Chapter 1: Wood Tech

Mr Brown is a man with slowly greying hair cut short while most of his lower face is hidden with a beard that looks like a fluffy cloud. His eyebrows are always raised, giving him a constantly surprised look that fits well when he sticks his head through the open door, peering around the room to make sure no one has gotten stuck in the huge machinery scattered about.

"Has anyone lost a finger yet?" Mr Brown asks the woodworking class in his usual jovial bellow, beard trembling.

"Almost," Ian calls over his shoulder, blue eyes not looking away from the lathe spinning his table leg rapidly while he carves random designs into it. Ian's art style is a little chaotic at the best of times because he's always high even when he insists he doesn't sample his products.

It's cold outside so Ian has a thick rain jacket tossed on over the long sleeve button up and black slacks of the school uniform, hood up over his dark blond hair in a messy ponytail. His dark green tie is on the floor across the room after he threw it vaguely at someone's head and was too lazy to pick it back up. 

"Wonderful," Mr Brown replies. "Let's keep it at an almost, I love the tension. And Kisung, stop smoking inside, there's no need to pass that lung cancer onto anyone else, yeah?"

Kisung looks up from where he's sitting on a stool at one of the workbenches, sketching out the design for a handle onto a new block of wood. "I'm under the vent," he complains. He barely catches the cigarette that's about to fall from his mouth, using it to gesture behind him at the large metal vent installed above the lathe Ian is using.

Kisung is Korean with black hair in a short a buzz cut. He's fat but tall enough that he looks like a tank instead of a slob. He's in the summer's short sleeve top and shorts that come down over the knee, bright red shoes in a chunky style on his feet with his tie poking out of a pocket. Kisung is most widely known for setting fires – sometimes in bins, occasionally people, and the firefighters had to be called in twice over the years.

Marcus finishes clamping the wooden disk to the platform and flicks on the switch, the large drill above starting up. "You know, Sir, I hear caning is back in fashion." He slides a glance sideways at the two other sixteen year olds. "I wouldn't tell anyone."

Marcus is an Indian/Caucasian mix with short brown hair slicked back and eyes so dark they look black. He's one of the smartest in the year but he's also a smarmy, sarcastic bastard. His body is lean and he dresses impeccably with his shirt actually tucked in, tie pushed up, and the boy's uniform dark green blazer buttoned perfectly.

Ian eases off on the gouge and kicks away some curled wood shavings that have buried his feet. "Watch yourself, gorgeous, or I just might slip and stab you in the face thirteen times."

Kisung half turns around to see Ian. "Mate, calm down or you'll get sent to the naughty corner like Vin."

Vincenzo is sitting on the floor in the back of the room with wood panels scattered everywhere like he's building an Ikea shelf. "Fucking try me, assholes. You wanna go out the window like that bitch Matt?"

Vincenzo is some type of European mash with light brown hair and green eyes, the tallest one here. He's dressed in the winter uniform but he never brings a tie to school and the shirt is always unbuttoned to show various graphic t-shirts underneath. Lately, he's been rolling his sleeves up to flex his slowly growing muscles at anyone who stops long enough to have a conversation.

Vincenzo is the guy who throws textbooks across rooms, drops people's bags into bins and always ends up in some kind of fist fight on the oval during lunch at least once a week.

Mr Brown clears his throat loudly. "Now remember; what I don't know, I don't have to deal with."

"You should probably get back to the year sevens, Sir," Marcus says carelessly, spinning the wheel to bring down the drill through his piece. "No one has started screaming yet so it's about time for something to go wrong."

"Good point," Mr Brown accepts easily, turning to walk back to the second wood technology class next door. He pauses. "But, just on a personal level, you're all very young. Don't rush to fuck up your lives so fast."

Mr Brown waves them off and walks away. The class was too small to run initially but Mr Brown insisted that he can keep an eye on them and pushed for it to go through. He's a good man, and probably the only one not vying for the boys to get expelled. This isn't a private school but it's not trash either so these four stand out as the worst of the worst.

"Fuuuck," Vincenzo drags out, propping up one short wooden piece with a leg while holding a longer side and trying to hammer in a nail. "May, come here, hold this."

"One second," May mumbles, most of her concentration on getting a corner piece down to the drawn line perfectly with a disk sander.

May is neatly but not strictly dressed with her tie loosened and long sleeve shirt roughly tucked into her black and green plaid skirt. She lost her hairband at some point so her shoulder length brown hair is shoved down the back of her oversized sweater also in deep green so it doesn't get caught in any machinery.

May is here because she likes working with her hands. Some teachers subtly tried to convince her to change her mind, maybe take up textiles or food tech instead, but she didn't catch on to the warnings and politely declined their offers.

Vincenzo curses again and shoves the pieces over before throwing the nail and hammer down as well. He stands up and stretches with a wide yawn, making May and Kisung yawn as well.

"Piss off," Kisung complains.

"Suck my dick," Vincenzo scoffs and slinks up to the open window next to May. "Is that Mrs Orae? Hate that bitch."

Vincenzo grabs a piece of wood from the scraps box near him and pegs it out of the window before ducking. It flies across, hits a year nine boy and makes the whole class start talking.

"Who did that?" Mrs Orae yells, quite spry for someone that old and frail looking, walking to the window while waving Hamlet around threateningly. "May, tell me who did that!"

May freezes a bit and points downwards vaguely.

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"You snitch," Vincenzo hisses and grabs her by the back of the knees, dragging her down. She catches herself on his shoulder but it's a bit late because she still falls over him at the awkward angle.

Marcus flicks off the drill, unclamps his piece and walks over to join them, fanning himself with the wood dramatically. "Terribly sorry! Vin got so caught up in your beautiful reading voice that he just lost control of his body." Marcus gestures downward. "I know you can't see it but he's humping May right now and calling her Ophelia."

Ian throws back his head with an agonised scream, hood flopping down. "Alas, poor Yorik! I knew him, Horatio, and that son of a bitch still owed me money!"

"Romeo!" Kisung wails, flinging a forearm across his face. "Where for art thou?! My pussy is so wet for you, Romeo!"

May gets to her feet again just as Mrs Orae slams the sliding window shut with a loud bang. The ancient history class of more year tens a floor above lean into the window to see better and several of May's friends seem concerned for her safety.

Harrison shoves the window open. "Shut the fuck up!" he yells down at his friends. "Can't you see I'm being educated up here?!"

Vincenzo springs back to his feet, snatches Marcus' wooden piece and hurls it. Harrison dodges but Ben frisbees it back out. Vincenzo leans for the catch but it flies too low and hits the window below before clattering on the wide pavement strip between the buildings.

"Now look what you've done," Marcus complains. "I worked on that for six months!"

"We're two months into the year," Ian scoffs.

"You need to sober up and check a calendar," Marcus says seriously.

Ian actually looks startled for a moment until Kisung cracks up laughing and Ian realises it was a bald-faced lie.

Mr Brown peeks in again. "Can you do things a little bit quieter? Is that physically possible for you all?"

Marcus gasps. "Sir, you know they have a condition and it's terribly ableist of you to say such a thing."

"What condition?"

"Retardation," May mutters quietly, back to sanding out a clean curve.

"Whoa," Ian says in feigned shock. "Calm down, sweetheart. Why are you so aggressive?"

"Sir!" Marcus cries. "She's bullying us!"

Mr Brown walks away.

Vincenzo looks around for something else to throw while Marcus makes his way to the door to get his piece from downstairs. Kisung drops his pencil and stretches, cracking his back with an exaggerated moan, and May finally turns off the sander to run a finger along the smooth curve.

Ian stands near the lathe, staring up at the sky outside the window. "Can one of you babes turn this off for me? I'm tripping balls right now and I don't want to get my dick ripped off or something."

Kisung spins around on the high stool and becomes very still. "Mate, I don't want to alarm you, but unless you slipped me something then that is very real."

The other two boys deviate from their plans and walk over, also staring up through the window, faces going slack with shock. May looks over curiously but it's probably just a bush turkey on a roof or something; the boys don't need much to entertain them.

"Hey," Marcus says slowly. "Is that…moving? Towards us?"

Ian half turns away but keeps his stare looked onto whatever it is. "I think we should-"

All of them flinch back suddenly and lurch away, Kisung and Ian hurling themselves under the large bench, Vincenzo throwing himself across it to slide over near May, and Marcus whirls around so his back is pressed against the concrete wall just off to the side of the window.

There's a blur of something dark filling the window, glass shatters, then cracking of wood and concrete explode in rapid succession as a deep and painfully loud roaring sound vibrates through the building, the shockwave from the impact throwing everything back against the walls.

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