text: [Themes: family friendly, drama]
  
  in Math Class
  
  > The Adventures of Rory Thorn
  These are the adventures of Rory Thorn. Rory is your average high school student who just seems to be a magnet for adventures. He just wants to make it through the day so he can get home at the end of each school day, but when he goes to class, things just seem to happen all around him that make it difficult for him to make it home each day.
  
  Rory attends school at Acadia High school on the rocky shores of Maine, a short distance from Portsmouth. He lives in the town of Little Hill in an area of Maine that's not quite nice enough to be a tourist area, but isn't part of the Portsmouth metropolis, either. His father commutes to Portsmouth every day to work at an office job. His mother works parts time as a nurse at the urgent care center in Little Hill. He has an older brother who is away at college in Boston and a younger sister who is still in middle school.
  
  Rory is an average student – he does well but he's not going to have the highest grade in classes. It's not that he can't, he's just not all that interested in the subjects they teach at school. He would rather be outside in the woods around his house or down at the shore of the Atlantic Ocean, dreaming. His mother often complains that he spends too much time just dreaming. He dreams all sorts of dreams, from being a pirate captain to a powerful software mogul. But most of the time, they are nothing more than dreams.
  
  > Continue...
  Math class is the first class of the day. Rory always thought it was a bad idea to have math class first, but they didn't really ask his opinion when making up the school schedules. He mentioned it once, and the teacher said, "It's better than having it after lunch." Rory thought it would be nice to have it after lunch because then he could sleep through it even more often than he did now.
  
  Today was more algebra. Rory felt like he'd already taken somewhere around 10 years of algebra in school. He smiled to himself when he thought of that old web comic for "Find x." Jill leaned over to him when the teacher's back was turned and whispered, "What are you smiling about? This is math class!"
  
  Rory giggled and tried to hold it in, but ended up snorting a little. Mr. Barragan stopped talking and turned quickly, saying, "Is there something funny about my algebra, Rory?"
  
  Rory replied, "No sir. I'm sorry sir."
  
  Mr. Barragan looked the class over and said, "Very well. Now back to the solution here where we are trying to find..." He turned back to the whiteboard and droned on about discovering variable values or something. Rory really wasn't paying attention at that point. He pointed a finger at Jill and glared at her. She smiled at him and winked, turning back to the paper on her desk.
  
  Rory looked out the window. The school sat in a clearing on rolling hills. The soccer field outside was notorious for not quite being flat, but instead of giving an advantage to one team or the other, the slant was towards the side – if a team kicked the ball and didn't control it, it would roll out of bounds every time. But hovering above the soccer field was a bright red drone of some sort. Rory could see it buzzing around, moving quickly up, down, and sideways. He wondered who was driving it.
  
  > Rory asks for a hall pass so he can go outside and investigate the drone.
  "Mr. Barragan!"
  
  Mr. Barragan turned around, clearly annoyed at being interrupted. Jill looked over at Rory with a confused look.
  
  "I need to... you know..." he gestured towards the door.
  
  Mr. Barragan sighed and said, "Fine. Go on, Rory. Come right back."
  
  Rory jumped up as Mr. Barragan turned back to the board. Jill glared at him, knowing he was up to something and clearly disappointed at being left out. He grabbed the hall pass and slipped out the door, not even glancing back at her. He moved quickly down the hall, past the bathroom doors, and out the side door of the school. He slipped around the brick wall to where he could see the soccer field. Now that he was outside, he could see a little more. He could see there was a person sitting in the bleachers at the soccer field. It looked like a kid, maybe a student, but he didn't recognize the person at all. Rory looked closer at the drone, and he realized it was larger than he had thought at first. And this drone had something long attached to the bottom of it.
  
  Rory walked out towards the fields to get a better look at the drone. As he did, the person noticed him and the drone turned towards him. It flew directly towards him rather quickly. As it approached, Rory realized that the long item looked like a gun of some kind. As he stopped to consider that, the drone fired at him! Bullets slammed into the brick wall as Rory dove to the ground. The drone flew past him like a plane and then turned upwards, clearly preparing for another pass.
  
  > Rory heads back inside and under cover as quickly as possible.
  Rory turned and ran back to the doorway to the school as quickly as he could. He could hear the pitch of the drone change as the drone shifted, moved around, and lined up for another pass at Rory. He grabbed the handle on the large glass doors and pulled... but the door did not move. Rory remembered now that just last summer the school had installed "terrorist proof" doors that would open from the inside to let people out in case of fire, but would lock and not let anyone in without a key. He yanked on the other door handle, hoping that one would open, but it was locked just as tightly.
  
  He turned around, his back to the doors, and faced the drone that was now bearing down on him.
  
  The drone buzzed closer and then opened fire. Fortunately for Rory, the drone was a horrible shot. Bullets bounced off the pavement in front of him as the drone buzzed towards him. Rory closed his eyes. Then there was a horrible crash and the sound of tearing plastic. Rory opened his eyes to see that the drone operator had miscalculated and the drone had slammed into the wall above the doors. The crumpled mess of the drone dropped to the ground next to him.
  
  > Rory picks up the pieces of the drone and confronts the drone operator.
  Rory kicked a couple parts of the drone around and spotted a camera and the intact gun. It looked like someone just strapped a machine gun to a drone. The barrel was bent, but it looked like it might still work. He picked up the parts and headed out to the soccer field.
  
  As he turned the corner around the school, he saw two men in dark suits, dark hats, and sunglasses walking towards him. In the background he could see the drone operator packing up his things on the bleachers. The two men reached Rory and grabbed the parts out of his hands. Rory started, "Hey, what the..."
  
  One of the men held out a wallet and opened it with one hand, revealing a gold badge. He said, "Homeland Security. This has to do with international terrorism, so we need to take these items. You should get back to class and forget that you say anything." The men turned and started walking away.
  
  Rory said, "But I..."
  
  One man turned around and stared through his sunglasses. He said, "National security. That's all you need to know." He turned again and walked away, meeting up with the drone operator. The three men walked around the other side of the building and headed for the parking lot.
  
  Rory shrugged and headed around the building the other way, heading back inside the school through a front door.
  
  > Continue...
  Rory stepped quietly into math class and returned the hall pass to the hook on the wall. A couple students looked up at him, but most continued to listen to Mr. Barragan droning on about algebra. As he passed Tim, a good friend of his, Tim whispered, "I want to hear all about what you were just doing. And it better not be about something you did in the bathroom!"
  
  Rory smiled as he passed Jill and slipped into his seat as Mr. Barragan said, "If you are not able to finish all the odd problems on page 133 before class ends, you need to complete those for homework. I might collect those assignments tomorrow, so you better do them." Rory smiled because he knew what was going to be assigned, so he had completed all those problems.
  
  The bell rang and the sound of chairs sliding across the floor filled the room. Everyone headed for the door as Mr. Barragan continued, "I'm not kidding, I could collect those assignments any day. I'm the teacher, you kids better listen to me. This is math, people, pay attention!" Rory was the last one out of the room and he winked at Mr. Barragan as he headed into the hallway and towards his next class: Biology.