Chapter 5

      Lee and Miz were able to successfully make an escape. Both dripping with sweat barely able to inhale the nice cool air. Exhausted to the point of collapse they look at each other and burst into laughter. In a mix of laughter and gasping for air the nice teacher snuck up behind them like a predator about to pounce on its prey. “What are you kiddos doing?” The nice teacher said looming over the two.

     Frightened Miz fell face first, while Lee shot straight up with a look of terror on his face.  “Are you guys okay? I didn’t mean to give you a heart attack.” Nice teacher said while helping Miz up. “I think I just saw my ancestors.” Lee said, his eyes wavering from the shock. The nice teacher gave him a pat on the head. With a gentle voice the nice teacher asked again. “So where are you two headed off to?” While holding his chest Lee was barely able to give a response. “We just really didn’t want to be stuck in that bloodbath of a game.” 

     The nice teacher gave them a nod of understanding. “There is a supermarket right across the street.” Miz said pointing to the obvious building. “I could get in trouble for letting you sneak away, but what the hell. I don’t really want to be here either.” The nice teacher said, turning his head to the gossiping teachers. Once again the two kids gave the nice teacher an understanding nod and dragged him along. Mrs. Norfman turned her head and saw the nice teacher being dragged away by the two students he's been hanging out with for half the day, and in that moment let out a sigh of relief. She's known the nice teacher for quite a few years now but she has never seen him so relaxed in someone else's presence before, a very gentle smile came across her face before turning her back to the kids who were massacuring each other.  

     Lee, Miz and the nice teacher were able to carefully make it across the street with the help of the intersection light, though someone did almost hit the nice teacher because they were trying to rush the turning for who knows why anymore. Luckily Lee and Miz were able to pull the nice teacher forward, saving him from a very expensive hospital bill. Once on the other side of the street the nice teacher clutching his chest asked if they could take a few second break. Lee and Miz, understanding how fast his heart must be racing from that scare, understood and went to get him a cold drink from a nearby vending machine. The vending machine had some interesting drink choices, tomato juice, corn juice, pineapple juice, and milk. Lee and Miz went with the drink that they thought was most comforting, with its cool temp and silky taste that's been around for ages, perfect for any situation, tough tantalizing milk.  

         Lee and Miz ran to the nice teacher proud of their drink choice, but the nice teacher didn’t look so good. He looked afraid, like he saw something no human should ever witness. “Are you okay teach ?” Lee asked worriedly, staring at his sheet pale face. “I….I….I….I’m okay children. No need to worry.” The nice teacher said, trying to straighten himself. “We got you some milk.” Miz said, trying to help the nice teacher stand. “Thank you kids, I’m sure it’ll help.” The nice teacher said finally able to stabilize himself. The kids, still worried about the nice teacher, helped him walk to the entrance of the store. “Can we get you anything? A pillow, blanket, anything?” Lee asked a face full of worry for the person beside him. “I’m really fine now. Let's just walk across the store to forget about what happened, hm?” The nice teacher said with a sheepish smile.

     Lee and Miz eagerly nodded their heads in agreement. Wanting to forget about the incident they started to wander around the aisles, grabbing random items. The nice teacher left at one point, while Lee and Miz were messing around. He came back with an armful of gardening seeds. Miz gave the nice teacher a worried look, while Lee got excited that the store had seed. “Teach where did you find those? I wanna see if they have any seeds that I don’t have in my garden at home!” Lee excitedly exclaimed while helping the teacher put the seeds in the cart. “Oh ho, I’ve never seen a kid so excited about gardening before. It’s just over here, come along.” The nice teacher said while pulling the cart alongside him.

     Once they made it to the gardening section Lee excitedly ran to the seeds to see if there were any interesting ones he's never seen before. “Well that's boring! There's only one set of seeds I don’t have in my garden. I guess it's good enough that they even had one set of new seeds.” Lee said in a disappointed tone, disgruntledly grabbing a few packs. “If you're so disappointed, why grab any at all?” Miz questioned with an indifferent look on his face. Lee let out a sigh. “You just don’t get it.” Miz just shrugged his shoulders letting it be. The nice teacher watched the whole argument with a soft smile on his face. “I’m glad you two get along so well, please just continue working together like that even in the face of difficulties.” The nice teacher said with a disheartened look on his face. Lee and Miz looked at the nice teacher, and proceeded to wrap their arms around the other's neck before giving the nice teacher a thumbs up. Miz and Lee didn’t understand why the nice teacher was so worried at the time but they knew that they wouldn’t be leaving each other's side.

     As they grabbed the last couple things before going to the check out, Miz and Lee could see that the nice teacher was starting to get a little antsy. They wanted to ask if he was okay but the last few minutes he had barely responded to them, like he was super forced on a goal that had to be done sooner than later. While at the checkout Miz and Lee pulled at the nice teachers shirt sleeves with concerned looks. The nice teacher looked at them and realized he had been scaring them. “I’m sorry boys, I was a little distracted.” He said, giving a half-hearted smile. “Is that all boys?” The cashier said obnoxiously chewing her gum. She looked them up and down and gave a look of doubt on whether they could pay. “The total is 250 dollars. Are you sure you guys can pay?” The cashier sneered. The three boys looked at each other confused about her attitude. “Let me handle this you two, I haven’t used my monthly allowance for a minute now.” Lee smirked, pulling out a black debit card.

     Miz and the nice teacher didn’t even have a surprised look on their faces with how Lees had been acting about money the whole school trip. The cashier gave a skeptical look, it was so easy to tell she thought the card was a fake. “Little kid, these machines don’t take cardboard!” The cashier said, looking down on him with a menacing look. This did not faze Lee one bit. Lee gave a smirk right before sliding the card. As the payment went through the cashier's face turned pale white, as if she had just made the worst mistake in her life. “I…I…I’m sorry young lord I didn’t know you’d be coming to our store. Please forgive me for my insensitive words.” The cashier shakeidly said. Miz and the nice teacher were confused by her sudden demeanor change. “Oh I forgot to tell you, my family owns this store.” Lee said dramatically, throwing his arms out. Miz and the nice teachers' jaws dropped from pure shock, they knew he was rich but they didn’t know he came from the richest family in their area. “Okie let's get out of here.” Lee said nonchalantly. The two followed behind him, still very confused about what they had just witnessed. “I understand that your family owns the store but why did she act like that when she found out who you were?” Miz asked, still not able to wrap his head around the whole concept. “Ah, that might be because this store in particular is under my jurisdiction.” Lee said as if it was something a normal 6th grader could say.  

     The nice teacher stopped in his tracks, and started to mumble to himself. “Is everything okay?” Miz asked with concern, with a hint of fear. The nice teacher jerked his head toward Miz, with fear in his eyes. He didn’t say anything, he just nodded his head and ushered them to continue walking. Miz and Lee looked at each other, both afraid to ask again if he was okay. Once outside they heard a whole bunch of screams mixed with sirens, both threatening to drown the other out. All that could be seen through the abundant crowd were police cars lining the street and smoke in the air. As the three pushed their way to the side walk to cross the street, they could see what happened much more clearly. “Isn’t that the car that almost hit you, teach?” Lee asked, intrigued by the development happening down the street. The nice teacher's blood ran cold as soon as he saw the wrecked car. “We need to hurry to the park.” He said, panic in his voice.

     The nice teacher took control of the cart and sped up, Lee and Miz were confused but at this point they didn’t question after it’s not every day you see a car crash and then catch fire. What started as a brisk speed walk turned into a full on sprint. It took half the time to get to the park but all three of them were out of breath. Without taking a break the nice teacher grabbed Miz and Lee's backpacks and started to stuff them with the things they had gotten at the store. “Teach I don’t think all of that is going to fit into our bags.” Miz said, trying to help him organize everything. The nice teacher ignored him and pulled out the extra backpack he had grabbed at the store. 

     Miz and Lees were very concerned about the nice teacher but the only thing they could do was help him pack everything. Once they got everything packed away the nice teacher fastened the backpacks to Lee and Miz. “Which one of you is stronger?” The nice teacher asked with a maniac look in his eyes. Lee warily raised his hand. The nice teacher gave him the second backpack, lucky it was on the lighter side so Lee had no trouble standing straight. It looked a little awkward how the backpacks were fastened with ropes but they were pretty sturdy, not even a tug would pull them off. After double checking the ropes and the weight each kid had, the nice teacher turned the kids around and started to guide them across the field. 

     The other teachers saw him and were confused why the nice teacher was guiding the two kids away from the others. “Hey why are you guys all the way over there?” One of the male teachers shouted. “If I were you guys I would start getting ready to move quickly!” The nice teacher yelled back trying to give them a heads up about the impending doom. The other teachers just scuffed, the only one who took this as a warning was Mrs. Norfman. About halfway through the gigantic field the sound of screams and growls begane to fill the air. “Okay you two, keep going until you hear absolutely nothing. You two need to live.” The nice teacher said pushing the two forward.

     Lee and Miz were scared and didn’t want to keep moving but the nice teacher sounded desperate. Lee knew he shouldn’t look back but he wanted to make sure the nice teacher was going to be okay, unfortunately that's not what he witnessed. When Lee looked back all he saw was total chaos, and in the midst of it the nice teacher was on the ground with a bunch of monsters on top of him. Lee was filled with dread, but remembered what the nice teacher said. He grabbed Miz's arm and started to run the whole time telling him not to look back. Miz instinctively understood what had happened.