<Animorphs>
Chapter One: Autumn Years
Chapter One: Autumn Years
The town of Erie is memorable for its proximity to one of America's Great Lakes, the long freezing winters brought on by the lake, and remarkably little else. Sidewalks are decorated with tall statues of frogs, though there are not many enough for it to be an "Art Town". Restaurants all ride on the quality and reputation of their "Greek Sauce", though for a town's signature food, it is not different enough from a Sloppy Joe to put it on the map as a "Food Town". Aside from the few strange differences that separate it from any other highway exit town, Erie was just another blue-collar Rust Belt town. A quaint town where the serial-killer craze of the seventies and crack head homicides of the eighties hadn't stopped young boys and girls from having paper routes to buy ice cream, where teens can still be found at arcades congregating before youth organization meetups to share math homework and trade CD's, and where everybody's balding father roots for the same local football team, drinks the same local beer, and voted for the same local mayor. The kind of wholesome place you move to to get out of the city and have kids, only to find that your kids become teens and think it's too boring to stay. To visitors who would read neon green highway signs, Erie was "The Sunset Town", because they wanted to encourage sentimental old people to retire by the lake. To local townies, it was known as "The Mistake by the Lake", because there weren't enough jobs a robotic arm couldn't start doing in the eighties to support the population that had put down roots there by then.
This was a town where the wealthy channeled their unspent energy from having little to do in being invested in sports and television, competing with their neighbors over the dimensions of bushes, and the superior quality of their car and wife to their neighbors, despite each being equally as worn-out and faded. For the poor, the dearth of activity or blue-collar work was channeled into bars, liquor stores, petty crime, and the two crack houses in Southside. Rich or poor, however, there was remarkably little to do in the quiet town this time of year for those uninterested in hayrides, cider, or football. Fortunately, the latter of the third kept the town from having a little more intrinsic value than a town built for bomb testing. It was September, and there was a damp chill already in the air -- Too cold for the fireworks and barbecues of small town summers, and too hot for sledding, snowball fights, and other wintertime comforts the town had from late November to early March. According to the Bargain Lumberjack, an animated caricature who would appear on local access commercials, it was just cold enough to put chains on your tires, especially if you want to do it at Bargain Lumberjacks, where they've got so many bargains, they store them in cords. That was the type of thing that sold in Erie, after all. Mascots, appeals to those who keep firewood in their backyard, and cheap tire treads. In many ways, some could say the only thing to do in the fall in Erie had remained the same since it was populated by men with buckles on their hats: Prepare for Winter.
Fortunately, it was still autumn, and Erie's autumns were far more pleasant than the winters. Rows of tall deciduous trees paved the sidewalks and caged the streets like the ceilings of cathedrals, filling the parks with red, orange, and gold leaves that filtered the last bit of the year's warm sunlight like a tea strainer. The remnants of the long summer were slowly disappearing, and every day there seemed to be fewer and fewer plastic pools and trampolines decorating lawns, and more and more gourds and bundles of dried flowers decorating doors. Although the sleepy town was far from buzzing with excitement, it still wasn't half bad to look at, if you were outside to look at it. Most of the residents in Erie had long-since settled for indoor activities by now -- The arcade, museum, L.E.M.O.N.S, and the many coffee shops and bars throughout the town were progressively getting less business as people opted to stay home more. At least the folks at Blockbuster and Little Caesar's were doing well. Them and the mall. The mall always did well, especially now that The Sharing practically camped out on the front doors armed with pamphlets and punch.
Today was a Saturday, which invariably meant different things in different parts of the town. In Perry Square, this meant those stubborn enough to refuse the gathering cold could grill and throw around a football. In Cedar Hills, it meant that the liquor store opened an hour early and closed an hour late, if you came to the backdoor. Saturday was the best day for the cafes downtown, and an even better day for the Lemon by the lake. For Strong Vincent, it meant room 404 -- located at the top of the school for God knows what reason -- held Saturday detention. There were two students at the back of the room who respectively argued with a teacher and defended the other student's argument, who were there for their sole missed weekend. A tall young man sat at the side of the room closest to the window, there for the first of his two-saturday punishment for rear ending the principal in the parking lot. In the middle sat a girl, on her second of three detentions for smoking in the girl's bathroom, and a boy next to her who simply intended to make up a test that was on a day he had skipped. Finally, at the front of the room, right next to the teacher's desk, sat an irate young man who essentially lived at Saturday School, fourth floor or not.
The six had little in common. A few shared friendships and acquaintances, but were by no means a team, or even a cohesive group at that. After detention, they collectively began walking home in a group out of chance, all having to walk essentially the same route to a bus stop, before small-talk gradually pervaded through the awkward silence. Friend and friend, acquaintance and acquaintance, classmate and classmate. Before long, these conversations all convened into one; The looming abandoned construction yard between themselves and the bus half of their group was headed towards. Cutting through it would save a good ten minutes, given that it spanned two blocks that had to be walked around, but at the same time, there was a sense of danger to the place. It was where a third high school was being built a decade ago, until some reason or the other shut it down. It was a place of shadows now. The type of spot teens dare each other to spend Halloween night in, until the wind rattles the fences and echoes throughout the empty concrete halls. It was an ivy-laden hotspot for tetanus and homeless derelict stabbings, and worst of all, it was private property. A misdemeanor if they were caught, which was not impossible considering what little the police in Erie had to do on any given day.
