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CHAPTER TWO

Clues

I always eat lunch at school. That day I ate with Dana and Paul Miller, another friend from my class. Paul was a very intelligent boy. He was always the best in math. His parents were divorced and he lived with his father and his black cat, Apollo. He missed his mother.

She lived with another man and didn’t want to see Paul. His father was never at home, so Paul was very lonely. He didn’t have many friends at school because he was too intellectual. He loved Apollo very much and spent a lot of time with him.

“What do you think about our new teachers” I asked my friends.

“I think Mr Adams is very sexy” said Dana.

“Did you see how he looked at the airplane? The sun didn’t bother him” exclaimed Paul. “You’re right” I said. “But did you hear Mr Stone? He speaks like a robot! His voice is cold and metallic!”

“He’s unfriendly too” added Dana. “That’s true” I said.

“Look” said Paul. “Look what he’s eating!” We looked at Mr Stone. He sat away from the other teachers and he didn’t have a normal lunch. There was a glass in front of him. It was full of a dense, green liquid. There were some black pills in his hand. He put two of them in the glass.

The green liquid started to bubble, and it changed colour: it started to become red! Then he took the glass and drank the mysterious red formula.

I looked at Paul and he looked at me. We were disgusted and frightened. Dana tried to be rational. “Maybe it’s a new diet. Maybe that’s why he’s so thin” she said. I didn’t agree. There was something strange about Mr Stone.

That afternoon and the next day we met our other new teachers. We also had English again. Mr Stone came in and sat down.

“Miller. Paul Miller. Tell me something about yourself.”

Paul was surprised. English teachers don’t usually ask personal questions!

“Well, Paul? Don’t you have anything to say?”

“Uh, well, I enjoy astronomy, I have a cat.” Mr Stone asked everyone to say something about their life and hobbies.

“Maybe he wants to create a relationship with us, but he’s such a cold person! How bizarre” I thought. Then, looking at him more carefully, I noticed something: his eyes weren’t green anymore! They seemed a darker, different colour! I raised my hand.

“May I go to the bathroom” I asked. As I walked towards the door, I looked at Mr Stone’s eyes again. I was right! They were yellowish brown. They looked like amber!