"Oh…kay," Ryan said, staring at the space that the armor had just vacated. Then, remembering that he didn’t have all day to just stand around and stare at things that weren’t there anymore, Ryan left.

Turning and walking out of the cave, Ryan shook his head—this was all just too weird. Once he got out of the cave, he saw most of his classmates searching around the rocky plateau for something and had the distinct feeling that he knew what—or rather, who—they were all looking for.

"Hey Tom-boy, what’s the haps?"

"Ryan?!" Thomas Jamison turned with a nearly audible snap, looking right at the person who the entire class was currently trying to find.

They’d all seen the huge hole in the ground, and when their teacher had done a head-count and come up one short, the inevitable conclusion was drawn: one Ryan Crouger, the red-haired smartass, was missing. Once the teacher had stopped panicking long enough to think, she had organized the entire class into a search party.

Now, seeing the object that said search party had been looking for standing right in front of him making wisecracks as he usually did, there was only one thing that Thomas could do: tell the teacher that their search was over.

"Come on," he said, pulling Ryan along by the arm. "The least we could do is go tell the rest of the idiot brigade that you finally decided to show up."

"Hey, d’ya think I actually wanted to end up stuck down that hole?" Ryan demanded, annoyed at the implications he heard.

"Well, now that you mention it, probably not," Tom admitted.

"All right," Ryan said decisively. "Let’s get out of here."

"I’ll go with that," Thomas said.

The two of them made their way back to the rest of the class, whose reaction to seeing that Ryan was back was just about what Ryan had expected: mostly unenthusiastic. He wasn’t exactly the most well liked person in the class, if not the school in general, and if he’d cared, he might have wondered why that was. Then he would have probably come to the conclusion that his lack of friends was mostly due to his sarcasm.

But since none of that mattered to him, Ryan just ignored the cool stares from his fellow students at his return. What Ryan was curious about, though, was the weird organic armor that had been hidden in the cave. It wasn’t as if a lot of people would have thought to look in that cave, and it really did seem as if that armor wanted to be found.

On the other hand, though, it could be that whoever had hidden the armor in that cave hadn’t wanted it to be found at all. While it had seemed like the armor had wanted to be found, whoever had buried it in that cave had probably had other ideas. Or maybe there was no real reason other than coincidence that the armor had been in that cave when Ryan had fallen into it.

Ryan sighed. Well, back to the yawn-and-snore emporium. At least something exciting happened today. That thought managed to make Ryan smirk a little, and Tom turned to ask just what his friend found so funny.

"What’s the happy look for, Ry? We’re going back to school, if you somehow managed to forget that," Tomas said.

"Tom, first chance I get, I’m going to tell you about something seriously bizarre that happened to me today," Ryan said.

"You gotta know I’m going to hold you to that, Ry," Tomas said.

"You gotta know that’s just what I expected," Ryan shot back.

They had made it back to the school bus by now, and the fact that he was going to go back to school was finally brought home. Rolling his eyes with exaggerated disgust, he climbed onto the bus with the rest of the kids. Most of them ignored him, but a few shot him hostile looks, as if it was his fault that he’d fallen into that cave and made them go look for him.

When the teacher turned away to check something or other, Ryan flipped them off. They’re bastards anyway, so why should I care if they like me or not? The answer was that he shouldn’t, and that was why he didn’t. The ride back was mostly in silence, with the occasional muttering that Ryan didn’t care enough to pay any attention to.

Pulling out his CD player, Ryan popped it open and found that he still had his Rent soundtrack inside. Closing it and putting on the headphones, Ryan hit "play," skipped forward until he found track nine, then hit "repeat." The drums, electric guitars, cymbals, and Mimi’s voice filled his ears, drowning out the sounds of his fellow students, and he began to move with the rhythm of the music pumping in his ears, staring at the passing scenery outside the bus window.

As the bus made its way back to the school, Ryan had to firmly shove his urge to start singing into a mental closet and bolt the door. If there was one thing that would get him into trouble with the teacher, it was belting out show tunes at the top of his lungs—not so much for the singing itself, but for punching the other students who didn’t appreciate the performance. Either that or telling them to go fuck themselves, both of which would get him sent to the principal’s office.

Ryan had spent enough time there of late, but it was really only because he had gotten fed up with being surrounded by idiots and given one of them the royal ass-kicking he’d been begging for for a long time. The principal and the guidance councilor both thought that the fight had been some sort of cry for attention, though how they had managed to come to that supremely idiotic conclusion when he’d even told the guy to stay the hell away from him Ryan was sure he’d never know.

But then again, most of the people in that stupid dump probably couldn’t tell their heads from their asses without a lot of help. So maybe that was why Principal Dumbass and Mr. Touchy-Feely couldn’t get something that simple. Maybe it was something in the water, which made Ryan grateful all over again that his mom always had the good sense to pack him bottled water.

As the bus pulled inevitably closer to its final destination, Ryan sighed—he hated this place with a fiery passion reserved for very few other things, but his mom had insisted that he needed to stay so he could get a good education. So Ryan dealt with the morons as best he could. His "therapy" involved lots of music, turned up so loudly that he had trouble hearing anything else, a comfortable bed, lots of sleep when he could get it, karaoke when he could make the time for it, and every kind of food that he liked to eat. His mom was a great cook when she found the time for it, and his dad practically had the number of Round Table Pizza tattooed on his forehead, so Ryan was pretty well covered when it came to food.

Bored now with Mimi’s "Out Tonight," Ryan switched over to Mimi and Roger’s duet "Another Day" and sighed again as he started to recognize the landmarks that meant that they were almost back at the school.

When the bus pulled back into the huge parking lot, Ryan hauled himself out of his seat with a sigh of pure annoyance. So much for his hope that the bus would break down somewhere. As he waited for the rest of the bus to clear out, Ryan started absently messing with the strap of his watch, and once the bus was empty, Ryan made his own way out. The shouts and other noises made by his fellow students were dulled to almost nothing by the music pumping in his ears. He was swaying to the beat, so he didn’t notice that one of his least favorite people was coming toward him: Detrik Johanson, the single most annoying guy in a school that, as far as Ryan was concerned, was full of nothing but pinheads, morons, twits, and various other breeds of loser.

Ryan stretched with almost catlike grace, closing his eyes as he yawned, and only noticed Detrik when the larger boy gave him a shove in the chest, nearly causing him to fall on his butt. Ryan did manage to keep on his feet, though. Glaring at the offending bastard, Ryan sighed in disgust when he saw who it was, turning off his CD player and taking off his headphones, handing them to Tomas as his friend came up to him.

"What’s your problem now? Or are you just too stupid to understand the concept of common courtesy?" Ryan chuckled nastily. "Or maybe you’re just desperately uncoordinated."

Detrik looked like he wanted nothing more than to pound Ryan’s face in for that remark, but the presence of the other kids and the teachers who were helping shepherd the remaining students back into the school convinced him that fighting would not be a good idea.

"Meet me out at the back of the blacktop after school," Detrik ordered, pointing at Ryan.

"How about you kneel down, pucker up, and kiss my ass," Ryan shot back, sounding almost bored with the proceedings.

"What are you—chicken, carrot top?"

"Okay; first rule: never call me carrot top," Ryan said irritably. "Second rule: sit on this and spin, you stupid son of a bitch."

With that, Ryan flipped Detrik off, reclaimed his CD player from Tomas, and walked away. Detrik fumed for a minute, then caught sight of one of the teachers who was still herding the few remaining students back into the school. He knew that he had better follow one of them if he didn’t want to end up getting in trouble again.

Ryan tucked his CD player back into his bag, zipping it shut and slinging the bag over his shoulder in almost one fluid motion. Making his way back to the school, slightly behind the other students wouldn’t have any ideas about trying to talk to him, Ryan started to fiddle with the strap on his watch again. So much for anything interesting happening today. Well, aside from the obvious, of course.

Ryan chuckled, not really caring if anyone was close enough to overhear and wonder about it.

XxXxXxX

Once the last of their classes had let out for the day, Ryan and Tomas made their way out of the school. Ryan was slightly annoyed that tomorrow was Tuesday rather than Saturday, but since he didn’t have the power to bend time, there was really nothing he could do about that.

"Okay Ry, spill," Tomas demanded. "Why do you still look like the cat that ate the canary? And this even in spite of the fact that we have four more days of school to suffer through?"

"Something really interesting happened to me today—something that even being stuck in the yawn factory can’t make me forget," Ryan said, smirking.

"All right Ry, you’ve piqued my curiosity," Tomas said. "So tell."

"It’s a hell of a story, Tom-boy," Ryan said, always the one to go for the big build-up, even when he wasn’t sure what had happened himself.