Chapter 26: Out of Touch Short - Ordinary Day

4:00 PM, Tomahawk High.

Outside his history classroom stood Dom Castillo. He stared nervously, side to side.

“So, how does it all look?”

Clarice sat at the desk of her History teacher, legs crossed and hands placed neatly in her lap.

The elderly teacher smiled, reading over a small stack of papers.

“Everything is put together very well. Your research work is very thorough as well.”

Clarice closed her eyes, puffing out her chest. “Thank you. Your source recommendations helped a lot, and then it made way for all sorts of interesting books!”

“Do not forget to practice on the presentation itself. Focus on the material, not the other students.”

Clarice frowned. “Well, how can I give a proper presentation if they’re being disruptive? The classroom has rules for a reason-”

“Please, Clarice. A few hecklers or sleeping students should not affect you.” The teacher chuckled. “They’ll pay for it in their grades anyways. Don’t let them drag yours down too.

Clarice huffed. “I’ll figure something out. Again, thank you for the help Mr. Clark.”

She stood, bowing her head. She took her presentation notes, carefully placing them into a folder, then into her messenger bag. She waved to her teacher, who waved in turn, as she left the door.

“So, everything’s good, right?” Dom asked, seeing his sister walk on by.

“Good, no more trips to the library.”

Dom sighed in relief. “Then next are the presentation slides, I can do those, right?”

The two began to walk towards the exit. The halls were silent, their footsteps echoing through the halls. A stray student passed by the two every other moment.

“Yup, but also… You think you can do the presentation this time too as well?”

Dom’s eyes widened, his walking slowed. He imagined himself in front of a classroom full of students, stuttering and fumbling an explanation about the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. Students snickered as he mispronounced words he knew he could make.

“A-are you really sure that’s a good idea? You know I’m not good at that, plus I'd still prefer to control the slides…”

“Dom, you gotta get used to presenting on your own someday. How else are people gonna hear about the work you’re going to do in the future?”

“Well, research papers exist! I don’t have to give big scary keynote speeches! Besides, why can’t you just do it!”

He paused, thinking about the disaster of a presentation. Somebody decided to “boo” her brief talk about the lasting effects of Charlamange’s reign, and she didn’t react to it well at all.

“Come on, it’s gotta be easier to ignore people than getting used to presenting in front of a crowd!”

Clarice huffed again. “Well, such disrespectful people don’t deserve a well thought out educational presentation, do they? Maybe I can ask Mr. Clark to just send anyone being problematic outside…”

As they left the building, Clarice paused.

“You know, what do you want to do today? Kirino is busy with rowing, we’re ahead of schedule on all our studies.”

“Home! We deserve one lazy day! Maybe a movie or games or reading, we’ve been working so much with school and UMA, we deserve one!”

“I was gonna suggest getting a head start on practicing for that presentation but we have a few weeks.” Her eyes widened. “Pizza, maybe?”

“Yeah!” Dom was buzzing with excitement. “Come on, let’s hurry!”

Tugging his sister alone, the two ran off towards home.

Arriving at a busy intersection, the two hurried through the crosswalk when the walk signal lit up. A car screeched to a stop, a fair distance behind the two, attempting to make a right turn. Clarice turned to the car, her face painted with fury as it drove on by.

“Oh, you ABSOLUTE PIECE OF…” She took out her phone, snapping a picture of his license plates. Dom put his hand on her shoulder.

“Come on, let’s just ignore him…”

“You know, maybe there’d be less imbeciles on the road like him if the police just did their job and listened to my reports!” She groaned, staring at the photo. “Why should we suffer for their ineptitude?”

“Clarice, what about the pizza?”

She inhaled, and exhaled, staring at her brother. Deleting the photo from her phone, she continued to walk. “Well, we’ll show troublemakers like him when we’re the ones in charge, right?”

Back at the Castillo household, the two greeted and hugged their parents. Mr. and Mrs. Castillo both worked at the same university, further up north in the city; Mr. Castillo as a lab worker, and Mrs. Castillo as a library assistant. A small talk about how well they were doing at school was all it took for Mrs. Castillo to order a large pizza for everyone. Seeing their kids ready to have a relaxing night together, the couple decided to head on out for an impromptu night out as well, and left some cash on the dining room table for them.

The duo retreated to their bedroom, ready to relax.

Their room was incredibly spacious, Dom with a full size bed, and Clarice with a twin size. Both of them had desks side by side, and tall bookshelves filled with a manner of textbooks, comics, and fiction. On Dom’s desk was an old looking laptop, while Clarice had a sleek, professional looking one. Beside the desk was two beanbag chairs, and a TV mounted on the wall. A few game consoles were hooked up to the TV.

Clarice’s side of the bedroom had a small rack of weights, a bench, an electric keyboard, and a stack of fiction she was currently reading.

Dom’s side had a small desk, with very neatly organized pencils, charcoal, and coptic markers, with a robust looking desktop tower and HD monitor. Alongside it was a very cushy looking chair as well.

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Dom made his way to the chair, sinking into it and sighing in relief.

He eyeballed the walk-in closet he and his sister shared. There, behind a stack of his clothes, was Wonder Builder. He thought about taking it to the woods to toy with it, but the comfort of where he was sitting brushed those thoughts aside.

Clarice kicked off her shoes, sinking into the chair.

“Hey you know.” She took out the miniaturized Inquisition from her front pocket, fiddling with it. “What if I christen you right before the presentation? Maybe then you’ll feel brave enough?”

Dom opened his eyes, scratching the back of his head. “Yeah but, what if you get annoyed and order me to throw some heckling student out of the classroom. Then you’d get me in serious trouble!”

“I think I could control myself well enough.”

“Actually, related to our artifacts…” Dom straightened his back. “I’ve been thinking about them. So we know how old Inquisition is, in fact I’m willing to bet it’s the late 1400s, maybe even 1500s because of Queen Isabella’s reign. It makes me think if Queen Isabella actually used it or something during her reign. Do you think that’s how she managed to survive all those plots against her? Or maybe the artifact could be named after her by some wizard? But then you’d think we’d at least have some legends of how she wielded a giant sword and could cut down anyone and was unable to be stabbed.”

Clarice shook her head. “I highly doubt these artifacts played any consequential role in the world’s history. Like you said, if they were used, the only history that would remain would be local legends or tall tales. Based on some of the UMA Kirino told us about, that’s adding up well.”

Dom sat up more straight. “Then the other thing I’ve been thinking is like, where does Wonderbuilder come from? Inquisition, Dragontail, even the Teal Lantern seems to have some basis in real life cultures or history. But Wonderbuilder is just… there. I’ve inspected it but can’t really find anything definitive about it.”

“I always assumed it had to be something modern.” Clarice waved her hand. “Maybe whoever made it used all the wood and crude iron as a distraction. Relatively speaking, saw blades and harpoon guns are pretty new, well beyond the primitive look and build it has. Maybe it has some connections to the industrial era?”

Dom looked up at the roof. “I thought of that too, but then there’s also that mix of nature to it with the vines and wood. I don’t think ‘industrialism’ and ‘nature’ fit together well. But again, maybe that’s the point? To throw people off?”

Clarice sighed. “I don’t think there’s much use in asking these questions. You might as well ask why artifacts were created in the first place.”

“Because it’s fun to think about them! And maybe there’s more secrets that we can unlock by understanding where they come from. That’s kinda what history is good for, right?”

“That’s true, but we should accept these tools for what they are, and what they can do for us. Now, what movie do you want to watch tonight?”

“Ooh, a documentary sounds fun. Maybe one on the Amazonian wildlife?”

“We’ve spent enough time studying, I thought you wanted a break? I really want to watch more Kurosawa.”

“But learning is fun!”

The two went back and forth, before settling on Seven Samurai.

With the movie loaded up, Clarice held up her hand.

“Hang on, we should wait for the pizza first.” She stood from her beanbag chair, and walked out the door.

“I’m just gonna take a shower in the meantime.”

With her gone, Dom moved to his smaller art desk, opening up his sketchbook. Flipping past the doodles and charts he made of Wonderbuilder, cryptids he and his sister fought, his friends, and future craft projects, he landed on a blank page, and began to doodle. It slowly took the form of Kirino, holding Dragontail over her head in a confident stance. He stared at it, wondering how she managed to have such confidence, even with a powerful artifact at her hip.

The doorbell rang, and he continued to doodle. He still heard the shower running, and a voice yelled out from deeper inside the house.

Dom froze up.

He stood, and took deep breath after deep breath as he inched towards the front door.

It’s going to be okay. He’s just got the pizza, you’re going to take it, say thank you, and leave. It’s easy, there’s nothing to screw up.

The words repeated through his brain as he walked to the front door, unlocking and cracking it open.

He peeped through the crack, finding the average looking delivery guy standing there, a large pizza in hand.

“Hey, I got your delivery.” He said in a dull tone of voice.

The door opened wider and Dom reached out with the same care one would give a vat of dangerous acid.

“T-t-t-hhanks.” He said. Holding the box firmly, he took it from the deliveryman, and shut the door, sighing.

When he opened his eyes, there stood Clarice, wearing a large pink robe and still dripping from her shower.

“Oh, hey, you got it!” She said with a big smile on her face. “I tried to hurry because I didn’t think you wanted to.”

Dom still felt his heart beating against his chest. “It was… No big deal.”

“You remembered the tip, right?”

His eyes widened and he felt his heart skip a beat.

“T-tip??? I thought that was included already???”

Clarice turned around to the kitchen table, finding a few cash bills left there to tip the deliveryman. She scrambled over to grab it, and flung the door open, screaming.

“HEY MISTER! HOLD ON, WE FORGOT TO GIVE YOU SOMETHING!”

Dom stood frozen, holding the pizza as the deliveryman returned to the porch. Clarice apologized, handing him the tip, before thanking him.

She shut the door, sighing. “Well, that was a close one. I caught him right as he opened his car door!”

She stared at her brother, who was still frozen, looking incredibly upset.

“I thought I was doing so good this time…”

“Well, you didn’t mean to forget about it, so it’s excusable. You should take this as a learning experience: Every time you answer the door, make sure to ask them if they got their tip!”

Adding that onto the list of things that could go wrong with the interaction, Dom felt dizzy.

“Why is it so hard to do this?”

Clarice sighed, patting her brother on the back. “Well, you gotta do it and get used to the feelings first. Plus, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, you know? Even as non-lethal as answering the door is…”

Dom felt his heart still thumping against his chest. “It felt like it was gonna kill me...”

“You agreed to go toe to toe with UMA and the pizza man is what’s making you feel that way?” She laughed. “Let’s just go enjoy the pizza and forget about it!”

.

.

As the film rolled along and they enjoyed their meal, Dom’s mistake periodically haunted his mind. He would break focus, staring at Clarice, who was enjoying the film.

I can be like her, right? These things would never bug her.

Every now and then, Clarice was thinking back to how she would finally get the police to take her traffic reports seriously.