Hermes. I know. I laughed when I first heard his name, too. I couldn’t help it, but there it was, my laughter out in front of the classroom. He was a scrawny guy with curly, dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. From the back, it was easy to mistake him for a girl. My friends would never say such a mean thing out loud, but the junior high kids? They would. Plus, he didn’t have much muscle to him. A prime target for our three middle school bullies, Jamie, David, and Matt. But fourth graders weren’t worried about muscles. That wouldn’t be a big deal until junior high school. That, and of course, facial hair.

Christopher, me, and Brian wondered why his parents named him that. None of us thought of Greek gods and goddesses. We didn’t have the internet or the ability to look up information with a few keystrokes. If we wanted to learn something, we had to look it up in the encyclopedia, a giant book broken up by specific alphabetical letter notation. Each book only had things listed in its particular letter. We could’ve looked it up, but it wasn’t that important, at least not to me.

I didn’t know they were wealthier than most of my friends’ parents. As the courier of the gods, you’d have thought he could tell us that little tidbit. Then again, we didn’t know much about money, much less if our parents had a lot or a little. We didn’t know about food stamps, unemployment insurance, or factory jobs. All we knew was what our little lives consisted of going to school and playing in the neighborhood when and if we could.

Hermes didn’t have the ‘best’ bike, skateboard, roller skates, basketball, or any other toys, but they were a lot nicer than we were used to. But it didn’t matter to us because we’d ride each other’s bikes, trade off whose house and yard we played in and what kinds of things we did.

“Mike!” Christopher was doing his best to get my attention. But we were in the middle of what Mrs. Linden said was our ‘quiet time,’ where we were supposed to spend the time in silence. More often than not, we spent the time reading comic books or drawing monsters. I wasn’t an artist. That was Brian’s talent. Christopher and I gave him all our drawing assignments because he was better than us. He didn’t mind. And neither did Mrs. Linden.

All three of us had our strengths. Christopher was a wizz when it came to science and math. Brian was an artist and musician. He also was an avid reader, making him a bit of a science fiction geek. Even though he liked Tolkien, his jam was and would always be sci-fi. Me? I loved to read, like Brian. We traded books, tearing through four hundred pages in three, sometimes four days. It stands to reason that as much as I read I wanted to write the same stories I was reading. So, I did. I started constructing worlds that only Christopher and Brian would hear about, Brian drawing the characters and the various hubs central to each story.

“Mike!” Christopher hissed at me again. I rolled my eyes, doing my best to ignore him. We all had detention the last time we interrupted Mrs. Linden’s quiet time. And it was Christopher’s fault! Not me and Brian. But we all got blamed, and Mrs. Linden wasn’t happy about the detention, mainly because it meant she had to stay late. Honestly, I have to say she was one of my favorite teachers. She challenged me to see beyond what I was reading and use it to give life to my characters. “Mike!” his hissing was getting louder, almost shouting. Mrs. Linden glared at all three of us, though Brian hadn’t said a word, doodling some futuristic monster I asked him to make.

I looked back to his desk, glaring at him when I did, giving him the shush finger over my lips. The last thing I needed was to get another detention. I already had one this year, and I didn’t feel like explaining why I got a second to my mom! I didn’t know that my mom wouldn’t care, that it was all a part of growing up, and I would learn my lesson. So, naturally, I panicked about getting in trouble.

Mrs. Linden caught Christopher hissing at me, staring him down, and then she glared at me! At me? What the heck did I do? I wasn’t the one talking out of turn. Her glare was enough for me. But Christopher kept at it.

“Mike!”

That’s when Mrs. Linden spoke. “Christopher Logan Michael. Would you like to share something with the rest of the class?”

Christopher stared at her, defiant. “No,” he said. I heard the sneer in his voice, even if she couldn’t because we were kids. Interpreting our tones and inflections? For us? That was easy. Unfortunately for Christopher, his body language gave away his tone; otherwise, he might have gotten away with it.

“No.” I wasn’t sure, but it sounded like she repeated it just so she had it straight in her head. “Mike.” Now I knew I was in trouble. She was talking to me now like I knew what he was doing. She did this frequently, particularly with the girls who thought they knew better than the teacher, as mature as they were. As for us boys, we didn’t know what maturity was, nor did we care. “Would you like to share with the class?”

“Share what, Mrs. Linden?” I did my best to not sound snotty or rude. I’m not sure if it came out that way or not. I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

“What your friend, Mr. Michael, wanted to tell you.”

“I honestly haven’t the faintest idea what he wanted, Mrs. Linden. I promise,” I said, holding up my hand like you would if you were going to testify in court. I watched enough Perry Mason to know that’s what you needed to do to be believed. Brian was still working on my monster, not bothering to look up to see what the rest of the class saw, namely the back and forth between me, Mrs. Linden, and Christopher. If only you had kept your big mouth shut, I thought.

Thankfully, none of us got in trouble that midmorning, just before the first recess. “Dude,” I hit Christopher right in the shoulder. “What the heck was all that about anyway?”

“Did you hear about the new kid?” Christopher was laughing, unable to keep the giggles at bay. “Hermes! His name is Hermes! Can you believe our luck? Now Jamie, David, and Matt won’t always be on our case.” He rubbed his hands together, just like Dick Dastardly. If Christopher had a mustache, I’m positive he would’ve twirled it.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Brian said, not looking up from his sketch pad. The pad came with him wherever he went, a handful of pens, colored pencils, and a few erasers stuffed in various pockets. It wasn’t unusual for him to drop a few items whenever we went outside or to lunch. But someone, either a teacher or one of four girls with a hardcore crush on him, would return the lost items. Frequently, it was a mechanical pencil or an eraser. Today, a coveted ink pen cost him all his birthday money and some of his Christmas money. His birthday was the beginning of February, far enough away from Christmas that he always got a lot of stuff. It might have had something to do with being an only child. Angie, a cute little blonde I liked, returned the pen to him, interrupting our conversation for a second.

“Here’s your pen, Brian,” Angie said. She winked at me, smiling. I thought I would die. She noticed me! It was the first time any girl had paid attention to me.

“Thanks,” Brian said, barely looking up at her.

“Whadya mean you don’t think so? You haven’t heard a word we’ve said, have you?”

“Yes, I did, Christopher. And you are so wrong. They’ve been picking on us since we started school. Nothing will stop them short of us beating the crap out of them.” He stopped doodling and looked into Christopher’s eyes. “You came close once. And you gave up, you wuss!” He went back to his sketch.

“I did not!” Christopher’s face started to redden.

“You did, too,” I laughed. “Everyone saw you do it. Still don’t know why you did.” Christopher didn’t tell us, but we discovered years later that he was trained in martial arts and knew he could wipe the floor with all three of them, but he refused to give away his secret. He was good enough to win regional and statewide competitions. But, even back then, Christopher was humble. He didn’t want to bring any unwanted attention to his friends. Christopher didn’t know his dad would get transferred before we all started fifth grade when our bullies decided to do some significant damage.

“Because I did,” Christopher said. He didn’t say another word about it. “So, Hermes. Isn’t that a nerdy name? What do you wanna bet that he’s a geek like you, Mike?”

I wasn’t a geek. Slightly nerdy? Sure. Maybe a little awkward, but then again, we all were. “When’s he supposed to come to school?”

“Not sure yet. I think my mom said later this week, Thursday or Friday. Might not be until next week.” Christopher started picking up pieces of bark, throwing them over Brian’s head. Every once in a while, Brian would catch one or two of them without looking up from the pad, simultaneously managing to keep ahold of the pen or pencil. Christopher’s mom knew everything happening at the school, being the righthand secretary to the Principal, Mr. Lamberti. It also meant it was a big deal when Christopher got in trouble.

Thank you for reading!

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