She said, snapping his book shut.

"Where?"

"I don't know. But you're not reading anymore."

"But why?"

"Alex told me you have been reading since morning. Ok, I have an idea. You show me those plays."

"What plays?"

"We saw them yesterday, remember?" 

"Oh, you mean movies?" 

"Yeah, those." 

His dad and Heather had used some of their fairy magic voodoo and connected his mobile on the projector. The projector was still set up, but they were only had the downloaded movies and they had watched all of them the day before.

"But I need internet for that."

"You need what?"

"Uh...internet. Basically, I don't have the movies in my phone. I would need internet to get the movies." 

"So, where can we buy the internet?" 

Calvin snorted, "We can't buy an internet." 

"So?"

"We would need to go to some place with wifi connection, like maybe a mall. Then my mobile will pick it up. Maybe when my parents come home..." 

"Perfect. Let's go to the human world."

Calvin gave her an incredulous look, "Do you need a mental check up too?"

"What?"

"We don't have wings. We don't know the way. And even if we did, it took us the whole morning to travel from our home to here. How do you suppose we go to the human world?"

"My dad came to your house, right? He came home within an hour. How do you think he did that?"

"How?"

"The demon patrol officer gets portal machines, so we can take a portal to the human world." 

"Are you serious?"

"Duh! My dad added you home, human home, I mean, to the portal. Take your phone. We're going now."

Calvin's protests fell to deaf ears. He found himself being dragged by his arms by a phenomenally strong girl, to the human world.

(A/N: I was going to end the chapter here and make a cliffhanger, but I am going to be nice and continue.)

The room of portals was very beautiful. It's roof was colored with glass tiles of red, yellow and blue. It had a pool in the center, and a curving elevation getting to it. The door in the room opened in between two huge upturns of the wave like design in the wall.

Susan looked at his gaping open mouth and smirked, "Shocked?"

"Very."

"If you are shocked by this, just wait till you see Angebronds."

"Why?"

"Now is not the time." 

She jumped down from the wall, and Calvin walked  down the slope like a normal person. 

"Newer versions of the portal is just a tiny thing." She said conversationally as she ruffled through the the few holes on the walls, where the tiles caused a colorful shadow (look at the image), "But we thought this one's way cooler."

She pulled out a card from one hole and threw it into the pool. It started swirling on it own, and soon it became so fast, that white  mist covered the top of it. 

"Let's hope this is the portal to your house. Not Devfronds."

"Wait, you're not sure?"

"Just kidding, dummy. Now jump." 

"I'm not going first."

She pulled his arm and they both fell into the portal together.

Off to the human world.