But gradually, over the next few weeks I got used to it peering at my Spanish assignments and watching me write notes to Julia, teasing her about it moving. And the scariest thing was, sometimes I really thought it had.
I never fully believed myself, though. I just blamed it on my overactive imagination. So, I, and the rest of Mr. Schwartz's students, grew accustomed to it's presence.
One day, while I was having a staring contest with The Pheasant, Mr. Schwartz started yelling at Martine. This was not an unusual occurrence, so I just kept staring at the bird. Then, I saw one of the scariest things in my life. Its head moved! It was now staring at Martine, watching her argue with Mr. Schwartz.
The next day, Martine was gone. Nobody suspected anything, of course, she probably was just sick. And a couple days later she came back. But there was something different about her. She paid attention in class, got along better with everyone, and just seemed to become a little more average.
But I had more important things to worry about than Martine's sudden personality change. Like deciding whether I had gone insane or The Pheasant really was watching us.
I decided to ask other people in Mr. Schwartz's classes if they had ever noticed anything unusual about The Pheasant. Most of them said no, some even went as far as to yell at me, or call me obsessive, or even insane.
And whatever Martine had seemed to be going around the school. Even Amber missed school. Amber never gets sick. And, in addition to quite a few students getting sick, nobody believed me after they returned to school. Not even Lindsey.
After a couple weeks of this I was about ready to give up on trying to convince people I had seen The Pheasant move. I even doubted it myself. But just as I was sitting there, staring at The Pheasant, contemplating giving up, I saw its head begin slowly rotating toward me. I quickly got Julia's attention and pointed at the bird. Sure enough, now it was looking directly at me. Julia and I watched as its eyes focused on me.
Julia jumped up and screamed, "Oh My Lord! Emily was right! The Pheasant is watching us, and now we're all gonna DIE!"
While Julia was causing a commotion and attracting everyone's attention and laughs, I sat there, staring at The Pheasant, unable to move, watching its beady little eyes lock onto me in a cold, evil stare. I knew I was doomed. I didn't know what fate was meant for me, but I knew it would be awful.
I felt the fear welling up in me, almost to the point of panic. I didn't want to die! I couldn't take it anymore. I jumped up, screamed, and ran. I ran as fast as I could, tearing down the hall, not caring where I went. I was rounding the corner to head down the stairs, when suddenly I was grabbed by two sets of huge, strong arms.
They drug me towards the elevator, while I tried in vain to resist. I was flailing wildly and straining against them with all my might. Finally, as the pulled me into the elevator, I managed to escape. But in my rush to get away, I didn't look where I was going and ran headlong into a wall and lost consciousness.
When I awoke, I was in some strange room. The walls were brick, painted a dingy, grayish white, the floors an old, cracked, cream-colored tile, and the ceiling a faded white, with a few harsh fluorescent lights glaring down from it. It was completely bare except for a few hard, plastic chairs, one of which I discovered I was sitting in. It made Mr. Zenz's room, which I thought of as bleak, dull, and even mildly depressing, look extremely warm, cheery, and comfortable.
As I was taking in my surroundings, a couple of strange men in black suits and sunglasses, looking every bit like the typical portrayal of government agents came in and seated themselves in the remaining two plastic chairs.
"Where am I!? What's going on!?" I demanded of them.
"You are here, for reasons of national security, I can't tell you where," one said. "And as for what's going on, just use your imagination. Yes, you've landed in one of those sci-fi stories you delight in."
"What, you mean this is some secret, government conspiracy that rids the world of opinionated, trouble making personalities, while those that possess them are still too young to be taken seriously?"
"More or less, yes. And we accomplish this through planting video cameras in classrooms, monitoring the students. The pheasant in your Spanish teacher's classroom is one of these.
"But don't we have rights? What about the first amendment and all that?" I asked. "Doesn't the Bill of Rights apply to us?"
"As you've pointed out before, you're just schoolchildren, you don't have any rights."
"But... but I was just kidding! This CAN'T be legal!"
Then, something occurred to me. Maybe it was a joke. Yeah, it had to be. This kind of thing didn't happen in America, did it? But who would be behind it? I decided to take a guess. "Martine, Lindsey, you guys can come out now." I said, praying I was right. "You guys really had me going there!"
"It's no joke," one man said. "In fact, Martine and Lindsey thought the exact same thing, that it was all just some joke being played on them."
"What? When? What did you do with them?"
"I think you know when. Remember when that "cold" was going around?"
I sat there, stunned for a moment. I scolded myself for not figuring it out. I mean, it was obvious once I thought of it. I should have seen that there was something going on. If only I had. After awhile I calmed down and asked the question that I desperately needed to know the answer to.
"So, what happens now?"
But they didn't answer it, they just left me to sit in silence, wondering what they would do to me, and what they had already done to my friends. "Well," I thought, "if I ever get out of here, at least I'll have a good story for English class."
