Chapter 3

I woke up early Monday morning and took my shower. I got ready for school and gathered all my books together. The true shocker for me was that when I went downstairs I found that I was actually the last one awake.

The whole Killion family said good morning. I asked why everyone was awake already. They told me that the longer the school year wore on the better the girls got at getting up earlier.

I suspected that this being my first day back had something to do with it but I decided not to say anything. I would let them think I believed them. I guess I was still a little paranoid, but I could live longer like that.

We all ate our breakfast and went out to the bus stop to wait. We were quite early, so we had a bit of a wait until the bus showed up. The girls didn't say much for a few minutes. It was obvious that they wanted to talk so I just waited for them to start the conversation.

Jessica had a look of worry on her face when she spoke up first. "Listen, you aren't planning to do anything to those guys today are you?" She asked me.

I sighed. "I'm not planning on it so relax." I told her.

Jessica and her sisters finally relaxed after I told them this. They must have all been thinking the same thing. Why they were worried about me I couldn't figure out but I did appreciate the concern.

The conversation relaxed after that. The girls told me about there time in school while I had been gone. Most of what they said was meaningless but was happy to listen to them.

"Hey Jakstar, do you remember Becky from math class?" Stephanie asked me.

"Yeah I guess so, why?" I asked her.

"Well I think she likes you. When she found out you had been hurt so bad and that you had disappeared for more than a week she started asking me a lot about you." Stephanie told me. She looked exasperated about the situation but she was also smiling when she told me about it.

Cassandra and Stephanie started to pick on me about having a girlfriend. I just ignored them as much as I could. I did however notice that neither Jessica nor Christina joined in the jokes. In fact, Christina even looked a little mad about them. Jessica just kept on looking at me while Cassandra and Stephanie were picking on me.

The bus showed up on time and we all climbed on and went to school. A lot of the kids on the bus said they were happy to see I was alright. I just sat lower in my seat. I never did like to be any kind of center of attention.

When we got to the school, more and more kids approached me and tried to wish me well. By this point I was really starting to get nervous and anxious. My sisters, seeing my muscles start to twitch and knowing how I had reacted at the hospital, started trying to block the people from crowding me.

Christina had to leave right away to go to class so the three older girls walked with me my first class, heading off the curious before they had a chance to try to bug me. Once at my first class, Jessica and Cassandra left for their classes. Stephanie and I were early so we found our seats and waited for the rest of the class to show up.

The teacher was the last to show up today. The teacher asked me how I was doing and wished me all luck to be able to make it through out the rest of the year with no more mishaps. I seconded her motion.

I went through the rest of that class with no problem. When I left history, I was surprised to find that my sisters were waiting to escort me to my next class. This annoyed me a little but I figured they would tire of it soon so I didn't say anything.

I was surprised when I walked into second period to find that Becky was waiting for me. She asked if I was alright. She then sat in the chair next to me. I didn't know what to say to her. Having already been told that she liked me, I was a little flabbergasted.

"So are you ok Jakstar?" Becky asked me.

"Yeah I'm fine." I told her.

"Ok, well if you need any help getting caught up than please don't hesitate to ask. I'm pretty sure my mom can bring me over to your house if you need a tutor to get you caught up." Becky told me.

"Umm, thank you. But I should be ok. Besides I can always get my sisters to help me." I told her.

She looked hurt at this but smiled at me anyways. I am going to have to learn more about these women or I am in trouble.

"I'll tell you what Becky, if you want you can ask me again tomorrow, if I need help after today I'll let you know then." I told her.

She smile and agreed. We sat through the rest of the class without listening too much the teacher had to say. We would whisper between each other every chance we got. By the end of class we were pretty good friends.

I had no problems through out the rest of school. I was even able to get onto the bus this time with no problems.

When I got home I asked Jason if there were any work I could help him with around the farm. He gladly accepted and I helped him for the next three hours to get caught up. When we were finished I had a little over an hour until dinner so I went to my clearing and performed my shurcram.

When I had finished I used my implant to call the Elfbow. I told the onboard A.I. to come down and submerge itself in the large pond that was by the clearing I practiced my shurcram in. I wanted to be able to access some of its technology the next day. I told it to come dawn at about four in the morning because then it was least likely that anyone would be awake.

I then returned to the house and did the meager homework I had from today. It only took me about twenty minutes to finish it. I was not surprised when Christina came down with her school bags and asked me to help her do her homework. Since I had finished mine so quickly I gladly conceded to help her. In fact, I was starting to really enjoy our little sessions.

I helped her for almost an hour. I realized I was really enjoying helping this little angel. I had missed our little talking sessions, since that is what we did the most of while she did her homework. I also realized that she liked our sessions as much as I did, because it was obvious that she was smart enough to do her homework without my help.

After we finished, she gave me her usual payment of a sweet little kiss on the cheek. We then went up to our respective rooms and put our books away.

When we returned back downstairs, we joined the rest of the family around the table to eat dinner.

The conversation around the table was quite pleasant that night and I enjoyed every minute of it. The subject of what had happened to me never arose. I was quite grateful for that. It was then that I asked the Killion parents something that floored them both for a few minutes, and earned me a strange look from a couple of the Killion girls.

"Jason, Ellen, I wanted to ask you two something, if I may?" I said.

"You can ask us anything." Ellen told me.

"Good." I said. "I was wondering, at what age am I allowed to start dating?"

They looked at me for a minute, like I had grown horns. I figured that they didn't expect a twelve year old to ask something like that but I had to. I had some learning to do in the field of human mating rituals.

"Tell you what." Jason said. "You can start dating when you start earning enough money to take a date to dinner and a movie. Agreed?" He asked.

"Agreed." I told him.

They both looked a little relieved at my response. Little did they know that I was determined to find myself a job as soon as possible to be able to do just that.

After dinner, I went to my room and reread the books I had found on romance. I also started reading a book I had found around the house. It was a romance book that Cassandra had shown me. It was an old book the Killions had by an author named William Shakespeare called Romeo and Juliet.

I actually liked the reading, even if I had a little trouble understanding the words. I was so enraptured by the book that I fell asleep reading it.

I awoke the next morning and got ready for school. I decided to take the book with me, so I would have something to read when I was finished with whatever work the teachers would assign.

I made it through the day with no mishaps. When I returned home, I asked Jason about any work and was told that we were caught up so I was free.

I went up to the house to grab Christina. I told her I was ready to go running again. She excitedly agreed to go running with me. We went out to the front lawn and did our stretches. We then started running. I took her down the road, almost a full mile before I turned back with her. By the time we got back she was very tired, but she had hung in there quite well. She did her stretches and then waited for me to do mine.

"I am going to finish my run now." I told her

She got a very scared look on her face when I told her this. I reassured her that I would be fine and I told her she could wait on the front porch for me. I told her if I didn't return in an hour that she could call the police. She wasn't very happy with my decision but she went up to the porch to wait for me anyways.

I went out for the rest of my run. I would never admit it to any of the Killions, but I was scared as well. But I knew if I didn't face my fears then they would start to control me.

So I ran for another four miles and returned, in a little more that twenty minutes. When I was running up the road, I saw all the Killion women sitting on the front porch waiting for me. I could see, even from a distance, that they were worried about me.

I ran up to the porch and told Christina that she better take a shower because she stunk. I then smiled and ran inside to take a shower myself. As I was running inside, I heard Christina and Ellen start laughing.

When I came down from my shower, I went to the living room and sat down to do what little homework I had. It only took me about ten minutes to complete it this time, so I just sat and waited for Christina to come down and ask for my help with hers.

Christina came down about ten minutes after I had finished my homework. I agreed to help her as usual. We were done in about half an hour. We then took our books back to our rooms. I returned with the Romeo and Juliet book and continued to read it while I waited for dinner to be done.

The next day, after school, I went to my clearing. When I was sure that no one was around, I called the Elfbow and told it to surface so I could get onboard. Once aboard, I asked the A.I. unit to bring up some schematics of dated one man vehicles. It showed me something called a motorcycle. I then went into the onboard vehicle shop and proceeded to work for the next three hours producing one.

I returned home that night, right before the sun went down. I ate dinner and went to bed as usual.

I went through the rest of the week, doing the same thing. As soon as I would get home from school, I would go to the Elfbow and work on my new bike until it was time to go home to eat dinner.

I always kept time for my runs with Christina. I also performed my shurcram everyday. I also checked the A.I. unit for any guerilla tactics it might have in its memory banks. It told me it had downloaded every bit of available data that it could get a hold of before our jump, so it was quite fluent in all forms of guerilla tactics from our time period and back for more than a thousand years.

So in my spare time away from school I was building a motorcycle and learning advanced guerilla tactics. By the end of the week, I had finished the motorcycle and mastered most forms of guerilla tactics available.

I knew from asking that I wouldn't be allowed to drive it for a couple years but I wanted it ready for that day. I did add a few safety measures onto the bike from my time. I did my best to keep them simple and unobtrusive so that they would not be noticeable.

It took me nearly a month to complete the bike. When it was finished I decided that I would was getting tired of being twelve so I told the Killions that my birthday was next month. I told them it was November 23rd.

Since it had just turned to October, I figured that would be plenty of time for me to make plans to try and find a job for when I turned thirteen. Jason had told me that I wasn't allowed to get any type of job until I was at least thirteen.

During my time onboard the Elfbow, I had also read some stories about romance of this era that I had found in the Elfbow's database. I discovered that there was a major difference in what men and women of this era considered romantic. But since I was after the female of the species, I decided to focus on what the women wanted from a man and tried my best to mold myself to that image.

I had also decided during my time alone that I was going to need to do something about the boys that had abducted me. I had tried to leave them alone and forget it had happened but they same four boys started to throw threats in Jessica's and my direction again a couple weeks ago.

I decided I would start with the lower of the threats first. It was a Thursday that I started to put my plan into action.

I went to school on Thursday and convinced my sisters that I wanted to be alone that day. When they were no longer following me I took the time between classes to follow my chosen mark around to discover when the best time would be to get him alone. I discovered that he always stayed after school on Fridays to play some basketball with some friends.

I took the news home with me that night and started to make my plans. After doing my afternoon run with Christina, I went to my clearing and called the Elfbow. After I was onboard I told it what I wanted it to do. The onboard A.I. told me it would be ready when I called it.

I then returned home and did my homework in the living room as usual. As usual, Christina brought hers downstairs when I was done and I helped her do her homework. When we were done, we put our books away and ate dinner.

After dinner I begged away from the family, saying I was tired and that I wished to go to bed early. The females all seemed worried but I told them I was fine. I went upstairs and lay down. I had trained myself to go to sleep when I wanted to most of the time so I was asleep very soon after laying down.

When I awoke the next morning I was excited to be able to start to put my plans into action. I was certainly ready to put this particular nuisance behind me.

I went to school like usual and went to all my classes as if nothing were amiss. I went to lunch and was joined by Stephanie in the cafeteria. We ate together as usual and went our separate ways after lunch. After school we went home.

As soon as we were let off the bus I quickly went to my room and deposited my book bag. I then ran downstairs and told Ellen I had a school project I needed to do so I would be outside until late and that she shouldn't worry about me. She gave me a funny look but I ignored it and ran out the back door to get to my clearing.

I heard what sounded like someone trying to follow me but I was soon able to loose them. When I got to my clearing I called the Elfbow and had it surface so I could board.

As soon as I was aboard I took the helm and flew straight up so as not to be detected. As soon as I felt we were high enough to be invisible to the naked eye I turned the ship towards the school. It only took me a minute to get there. I then had the ship hover over the school.

I used the outside cameras to focus on the school. Even from our height, it was nothing for the monitors to show me my mark playing basketball on one of the outside courts. I quickly noticed that one of the other people he was playing with was one of the other boys I wanted.

The boys played for almost an hour before calling it quits. I watched them all leave and was amazed by my luck when the two marks I had both climbed into the same car to drive home.

I followed from on high and was soon watching them drive down a deserted dirt road. I had watched them stop earlier to grab some beer from a small store that didn't look to reputable. They came to a stop by a small creek. When they started to drink I was smiling to myself at how easy they were making this for me.

I slowly and quietly landed the ship a short ways from where they were drinking. I grabbed one of the stunners from the ship and ever so quietly snuck up on my prey. When they were visible I slowly leveled the weapon and fired, first at the smaller of the two, then at the other.

They both collapsed like they had passed out. When the smaller one bent over, the other one started laughing and saying something about the other not being able to hold his liquor. He soon joined his friend however in sleep.

I had the Elfbow fly closer to make loading them easier. I then grew to my normal size and grabbed both the young men and carried them onboard my ship. I put them into one of the cabins that I had converted into a cell and went back to the bridge to carry out the rest of my mission.

I set a course for Vietnam, a small country I had read about in school, that this country was quite upset with and one that was upset with us.

It only took us little more then twenty minutes to fly the short distance. Before landing I went to the cell that my captives were in and woke them up. I had put on one of my space suits so they wouldn't be able to see my face. I told them that they were about to be dropped in the middle of a very large jungle area. I never mentioned what part of the world we were in.

I then told them that they were paying for past crimes and that if they were lucky they would survive long enough to apologize for their crimes. They gave me a hateful look but said nothing.

I smiled inside my suit thinking about their reaction when they discovered that they were no longer in America. Boy did they have a shock coming when they did, I thought to myself.

I then returned to the bridge and proceeded to land the ship as far from any civilization as I could. Once down I returned to the other side of the ship to escort them out of their cell and off my ship.

They must have thought it was all a joke until they walked down the small personnel ramp that was closest to their cell. They walked down and away from the ramp. They took about ten paces from the ramp before they heard the hydraulics engage to raise the ramp. It was then that they looked back and saw that they were looking at a very large spacecraft. They looked around themselves then and that was when it finally sunk in that this was no joke.

I returned quickly to the bridge and started to take off. I turned on the cameras on that part of the ship and watched them run back towards the ramp when they realized that the ship was starting to lift off.

I kept the monitors zeroed in on them until I was at an altitude to no longer be visible. I watched them mill about the area for a while before they started to try and find someone to help them.

When I saw them leave the area I set a course for the Killion farm. There was now only two enemies left for me to take care of, but I wanted the others to start to worry before I set the rest of my plan into motion.

I returned to the farm just before sunset. I knew I would need to hurry to make it in before curfew but I was not fool enough to risk anyone seeing my ship. When I brought the ship down and exited it, I told the A.I. to submerge the ship again and ran at full speed back to the house.

I made it back to the house just before the sun set. Ellen seemed quite frustrated at me and told me not to disappear like that again. She said she had been worried. I told her I was fine and she didn't need to worry.

I had been expecting a little outburst from Ellen, but I was actually very surprised when I walked into the living room and I was almost tackled by Christina. She hugged me very hard for a minute. She then pulled back and gave me a very angry look. Christina then proceeded to tell me she was very mad at me for not being there to help her and that she had been very worried about me.

I had barely calmed her down when Jessica came into the room and did the same thing. I was starting to get angry at all this negative attention. Who were these women to think I couldn't take care of myself. I hadn't realized how possessively these women were starting to feel towards me.

I was too angry at all the negative attention I was receiving to see Jessica and Christina both take a step back. They both had scared looks in their eyes. I heard Ellen gasp from the doorway to the kitchen, but I was too angry by this point to pay her much attention.