NOTE: This is only a first draft.

Chapter Five

 

Maxwell stood perfectly still. It was very quiet wherever he was. He cracked open his right eye and was shocked to find himself in a different location. Sure, Father Mckenzie had told him that the dimensional dime would transport him to his new school, he just wasn’t sure if it would really happen. And now that it had, he was slightly taken aback.

“This is real. This is real. This is real,” he kept repeated.

“Of course it is,” said someone behind him with a Scottish accent.

Maxwell spun around and found a girl standing there, a smile on her face.

“If it wasn’t real, I wouldn’t be here.”

Maxwell frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he said, putting one hand on his hip.

“It doesn’t have to. That is the great thing about Crabalocker,” the girl said. “This place doesn’t always make sense.”

Maxwell nodded like he knew what she was talking about. While he nodded, he took a look at this girl. She was probably around sixteen, a year older than he was, and just a little shorter than he. Her blonde hair was cut short in the multi-colored pixie style he has seen some girls wearing at school. But instead of blonde sweeping bangs, hers were blue that faded to purple. She had three studs in her left ear, each one a different color, and an ear cuff on her right. She had green eyes with little brown specks in them and was wearing little to no makeup, mostly because she didn’t need to. She had a green t-shirt on that said “Crabalocker is Bewitching ” and tight-fitting, but not too tight, blue jeans. She ended it all with a pair of red Chucks.

“You must be Maxwell Edison,” the girl said, reaching out her right hand. “I’m Sadie Pennywhistle.”

“Nice to meet you, Sadie,” Maxwell smiled, shaking her hand. 

“I’m here to greet you and show you where you’ll be staying,” Sadie said. “And then I’m supposed to give you a tour of the school.” She spun around in a circle on one foot while waving one hand in the air, as if to show him everything. “There you go. All done,” she giggled.

Maxwell was about to look around when he felt something on his left foot. He quickly glanced down and almost made a kicking motion, but decided not to when he realized what he was looking at. A pink fairy was sitting on his shoe. The little winged creature, who was cute as a button, waved up a Maxwell, stuck two fingers in her mouth, and blew a shrill whistle. From around every corner flew hundreds of fairies in a kaleidoscope of colors. They gathered around his traveling trunks, grabbed hold of the edges, lifted them up with their wings beating frantically, and flew away up the rounded staircase. One of the fairies made a grunting noise, grimaced at the weight of the trunk, stuck her tongue out, and blew a raspberry at him. After a moment, they disappeared behind a wall.

“Uh,” was all Maxwell could say, pointing in the direction that his trunks had disappeared. “Were those fairies?”

Sadie grinned, “Yes, and don’t worry about your things. The ever-helpful fairies will place them safely in your room.”

 “Oh, okay,” Maxwell said, relieved. “Fairies, wow!”

“Come with me, Max, and I will show you where you will be living for the rest of this school year.”

Max winced and Sadie noticed it but didn’t know what had happened. Maxwell hated being called Max. 

“It’s Maxwell,” he replied. “I know, it doesn’t mean much, but some of the kids back home used to call me Mad Max and inferred that I was kinda crazy. So, I prefer Maxwell.”

“No worries,” Sadie said. “Maxwell.” She smiled back at him. “This, of course, is where all new students pop in. I call it the ‘Bob Up Lobby,’” she said, smiling.

“Cool,” he said , not knowing what “bob up” meant.

She turned on her heel. “Follow me. You have a lot to see.”

As they headed toward the stairway, Maxwell looked around for the first time. The place was gorgeous. Everything looked like it belonged in one of those old-time movies in some kind of ritzy mansion. Most of the place was built out of polished wood in dark tones and the floors were made of large, polished marble blocks. Luxurious oriental-style rugs covered parts of the floors while precious metals accented the room. A huge crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling directly over his head that caused tiny sparkles of light to dance around the open space. Large paintings of weapons lined the stairway and Maxwell noticed that each weapon had a name on a little plaque located at the bottom of the frame.

As he went up the stairs, he read some of the names.

“Kieron’s Iron Flanged Morning Star,” he said softly. He read more as he made his way up the stairs behind Sadie. “Peak’s Pewter Pike, Sara’s Titanium Falchion, Michael’s Gold Sling.” They went on and on and Maxwell was amazed at all of the different types of weapons.

“What are all of these pictures of weapons for?” he asked Sadie.

She stopped halfway up the first set of stairs and turned to one of the paintings. “These paintings were created to commemorate a student and their weapon of choice here at Crabalocker. They go back thousands of years and there are hundreds of them throughout the school. Each student has a unique weapon that they can call forth, which I presume you must have experienced since you are here?”

Maxwell nodded, and looked down at this right hand. His palm began to itch, just a little.

“Not everyone gets a painting created for them. Just the most famous students . . . who performed a heroic deed. Unfortunately, most of them died in the process,” she said, shrugging. “So, I guess these paintings are more like a memorial than anything else.”

“They died?” Maxwell asked with a slight tremor in his voice.

“Yes, unfortunately,” Sadie replied solemnly. “You have a lot to learn about what happens here, Maxwell, and I’m not the one to tell you. But I can show you something, if you want to see it.”

Maxwell nodded, so Sadie touched the plaque on the nearest picture, Devin’s Lead Mace.

The painting faded away and was replaced by what looked like a large banquet hall in a castle. It looked like it was from medieval times with about thirty people in fancy clothes from that era all gathered around the largest table Maxwell had ever seen. His mouth dropped open as the scene came to life. He could hear people laughing and having a wonderful time. Some were getting up and stumbling around from the wine they were drinking. Servants were refilling their goblets and bringing in large platters of food. In the corner, a small gathering of musicians were playing music.

A man wearing a crown, who sat at the head of the table, stood up and raised a goblet.

“I want to thank you all for coming to this glorious gathering to celebrate the nuptials of my son, Prince Hudde, to the lovely daughter of our neighboring realm, Princess Elena. We look forward to many years of peace between our two . . .”

Just then, a man of about twenty years ran in from one of the doorways. He was brandishing a green glowing lead mace in one hand.

“Devin?” Maxwell asked.

“Yes, that’s Devin.”

“Stop!” Devin yelled.

Everyone turned to look at the young man with the weapon in his hand. Suddenly, all of the people on the side of the table that belonged to Princess Elena’s party began to move in jerky movements. From the tops of their heads grew dark masses of bodies.

“The shadow creatures,” Maxwell cried, pointing at the picture.

“Shades,” Sadie corrected him.

Maxwell nodded. “Shades,” he whispered, putting his arm down and leaning in to watch what was about to happen.

As the shades struggled to release themselves from their human hosts, Devin flew into action. He charged the closest person to him, swinging his iron mace at the head of the creature.

CLANG! CLANG!

The shade dissipated and the person who the shade has been attempting to climb out of slumped over unconscious. Devin then attacked the next and the next, sending the shades away. But all of this took time and there were just too many left for him to get to before they broke free from the humans they were inside of.

Prince Hudde’s side of the table had all scurried from the room when the battle started. The servants and the musicians were quick to follow. Maxwell heard the king shouting for the guards, but figured that they probably wouldn’t arrive in time to be of any help to Devin, who was attacking two shades at once. Maxwell doubted that the guards would be able to help with foes like these anyway.

Down at the other end of the table from where Devin swung his mighty mace back and forth, laying waste to the shades around him, the shades had pulled themselves from their human hosts. They quickly glided over to Devin and began to attack him from all directions. Devin found himself surrounded by eight shades, and only being one person, couldn’t keep this back safe from attack. Although he was able to dispatch two more shades, he has been scratched by multiple claws along his back and the cold was seeping into his bones. He started moving slower and slower as his limbs grew white with frost. A few seconds later, Devin appeared to be frozen solid, and his eyes dimmed as the frost claimed every bit of him. When the light went out of his eyes, his iron mace stopped glowing, and then winked out of existence. Devin had died.

“Holy moley,” Maxwell whispered as the scene was replaced by the picture of Devin’s Lead Mace.

“Devin died a hero,” Sadie said. “The king’s family was able to escape the shades and ruled over their lands for many centuries. The few shades that Devin didn’t kill disappeared, never to return.” She turned to look at the stunned boy beside her on the stairs. She placed a hand on his shoulder. “I know it’s a lot to take in, and it all may seem a little confusing right now, but it’ll all make sense very soon.” She turned and headed up the stairs again.

Maxwell nodded and followed her, gulping loudly.

What have I gotten myself into? he thought.

 

Fourteen flights of stairs later, Maxwell finally reached the fifteenth floor, the floor for new students. He followed Sadie through a confusion of hallways with a ton of doors until she stood in front of a door with the number 1549.

“This is your room, Maxwell,” Sadie said, opening the door by pressing her hand to a brass plate on the door. The door slid to the right into the wall with a whooshing sound.

“Cool,” Maxwell said with a smile. “Star Trek door.”

Maxwell stepped into the room and was amazed by the size of it. As he scanned the room, he noticed his four travelling trunks over near the wall on the right. The room seemed to be a lot larger than he thought possible. He stepped back out in the hallway and looked left and right. There was a door on each side of his, not more than ten feet away from his door. He stepped back into the room and looked to both sides in confusion. The room seemed to be at least forty feet wide. He looked back at Sadie and raised his eyebrows.

“You noticed, huh?” Sadie said with a smile. “A lot of new students don’t. This school does not exist in the normal space-time continuum. When it was built, the builders were able to expand areas into other dimensions, therefore making things like this, your room, a lot bigger in size than it would be in a normal reality. So, your room exists in a different dimension than the hallway outside. It’s hard to explain. Just know that it works and you get a bigger room than you expected. Wait until you see rooms of students that have been here for a while. Those are like mansions!”

“Weird, but cool,” Maxwell said looking around. “It looks like I share this room with someone. Do you know who it is?”

Sadie went out into the hallway and pushed a little red button that was to the right of the door. Two holographic names appeared just above the button, one of them being Maxwell Edison. Sadie nodded her head and stepped back inside the room.

“Yes, he’s only been here for about a month, and can show you around,” Sadie said with a slight smile on her face. “His name is Jude Widdershins. Yes, I know. That is a very strange last name. But I’ve heard worse.”

“Jude Widdershins,” Maxwell mumbled. “That’s pretty neat,” he said, looking around at some of Jude’s belongings in the living room. 

There was an old-fashioned boombox and a stack of CDs. Seriously? Maxwell thought, looking through the pile of compact discs. There were bands he didn’t know, like Oingo Boingo, Missing Persons, Wall of Voodoo, Depeche Mode, Erasure, OMD, Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys, and others. What is all this?

There was also something called a Sony Discman that Maxwell guessed was for listening to a CD while walking around, as there were also big, fuzzy headphones attached to the Discman via a wire.

On a small table was a collection of strange items. Maxwell picked each one up carefully and inspected them. These items included a Rubik’s Cube, a couple of Thundercats action figures, a Slinky, a Newton’s Cradle, Clackers, a large GI Joe action figure with real hair on its face and head, a strange car with a big wheel in the middle called a SSP, and an Evel Knieval Stunt Cycle. All of them seemed like there were pretty old toys.

Weird stuff this guy Jude has.

“Let me show you your bedroom,” Sadie said, heading across the room toward another door.

“Uh, sure,” Maxwell said nervously. After all, Sadie was a girl and Maxwell had instantly liked her. And now she was going to take him into a bedroom! He felt a little faint.

Sadie opened the door and then waved him in. She stepped back out into the main room “There you go,” she said.

“Thanks,” he mumbled sheepishly, stepping into the room. “Yup, it’s a bedroom. Nothing but a bedroom. Just a bed in a room. A bed . . . in a room. Bed . . . room.”

“Okay,” Sadie said with a strange look on her face. “Well, this is it. Your roommate should be back before lunch. Have him take you to the commissary and get something to eat when he gets back.  He can show you the ropes around here. You should probably get busy unpacking. The travelling trunks will disappear when you remove all of the items out of them. Good luck. I’ll see you around.”

“Lunch? But I just ate dinner with my mom.”

“Different dimension, remember?” Sadie said with a smirk. “Time does not work the same way here as it did when you were back at home.”

“Oh,” was all Maxwell could think to say.

Sadie winked at him and left the room with a little skip, shutting the door behind her.

Maxwell’s cheeks grew slightly pink from Sadie’s wink. “Wait!” he yelled. “I thought you were going to show me around!”

The door remained closed. Maxwell stood there for a few seconds before realizing that she wasn’t coming back.

Sighing, he turned around to look at the four trunks. He stood there for a minute in the middle of the room taking it all in. He was in Crabalocker, magic was real, and he was a student here. 

“I can’t believe this is really happening,” he said, going over to a trunk to sit down, breathing heavily as he started to worry about this strange situation he had found himself in.

After a few minutes of deep breathing, he started to relax. He stood up, and looked at the trunks at his feet. 

“I guess I better get started,” he said with a sigh.

Maxwell made quick work of unpacking the trunks. Just as promised, when he took the last item out of a trunk, it disappeared. Luckily, there were some book cases in his room, and few empty ones in the main living area. He had plenty of room for all of his books, figurines, and other items. For now, he just threw everything on the shelves, piled things into his closet, and threw other items on his bed that he hadn’t figured out where they were going.

Hoping that his roommate wouldn’t mind, he turned on the boombox and hit the play button. Some rather frantic music started playing. Maxwell had never heard anything like it, but he started tapping his toe to it. He nodded that he liked it and walked over to some of his book shelves.

He started organizing things. He put the books on the bottom half of the shelves and the figurines and action figures on the top. A picture of his mother went on top of one of the shelves. 

He went into his bedroom and started pinning posted to the walls. A song called “No One Lives Forever” came on and Maxwell really liked it. Then he thought about the lyrics and it kind of creeped him out. Devin didn’t live forever, the thought.

Just as he was finishing up, he heard the main door open and close.

Somebody started singing.

Maxwell peeked out of his room to see another student standing there and dancing around while he belted out the lyrics at the top of his lungs.

This has to be Jude, he thought, wiping his dirty hands on his pants.

Jude walked over to the boom box and pressed the pause button. He turned to find Maxwell standing in his doorway.

Jude stood there in his torn blue jeans, a t-shirt that said “The Clash” on it. He also had a black jacket on. Along the lapel were buttons of bands and other things. He had the sleeves rolled up past his elbows. His shoes were a worn pair of dock shoes. He didn’t have any socks on and his ankle showed below the bottom of the pants legs. His black hair was about three inches long, quite messy, and very spiky. He wore a studded collar around his neck and appeared to have a bit of black guyliner around his blue eyes.

“Hi, my name is Maxwell Edison and I’ve just moved in. I hope that it’s okay that I was playing your music.”

“Hey, any music-lover is a friend of mine. My name is Jude Widdershins, roomy.”

Maxwell stepped up to Jude and held out his hand. Jude clasped his hand firmly and they shook. Then Jude pulled Maxwell in for a big hug.

Maxwell stepped back, a little shocked, but then he laughed, which caused Jude to laugh.

“Hey, man,” Jude said, “you’re all right.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Jude turned to one of the bookshelves that Maxwell had just arranged. He stood there looking over the books, nodding. And then he started checking out the figurines. He turned to Maxwell and said, “May I?”

“Of course,” Maxwell replied, hoping to make a good impression.

Jude picked up Godzilla and then put it down. Then he picked up the Drizzt Do’Urden action figure. Lastly, he just stood there looking at the cluster of hobbit figurines.

“Spectacular,” Maxwell heard him whisper.

“Feel free to play with anything I have here,” Jude said. “What is mine is yours.”

“Same here,” Maxwell replied.

Jude nodded.

“So, this girl named Sadie something-or-other brought me up here. She was supposed to show me around, but she didn’t. She mentioned that maybe you might do it.”

“Ahhh . . . ‘Sexy’ Sadie. Yeah, she did the same thing to me, but I didn’t have a roommate. I had to wander around and find everything on my own. I couldn’t find the commissary and missed out on lunch that day. Sadie doesn’t always follow through on things she is supposed to do. She’s easily distracted, but she’s a good person . . . and kinda sexy, if you ask me.”

“Sexy Sadie. Is that what she goes by?”

“No, no, she doesn’t. That’s just something I thought once, and it stuck with me,” Jude said, taking off his jacket. “I would never call her that. That’s just between the two of us.” Jude winked at Maxwell, then turned and walked into his room.

“Are you hungry?” he yelled.

“Sure,” Maxwell replied, even though he was both tired and excited at the same time. He looked at his watch and it read 11:23 pm. He wasn’t very hungry, but he could eat a little something. He yawned.

Jude walked back out into the main room while Maxwell tried to hide his yawn. “What time is it for you?”

“Almost half past 11 pm.”

“I’ll bet you’re tired. I know it’s been an exciting day. Tell you what? Let’s head down and grab a bite to eat, that way you know where the commissary is. Also, you can meet some more of the students in your class and see a bit more of this great school. Then we can come back up here and you can take a nap before dinner. I know it is a lot to take in, especially if you’re tired. What do you say to that?

Maxwell nodded, “That sounds perfect, Jude.”

Jude came up to Maxwell and put his arm around his shoulder. “I think this is the start of a fine friendship, Maxwell.”

“Yes, I believe you are right,” Maxwell agreed as the door shut behind them.