Little Drummer Boy

Chapter 7: Faith

Chapter 7: Faith

So, I went back to school that next day. Was a bit tired after being up late with Jace and the drums, but at the time I didn’t think about school or the fact that I’d need sleep or anything like that. This truth suddenly came back to me during math. In my defense, the class moved so slowly that I could sleep for a week there and not miss anything important.

Anyway, rumors about Jace had started to spread around. Apparently Jeanne had told one of her friends, and then it spread around our small school. Some people thought he’d be going to school here, but since he was only 13 years old, he’d still be in middle school. It seemed strange to be the center of attention, though I’m sure just like those rumors of the Eole incident, it wouldn’t last long.

I tried to brush off the questions, wondering how he was doing back at home with Mom while I sat through the classes, trying not to make it look like I wasn’t paying attention. I ran into Thomas who I talked to for a while about why his computer would randomly switch to Spanish every 44.3 hours. After telling him how to use a firewall, I went to the next class.

So yeah, that was school.

It’s not like every day of school is really exciting, but they don’t have to be too boring. They’re part of life, something I do every day. Sure, I’m sure you might find something in there exciting if you look in on my life, and the fun jokes that were said among my friends that seemed so amazing might seem boring to you. Anyway, point is, I went to school, and then went home.

When I got there, Mom was doing some kind of equations on a notebook with Jace, apparently seeing how much he knew about math. With him being 13 years old, he’d be going into eighth grade, which I thought meant something about pre-algebra. Not the hardest class I’d ever had, but it could confuse someone who didn’t know anything about the subject. I figured I might have to help him out when he started, though it wouldn’t surprise me if I’d forgotten a lot about it.

“How was your day?” I asked after putting my backpack upstairs and walking back down to see them.

“Some of these things are really confusing,” Jace asked, rolling the desk chair back a few inches and rubbing his head.

“Were you in school before?”

“Ren did teach us, but not like this. We never had books or stuff with everything in it, she just told us.”

I remembered him talking about Ren a before, how it sounded like she was a mom to all of them, whoever they all were. “What was Ren like?” I asked kneeling beside him.

He lifted his head and looked across the table to my…our mom. “She wasn’t like you. Her voice wasn’t as soft, but she took care of us. She gave us food, gave us our lessons, and led us to work.”

“You had a job?” I asked.

He looked up at me with a bit of fear in his eyes, and he scooted his chair further from me. “Ren…she told us not to tell anyone else. That it was our secret.”

That told me that Ren was behind whatever life he had before, the secrets that he held. Mom picked up on it as well, I would tell from the look she gave me. But I also knew that I couldn’t push Jace too far. In the couple days we’d had together he had started to trust me more, but I knew that the secrets he had kept would be those he wouldn’t just give away.

“I need to go call Tristen about some school stuff, I’ll be back down later.”

Okay, that was a lie, I didn’t share any classes with Tristen. Honestly we probably wouldn’t ever talk to each other unless we lived so close together. We were friends more because it was easy than anything else. Not that he was a bad person or anything, we just didn’t click like some people did. And why am I telling you all this about him? Well, sometimes it’s not always the best of friends who save the day. Sometimes it’s those who you barely know.