Two more class periods stood between the end of lunch and the end of the school day and while the former of the two went off without a hitch, the latter not so much. Will sat in the back of his last period classroom with slouched over with his head on one of his hands, paying more attention to the clock than the teacher’s lecture. “A neurosurgeon eh? That’s a pretty lofty goal. But not one that can’t be achieved. Okay then, Chelsea, take your seat.” the teacher, Mr. Carlisle said to the class. “Okay then, let’s hear from…” Carlisle paused to pick up a piece of paper next to him on his desk and read from it. “Ah! William Moon.” He placed the piece of paper back down on the desk. Hearing his name being called, Will frantically shifted his attention from the clock on the side wall of the classroom to the front where the young teacher was casually sitting on his desk rather than the chair that accompanied it. Will hadn’t heard a word that was spoken during the entire class to this point, but he had already figured out what questions he was going to be asked. Behind Carlisle on the whiteboard read only one statement written in red marker: “Today’s Class: Who Are You?!” the “you” was underlined three times.

“Please stand up and tell the class a bit about yourself,” Mr. Carlisle requested.

With no choice in the matter, Will rose from his chair, with his hands now placed back in his hoodie pockets, and saw the blank stares from the other twenty-eight students in the classroom. Their stares pierced through him like multiple spears going through the chest of a fallen warrior from ancient times. This was the first time, not just today, but in a long time, Will had to directly address a crowd of this size. To him it was as if he was on trial and the utterance of one wrong word would send him straight to the electric chair. “Um..” Will nervously began. “I’m Will. I moved here a few weeks ago from a town called Salem.” He stood there, glassy-eyed, saying nothing else. “And?” the teacher asked, hoping to squeeze more information out of Will. As if he was powered by a car engine, he threw a considerable amount of questions at Will. “What are your hobbies? What’s your favorite subject? What do you want to do after you graduate? Do you want to go to college? What do you want to major in? You plan on getting married? Having kids? How many?” Will had but one answer to all of the questions being torpedoed at him, “uh…”

Mr Carlisle let out a tiny chuckle in response to Will’s response; a chuckle that some might’ve considered condescending if they thought about it hard enough. Will was just relieved that his interrogation was over. He wasn’t paying attention before, but he was positive that no student before him was hit with such a flurry of questions “It’s okay, William. I don’t expect you to have all of the answers right here and now. But, students, these are just some of the questions you will have to find the answers to. You can take your seat now, Mr. Moon.” Without hesitation, Will sat back down. The optimistic teacher, who looked like he still believed that the children had bright futures and wasn’t just at work to collect a paycheck rather than mold young minds, began to give a passionate speech. “You know you lot are lucky. We are heading into a brand new millennium; technology and the innovations that come along with it are growing at a rapid pace. And you sitting those desks right now will be the ones that spearhead our society in the 21st century. Decades from now, your names will be written in the history books your descendants will study from. It is up to each and everyone of you to decide what will be said about you in those books, just as the people you’ll read about in your text did before you. So this history course not be just about learning about the past, I’m hoping that you will also learn about yourselves so that when your grandchildren live in an utopian society, they’ll know exactly why it was your actions that made it so. That is why I ask the question.” He pointed at the words he wrote on the whiteboard. “WHO? ARE? YOU?!”

The bell rang after that. The students rose from their desks and emptied the classroom ten times faster than they entered it. “We’ll begin with the unit on the forming of the colonies tomorrow. Start reading chapter one tonight,” Mr. Carlisle exclaimed to the students as they left. Will made it to the front of the classroom heading toward the door when he was halted by Mr. Carlisle who grabbed his left shoulder. With his eyes closed and a smile on his face, Carlile addressed Will, “Didn’t mean to put on the spot like that, Moon. Just wanted to see if you were paying attention. You know what say about history. Those who fail to learn from it..well you know the rest.” Will didn’t respond, he just kept walking towards the door.

Will didn’t go to his locker to put the textbooks he received away, they remained in his backpack. They were heavy, or they were have been, if they weren’t old and outdated; the worn pages definitely lightened the burden on Will’s back. He didn’t want to spend another moment at Washington that he didn’t had to for the day. On top of that, his locker was back in the E building, where his homeroom class was and there was no way he was traversing back there.

Will made his way to the west end of the campus, where he could see a series of yellow school buses parked behind one another in a single file line. Even if he knew which bus would take him home, Will had his fill of interacting with his peers for the day. Even being near them would overwhelm him at this point. So he made the brash decision to walk home. He memorized the route his dad took from their house to the school in the morning. He also determined that it would take about twenty to thirty minutes to walk home.

With his hands in his pockets, yet again, Will walked in between two of the buses towards the chain link fence that bordered the school from the main roads. He discovered that the school buses and the seniors with cars shared the same parking lot as he witnessed several of them conversing with each other around their cars. There were exits from the lot on both the east and west of Will’s position; the west leading toward the main road and the east leading back toward the front of the campus where he was dropped off this morning. He pushed on towards the west exit despite it being further than the east.

As he walked, he began to turn on his CD player and put on the earbuds. He had placed the right earbud in his ear when suddenly he heard a large, roaring noise heading toward him. It was the sound of the engine of a Chevy Corvette driven by a senior at a speeds that blatantly violated the 10 mph limit of the parking lot. As the cherry red, newish looking car whizzed past Will, the sound of the music coming from the right earbud was drowned out by the roar of the car’s engine, combined with the generic pop-rock music blaring from its radio and the exclamation of “WOOOOO! SENIORS BABY!” from the girl in the passenger seat followed by a series of honks from the car’s horn by the driver. This triggered Will to jump a short height in the air in shock. After he recovered from the shock, Will caught his breath and then put on the left earbud.

The walk home was a peaceful endeavor for Will. For the last days of August, there was a nice, calming breeze in the air; Fall was definitely on its way. Though he was more of a fan of the blazing heat of Summer days, Will welcomed the brisk warm that this day particular day was filled with. The sun was still high in the sky but sunset would come in about an hour or so. After leaving the campus, Will began walking on Chisholm Road, one of the major roads of the town of Ingram Park. It was also one the busiest as it connected to the major highway and housed several business and stores on both sides of the road. If school let out even 30 minutes later than it did, Will’s walk home would be filled with fighting against heavy traffic from disgruntled employees desperate to get home. No less than five minutes into his walk from school, Will came across Park Hills Mall, an impressive building at three stories tall, that dominated the left side of his vision for at least eight more minutes. He recalled his mother telling him how big the mall was from the inside when she went there to buy him clothes for school. Seeing it for the first time at this scale, Will was admittedly impressed. He thought to himself, “A mall that big HAS to have at least one store that sold the latest video games. I bet they’ll have that new Final Fantasy game for sure.”

If Will continued down Chisholm Road, the mall would dominate its left side for at least a few more minutes. But he had to cross onto Benbrook Street to get home. His walk was halted by a three-way intersection that was dictated by traffic lights. Chisholm was the dominant street, so the lights on its side would remain green much longer than the light that would allow Will to cross.

Across the street was a small strip mall composed of varying business including a tattoo parlor, an insurance agency, and an authorized dealer of mobile phones and service. At the tail end of the strip mall, closest to the sidewalk, was a convenience store with gas filling stations at its front.

The store was sparsely populated, but occupying near its entrance were a group of kids; four of them to be exact. From Will’s point of view, the kids looked to be about his age. They stood by the entrance, much to the store clerk’s objection and in defiance of the sign right next to them reading, “No Loitering,” drinking drinks from the store chain’s signature cups. Finally able to cross the street, Will walked on the sidewalk on the same store as the strip mall. He was able to get a closer look at the kids, confirming that they were teenagers but not sure if they were Washington students. Their attire was similar to Nathan’s. Some wore caps, others wearing beanies, one of them was wearing black fingerless gloves. They were all wearing different colored, short sleeve tee shirts with different phrases, and brands on them, all of which were brief, the longest being only three words. With the exception of one, they were all wearing the same style of shoes, a pair of low cut shoes with varying colors that kind of matched the color of their shirts and tight fitting, black jeans. Along with their large soda cups, each of the kids had skateboards near them. The overall scene reminded Will of the groups of students that occupied each of the tables in the cafeteria; most of the groups were composed of students that bore the same resemblance to each other in some way or the other.

Like Chisholm Road, Benbrook Road would have sidewalks on both sides for pedestrians. But Benbrook Road also had specially marked lanes on the street closest to the sidewalks that were designated for bicyclists. There were no businesses on Benbrook Road, only residences. It was much more quiet on this road than Chisholm so Will could actually hear the music coming from his earbuds. Will walked on the sidewalk for a few minutes until he came across a small bridge over a brook that looked like it went on for miles. After crossing the bridge, Will entered Benbrook Road’s residential area. On Will’s left side were a series of apartment complexes separated by fences; each made of different materials which helped distinguish the amount of money it cost to live in each complex. On his right was a row of single story houses with trees seemingly tall enough to eclipse the sun between them. Regardless of their height, their overall structure differentiated from one another. Will continued to walk down Benbrook for a while. He saw small children playing, running around as hyperactive as children can be. Past the apartments on the left side, there were avenues and cul de sacs that lead to even more houses. But none of these would be the street that Will had to turn onto.

Eventually the sun would show again. It was further down in the sky than it was before indicating that sundown was quickly approaching. Will had exited the Benbrook Road residential area and the treeline that canopied it and found himself in a busy four-way intersection. Across the street, Will would find his destination. There it stood, Presley Place, an enormous residential subdivision sealed off by a wall made of grey bricks. Will crossed the street and made his way to the closed entrance gate. The gate could only be opened by entering the code on the keypad on the median between the entering lane and the exiting lane. Will thought he remembered the code, but when he typed it in he was greeted with a sharp buzzing sound that could be heard even through the music coming from his earbuds. A few seconds later, he tried again, entering the same number combination under the impression that he typed it incorrectly the first time. Another buzzing sound rang.

Now Will was stuck. “What’s that code?” he asked himself as a SUV pulled up beside him. He moved out of the way of the keypad allowing the driver, a disgruntled looking man in a charcoal grey suit, to enter the code. A different, more welcoming sound chimed from the keypad, and then the gate on Will and the driver’s side opened. The driver gave Will a apprehensive look, as if he thought Will was trying to break into the neighborhood. To further drive that suspicion, Will saw that the man was pulled out his cell phone as he drove past the open gate. He wondered if the man was calling the police on him for trespassing. But he had to put the inquiry on hold as the gate started to close prompting him to walk swiftly past it behind the driver; he wasn’t looking to experience another awkward moment like this one.

Presley Place was far more expansive on the inside, than it looked on the outside. It was composed of several roads, connected the main road, most of them ending in cul de sacs. There were both one and two story homes, each of varying colors and designs. On the outside, it appeared that each house was custom built from the preferred design stylings of the homeowners themselves. There were a few houses with “For Sale” signs placed on freshly mowed lawns, leading to Will to believe that in the end the owners, weren’t too pleased with their own design tastes; because why else would anybody want to leave a suburban paradise like this? Especially one so well guarded by a neighborhood watch and a patrolling members of the Ingram Park Police Department. Surprisingly, Will didn’t see as many kids playing outside here as he did on Benbrook Street. Most of the noise that drowned out Will’s music was the barking of dogs that were being walked by housewives as they jogged in their tracksuits. There weren’t as many trees either. Besides the gardens and yards that were tended to by residents or landscapers hired by residents, the flora of the land was replaced by hundred plus thousand dollar homes.

Will walked down the main road of the subdivision, a few minutes between him and his house. A school bus passed by Will and stopped ahead near an intersection. A few students exited the bus; during its stop Will recognized the numbers on the back of the bus, 119. It was one of the buses that was parked in the lot back at Washington, leading Will to believe that if he were to take the school bus, this would be the one.

In the middle of Presley Place was Penley Avenue. The very first house on the left side of Sherman Avenue west end was the Moon Residence, a two story house made of grey bricks that looked plain in design compared to the other houses in the area. The grass was a bit taller than the lawns of the houses beside this one, an observation Will made followed by a groan. He knew that either his dad or the Presley Place Homeowners Association was going to make him mow the lawn during the weekend. Near the mailbox in the front of the house was a basketball hoop that stood about 50 inches tall. It was in fairly new condition; it had only been used twice since by Will’s dad and Will’s brother DeMarcus since it was purchased a few weeks ago. It was also the only that Will saw in the entire neighborhood. Parked in the driveway was the bright pink Hyundai Accent which belonged to his mother. She along with everyone else in the family dubbed it the “Pink Bunny” and despite Will’s dad’s numerous requests, she refused to sell it for a new car, claiming it still had at least good ten thousand more miles left in it. Near the driveway and front door, below the large window panes was a small area sealed off by gray stones of varying size. Inside this area was mulch made of wood chips with store bought plants of different colors planted in it.

Will walked up the driveway and onto the pavement that bridged the driveway to the front door. He stood under the arch that covered the front door, took off his earbuds, and placed them back in his hoodie pockets. He didn’t have to turn off his CD player; the batteries in them had died minutes earlier. He reached in his jeans pocket for the house key that was attached to a key chain in the form of a cartoon character. He put the key into the door’s keyhole; but before he turned the key to open the door, he let out yet another sigh, similar to the one he gave before entering homeroom. “See me through this,” He said again seemingly to himself.

Next Chapter: Chapter Four