Truth Fire

[Just so that you understand, anything between sets of ‘***’ three asterisks before it is in the present tense (not flashback) e.g *** That’s weird, why’d he do that? – I dunno *** the boy continued to stab the man.]
“Hello? Ah – Hawkins is at it again! Get George and the others – quickly before he runs out of school!” Bellowed Miss NoGo -
***
“No go?”
“Never could remember her name,”
***
Hawkins had run half way across the school – it was only possible to be that fast since he was town champion at the time – he had never been beaten. Both me and Luke attended that same school; Greenland Secondary School; and it appeared to be a constantly eventful education facility.
Something had occurred during class that day that resulted in Hawkins pelting as far from the school as possible. I didn’t understand what had taken place, since I was absent in the classroom due to performing errands for the teachers.
***
“Were you a pushover brat?”
“Only in that class. I remember she gave us sweets as much as it rained in monsoon season,”
“Oh,”
***
Luke had caused the largest uproar in school by a single student. Everyone – and I mean everyone out of every classroom, sprinted to stop him, or at least slow him down – but people had trouble trying to find where he was. It was interesting since his uniform wasn’t particularly in good shape from his leather jacket to the combat boots. I admired his fashion, though I couldn’t wear it to school.
***
“He was a troublemaker? Well I didn’t see that coming,”
“Sort of… He was really talented at almost everything he did – just had some problems that he wouldn’t speak about and it resulted in rebellious behaviour. Hard to imagine right?”
“Mhmm,”
“That’s because that wasn’t the whole story,”
***
One of the days during my teen years, these people were kind of picking on me – they called it banter, but ‘banter’ wasn’t supposed to be malicious. I’d apparently said something that had them on me like a pack of hounds through verbal abuse and sheer number, but Luke stayed by my side and stayed true to himself. He, believe it or not, saved me from coming home a black and blue skin dye.
He was like an older brother to me, that’s something I hadn’t felt prior to that, I was just a lonely, only child – but Luke was the greatest… but at some point – and I didn’t know when and it still bothers me to this day… he started changing and it was noticeable. Everyone spotted the oddness – it was uncanny. Rather than rebellious, he just became…good… not that it’s a bad thing, let me assure you that, but it was just abnormal.