Chapter 14 The True Face Of Spencer's School (6)

So, he looked at the ReflectionLawn when it generated itself before him. He measured the distance between the glass walls before he entered.

Breathing until he was calm, he took a step forward.

The ball had hit the wall behind him, come before him, went left, then right before hitting the ground and then bouncing off it to hit the ceiling in a diagonal direction

Tumu omi Escaver had ducked, side stepped as he stood up bent backwards until his hands met the ground, then stood back up as he twirled his upper body and jumped respectively in accurate response.

1 minute

2 minutes

3 minutes...

After 5 minutes, he noticed that the room got smaller. And when he kicked of the wall - from the bouncing ball that never seemed to sop ricocheting - he could tell that it was either glas that could bounce or plastic.

Either ways, between the workouts, Derek mock fights with him and Derek surprise ambushes, he was good.

However, after 10 minutes the room got bigger. So, he had intended to kick off it and roll on getting up but he slammed into it. Luckily, the balls passed above his head and he could do a sideways roll on the floor before pushing himself back up.

In 20 minutes, the tennis bals began all loving horizontally and dodging was all to easy.

Derek could have done this while make posses at the 20 speeding balls.

30 and the balls began moving horizontal. He sidestepped accurately and timed each evasion well. And if he let his memories of what Derek had taken him trhough cloud his concentration, he would have lost.

But, not yet.

40 and there was a slight delay, as if each ball gave the other a 0.5 second gap.

50 and the gaps became a second between each one so that the balls made a wave pattern as they sought to hit him.

Jacob noticed a pattern to what Tumunomi Escaver was doing abd a smile blossomed on his face as he shook his head.

60 minutes and Tumunomi Escaver and now the bouncing tennis balls moved horizontal and vertical like a met. But this time there was ample space between each one so that he could dive and jump through which he did.

Forward dive! Back leap, Side twist, Duck and roll! Jump twist!

Mrs. Rose Marilyn was smiling to the extent of her lips could allow and when Finim Barboach wanted to tell her that he was already top tier he flinched when he saw her expression.

That expression was when she had found raw graphite or when she ews angry or when she was planning on playing with things.

And graphite as in previous stone that was pressurised into becoming diamond.

Tumu omi Escaver might suffer after this, that alleviated his past aggrivances. But even hime could not hate the boy anymore.

The strong had a right to quirks. Not that the weak did not, they just had to be... louder.

Finim Barboach shivered and remembered some dark things

He then snapped his head back to the ReflectionLawn later and saw that 10 minutes

Now diagonally to tennis balls ad joined the fray. All the balls still managed to keep themselves equidistant from each other. So, Tumunomi Escaver just had to stay calm, like Derek had told him, when he was in a serious situation.

And Derek's surprises and extents to which he took his play fights sometimes scared Tumunomi Escaver.

Not that he would ever tell Derek that.

If... When he met him again.

The next 10 minutes the balls would begin vertical, go diagonal then horizontal. The posistions switched like infitie permutations and even Tumunoni Escaver was wondering why he was not hit.

Maybe he was moving on muscle memory now. He had read something about thay which he did not remember but he pushes it to the side.

And on the 1 hour and 21st minutes the tennis balls all broke into random motion.

He was caught and he now kay on the floor as the tennis balls froze before returning to their pipes and the room dissipated, leaving the pipes behind.

He stood up from the ground and opened his eyes to meet Mrs. Rose Marilyn. He saw her manic expression but his grin did not back down.

When he reached the PressureMill the staff, friends, winners, losers and spectators all paused before they allowed themselves to breath after a full mite of pin drop.

Tumunomi Escaver actually did some warmup exercises before he started but even an idiot could see that he had already passed his tests at this point. So they did not mind waiting for however long.

"Could he be cheating."

Mrs. Rose Marilyn's smile dropped and she eyed Finim Barboach. "Potential, when groomed from a young age can become explosive later on. Like how there is a difference of one who starts from a young age and one o starts at a latter one."

"You think," Finim Barboach squeezed his face in thought. "You think that even though he cannot begin culi ating Ko-jin the particles all around him is responding to his hard work."

"Yes, he did not start working out yesterday, you know."

Finim Barboach looked at her

He started whe he was 7.

Back to the present, 10 minutes had multiplied the pain - as every 5 seconds it climbed up a notch - the voices and the smoke. Tumunomi Escaver could swear he was in a *rowdy* auction in never ending sea of people. And now the Pins were not just burying themselves into his body body extricating themselves in and out.

At some point, another memory came;

At the age of 8, Tumunomi Escaver was once again standing in wait to be picked at the cafeteria just like the previous years. Only difference was that this time, he had turned his back at the parents and was facing the other direction.

'It is that mad boy,'

'the grim one, eh?'

'ignore him,'

'maybe he just wants attention.'

'i wouldn't give attention to that!'

'hey, its sca-'

'shut up!'

'say nothing more!'

'have you met a rabid dog before?'

Derek patted his friend in the back.

"What's wrong, did you fail to understand the concept of direction?"

"You watch too many movies, I don't understand you."

Derek sighed. "Why are you not looking the right way?"

"You saw them, you saw how they spoke of me and you."

"So?" Derek shrugged. " A wise man once sai-"

Tumunomi Escaver rolled his eyes. "You watched that in a movie."

"Still works, not all movies are dumb. And what the man said was, you must love and hate hope."

Tumunomi Escaver was about to ask him what he meant but his friend answered his unspoken question.

"It means that you must love hope enough to have faith and hate hope enough not to get down because of it."

Tumunomi Escaver was tried to wrap his head around it when his friend turned him around on the spot so that he faced the parents who wanted foster children.

"Look at them! Do not back down, sissy!"

Derek laughed and Tumunomi Escaver punched his arm as the feeling of hate and detest came back up to him like when he had heard them insult his riens only a year before. He remembered getting beaten but it did not seem to have wiped away the fear.

It had only bolstered the anger.

Derek fell on the floor laughing but when he stood up he punched Tumunomi Escaver's hand and he too fell on the floor laughing, but evn louder.

It escalated until they began fighting with smiling teeth and the staff had to separate them. And when he had thought they were rough-handling Derek, his whole body weight broke the staff's nose.

Back in the present, Tumunomi Escaver laughed and kept on treading. Not only had most of the viewers jumped because they knew what he was experiencing but some of them fell to their butts on the floor, murmuring 'no way' as he watched the pins become various morden weapons that began hacking and cutting at him. The pain made him consider letting go, but he had a deal with Mrs Rose Marilyn that the woman had better keep. Plus now, he could barely see anything as he felt as though he were in a world of fog and smoke. And so, amidst the shots, cuts, hacking, incisions and the raging roar like stacked waterfall, another 10 minutes went by.

The next triggered memory was him standing ramrod and staring straight ahead. He watched potential parents come and go and he ignored them all.

"Love and hate hope!"

Tumunomi Escaver had almost laughed because he remembered what had happened last year but he almost cried because Derek had been taken some months later when they had stolen some food. Oh, it had tasted sweet in their hungry stomachs, especially because they had began working out the year before and since then the food in the cafeteria had not been enough.

So, his expression made him look almost manic. And couples with his shout, there was now an even wider radius between himself and other kids.

Either ways, he still wasn't picked once more. In fact, by now, other kids had began avoiding him because there was one who had not been picked last year because a parent had said thy the kid might have neen friends with him.

When that visitation day had ended, he had walked to his room and had wondered who to ruin next as he had become quite fund of doing so after Derek had left.

Well not fund off, exactly. But he jad his reasons, still.

The next 5 minutes he was moving slower and the noise in this ime was like painful screeching. Like a jungle with monkeys who had amplified heir voice boxes until even the heavens decided to supply wrath for their disturbances. The realistic weapons mow looked mediaeval and began sawing some parts of his body off.

He stopped when it was only his head, torse and right arm left.

He heard his beating heart and when his eyes opened, they met Mrs. Rose Marilyn's.

Her mouth could fit an ostrich egg and even Finim Barboach could not hate the boy any longer.

Some students even began clapping when they remembered the rule of silence but the staff were too surprised to even notice a breach in the rules.

Among them was John who almost shouted. Jacob had clamped his mouth just in case and Ivan had let out a sharp scream he had turned off midway.

65 minutes!

Finim Barboach was tempted to clap

Tumunomi Escaver calmed himself and proceeded for the next test - ReflectionLawn.

Tumunomi Escaver had not been a fan of movies like Derek, but one thing that had gotten him hooked were fight scenes; the passion and the dance.

So, when he had been with Derek, his friends would pull out magazines he had gotten from sleeping, careless or absent minded staff and arranged what he wanted.

They had began training in regimens that taught explosive speed like push up burpees. It had been that, then specific body parts, cardio, flexibility and all that.

So, he looked at the ReflectionLawn when it generated itself before him. He measured the distance between the glass walls before he entered.