A few minutes later the hall was packed to overflowing, idle chatter rising to the high ceiling. Students love nothing better than a legitimate excuse to miss class.
The appearance of the principal on stage brought silence over the crowd like a blanket however, his shoes silent against the concrete of the stage. While not yet breaking into the category of the aged, at fifty-five, the principal, Walter Granger had a quiet air of authority about him. A man of few words, he relied more on action and body language to convey his meaning. The staff certainly respected, and liked him; the kids were not so sure about what to think. He adjusted his half-moon spectacles on his nose, scratched the minuscule white stubble on his chin, and adjusted the microphone like a preacher on a pulpit.
“An investigation is underway, orchestrated by the district police into a recent mauling in the woods,” he went straight to the point. An excited murmur erupted in the seated crowd, rippling through it from one end to another like a Mexican wave. “Without aiming to satisfy the popular demand for gore, I have been instructed by the police to inform you that it is likely to have been an animal attack, and special caution is called for when going into the woods.”
Peri Heights was bounded in the north by woods so ancient that the state government had been mulling over the idea of making it a state reserve. The process would have moved along faster, if the town itself had not been so far away. The woods also served as a home to a whole bunch of people, mostly living in trailer parks but also in small communities comprised of log houses spreading out from some common center. These people, while not hostile, kept mainly to themselves. Their kids attended school in the town, but were never social balls of fire. They would often be seen together, but were never overtly affectionate with one another. They were like the town gypsies only less so.
At the mention of the woods, several eyes turned towards these students, and Patrick Dillon-the teacher’s pet shrunk in his seat, blushing.
“This is not to frighten anyone but to keep us all on alert. Nothing ever happens in this town, and some of you might think of becoming heroes: forget about it!” A ripple of laughter, light as a feather, caressed the crowd at his last comment; a rare moment of levity from Principal Walter Granger. “And now on a lighter, yet equally serious not, we have here to visit us in our school a member of the founding family of our esteemed locality. Ladies and Gentlemen I introduce to you Mr. Lucius Sloan.”
A round of applause went up in the crowd. “Mr. Sloan’s father pretty much built this school thirty-five years ago, and now his son has come to see how his father’s legacy is being handled more or less.” Principal Granger echoed at the microphone, over the applause.
A tall, lithe stranger walked across the stage from behind the curtains. He more like bounced, without seeming to bounce, his feet barely gracing the floor. Yuri felt a ripple of excitement as she observed that he always seemed to be in state of constant poise, something which could only be the product of an unassailable confidence. He was handsome, devastatingly so, and the crowd swooned at his gaze. His eyes had depth, and seemed to go on forever in their greenish gold hue. Like jewels set within his perfectly sculpted face. The voice, in which he addressed the crowd, carried an air of dignity, which made even Principal Walter Granger to seem tame by any standards. It bordered on the aristocratic. He had blond almost orange tinted hair, with every strand immaculately kept in place. It looked almost statuesque. The town was known for its absolute ordinariness, nobody expected the founding family to look this good. Sublime was more the word for it.
Lucius spoke to the enthralled crowd, encouraging both students and teachers alike in their endeavor to make their community a better place to live in. He gave a brief history of the town as his parents had passed down to him, supposedly as had been passed down to them going back across the generations. More or less it was about a group of hunters, braving the cold of the great outdoors in the prairies. Their courage and resistance against the odds of nature, deep inside bear country was the invisible seam that held the town together. In his words, this bond had to be protected at all costs for the benefit of all present and future generations.