The Boarding House on the Hill

I looked up to the clock realizing how late it was. I needed to get to school quickly, and Mom left me in charge of breakfast. I quickly turned off the burner once the last omelet left the pan and placed everything on a cart. I rolled the cart to the service elevator in the kitchen and pressed the up button five times. I spat out my chin length brown hair from my mouth and ratted my fingers on the cart’s handle. The elevator was moving too slow.

As soon as the doors opened I rushed down the second floor hallway. I came to the first door and pounded on it many times till I heard someone fall onto the floor. The door quickly opened and I saw an angry morning face of Cecil, one of the attendees of the boarding house. I shoved a covered tray into his arms and told him have a nice day.

Before he could snap at me for waking him up so early, I dashed down to the linen closet. The door opened on its own and an oddly friendly face of a woman opened the door. Noises from a busy work day were coming from the closet and I could see an entire store full of people.

“Ah, what a beautiful day! Is this breakfast?” the woman asked sipping her favorite tea in a blissful mode.
“Yeah, here, bye,” I said handing her the tray.

A man’s voice from inside hollered at the woman to help with customers. Her pleasant look automatically changed as she harshly hollered back to keep his pants on. She took the tray and the door slammed shut. I sighed and ran down to the last room.

I knocked on the door quietly and opened the door carefully.
“Breakfast…” I shivered walking into the dark room.

I turned to see a motorcycle. It looked like it was staring at me as I walked across the room and placed the tray on a desk. I tried not to make a lot of noise or harsh movements afraid of knowing what the bike would do. I smiled cautiously and closed the door quietly. I sighed hearing the motorcycle’s engine inside the room and kicked the cart back down to the elevator.

“Bye, Mom! I’m off to school!”
“You better hurry! And please go to the store after school too!” she called as I ran out the front door.

I held onto my backpack and raced down the driveway and the steep hill that lead to school. I only lived ten minutes away, but I always had so much to do in the morning. I didn’t even know how I was able to actually look nice today. I was always late, or should I say, just on time. If I had one more tardy I would have to have detention, and I wasn’t going to let that interfere with my after school clubs.

I was smart enough to remember my running shoes today and ran all the way to my first period class. I collapsed on my desk right when the bell rang only to realize that I forgot to study for a test that was that period.

“I don’t understand… you have a motorcycle at your house, why don’t you ride it?”

My friends at lunch asked. We were all outside with a table with an umbrella. It was a rather cold and gloomy day to be eating outside, but at least there weren’t many students outside. I had left over breakfast food for lunch today, but most of the leftovers were from Cecil’s dish. He liked his food bland. No spices or sauces. Which was totally different than what the other people liked. Each had their own flavors they liked, and our boarding house promotes “home cooked meals to your liking”. Breakfast was the most annoying time because no one is really up that early.

“Guys, you know that I can’t ride Emil. He nearly killed me for riding on him last time,” I sighed biting into some toast.
“You act like it’s a living thing, Noel,” my closest guy friend Cil said concerned.

They wouldn’t believe me if I told them. I looked over to my guy friend. We all called him here “Cil”, but his real name was Cecil. He would never believe me especially since our boarding house is housing him ten years into the future.

See, our boarding house is strange. It’s like we attract weirdos. The members we have now, were actually quite normal compared to the others. Right now we are housing two time travelers, an inter-dimensional magic store, and a possible haunted bike. We’ve had giants, dragons, robots, and your rare “land shark”. Mom acts like this is all normal, but I’ve never grown used to it. At least my brother and sister like them.

School passed by quickly and I saw that soccer club was canceled because of the bad thunder storms we’ve had yesterday. I looked up to the sky to see it turning dark gray. It’ll rain soon, but I had to run to the store and grab some things Mom wanted. I whined aloud saying that I needed a car. I looked up and then noticed a small crowd by the pick up lane.
I walked over and heard some kids asking on where such a classic motorcycle came from. I then saw the familiar once blue motorcycle with a low seat and large front light. I dropped my bag in fear. Emil was at school. I never even recalled the bike even coming anywhere I would go.

The students looked over as I pushed through them saying that Emil was my bike. The light seemed to move slightly toward me as if he was angry at my comment. I laughed sitting on the seat and clutched the handle bars. I pretended to turn on the bike and Emil’s engine hummed in anger. I then took the handle bars and moved Emil away from the school.
I never realized how much fun riding a motorcycle was. It was quite simple too. I was actually enjoying it. Well, enjoying it till the bike suddenly stopped in the middle of the road and I almost fell off of it.

“What’s your problem?!” I growled getting off the bike, “you were the one that came to my school!”

The engine growled and rode off with out me. I yelled at the bike as it drove away. He could have at least waited till after I went to the store. I felt a few rain drops and growled quickly running to get to the store that wasn’t that far away. I got some desert and other items that we were running low on and exited the store. Thankfully it wasn’t still really raining yet.

“Hey!” Cil yelled from the parking lot.

I looked up to see a few of my friends hanging out by a car. They were talking before at lunch about possibly seeing a movie. I walked over to them and asked what was up. They asked if I was interested in wanting to go see a movie in an hour but I declined saying that it was Friday night.

Every Friday night, everyone had to come and eat dinner together. It was always a rule at the boarding house, even before it was a boarding house. One of my first memories was everyone sitting together at the table and talking about the week. I smiled at the thought, but it was a no-no to miss out on a Friday night meal.

“You know,” one of my friends said, “we’ve always heard about your famous “Friday Night” meals. Why don’t we come?”

I couldn’t help but give them a cautious smile. Our inter-dimensional friends were in charge of food tonight. Their dishes were either very spicy or wiggled on our plates. They were delicious dishes, but too bizarre for my friends. Besides, Emil and the future Cecil would be there. My friends gave me puppy dog eyes and continued to pester me about going. I knew that there would be extra food, but I was still cautious. Finally they bribed me with a car ride home and I gave in.

Mom wasn’t that happy about my friends, but everyone else seemed fine about it. Well, everyone but Cecil who was giving me the “this could change the future” glare. I ignored him and took my friends spring coats and put them into the closet. I lead them through our large entry way and took them to the left to the dining room where everyone was at. Emil oddly left as soon as we came in but luckily my friends didn’t see him.

“Friends of yours, Noel?” a woman asked coming into the room.

She had strange colored hair and a nice smile under her cold eyes. Talia. She was Cecil’s “partner” at their “computer fixing business”. They apparently were both at the wrong place at the wrong time and ended up trapped here in the past. She was smarter than smart and was constantly buying computers to build into a super computer needed to store the information she wanted.

She nicely greeted everyone and said that Nay and Creen’s meals would be ready soon. Nay and Creen both ran the magic store. They weren’t married, but bickered like they were sometimes. The kitchen door opened and the same woman who had a blissful attitude this morning came out. She carried a pot that would have normally been too heavy for any one person to carry and had a proud mean look on her face.

“Shut your traps everyone and come eat! The cor won’t stay numb forever!”
“Ew, we’re having cor again?” my little sister said coming to the dining room table.
“That thing almost ate my head…” my older brother said staying far away from the pot.
“But that’s the fun of the cor!” Nay said coming out with another tray of food.

Cil leaned over asking me what a “cor” was and why Cecil was glaring at him. I ignored both questions and sat down at the table. After a quick blessing, Creen placed her hand on the pot’s covering and yelled at everyone to grab their knives. My friends were confused and I was too scared to think on what they would say. But when Creen opened the pot, nothing was inside. Bro got scared and got out of his seat asking where it went.

My friends all became confused and scared and Nay tried to say that there was nothing to worry about. Suddenly something large fell from the ceiling and an animal that looked like an octopus and a crab angrily snapped at us. My friends yelled in fear.

“Attack!” Creen yelled grabbing onto one of the large tentacles.

Everyone else followed and my friends stared confused as the other members of the house, minus Emil, stabbed the cor. I shrugged and laughed.

“Welcome to Friday nights at my place!” I smiled.