The Importance of a Good Breakfast

2. I never was any good at math

James ran and caught up to Mel, tripping over a stone on the sidewalk and crashing into her. The two of them tumbled onto a lawn, rolling over each other, finally coming to a rest. Mel sat up, rubbing her head. “James,” she called out, “where’d you go?”
“I’m right here,” came the muffled reply.
Mel looked around for a second, confused, before being unceremoniously dumped onto the ground when James pusher her off of his face. He sat up, unconsciously mimicking Mel’s motion of a moment earlier by rubbing his head. Suddenly he was smacked upside the head by an indignant woman. “Why in the name of caramel popcorn did you tackle me, you nitwit?”
“I tripped!” James now rubbed the back of his head where he had been smacked. This day was not going well. “There was a stone in the path, and it tripped me up. It was an accident - I swear.” He stood up and pointed at the stone that was slowly creeping across the sidewalk.
Mel shook her head, but a smile had crept onto the corners of her mouth. “Sure you did. Tell me another one.”
“Hey, I - ” The stone was slowly creeping across the sidewalk. That seemed, to James, to be rather odd behaviour for a rock. This bore closer attention. He turned to look, but Mel beat him to it.
“Hey, that’s not a rock at all.” She ran over and picked it up, holding it at face level. “It’s a turtle.”
Well, that explained the creeping. But it didn’t answer the question of how it came to be here. Which was okay, because that was a question that hadn’t been asked yet. Now he asked it. “How did it come to be here?” The question was met with a raised eyebrow. “Sorry,” James said somewhat sheepishly. “I guess you couldn’t hear my inner dialogue.”
“You are so strange. And I don’t know how it ‘came to be here’”
“Well put it down and let’s get going. We’re going to be late for school.”
Mel looked horrified. “No, we’re not going to leave her here on her own. She’s defenceless!”
“It doesn’t seem defenceless to me,” muttered James, looking down at his scraped up elbow. He looked up and met a withering glare. “Uh, kidding.” A moment of silence passed, making James exceedingly uncomfortable. Finally he sighed and took off his backpack. “Fine, stick him in here. I’ll put him in my locker, and we can figure out what to do with him later.” What was he supposed to do with a turtle? It was just getting better and better.
With the small reptile tucked away, the two of them finished a relatively uneventful walk to school. Neither noticed the cow following them, though it did cause a small accident when a pair of bikers going in opposite directions decided to watch the bovine instead of the road and they smacked into each other. Later, once they both regained consciousness, they went to coffee, fell in love and had two darling little children, one of whom became a movie star, but his career was ruined because of a strange obsession, nay paranoia, that the cows were watching him. He was admitted to a mental institution until he was medicated enough to function in the real world as the receptionist at a day spa in Daytona. No one knew that he was right, but that’s not important to this story.
Math class. Specifically Calculus. Why had he taken this class? It was like an hour of torture every day. He didn’t even need it to graduate. But here he was, day after day, learning about derivatives, tangents, secants, and who knows what else. After the whole cereal and turtle incidents, James just knew that he was going to have to go up to the front of the class and try and figure out a question that he would fail at miserably. And then the turtle would probably pee on his locker or something.
“James. See if you can do this question.”
The voice cut through his daydreaming. He looked up and saw his teacher standing with a piece of chalk in her hand, which was extended out to him. With a sigh, he rose to his feet and grabbed the chalk, looking at the board. An nearly incomprehensible squiggle of numbers, letters, and invented shapes covered the board. Leaning back, he studied the problem very carefully, noticing, from the corner of his eye, his teacher going and leaning casually against the windows of the second story room.
Giving his head a shake, he concentrated closer. Truth be told, if he looked hard enough, he could usually figure it out, at least most of it. Hesitatingly, he applied the white chalk to the green blackboard and started making calculations. A minute later, he was staring hard at what he had done. He was close, he knew it, but he couldn’t quite figure out what he was missing that would give him the final answer.
Suddenly, the answer came to him. Specifically, it came to him from the side of the room where the teacher was still standing. “It’s 4 plus minus root 76, over 6.”
A quick check showed that the mysterious voice was right. As he wrote it down, James’ stomach grumbled. He was suddenly hungry, and for some reason he wanted fish.
Out of the blue, his teacher screamed. And not a small scream either. This was a full out top-of-the-lungs screech, the kind that set the teeth on edge. Immediately everyone else in the class started screaming, and James could hear desks being turned over and papers scattered. Without hesitation, he threw himself to the floor and covered his head. “Every man for himself!” he yelped.
The quiet finally came to him a couple minutes later. There was no one in the room, or so it seemed. He raised his head and slowly looked around. The room was a complete mess, but also completely empty, except for himself. And he still could vaguely smell fish. He carefully walked over the upturned desks and the binders that covered the floor and stuck his head out the door. The hallway was littered with papers and books, and there seemed to be no one in the any of the classrooms. Sirens were starting to get closer, lots of sirens. A hot, moist breeze was gusting through the classroom. And a loud rasping noise seemed to be coming from the window, and it was coming in time with the gusts of the breeze. The smell of fish was also stronger.
Slowly, James turned around and faced the windows. He couldn’t see anything, but there seemed to be a touch of fog on the edge of one window, like someone was breathing on it. Cautiously, he approached the window, his heart starting to beat a little bit faster in his chest. Something was definitely wrong. Just as he neared the window, a loud bang caused him to hit the floor inelegantly, where he came face to face with the source of the noise. The pencil that had fallen off the desk warily rolled up to his nose, tapping him lightly, almost as though to chastise him for being so silly. He chuckled slightly. This was ridiculous. There was obviously a joke being played, or he had missed a bell, or something. There was nothing to worry about, even if the sirens were getting closer. He jumped to his feet and looked out the window. A Tyrannosaurus Rex looked back at him.
James’ eye twitched involuntarily.
Mel ran out the back door with the rest of her classmates. She wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but it couldn’t be good. She had been in the bathroom when she heard screaming and what sounded like a large marathon being run through the hall. It turns out that it was the entire student body panicking and running outside. Not one to miss an opportunity to cut class, she had joined them, and soon found herself outside with her friends. None of them could tell her exactly what was going on.
“There’s a monster of some sort,” said Carrie.
“I heard a sniper was going around the school.” Cameron pointed his fingers like guns and pretended to shoot.
Dawn shook her head. “Nah, I bet it’s a fire. I thought I saw smoke.”
Suddenly Mel broke in. “Where’s James?” She had been scanning for him and he seemed to be missing.
Cameron shrugged and pretended to shoot Dawn, who looked disgusted and smacked his hand away. And then kicked him for good measure.
“Seriously guys, where’s James?” Mel was getting worried. James was her best friend. They had known each other for almost their entire lives (she bugged him that he was the new kid on the block, because she had been living there for two weeks longer), and she was fearful that he was hurt. The others were still goofing around, so she left them and walked towards the building.
Carrie caught up to her and walked with her. “Where are you going Mel?” she asked. The determined set of her friend’s jaw gave the answer. “You can’t go back in there, it’s not safe.”
Mel sighed. “I’m going in, you stay here and cover for me. I know James. He needs someone to take care of him, he is completely incapable of taking care of himself.”
Carrie shrugged and turned away. “Careful, you nutcase,” she called over her shoulder before melding back into the crowd.
A waft of hot, fishy breath washed over James. The voice that had given the answer spoke again. “Are you James?”
Against all convention, the dinosaur had talked. In fact, it had spoken twice. And it had asked him a question. And it was purple. James closed his eyes for a second, and then opened them. It was still there. There was no evidence of cameras or anything. This seemed pretty real. Or pretty surreal.
Panic started to well up inside of him, but just as he reached his breaking point, he though meh. This wasn’t completely unexpected. Every time he didn’t get his cereal in the morning, weird things happened. Usually it was just his underwear ripping in gym class, but this didn’t seem entirely outside the realm of reasonability. Somehow.
Suddenly, James was struck with a thought. “How in the world did you know the answer to the math question? You’re brain is only the size of a peanut, or something like that.”
The dinosaur’s eye opened slightly wider. “You’d be surprised, young man. Now, are you James?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry. I sure am James. Why do you want to know?”
“I’m here on a matter of grave importance, and time is of the essence. I need you to come with me.”
Of all the things he had expected to hear, this was pretty low on the list. Although, to be fair, he had not been expecting to see a talking purple dinosaur today either. This was just in keeping with the general weird that had been his morning. “You’re not going to eat me, are you?” he asked suspiciously.
“James, if I had desired to consume you, I would not have taken my time as I have. You are far too valuable to eat.”
“See,” replied James, “that’s what I’ve always said, but no one ever listens to me. I guess if time is important, then we should go, eh?”
By the way his head jerked back, the dinosaur seemed surprised. “You’re not even going to inquire as to the nature of my business with you?”
“Nah, why bother. I’ve never been one to argue with a giant talking purple dinosaur.”
“James!” A voice from the hall drew his attention.
“I’m in here,” he replied. He watched as Mel came in, looking very concerned.
“What’s going on,” she asked. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
James was surprised at her lack of attention, until he glanced at the window and saw that he couldn’t see the T-rex anymore. Before he realised what was happening, he was caught up in a huge hug. “I was so worried. I thought you were dead or something.”
“Nope. I’m just in here making new friends.” He motioned at the empty window that was now filled with a giant purple dinosaur. “How do you do that?”
“I’m very sneaky. Now listen, before we go, we need the turtle you found this morning.”
James shrugged and turned to leave the room. He paused. “Mel, this is…um, a big purple Tyrannosaurus Rex. Dino, this is my friend Mel.”
The dinosaur nodded. “How do, madam.”
Mel opened her mouth and squeaked.
“Entertain the guy, would you Mel?” James was bemused by her reaction. He ran out into the hall towards his locker. That turtle better not have done anything to his books.
The cow was intrigued. This was unexpected. He would have to report this to his superiors. Just as soon as this pesky cud was thoroughly chewed.

Woah, didn’t see the dinosaur coming, which is odd because they are HUGE! What is this beast’s plan? How does James fit into the picture? Will the turtle be eaten as a light snack? Do these pants make me look fat? Will Mel makes friends with the dinosaur? To find the answers to the question…will keep me awake at nights. You however can sleep easy knowing that I will answer at least one of these questions eventually. Which one? Hang on and find out in the next instalment of The Importance of a Good Breakfast.
Same Schlakenheisermandervorsonovichenburger time, same Schlakenheisermandervorsonovichenburger place!