Kaylee Series: Courage Chapter 1

PART I. COURAGE
What do the poor have, that the rich want, and God fears?

1

Tyson Weatherpark was known as the most courageous boy in St. Mary’s Academy of Music. Not once did he cringe at the sight of a bully. Never had he struck down a dare. He was known to ram challenges with his bare head. Everything that came his way, he faced with his head held up high.

He had but one weakness. Something that he knew he had but never thought of as a weakness. Tyson was proud.

He was proud of his wit. He was proud of his charm. He was proud of his attractiveness. And he was proud of his courage. Tyson was known to say, ever so repeatedly: ‘I fear nothing.’ Which everyone was too scared to even contest.

And Pride, as it often does, comes with boastfulness. Never a day did Tyson miss to show off his courage… especially to newcomers.

It’s easy to spot Tyson from the crowd of students. He was a head taller than everyone and he had violently bright red hair. If that wasn’t enough to catch anyone’s attention, then his booming voice would. He would usually be seen at the center of crowd, wowing them with his stories of valor in which he would always be the main hero.

But things had started to go downhill. Everyone in the school knew his name and no one would even dare try him for anything and even if his adoring masses never minded him repeating his stories over and over again, he was getting tired of telling the same ones. He’s run out of girlfriends as well. The pretty ones, he’d already dated. What are left are the plain looking ones, and those aren’t even worth the effort.

So now, as the new term begins, he hoped someone new would come along and entertain him.

The class scattered to their rightful places when the professor entered the small room of fifteen students. Most of them stared at the professor, awaiting the first lecture, but Tyson’s eyes wandered behind the professor.

A girl entered. She was small, petite, with sleepy looking eyes. Her pale skin was strangely luminescent, and she had a head full of really dark hair. Tyson couldn’t tear his eyes off her and he wondered why the others don’t seem to notice her entering the room.

To his delight, the pale girl sat down at the back, right across the aisle from him where nobody even dared to sit, leaving the entire row to themselves. ‘Hi.’ He greeted immediately after she had taken her seat.

She ignored him and proceeded to open a worn out looking leather bound notebook and a red pen and started writing.

‘I’m Tyson.’ He pressed on. ‘You’re new?’

She turned for a moment, staring at him with a pair of expressionless eyes, bordering on lifelessness: creepy yet oddly alluring. ‘Obviously.’ were her only words and she continued to write, closing the issue for further discussion.

Disregarded by a new girl; ignored for the first time in his life. Interesting. It was a definitely a first, and Tyson welcomed the challenge. He knew he would only have to wait to hear her name called by the professor on roll call. And then he needed to proceed with caution. The new girl seemed like a tough one to please.

He waited and waited for her name. The professor finished the roll call and she was never called. He knew each and every one of the names called and he was sure she wasn’t in the roll.

There’s another first, their professor usually didn’t allow ‘sit-ins’ but this one casually walked into the room and sat in the back. It was a pretty brave thing to do, especially since she wasn’t exactly listening to the lecture; just writing on her notebook, totally oblivious to her surroundings.

‘That’s it’ he decided, ‘the new girl is going to be mine.’