Devin Greigh: Testimony
Chapter 2

Ben was upset when he found out (from Barry) I’d broken his camera; it had cost him three-hundred and fifty dollars to buy.

“You should have at least brought the traveling case with you, silly!” he surprisingly sounded more okay with it, or at least less ticked off.

“I’m sorry,” I stuttered, “I didn’t know there was one.”

“Of course I had to get one, so accidents such as this…,” he waved the broken camera nonchalantly “…never happens.”

“I really am sorry,” I pleaded, “I’ll make it up to you…you can ground me for a whole year!”

“Don’t be so dramatic, it’s okay,” he reassured, “I needed to head over to the electronics store anyway. It’s a good thing I bought the replacement guarantee with the camera.”

He gave Beatrice a look as if to say “I told you so!” then headed for his office.

She sighed.

“Anyway,” she changed the subject, “Evvy, honey, Mrs. Brown just called a few minutes ago—she said she had some things from your old house.”

I’d almost forgotten about seeing Mrs. Brown—she’d said she was going to stop by.

“There was an emergency at school—one of her kids hurt themselves on the bus—but she has everything packed safely in her husband’s garage. I figured we can all go there and get some of your familiar things and leave a note for her when she returns.”

“Okay,” I said, smiling a bit—deep down, I missed the pink beast almost as much as I missed my family.

“And also,” she included, “an attorney’s coming to the house, to speak about the will—I know it’s been awhile, but oddly enough, under the instructions of your parents, they wanted to wait until you were at least nine-years-old to go over the will—or at least—your portion of the will.”

That was the second time I’ve heard that—the will. I didn’t even know what a will was.

“What’s a will? I asked.

“A will is a statement made by someone that when they pass away—,” Beatrice noticed the question about to emerge from my lips. “—when they go to heaven, certain to all of their possessions being left behind are given to the living individuals listed in the statement.”

“What does that mean?” I still didn’t get it.

“It means that your parents left you something of theirs that will belong to you now, Ben simplified the answer.

“The attorney should be here tomorrow morning,” Beatrice informed me.

“He’ll be able to explain everything to you.”

Barry suddenly ran downstairs, stopping half way and staring through the spaces of the rungs holding the banister—like a prisoner screaming for his freedom.

“So how bad is she grounded?” Barry sang.

“She’s not grounded,” Ben answered. “But you mustn’t take things that don’t belong to you without permission, understand?”

I smiled like a good little child, and nodded. “Okay dad,” I agreed. I kept my smile just out of spite as I ran upstairs and past a fuming Barry, and then into my bedroom.

“What do you mean she’s not grounded!?” Barry demanded.

“Stop being a royal pain in the butt, and do your homework!” Beatrice bellowed.

As I sat on my bed, I heard Barry whine about the times he’s been grounded—I’ve never been grounded since I was born, not that I could remember. A moment later I heard Beatrice yell at him again, and then the stomping of Barry’s feet as he sulked miserably up the stairs, and stopping right in front of my room.

“Here’s your homework,” Barry muttered, flinging my thin vocabulary book at my feet like a Frisbee.

“Thank you, Barry!” I sang.

“Freak,” he mumbled under his breath as he slammed my door shut—I heard a sound-muffled Beatrice scream, “NO SLAMMING DOORS IN THIS HOUSE!” from the bottom of the stairs.

I laid my back against the soft cushioning of my queen-sized bed and stared at the ceiling. The thought of seeing Scarlett as a ghost still lingered in my mind—much more than being able to see ghosts, period.

Scarlett was such an adorable baby—I remembered very little when I was two years old, and my mom holding me when Scarlett was born. Like me, she had a head full of red hair, curly, and elegant. When she was a year old, she was already running; she was better at walking than I was when I was three. Uncle Walt would always bring her over to the house every other day. Scarlett would always squeal whenever she’d chase me around the house—she sounded like Godzilla when she did that. My father used to call her “Scarzilla” as I helplessly waddled away from her—she would run after me at full speed with her legs winding around with each step like a Tyrannosaurus Rex. When she turned two, my father threw away the ‘Scarzilla’ title, and started calling her Scars; it was how she gibbered out her name. We both got along really well, and we were both very advanced for our age; she completely skipped the crawling stage of her infant years and went straight to walking, whereas I started talking and saying words once I turned a year old. If Scarlett were still alive, the two of us would probably have ganged up on Barry tenfold. Tears began to fall from my eyes again.

The next day, Beatrice cooked a big breakfast; the attorney was going to arrive any minute, so she wanted to make sure that there was enough food from him as well. I showered, got dressed, and brushed my teeth. I pulled my locket out from the top drawer, and hung it around my neck. I saw my vocabulary book that I’d finished last night swiped it from the night stand next to my bed and then trotted downstairs. Barry was on his way from school, so I flagged him down before he disappeared through the front door.

“Here’s my homework,” I said.

“I don’t see why you get to stay home all week,” Barry scoffed.

He snatched my vocabulary book from my hand—the corner of it cut the side of my hand and it stung slightly—and then shut the door on his way out.

I sucked the small paper cut—the warmth of the saliva as my tongue ran across the cut was soothing. I turned around, and then finally noticed the smell of hot toast, sizzling bacon, and freshly-cooked scrambled eggs.

“I’m making pancakes now, Evvy,” Beatrice said, “how many do you want?”

“I’m not that hungry right now,” I lied—my grumbling stomach told on me immediately.

“What’s the matter, honey?” Beatrice asked, “Nervous about the attorney coming over today?”

She noticed that I’d been sucking the paper cut on my hand.

“What happened?”

“Nothing, Barry just took—”

Beatrice scoffed.

“That boy, I tell you. Don’t you worry about your brother, honey; he’s a boy after all,” she smiled, gently pinching my cheek.

“He told us that you had gone to your old house,” she’d brought up.

“Yes,” I hesitated.

“It must be hard for you, I feel bad every day—I knew we should have moved when we had the chance—,”

“It’s okay,” I interrupted, “I know that I wasn’t allowed to go there without supervision. I was just curious, is all.”

“Did anything happen to you?” She had asked—it’d sounded more like, ‘Have you seen any other dead things there?’

“I was okay,” I assured her, “just a lot of boarded-up windows and uncut grass…fond memories—nothing spooky.”

“Well that’s good, honey,” Beatrice placed her hand on my shoulder and kissed my cheek.

“Now go eat something; we should be having company in a little while.”

I had helped myself to pancakes; I’d asked Beatrice to make them with chocolate chips, and they were delicious and fluffy with each bite. I had two thick pieces of smoked bacon, maple syrup-flavored—my favorite—and had just polished off a tall glass of cold milk when the door bell rang.

“KNOCK KNOCK ROBINSONS!” A familiar, raspy voice sang though the glass windows of the front door.

I spun around fast, flying out of my chair, and then raced for the door. I checked the glass, decorative window that made up most of the door—the image was distorted due to the multi-sided faces of the gem-fashioned glass.

I opened the door.

“Wow, didn’t YOU grow up!”

I gasped. It was my favorite neighbor of all time, Mr. Goldstein.

“Mister Goldstein!” I dove for his waist—he was still a giant no matter how old I was or how big I’ve grown. His long, lanky arms coiled around my tiny body like cord wrap.

“Whoa, you’re gonna break my pelvic bone!” he joked.

It’s been over five years since I’d seen Mr. Goldstein. He still looked the same—as tall and lanky as an island palm tree, slightly wrinkled face, Cheshire cat-like smile, shaggy grayish hair, and hands as large and leathery as a baseball catcher’s mitt. The only few differences that were present was the fact that he wasn’t was tan as he used to be—he was actually pretty pale—and instead of the usual short-sleeved, buttoned-down collared shirt he would wear, he had on a fully-outfitted business suit—only the multi-colored power tie was out of place.

I loosened my grip after I realized I’d been crying on his soft, cotton-smelling suit, and allowed him to step inside.

“What are you doing here?” I asked as small streams of tears fell from the ducts of my eyes.

“I’m here about the will!” he answered enthusiastically.

“You’ve heard about it too?” I asked with an eyebrow half-raised.

“I’m your attorney!” He sang.

“Y—you’re what!?” I stuttered.

“Well as the attorney of your late parents, I’m here to go over the will with you and the Robinsons,” Mr. Goldstein corrected me. “However, as still a friend of the family, I’m also here to see how you’ve been holding up.” I gave him a weak smile, but he continued. “I heard that you were in a coma for six months. You were bleeding black from your eyes and nose. Do you remember what happened?”

I sighed.

“Not entirely—but it’s not like you’ll believe me if I told you.”

“You would be surprised, Evenfleu,” He said with a smile.

He saw that I was wearing the necklace he’d given me for my birthday, just before he missed out on what probably would have been his last day alive.

“A couple of days before my fourth birthday,” I began, “where did you go? Where were you this whole time?”

Mr. Goldstein’s smile faded into a more serious expression, and then he cleared his throat.

“A business trip…,” he murmured.

My foster mother, Beatrice, saw Mr. Goldstein from the dining room, which saved him from my urge to pry a better answer from him than a simple, “business trip.”

“Oh Alex, you’re here!” Beatrice announced.

“And so I am!” Mr. Goldstein’s face was once again full of Cheshire cat-like smiles. Beatrice, Ben, and Mr. Goldstein all met with hugs and handshakes. Beatrice offered Mr. Goldstein breakfast, to which he gladly accepted after smelling the maple syrup-flavored bacon, along with the newer additions to the breakfast spread; juicy, hickory-smoked turkey breakfast sausages, and oven-baked hash browns—the house smelled like an IHOP kitchen even after the food was finished off. We’d spent at least an hour talking about the current events going on in good old Long Island, how big both Barry and I had grown—I apparently had grown as tall as three-feet, and four-inches. We talked about my family—mainly my parents—and practically compared how much each of us missed them. We also sat and listened to Mr. Goldstein tell his awesome stories about Egypt and Brazil.

After breakfast we continued to sit around the table. Beatrice was finishing up with cleaning the table off as Mr. Goldstein retrieved papers from his dress coat. He unfolded them, reached into his breast pocket, retrieved a pair of small, rectangular glasses from it, and then placed them over his eyes. “Okay, now let’s see,” Mr. Goldstein said. “This is difficult to handle, since there’s multiple wills from your other relatives, Evenfleu. On the other hand, since the other wills were handled by other attorneys, they were affective days after the funeral…this will was not, which makes it more strange than it is difficult.”

Mr. Goldstein adjusted his rectangular reading glasses, cleared his throat, and then continued.

“I, Stephen Orlando Andreas, being of sound and disposing mind, memory, and understanding and after all consideration for all persons, the objects of my bounty, and the full knowledge of the nature and extent of my assets, do hereby make, publish and declare this my Last Will and Testament, as follows…”

Mr. Goldstein read quickly through the declaration of residence, and the assets given to my mother—five-hundred thousand dollars, our old house, and a summer home that I’d not known existed. He then read through the stipulation that should my mother die before him, or within thirty days after his death—which she did—all of these assets were to be released to me, under strict conditions listed on a separate document.

“We’ll get to those conditions in a little bit,” Mr. Goldstein promised.

He’d noticed that I began to cry; tears had fallen from my eyes uncontrollably. Ben and Beatrice moved in on each side of me, and held me close.

“This will was designed in a way, that should any or all of the people mentioned in this testament, pass away before the bequeathing period has passed, that everything would be given to you. However, it was written that this will be presented to you as soon as you turned nine years of age…Do you understand what I am trying to say to you, Evenfleu?”

I shook my head.

“It’s quite possible that your father…Was expecting this all to happen.”

Beatrice gasped.

“Expected!? How is that possible!? Are you saying that he predicted this to happen!? That’s ridiculous, Alex! How could someone predict an unknown and inexplicable genocide of their entire family, in a will and testament that has been written out five years before it has occurred!?”

Everything was too much for my nine-year-old mind to even comprehend. My father knew that my family was going to all die? None of this registered in my head at all. And then I actually took a step back in my head and thought about what my father’s job was—all I knew was that he had a business in Brazil and kept ties with the business primarily from home.

“Mr. Goldstein,” I murmured, “What was it? My father’s job…What did he do?”

Mr. Goldstein shook his head.

“I cannot discuss your father’s business affairs to you, Evenfleu, I am sorry.” Mr. Goldstein continued before I could object to his answer, “I made a promise to him that everything will be explained in the future.” It was not the answer I was looking for, but it was good enough for the time being.

“Well, in any case, the reason why I brought this up was,” Mr. Goldstein took a deep breath and then exhaled, “he could be safeguarding your life, Evenfleu.”

“What?” I was pretty brief with letting him know I had no idea what he meant.

“I believe he may have believed that your life would be in danger. From what, exactly, is beyond my reasoning. However, I do have plans to investigate this situation—I already have law enforcements still investigating the incident from five years ago. Although the case is legally closed, I’m looking to open it back up. There have been several cases as such; childen orphaned due to mysterious genocides of the rest of their families, sudden, unknown causes of deaths, and will and testaments written out in the same fashion as your father’s. We think there’s a pattern somewhere, but so far there haven’t been any documents, any signs or clues as to the mysterious deaths of them, nor your family.”

“So what you’re trying to say is,” Beatrice started, “someone might be after children, including Evenfleu?”

Mr. Goldstein sighed. “There’s close to no evidence to prove that, or suspects to point a finger at,” he answered, “But in any case, Evenfleu, I need to speak with you alone, do you two mind if I talk with her outside?”

My foster parents did not protest; they simply nodded their heads.

“Thank you Ben, Beatrice. We’ll be right back.” Mr. Goldstein motioned me to follow him, and I wasted little to no time getting up out of the chair and following him outside. As Mr. Goldstein exited the house before me, I overheard Beatrice rant to Ben, “I’m telling you, this is a terrorist act! Soon no one will be safe!” I didn’t know what a terrorist act meant at the time, but I knew it wasn’t anything good. I also had a feeling that it wasn’t the case. I finally shook my head and followed Mr. Goldstein outside.

It was a bright and quiet Thursday morning; everyone was either at school or at work. As I walked with Mr. Goldstein, I looked up at the nearly flawless blue sky, shading my squinting eyes with one of my hands as the sun welcomed them with its warm and over radiant presence. Mr. Goldstein placed his hand on my shoulder—his other hand held the will and the conditions my father had for his assets.

“So, it says here,” he said, handing me the sheet of paper, “to let you read it.”

Puzzled, I looked up at Mr. Goldstein and then at the paper. I took the paper from his possession, and read below the part which stated, “No persons other than Evenfleu Renee Andreas are to read below this disclaimer, as agreed to by federal law.”

’To my dearest daughter,

If you are reading this by now, it means that you are alive with your mother or you are the only survivor. I am sorry that this had to happen to you at such a young age, but if you were older when all of this happened, you would have most likely suffered the same fate as me. Please replace it in your heart to forgive me someday, as I did not want to leave you this way, but please continue to read this letter, and keep it with you, even if or when you do fully understand it. (‘That was actually my plan,’ I thought to myself.)

Do not worry about the questions that may be running through your young thoughts right now; everything will be answered to you as you grow older, and help will be provided in the least likely of places. All I will say is that anything you may have discovered or thought of already are indeed true, and should be kept secret — no one can learn of what you know. In the meantime, as the will states, you will have money, and a place to live under these conditions:

The five hundred thousand dollars that you claim cannot be used recklessly. The summer home is off limits, and you will not receive the whereabouts of it until all of the answers have been given to you. Please be patient with these conditions, sweetheart, as they will prove to be beneficial to you in the future.

There is one thing you will need after you are finished reading this, however—Mr. Goldstein will present it to you—It’s to help you see what you have trouble seeing clearly.

Please be safe, Evenfleu; your future, everyone’s future, depends on it. Your mother and I love you, and our spirits will forever be with yours.

Your father,

Stephen O. Andreas’

I tried my best to fight back the tears to further read the letter of conditions. When I read that there was something else he had for me, Mr. Goldstein held out a decent-sized box—it was wrapped in brown wrapping; the texture of a brown paper bag.

“This is for you, and no one else,” Mr. Goldstein murmured.

I took the box from Mr. Goldstein—it was a bit heavy—and began tearing apart the brown paper wrapping.

It was a box containing a camera—a big camera. The word Nikon was plastered on the box as a big, bold logo. The picture of the camera was also displayed on the box—a monster size-looking camera, with a massive lens attached to it—there was text next to the massive lens which read: easy, detachable, thirty millimeter zoom lens—none of that made any sense to me. But what turned on in my head like a bright light bulb was—maybe my father knew about the ghosts as well.

As I opened the box, another folded sheet of paper fell out of it and onto the concrete walkway. I knelt down, picking the paper up and the opening it to read the poor handwriting:

’BE AWARE OF THEM!

White= GOOD Black= BAD! Songs=SAFE Cold=DANGER!’

I did not know what the warning meant—perhaps I would in the future—but I refolded the warning on the small sheet of paper, and tucked it inside of my shorts pocket. Mr. Goldstein saw me do this, but he didn’t question it; he just smiled and nodded.

“A Digital SLR Camera,” Mr. Goldstein was beside himself.

“Even from the heavens, he still managed to one-up me with the gift-giving!”

“What does this mean?” I asked.

“It means that I’d better see plenty of pictures of you the next time I see you!” Mr. Goldstein beamed.

“Wait, wait!” I pleaded. “Where are you going again?”

“Well, I still have to talk to your foster parents about a few things, in private. And then I must head back to Brazil; I’m helping with the investigation of your father, and your family.”

“Why Brazil?” I asked.

“It’s where your father’s business is,” he answered.

“When will I see you again?”

“When you least expect it,” Mr. Goldstein gave me a reassuring smile.

“Take care of yourself, and listen to your father’s demands,” he said.

I nodded, and then a light went on upstairs in my head.

“Hey, you read the conditions!” I accused.

Mr. Goldstein looked back at me nonchalantly.

“No I didn’t” He said, putting his index finger to his lips as if to say shhh, turned to open the front door, and then walked back inside.

It didn’t take long to learn how to operate my SLR camera when I had it running; Ben helped me with most of the basic functions. The camera’s visual quality was much more powerful than my foster father’s Canon digital camera—in fact he loved mine so much, he invested in one for himself about a week later. For a year I spent the majority of the days with the camera attached to me, taking pictures of everything, looking at the digital viewer to see if any ghosts would be around. By the time I was twelve-years-old, I’ve learned how to use the camera’s settings: macro settings for up-close shots, color and lighting settings, and different visual effects—such as the night vision feature. My camera easily became a part of my life, my friend, my family. I took care of the camera; made sure the lens was never scratched, I even had Ben buy me a carrying case for it.

“That thing is worth eight-hundred dollars, Ev,” he would remind me.

Barry was never allowed even within five meters of my camera—one time he just picked it up, and before I could say anything to him, Ben and Beatrice were all over him for it. My camera was protected one hundred percent—not a bump, drop, scratch, or mistreatment of it. The camera was my Scarlett, only it was a camera. I even took nail polish, and wrote her name on the side of the camera—it shone a brilliant ‘Scarlett’ red, just like her name, just like my camera’s new name. And although I did not see any ghosts, I never gave up; I brushed up my photo-shooting skills, and tried to unlock the full potential of Scarlett.

When I turned thirteen-years-old—my last year in middle school—is when I began to see them. They started showing up at school, in the hallways, and even in my classrooms; it was hard to pay attention in class when I heard the constant melodic, harmonic resonance like a lullaby being breathed gently into my ears. They were bluish-white, blurry images of actual people like Scarlett was. I ran into so many, spoke to so many. I’d realized that the more I’d speak with these ghosts, the more ghosts noticed me. I was also able to see how they died; it reminded me of when I was nine years old, and seeing Scarlett’s ghost. I saw the last few moments a ghost was alive whenever I would touch one. Not only that, but I found out that I was able to capture pictures of them using my digital SLR—No one else was able to see them of course, so it would just look like boring, pointless pictures.

The ghosts all had different personalities—it was like they never died. During recess, I ran into this ghost, a boy named Nathan Parker, who had died in an automobile accident with his father when he was alive. He had such an amazing sense of humor. His jokes actually made sense; I told him about my foster father Ben not being so witty with the jokes, to which he replied, “Well what do you expect, a comedian out of your dad? That’s like asking for a hamburger in a vegan restaurant!” I laughed so loud, that the students inside were staring out of the windows, noticing me talking to myself.

Then there was this ghost—a girl about my age named Sabrina—who had died in crossfire as she was walking home from school. She actually helped me with my hair—she suggested that I make it curly or wavy. She also knew a lot of good places for clothes my size—I was very petite, even for my age.

There were also very sad ghosts, like Amanda. Amanda took her own life because everyone would pick on her about the way she looked, which was crazy because when I first saw her I thought she was too beautiful to have cried for as long as she had been. She believed in an afterlife—the first time I’ve ever heard of such a thing—and reincarnation, when she will return to the living, not necessarily as herself, but as herself—spiritually. I found her to be more interesting than most of the other ghosts, mainly because she kind of reminded me of myself the more I talked to her.

“I wish I would have met you when I was still alive,” Amanda told me, smiling for the first time.

“At least we’re friends now,” I confirmed with a smile.

“I will definitely see you in my next life time,” she promised.

“You’d better say ‘hi’ to me when you do!” I teased.

She looked behind her as if something distracting was there, turned back to wave goodbye to me, and then turned in the direction she looked in before. She suddenly turned to smoke, and flew away.

This wasn’t the first time I’d witnessed this—it has happened to every ghost I’d contacted. One thing that I’d noticed was when they left me in that particular way, I never heard from them again. It made me sad, but new and more interesting ghosts would always appear to fill in the empty void of feeling alone.

Aside from speaking to ghosts and finally putting Scarlett out to work, life was pretty much…sort of normal.

I never heard from Mr. Goldstein since he arrived with the will and gave me Scarlett, but he’d promised me that I would see him when I least expected it. I remembered that he was helping with the investigation of my family’s death. I still kept the necklace he’d given to me for my fourth birthday, and it was still flawless in its luster.

I was a pretty tiny eighth grader—I was only five feet tall. I felt like a fourth grader compared to the other girls in my middle school. I never really made friends; mostly acquaintances who eventually assumed I was schizophrenic. Beatrice definitely became my mother for all intents and purposes; always making sure my hair was properly done, that I had decent clothes that fit, and even gave me the dreaded “birds and the bees” talk—even though I didn’t care for it—and made certain that I was, above all else, happy. She never failed her parenting role with me one bit.

As far as Barry, he grew remarkably tall—five-foot nine-inches to be exact. He was also very athletic for his age. Ben actually became his best friend because their fondness for football. Barry became an amazing athlete; both incredibly faster and stronger than most fifteen-year-olds. He was a defensive linebacker for the Junior Varsity team for St. Anthony’s High School. Barry was still a royal pain, but it was more of a sibling thing than anything. No one dared mess with me if it meant Barry replaceing out eventually, and it was a good thing, because it allowed us to bond more, and talk more; it made Barry look at me as less of a freak and more like his sister. I don’t know what it was, but Barry eventually felt compelled to get my opinion on certain girls at school; I guess he was at that stage in his life. “Look at her,” I would coach him. “All she really cares about is hanging on the arm of the biggest, dumbest jock—you’re too smart for that, you idiot! You need to break the stereotype and be a better person than that!”

Needless to say, he never took my advice—mainly because I spent more time to myself, secretly talking to ghosts, instead of noticing the opposite sex. I was only thirteen years old—I’d have plenty of time to focus on boys once I was in high school.

Ghosts were the safest things for me up until I got into high school—the first two years were fine. I met more interesting ghosts all with different stories and personalities, and then they all disappeared from my life as fast as more ghosts appeared to fill in the void. Junior year arrived faster than I thought it would. I started to develop a lot faster—but I was still petite, still a munchkin. Boys started to notice me more—but I didn’t care. I would get the occasional looks and wolf calls and two-second pick up lines—I just smiled and kept walking. Barry would defend me whenever they would make fun of me; whenever anyone would see me talking to myself—talking to a ghost—they would start spreading rumors around the school, saying I talked to myself, or ironically enough, talking to ghosts. Barry was well respected, or feared, and whenever he heard anything negative about me at all, he would end the gossip quickly. He was still a royal pain whenever we were at home though.

“You need to stop talking to yourself at school,” he brought up one night during dinner.

“Barry, that’s not nice to say to your sister!” Beatrice retorted in my defense.

“I’m serious! I saw her once during lunch; she was outside taking pictures, telling the wind—God only knows—to take different poses for her…it’s tough having to bully others out of talking about her, mom!”

“Evvy, is that true?” she asked me.

“I’m just practicing,” I lied, “for when I graduate from college and become a world-famous Calvin Klein Photographer!” They bought the whole photography major story for the time-being, but the more I used that story as a cover-up, the more interested I had become in the idea of being a famous photographer. Eventually, I was very discreet when I talked to the ghost during school and classes. One day, I discovered the old football field bleachers—it was supposed to be bulldozed and turned into a soccer field—where no one was around during classes. Whenever I had my usual free time to talk to my new found friends, I made it a point to hurry to the fields and give it a try.