Excerpt: Summer's Warriors Vol. 1: A Line of Dust

"...Mr. Eathger. Welcome to English 9; if you're supposed to be in a different class, the proper time to leave the classroom would be about fifteen minutes ago." He grabs a sheet of paper. "Let's get the class list squared away, shall we? Adams, first initial M."
Taya clears her throat. "Everyone whose last initial is A, J, or S is going to be gone for a little while longer. Homeroom and locker assignments are in the library."
Mr. Eathger looks at Taya. "Hm, is that so... in that case, I'll run through them in a moment. Barnham?"
A girl in the front raises her hand. "That's me."
This continues for a couple of minutes without any noticeable mispronunciations, when finally the last name on the list trips him up. "Zweach?"
A redheaded girl on the right side of the room glares. "Zoo-ich."
"Right, right." He taps the paper against his desk a couple of times. "Well, now..."
The PA system comes on. "Students whose last names begin with B, K, or T, please report to the library for homeroom and locker assignments."
Mr. Eathger holds up a hand. "Before you leave, the textbooks for your readers are here." He points at a pile on his desk. "Grab one as you leave, and then we'll pass the rest of them out."
Fifty minutes and two more groups of students called out to the library later, the rest of the class heads out. Rashelle waves Taya over. "What's your next class?"
"Honors Physical Science. Yours?"
"French. See you at lunch?"
"You've got a deal." They shake hands and depart in opposite directions, Rashelle heading towards Building 3 and Taya making her way to the southwest corner of Building 1.
Benito catches up to her first. "So?"
"Borrrrring. Hand out book disks. 'What I Did This Summer' in essay form. The usual."
"Beats five pages worth of math homework on the first day."
"Ew, don't remind me. I'll probably get that last thing."
They continue down the hall and see Dawn and Megami picking their way through the masses of students making their way from class to class. "It's like a can of sardines trying to swim upstream in here," Benito grumbles.
Megami hears this. "That was a... different metaphor."
Taya shakes her head. "Simile. He used 'like'."
Dawn thinks for a moment. "Close enough. Science now, right?" The other three nod.
Taya pokes Benito. "So did you already get your locker and homeroom assignment?"
"Yeah. I actually convinced the teacher to let me go about five minutes early to do that." He pokes her back. "Ten minutes in class, and then you get to go grab yours."
They reach the door to Room 118, which is presently blocked by a boy roughly Dawn's height, with a fairly impressive tan and hair nearly as white as Kerri's, wearing a white polo shirt and khaki pants, and carrying a pack that seems to be about ready to explode and send...
"Paper books? Who carries that many paper books in a backpack?" Taya wonders aloud.
The boy gets the door open just before his pack does explode in a fountain of hardbound books with such titles as Applied Physics, Vol. 2 and Linear Accelerators for Students. He begins swearing under his breath as Benito starts laughing and grabs Applied Physics, Vol. 2, flipping to the Table of Contents. "Potato cannon. Now that's a way of making mashed potatoes that I've never thought of!"
The boy looks at Benito. "There's not really that much left of the potato once it impacts. Can I have my book back?"
Benito assesses him. "After class, okay? I promise not to wreck the book, Shrimpy."
"The name," the boy says, "is Andrew. Not 'Shrimpy'. Preferably not 'Wide Load' or 'Meatball' either." He looks at Benito. "Not that you'd call me that, necessarily. I just got tired of it in middle school."
Benito laughs. "Not a problem, Shrimpy." Taya glares at Benito. "Anything in this book you haven't done?"
Andrew sighs. "Not really. I've got a few other people signed up to help put the principal's car on the roof during lunch, though."
"You'd pull that on Darricks? I like your style, man." Benito grins. "You know, if you were about a foot taller, you'd probably make a great linebacker."
"I play five-eighths, actually." Andrew assesses Benito's clueless look. "You know, rugby?"
"Pretend I'm from the US. Better yet, assume I am, rather than Australia or New Zealand or wherever your family's from."
"Sort of like a halfback in football, combined with the quarterback and the kicker, then." He smiles. "It's a little more complicated than that, but basically I call plays, kick the ball, and try and keep our team from running around like a chicken with its head cut off."
Benito thinks for a moment. "Okay, that makes sense. With your build I still would have expected you to be more of a throw-your-weight-around type of guy in games, but I'll take your word for it."
A gong sounds, and Taya looks at the board for the clock. "Three minutes until class." She sighs. "For an interesting first day of school, so far it's pretty boring." Taya, Benito and Andrew sit in the front row, with Dawn and Megami taking seats behind the two boys.
Mr. Ketherly comes into the room a moment later and does a quick head count. "Okay, folks, make sure you're where you want to sit for the semester. I'll be back in a moment."
Taya turns around to look at Dawn. "I meant to ask earlier. What instruments do you play?"
Dawn grins. "I play tuba. Megami changes instruments every year."
Megami looks at Dawn. "Yeah, back and forth between the same two. Clarinet and oboe."
"How about you? Do you..." "...play an instrument?"
Taya shakes her head. "I've been trying to teach myself guitar, but even with all kinds of instructional videos I still can't get past being able to do more than about four or five different chords. The worst part is that when I change videos, it ends up being a different set of chords that I know how to do." Dawn starts staring past Taya. "Uh, Megami?"
Megami looks at Dawn. "You know how cats act like they see invisible stuff? Dawn has the same problem."
Dawn shakes her head. "You mean you don't see her?"
"Her who? There's just a wall there."
"She's in the Cedric Green school colo... okay, where'd she go?" Dawn shakes her head again. "She was right in the corner, and then just kind of faded out. Kept repeating someone's name, but I don't know anyone named Zumi."