Film
Nick inspected the painting before him. He closely examined the colors, texture, and strokes created by the brush. He was suddenly ripped from his reverie by an annoying, loud and familiar distraction.  His friend Will reminded him of a bee, constantly moving and his annoying buzzing would give anyone a headache. He flew around the library not even stopping to examine the art.  Will had been Nick’s best and only friend for about a year and a half. When Nick had moved to Nape almost fifteen months before, Will was the only one who had shown himself friendly and honestly nick didn’t really mind. He was sure that deep down inside he should care about his peers’ opinion, but somehow he couldn’t find it in him. Will had followed Nick around all day and even walked home with him, skittering energetically behind like a like a stray dog he inadvertently picked up on the way home. He tolerated him then and had ever since. Now Will was impatient, his annoying scale turned from a mildly brain wracking chatter to a high headache inducing trill.
“Shut up!” Nick growled fiercely. Will didn’t so much as bat an eyelash and continued his fast paced casing of the large book filled area. To see him you’d think he was allergic to books. The boy had an attention span of a fly. Nick, pushing all animalistic metaphors from his mind, motioned for his friend to follow him to the next display. Will, in turn, raced ahead like an excited kindergartener. Nick followed behind, blowing his long hair away from his dark set eyes in order to examine the next painting. Nick did not get giddy as a rule, but when he heard about the art exhibit he had felt an emotion bordering on excitement. He hadn’t let it show of course, but Will had noticed enough emotion to suggest a visit. Now Nick was regretting not coming alone. Nick looked down at his grungy oversized jacket and shirt with holes around the neck. Slowly his gaze wandered to his duct taped shoes and contemplated if it was worth staying while Will was prancing around like an idiot. Once again caught up in his thoughts Nick almost didn’t notice when Will went still. He looked up to see Will actually paying attention to one of the paintings, his face frozen, mouth open, Will  was downright transfixed by the swirls of acrylic paint swirled on the canvas.
“What is it?” inquired Nick, puzzled by his friend’s sudden interest in the arts. Flashing his friend a quizzical glance Nick tuned to the picture. It was a colorful rendering of a well-dressed man holding up a flower with a series of swirls and designs stippled into the background. The man had a goatee and was also holding a hat and cane and other than the flower there was nothing especially interesting about the painting. Even so, Will looked astonished and for once completely calm. Nick was amazed at the sudden change in Will’s attitude. He examined the picture again but could not find anything special about it. Giving up on finding anything of interest in the painting he instead turned his attention to snapping will out of whatever trance he had entered. 
“Hey, let’s get out of here.” Will turned and nodded, and without saying a word walked calmly out the door.  Silently they walked side by side. It seemed as if the roles had been reversed suddenly Nick was the full of questions, mind racing and Will was the silent brooding boy who stares at his shoes. What would he say? For the first time Nick missed the constant chatter his friend regularly supplied, making his own silence sound less empty. Why was he so shaken up?
Nick crossed the street sending a two fingered salute to Will, receding down the sidewalk. He climbed the stairs and inserted his key, turning it maybe a little bit harder than necessary. Distracted, he stumbled up the stairs and fumbled with the light switch. He sank languidly onto his bed and stared at the various clippings, pictures, and paintings covering the walls in a huge, mural sized collage. Puzzles were stuck to every open space between charcoal pictures and sketches, letting little of the mustard yellow walls show through. He stared at the pile of books littering the floor; the book bag dropped in reckless abandon and considered doing his homework. Throwing off his knit cap and sliding off his black high tops he decided not only to skip homework, but brushing his teeth as well and just sat there looking up at the ceiling. He considered what other teenage boys were thinking of at this moment, but soon gave up finding it uninteresting. With another sigh he pulled himself up, went and took a shower, pulled on some sweats, went to watch television and wait for his mother to come home.
He awoke at 12:30 with the closing of the door. His mother stumbled in the door disheveled and tired. Her scrubs were damp and her hair was a wreck, without a word they went through their nightly ritual. Nick gently helped his mother out of her red knee length coat, tediously unfastening the large buttons so her tired fingers wouldn't fumble. Then taking her coat and her small black pleather purse laid them down at their designated spot on the table by the door, no need to hang up the coat, it just takes more time to find it in the morning. Nick's mother took off her shoes gingerly and with great difficulty leaning against a chair for support while she slipped off her shoes from the heel. Wordlessly he kissed her on the forehead and they both went to bed.
The next day Nick was surprised to see Will was his usual self almost as if the incident had never happened. Still he decided to go back to the exhibit after school, alone, and see the picture again. The trip through all ten classes seemed especially grueling today. The walk through the sweltering halls listening to Will's constant gab then off to the gym, honors history, honors English, then study hall. Most of the honors classes have the same kids in them and Nick was content to sit in the back brooding, and despite his constant wandering mind always finished first in class. Next was lunch, alone, then geometry, another study hall, and honors biology. By the time school ended he had three book full of homework and a full book bag. To Nick's surprise Will did not accompany him home, in fact Nick hadn't seen him since Geometry, strange. Nick walked hastily to the library. His progress slowed by the five pounds of homework laden in his arms. When he got there his gaze was instantly drawn to the man with a flower painting and its lone observer, Will.
He was just standing there staring at it, just like last night. Nick slumped his shoulders and let his hair fall in front of his face and watched his one and only friend as his bizarre activities continued even further, glancing around, his friend dropped his gaze from the framed picture and slipped behind a nearby door, Nick glanced at the picture again as he walked swiftly towards the doorway Will had just frequented, but halted once he noticed a small red circle sticker in the corner of the plaque then slipped closer to the door Will had just gone into, a supply closet, and peeked into through the cracked door and his jaw dropped,  filled with awe he stepped through the door. Nick gazed at the shelves covering every inch of the room. Rows upon rows of film stacked and labeled with numbers and colored stickers. The huge industrial sized stacks loomed over his head. The room itself was deceptively large, but seemed like a closet when filled with the stacks of old fashioned camera film it now contained. He couldn't see Will, remembering the reason he came in and noticed another door at the end of a shelf marked
“12 ca 200”.
  He cautiously approached the door and opened it as hastily and widely as he dared. Peeking through the door he discovered that it led back to the library, but to the history section. This particular part of the library was usually deserted accept for a lone teen hurriedly collecting information for a project they had put off. Nick closed the door with a swift yank and was once again alone in the room of film. He swiftly crossed to the other side of the room and selected an armful of  film, storing them in his backpack he exited the way he'd came. Nick had no idea why he took the canisters of film accept for a gut feeling and an overwhelming sense of mystery. Nick made a quick exit out the way he came and stealthily slipped the door closed behind him.
Now Nick was faced with a problem he had the film but did he dare get it developed? He slid a canister out of his bag gingerly and examined it. The only marking was a small barcode on the side and a yellow sticker imprinted with “20 ca 200”.
He examined the other canisters and discovered they all were labeled exactly alike. He looked at the bottom of one and read the number 1256 hidden on the bottom. Excited he read the bottom of the other stolen merchandise and realized he had stolen the sequential numbers 1251 to 1237. He almost regretted his impulse to take the film, but he had to figure out why they were hidden, why Will knew about it and why the picture was a signal to visit the film. He stored the film in a shoebox and decided to have it developed the next afternoon.
The next day was as much of a blur as the night before. Nick surfed through classes like a ghost drifting through the hallways detached from the masses. After school he took the time to search for Will, distracted as he was, Nick always walked with Will home, always. Today Will was nowhere to be seen. Discouraged a little confused, Nick left for home alone again suspecting Will had gone home. He was making his way up the stairs, thinking maybe he was overreacting and had been sick and that was the explanation to his weird behavior. All this raced through his mind as he climbed the stairs. Trying to convince himself that his friend wasn't actually sneaking around behind his back, and he had stolen the film for no reasons accept a youth's imagination. It was useless. Nick heard a sudden thump and, snapping to attention, took off at an alarming rate up the stairs two at a time. His mother was at work and her hospital was too far away to come home for lunch. The house should have been empty. As he reached the top of the stairs he dashed towards his bedroom door, but was shoved away by an intruder racing out of his bedroom door. Will tossed Nick off his feet and raced past him carrying six film canisters in a shoebox. Gasping in surprise Nick scrambled back up to his feet and watched his friend fleeing down the stairs with only one glance back at Nick when he reached the door, and left.
Nick followed as soon as he gained his balance. He could see Will heading to the library. Nick wondered if he was going to return the film to the library, and if so couldn't he just take more? Eventually he lost Will; he was not as fast as his friend who frequented almost all the teams in the school. Nick decided to go to the library, to the room and see if Will was there. Not pausing to sneak into the so called supply closet Nick raced through the lobby and yanked open the door. To nothing, nothing but mops, buckets and other miscellaneous cleaning supplies. Taken aback he struggled to comprehend what his eyes were seeing. He walked hastily back to the lobby and went over to the wall where the man with the flower hung. He started to go faster once he saw the familiar colors still to far away to make out. When he reached the picture he once again was star struck by what he saw. Instead of the painting he had spent so much time obsessing over there was now a new picture, a similar but new picture. He was astonished and as calmly as he could asked all the librarians one by one about what had happened to the picture and eventually had to stop asking once they started to get suspicious, they all swore upside down and sideways that the picture had not been changed since the beginning of the exhibit. Just as he was walking away from the last librarian Will approached him with his usual trademark smile and slung an arm around his shoulders.
“What do you say we get out of here and do something fun for a change.” Will bantered happily.
“What...” Nick started to ask a question but trailed off mid-sentence.
“I asked you if you’re done staring at paint smudges so we can go get burgers.” Will replied completely at ease and staring at Nick clearly expecting an answer.
“Yeah, sure,” Will sent him a lopsided grin and raced ahead. Nick followed shaking his head and walked to where Will had parked his car.
“You okay man?”
“Yeah” Nick replied.