Chapter 4

Later Monday morning

Harborton Senior High School

Harborton, Washington

Thankfully, Ben’s day continued in a mostly ordinary manner after the collision with Lizzy outside of his classroom. No aliens appeared in his first two classes, just the “normal” semi-bored teen sophomores, juniors and seniors that took his history and civics classes. Ben was an anomaly among the other high school teachers in that he was 45 but had only been teaching for 10 years. He had picked up his love for history through his travels while in the Marine Corps and after getting a medical discharge from the service, he decided to return to school at UW for his history degree and then his teaching certificate. Ben was also unusual in that he didn’t really need to teach. He got a pretty good disability pension, fully owned his house and had invested well over the last 20 years or so. He wasn’t rich by any means but he could always scrape by without his teaching salary. To the sometime delight of his students it meant he really didn’t give a flying fuck at a rolling donut about some of the ridiculous restraints considered normal by the school establishment.

His third period class was a great example of his unusual teaching methods. US History to WWII was not the most exciting class he taught but he had a simple rule. You don’t have to pretend to pay attention but you weren’t allowed to actually fall asleep. He kept a stack of felt blackboard erasers by the front of his desk for just this eventuality. About 15 minutes after class had started Ben could hear a soft snuffling sound coming from the middle of the second row back. Without pausing his lecture he picked up an eraser and fired it right at a sleeping student wearing a bright red and white lettermans jacket. The eraser struck the jock’s forehead straight on with a soft “pwhack” and bounced off him right into the lap of the smiling blond girl seated just in front of him. The entire class erupted into laughter as the hapless Junior shot straight upright and darted sheepish glances around him looking for the source of his sleep disruption.

“Thank you for the entertainment, Mr. Morrison. Please see me after class. Sarah, would you mind?” Ben said. The senior girl slid smoothly out of her seat with the errant eraser in hand. She flashed an easy bright smile and her long red gold hair bound in a ponytail bounced jauntily as she strode to the front of the class. As she approached closer, Ben could see her waver a bit and a light blush appeared on her cheeks. She stretched out the eraser and her fingers and Ben’s touched briefly. As their eyes met the moment stretched into infinity. An actual spark flew between them and Ben thought not again! He subconsciously braced himself for another armful of girl as Sarah’s flush deepened.

Thankfully, she dropped her hand “Ah ah, here you go Mr. C”. Her hands fidgeting nervously with each other as she stared at him.

“Thank you Sarah, now where were we?” Ben said as he struggled to assemble his thoughts. Sarah blinked, gave her golden head a little shake and then turned quickly her tartan skirt whirling about her long athletically slender legs as she fled back to her seat. Dang that was a close call thought Ben. He decided right then he was quickly going to have to come to some understanding about what was happening around him or lose his job and/or his sanity.

The rest of the class was a bit of a blur. Fortunately, it seemed that the rest of the students hadn’t a clue about what had happened between Ben and Sarah. As the period ended Sarah hung back a bit until one of her many friends called out for her to hurry up. A quizzical glance at him and then she rushed out to join the other students for lunch. Ben had completely forgotten that Zeke Morrison was supposed to see him after class. There are bigger fish to fry at the moment thought Ben. He was going to have to follow up with the boy though. Zeke was usually a good student and falling asleep in class wasn’t like him.

Ben took his lunch to a bench outside rather than endure the hour long daily bitch session that was sure to take place in the teachers lounge. He mostly got along with the other teachers, but their experiences were so far out of sync with his that he just didn’t have much in common and felt little sympathy for the largely irrelevant issues that were so important to them. In Ben’s world you dealt with things the best you could. If you could change it, do so. If not then endure it. Whining about it just wasn’t an option. This attitude was what had made him an excellent Marine but horrible as a sympathetic ear for the other teachers and staff.

Strangely though he seemed to be at least tolerated by most of the students. Maybe because he treated them with whatever respect they earned, didn’t believe in bullshitting them and encouraged them to have their own opinions. While in the service he had seen too many young people at most, a year or two older than these, sacrifice everything. Treating them like children just seemed wrong. In any case, he preferred to use lunch as a bit of time to relax and zone out in his own form of meditation.

There was no peace in these thoughts today though. He needed to get to the bottom of this whole situation quickly but didn’t have a clue on how to go about it. Maybe it would be a good idea to talk it over with someone he could trust but there just wasn’t anyone he knew that wouldn’t think he was becoming an egotistical idiot or going insane. Mulling it over it occurred to him that maybe Lizzy was an option. She was extraordinarily intelligent and Ben didn’t think that she would blab about what had happened. She seemed at least as embarrassed as he was about the incident and could maybe offer some insight as she was also involved.

He would love an excuse to talk to Kelly but it would just be too embarrassing if what he thought was attraction was just a bout of indigestion or something. No, in fact. He was quite certain Kelly had been experiencing something unusual but not directly related to him. There was just no way that a woman that young and beautiful would even give an old fart like him the time of day.

And then there was Sarah. There had been something fierce in her sapphire blue eyes today during their encounter. Although he didn’t know her well he knew she was way more than a typical bubbly blond teenager. He could still recall the first time he had seen her.

4 years earlier

Behind Harborton High School

Harborton Washington

Ben could sense trouble in the air. He had thought he never again would need the instincts honed in multiple combat deployments, but they still came in handy as a high school teacher. When he rounded the back corner of the main building he immediately assessed the conflict environment. Brad Metzger had a small disheveled looking hispanic girl pushed up against the brick back wall of the school. Her hands were pinned over her head by one of his as he tried to grope her twisting figure with the other. It was very obvious that she wasn’t there by choice. He wasn’t sure but he thought her name was Maria. She was a new transfer from another district. Ben was on the farthest corner about 80 yards away, too far to quickly intervene directly but he was about to shout out to Brad when a blond fury burst around the corner about 15 feet from the two of them.

“Brad you little weasel dicked mother fucker! You better let her go right now or I’m going to kick your ass so hard you’ll need to take your hat off to shit!” The blond tornado shouted.

Ben was speechless. The small blond girl didn’t curse like a sailor. She cursed like a 20 year veteran First Sergeant dressing down a new boot who had just screwed the pooch. In spite of himself and the situation he was both amused and wondering where she had learned that kind of language at her tender age. She was probably one of the new freshmen and couldn’t be older than 14. There was something about her that told Ben beyond any doubt that Brad was about to have a very memorable day in a very bad way...

“Oh yeah, I bet!” replied the pimply faced waste of breath that was Brad. He obviously was a master debater but did not have a firm grasp of the situation or the danger he was in.

Brad turned to face his attacker confident that he could teach her a lesson. After all, he was nearly a foot taller and outweighed her by at least 40 pounds. And she was a girl!. He was expecting her to stop in front of him and start yelling again. Then there might be a round of pushing back and forth (that he would obviously win) and finally a wild punch or two that, thanks to his superior reach, would put his opponent down. This was the pattern of ‘fighting’ he was used to in his many dustups in junior high and now high school.

Brad was unaware that he was about to fight by a different set of rules, namely, no rules at all. Ben thought briefly about intervening but for some reason he didn’t think the little blond had anything to worry about and Brad deserved what he was about to get.

The blond stomped up to Brad and without pause or hesitation, turned a step forward into a lift kick right between Brad’s skinny legs. Brad never knew what hit him as the arch of her small sneaker clad foot followed through nearly to his shoulder blades. Brad crumpled to his knees as if his strings had been cut. As her lead right foot withdrew and contacted the ground the blond shifted her weight slightly twisted her hips and slammed her right elbow right between Brad’s beady eyes. Ben could hear the solid ‘thunk’ as she connected. Brad collapsed backwards onto the pavement either severely stunned or completely unconscious. If this fight had been between two high school boys it would have been way over at this point. Indeed, most men will stop when their opponent is unconscious. Not this one though. She pounced like a jungle cat onto his chest, her knees pinning Brad’s arms to the deck and proceeded to literally beat the living snot out of him.