Hell Night, James Bond Style, an Addergoole drabble
I swear I've posted this somewhere before, but I can't find it. Addergoole, year 15 of the school. Ashley cy'Kairos and Panayiotis cy'Solomon. 550 words.
His final year. How could it possibly be his final year?
Where had the years gone?
So at the beginning of his final year of school, when he walked out into the hallways to find the lights all off and the lights casting their usual red glow over everything, he just smiled. “Hell Night. Right.” Ashley had absolutely no use for Hell Night – remembering all too well his first – and thus he usually set out to screw up those around him that liked causing problems for the new kids.
Aurel would be the easiest to find; his first Keeping had never set him up to be terribly inconspicuous, and his Crew hadn't helped him much either. So traveling down the halls, keeping the soundtrack to a modest bass line, he ramped the stealth up to eleven.
Surprisingly, he managed to find Sascha first – by almost walking into the idiot's trap. It was only a quick sidestep that managed to keep him on his feet. “Fucking weasel...”
From the glow of an emergency light, Ashley saw a tail flick. “Who have we here...?” Ashley scowled, mainly to himself, and switched the track – and the pulsing bass notes from Jaws filled the hallway. He heard Sascha sigh. “Get out, boom box.”
“It's a fucking hallway, shit-for-brains. I'm allowed to walk in it.”
“Not when I'm--” Sascha tried to say something, but movement caught Ashley's attention – someone down the hallway, walking their direction. “Wait--”
Ashley ignored Sascha, bounding through the darkness, skidding to a stop near the kid, the bass line just barely audible now. To his credit, the kid didn't seem nearly as startled as Ashley had expected. “Something wrong?” he asked.
Ashley looked at the person he'd run toward – a younger boy, short hair painfully obviously dyed blonde but dark brown eyes unfazed by the freakiness of Hell Night even from behind the comically thick glasses – and just grinned. “Nope, not at all. What are you up to, wandering around the halls in the middle of the night?”
The boy didn't seem impressed. “It's eleven-thirty in the morning.”
“Doesn't look like it.” Ashley was still grinning. “Doesn't answer the question, either.”
“I was trying to find the cafeteria, but it doesn't look like it's going to be exactly a walk in the park,” the boy murmured. “I should have listened to my brother when he said my first month would be odd.”
“Brother?” Ashley's ears perked. Usually you found out you had siblings after you came to Addergoole, not before. “You have a brother that came here?”
“Uh-huh, and a sister, for better or worse on both counts.” The boy pursed his lips, looking unimpressed. “Haven't even made it to the month point and I can tell no one liked them here.”
Oh. That kind of relationship. “Well, I basically don't hate anyone here, so I'll get you to lunch. What's your name?”
“Call me Pano – it's easier to say.”
“Not the first to tell me that,” Ashley responded to him with a wink, and then waved to Sascha down the hallway – where he could see the tail lashing angrily.
“What's your name?”
Ashley paused, and then grinned, running a hand through his hair. “Bond. James Bond.”
