I have seen many things in my 530 years of life, (yes I have in fact been alive that long) wars, the beginning of nations, their ends, a zombified goat as well as North Korea (don't go there, it's not worth it). Though in all my years the one thing I had hoped to never witness was the inside of a modern day high school.

Now there are a few things you need to know before we dive into the story. The first is how I got to this point. The second, well we'll cross that bridge when we come to it (even though that is directly contradictory to the first sentence in this paragraph).

But back to how I got here. 

It was dark summers night, stars glittered outside the window and the humidity was seriously messing with my hair. I was on a walk with an old friend of mine, though I was at least four times his age he did look like he could be my grandfather. "How long has it been?"

he asked, leaving me slightly taken aback. "how long has it been" can mean any number of things when you've lived as long as I have. "Since when?"

I have found that sometimes the best way answer a question is with another question, and this seemed like one of those times. "how long has it been since we made a bet for something worth more than a twoonie?"

I took a moment to think, it has been a while, probably more than half a human lifetime ago but I quickly found myself with an answer. "Not since '67, I believe it was over the last letter of the last book in the lord of the rings trilogy."

He smiled, one of his famous "Jack Baker" smiles that seemed to be able light up a while room. His face had become creased and wrinkled from those famous smiles, and they seemed to grow duller every time I saw him. this one was special though, just for a moment a flicker of his former youth seemed to flutter across his face. "That's right isn't it, I'm still a little mad about that, you know? That spell book had been passed on for generations!" 

"And if you had won you could have been passed along with it."

"What the devil is that supposed to mean?!" 

He knew damn well what it meant, it meant immortality. Though it was rigged, I knew exactly what the last letter was. I have never intended to make someone else an- immortal. "Why do you bring up our shared gambling habit?"

"I'd like to make one last bet." 

I hated to indulge him, but he was just so friggin cute in his old age and, a little sad. I also knew it was dangerous to agree to a bet I didn't know the conditions of. I could also tell this was the wish of a man that knew he was dying. "alright"

A devious smile flashed across both of our faces, and a devilish glint shone in his eyes. One that I had thought was lost to the ages. he asked a simple enough question "how many turtles do you think are in that part of the river over there? Closest guess wins. If I'm correct you'll graduate from a high school, if I'm not and you are, I'll give you my blood."

That bastard. Jack has always been a trickster, he'll always be a trickster, and to be honest I should have seen this coming. I don't want his blood nor do I want to even look a high school, but I already agreed and I could tell this was important to him.

You see jack has always pushed me out of my comfort zone. Most of time I've had fun because of it, I remember in '65 he convinced me to start telling random people that I, am vampire with literally no context whatsoever. It was one of the best night's of my life. 

I didn't want to agree, I could've stopped him there, I could've just told him there weren't any turtles in the river because it's the middle of the night and turtles are cold blooded, but I didn't. This was a friend of mine and the way his eye's lit up like he was in his twenties again, well they broke me. "I think there are four turtles."

"I think there are none."

he responded and for a moment it was the 60's again and we were laughing along this pathway like nothing in the world could bother us. Soon we were standing at the edge of the path looking into the river and to neither of our surprise there weren't any turtles in the river. 

He looked, disappointed. All the sudden it clicked, he couldn't care less about weather or not I went to high school. Jack wanted me to kill him. He sighed "well I guess that's alright then."

What a fool he was, thinking I would choose my own happiness over his life. Oh, Jack.