The Watchers Read Online Free PDF Page A

way through one set of
doors, out the back of the building, through a covered walkway, to
another set of large doors. At the second set of doors, she stopped
and released my arm. “Well, here it is.”
    “Thanks.”
    She paused thoughtfully. “Don’t take today
too seriously. It’ll be better tomorrow.” Surprised by her advice,
I smiled. She smiled again, her dimples flashing into life. “Good
luck!”
    With a wave, she turned back the way we
had come, a natural bounce in her step. I watched her walk away,
impressed at her generosity, a part of me skeptical of her motives;
too many false friends and liars in my past had me thinking her
motives were entirely genuine. Before she disappeared from sight, I
heard a final thought: I hope she knows
what’s in store for her today…
    I did, too…
    Pushing the massive metal door open, I saw
the gym, which looked like every high school gym I had ever seen –
bright, open, and strangely ominous. The teacher, a middle-aged
man, who had the look of someone muscular gone to seed, stood in
the middle of the floor tying up what appeared to be mesh for
tennis courts. His moon face let me know he had spent years
indulging in both food and alcohol. Round, bloodshot eyes the color
of mud looked at me dully. My first impression was of a very
massive pig wearing a wig. I went to him, trying to get visions of
Ms. Piggy out of my head, and gave him my name and the form for him
to sign.
    He gaped at me and I heard: No one said she was one of those punk chicks…
Damn, I need a drink. I think I’ll sneak one in at lunch. Donna
would never have to know. Unless she catches me again…
    He took the paper I was offering him and
signed it with a sigh, longing for the bottle he had tucked in his
desk. He gave it back to me and, in a tired, hopeless voice,
pointed out where everything was. Mumbling to himself, he shuffled
away to find me a uniform to change into. I watched him go, pity
flooding my stomach as the thought that he had given up on life, on
himself, a long time ago, permeated my brain.
    When he came back, I took the uniform he
offered me, and went to the girl’s locker room without comment. I
changed slowly, not wanting to go back out where the other kids had
already gathered on the bleachers talking and chattering with
frightful teenage normalcy. The day of reckoning was at hand…
Finally, feeling like I had stalled long enough, I stuffed my
clothes and bag in a spare locker and walked out, dragging my feet
every inch of the way.
    As I crossed the floor, scanning the
bleachers for a place to sit, I noticed particulars about the group
for the first time. Most of the class of fourteen or so was
gathered around four figures. It was obvious from the seating
arrangement that the four teenagers in the middle were members of
the ‘popular crowd.’ The four consisted of two boys and two girls.
The girls were pretty in the typical, cookie-cutter way. One girl
was blonde and lanky with high cheek bones and a pixy nose; the
other girl was brunette and very petite, almost diminutive, and had
similar bone structures in her face. The boys differed wildly.
While one fit the idea of typical, the other looked far from garden
variety. The cookie-cutter boy was bulky and athletic. He had brown
hair and a square jaw, which was balanced on his square face. I
knew that if he weren’t in his gym uniform, he would definitely
have a letterman’s jacket on, flaunting the school’s colors. But it
was the other boy, the non-cookie-cutter, whom I couldn’t drag my
eyes away from. He was talking to everyone in a voice which echoed
around the large space, and I felt a magic, a certain sense of
presence the others could never have. After hearing him tell a
rather simple, funny story to the crowd, I was convinced he could
talk a bear into giving up its honey stash.
    I stared, trying to understand how anyone
could be so graceful in simply shifting their weight on metal
bleachers, and he looked up. He met my