CHAPTER 2
The Headmaster’s bell echoed throughout the courtyard signaling the end of another school day at Clarke’s Classical Academy for Boys. Eddy filed down the colonial building’s front stairs and made his way across the quad.
“Heads up!” 
Instinctively, his hand shot up, catching the ball mere inches from his face.
“Nice catch, Eddy!” 
It was Tom Ellis, the son of his foster father’s business partner. Tom wore a broad smile as he ran up to retrieve his ball. 
“What the devil is this thing?” Eddy asked studying the oblong sphere. 
“Its a football.”
Eddy replied, “This is not a football, Tom.”
“I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s a new kind of football they invented in 		England.” 
“I lived in England, remember? I never seen such a thing.” Eddy said. 
“Did you ever visit the city of Rugby?” 
“No.” 
“Well there you have it. That’s where they invented it. Plus, it’s new, and you’ve 		been back in Virginia for awhile now, so you wouldn’t know it, now would 		you?” 
“Fair enough,” Eddy said tossing it back. 
The two boys tossed the ball under the shade of a large Willow Oak while they 		waited for the rest of their friends. 
“Have you studied for the test in Latin?” Tom asked.  
“I never study,” Eddy replied flatly. “I thrive on the nervous energy. Helps me 		ace a test every time.” 
“I think I hate you,” Tom said of his whip-smart friend.
A wry smile crossed Eddy’s lips, “Mission accomplished!”
The friends were still laughing when the rest of their after-school group  . Richard Carey Ambler, RC to his friends, was a wiry, be-speckled boy whose family had been an early settler at Jamestown. The oldest among them, Jack Preston, had his sites on politics like the rest of his family. Rob Cabell strode up with the Widow Bulring’s son Ebenezer, or ‘Nez’ for for short. 
Together, the comely group of Richmond’s finest appeared the picture of eloquence and charm to the High Society in which they were born. In reality, they were a gang of boys clinging to their last bits of rebel youth before it was whipped out of them with the force of a birch rod. Eddy, the charity case of the distinguished Allan family, tried desperately to fit in with this, Richmond’s finest in the making. 
The group of friends trailed down the road together past the edge of town. At a bend in the road, they came across a bird with a broken wing flapping around on the ground. Most of the boys ignored the creature altogether, walking past without a mention. One of them kicked gravel at the dying creature, causing Eddy to cringe. He  slowed his gait in a cool manner so as not to be noticed. 
“Keep going,” he told the group. “I’ll catch up.”
But as the boys disappeared behind a hedge, Eddy went immediately to the bird, cradling the petrified thing in his hands. He knew there wasn’t much he could do for it, but he had to try.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. 
He placed the bird at the base of a crepe myrtle away from the trail. Then he wiped his hands on his pants, and caught up to the group without anyone noticing a thing. 
The riverbanks along the James River had become well developed in recent years, with docks and ports, warehouses and mills all serving some purpose in the region’s thriving agriculture industry. That is, save for one last untouched spot that the group had adopted as their own. 
From the nearest road, it looked like any other grove of trees that lined the riverbank, but beyond the brush lie a pristine clearing, complete with downed logs that served as benches. Overgrown tree branches hung in every direction, giving the effect of an arboreal window framing a serene view of passing bateaux. It reminded Eddy of the time he saw A Midsummer Night’s Dream at a London playhouse. 
Directly below this bucolic spot ran the cool, white water of The Falls, a part of the James River considered useless to builders, and too rocky for the mills. When the boys chose the spot, they hadn’t realized that the loud rush of the river below would drowned-out their raucous laughter. That was simply a bonus. But once they realized they could be rude, crude and blasphemous in this private spot, the hidden riverbank became their heaven on earth. Here, under a veil of privacy, fine, young Southern gentlemen-in-the-making could do decidedly ungentlemanly things. 
Among the boy’s favorite vices were gambling, drinking, and swearing like the dirtiest sailors on Dock Street. On occasion, someone would bring lewd pictures, or other obscoena to share, if nothing more than to out-shock the last boy’s offering. Because the use of tobacco was socially acceptable, even for youth, the boys weren’t very interested in it. That was something their father’s often permitted, thanks to many upstanding families, including the Allans, dealing in the sweet leaf.  However, spitting tobacco, now that was entirely uncouth, and so here in their peaceful little haven, the elite group of young Virginians spat, cursed, and drank to their hearts delight. Not a single one of them noticed the prying eyes intently watching them from the adjacent bushes. 

##EdgarAllanPoe #YoungPoe #TeenagePoe