High School Terrans

The weekend arrived of the Southern California Junior Surfing Invitational and Patrick was one of the lead competitors. The whole group came including Kyle’s new friend from the team, Christian. Patrick, having spotted them, ran up holding his surfboard up by his side.

“Hey, thanks for coming out.”

“No problem,” Kyle replied motioning to Christian. “This is Christian by the way.”

“Hey,” Christian said.

“Thought it be fine to invite him.”

“Any friend of yours is a friend of mine,” Patrick answered, shaking Christian’s hand. “I need all the support I can get.”

“Glad to be included.”

At that moment about to walk past them was Jessica Harris, a senior and by all who knew her was seen as one of the most popular girls in school who always got by with her looks, but her flaky stuck up personality made her act like a bit of an airhead.

“Patrick,” she said, fawning over him. “I didn’t know you were competing today.”

Sarah couldn’t help but roll her eyes at the scene of seeing Jessica blatantly throw herself on Patrick.

“Yeah, Jessica. I am up pretty soon.”

“Jessica?” Sarah said.

Jessica turned to Sarah breaking out of the momentary daze she was in.

“I want you to meet some friends of mine,” she said motioning her arm. “This is Kyle, Dan, and Alan.”

“I’ve never seen their faces before. Are they new?”

“Yes we are,” Kyle said. “We are Terrans.”

“......Oh. That’s nice,” she said, quickly her head back to Patrick. “Well look out for me when you are done surfing.”

She walked down the beach acting totally oblivious to everyone else around her.

“Jessica has always been a little stuck up and flighty,” Sarah said speaking up.

“To this day never had any interest in her,” Patrick said with a laugh.

“Next up is Patrick Burton,” the announcer said over the loudspeakers.

“That’s me. Wish me luck.”

“Good luck,” Grace said.

Kyle spied Grace standing alone by herself and looked to Dan.

“Now is your chance,” Kyle whispered beside Dan.

“What?” Dan said, turning his head.

“Grace,” he said, nodding his head. “I saw you eying her in the diner. Why don’t you ask her out already?”

“Yeah, I don’t know if she’d really go for me.”

“Won’t know unless you ask,” Kyle said smiling.

Unbeknownst high top in the parking lot Morgan and Nicholas sat watching the surfing action from Morgan’s car. He lifted up a pair of mini binoculars spying on the crowd of onlookers eying Kyle and Dan.

“So do you see them?” Nicholas asked.

“Yeah, did you check the student directory?” Morgan questioned.

“The one at lunch is Dan Tracer and the other guy is Kyle Smith.”

On the beach, Patrick had started paddling out catching a series of cresting waves.

“Wow, he’s really good at it,” Sarah exclaimed.

“Yeah, it’s funny how similar water surfing is to sky surfing,” Dan said.

“Maybe Patrick can teach us how to surf on water,” Kyle said.

“That be cool.”

“Even better why don’t we pick a day and have our own friendly competition?” Alan asked.

“You’re on,” Kyle said grinning. “Me and Dan will bring our boards.”

“Excellent,” Dan replied.

“Time for another test,” Morgan said sitting from his driver’s seat.

Morgan began by closing his eyes and clearing his mind. He stared back out at the water where Patrick was surfing making his board shake uncontrollably. Everyone on the beach gasped seeing Patrick attempt to steady himself seeing another big wave coming his way, but the board had a mind of its own taking him where it wanted to go.

“What’s going with his board?” Dan asked concerned.

“I don’t know,” Kyle said, looking puzzled. “It’s not coming from Patrick though. It looks like his board is being manipulated.”

Patrick struggled to keep afloat as the water tumbled over his body as Dan creased his forehead in indignation.

“Dan, what’s wrong?”

“It’s the board. It won’t budge.”

“Like a brick wall?”

“Exactly.”

Sarah came up beside Kyle staring out and said, “What’s wrong?”

“Someone is manipulating Patrick’s board.”

“You mean somebody has control of it?” Sarah said looking out at Patrick on his board.

“Yes,” Kyle replied. “Dan is trying to stop it.”

“I’m trying.....there.”

Suddenly Patrick’s board stopped just as a wave crashed over him knocking him off his board into the water. Inside his car, Morgan’s head was thrown back and he rubbed his forehead.

“He’s more powerful than I thought,” Morgan said.

“But he passed the test?” Nicholas replied.

“Yes. He could become one of us. Let’s get out of here,” he said putting his car into gear and driving off.

The lifeguards worked quickly seeing Patrick floating on top of the water taking him back to shore.

“Stand clear,” the lifeguard announced waving people back.

They worked immediately performing C.P.R. on Patrick as everyone looked on with concerned faces. Patrick momentarily coughed up water making the lifeguard turn him to his side.

“You’ll be alright,” he said. “Just got some water in your lungs.”

Patrick was lifted up with two lifeguards standing on either side of him and slowly walked off with him. Patrick’s surfboard showed up broken in half washed up on the shore.

“That was no accident. Someone intentionally messed with his board,” Kyle said.

“Whoever it was was very strong,” Dan answered. “Strong enough to keep blocking my efforts but I was able to break through.”

“But I don’t understand,” Sarah said. “Who would do such a thing? Especially to Patrick.”

They all walked over standing in front of Patrick sitting at the lifeguard station recovering.

“You alright?” Kyle asked.

“Yeah,” Patrick said feeling dazed, “the waves must have been harder than I thought. I’ll be fine. I’ve had my share of wipeouts.”

Kyle walked to the shore where he picked up picked and examined Patrick’s broken surfboard. From the onslaught of the waves, he saw that the surfboard had literally been split into two pieces. He knew right away that Sarah was right because of all the people they had met so far Patrick never had any ill will for any of them. It is what made it that more puzzling that clearly, it was another Terran that messed with his board.