Chapter 11: Chapter 11

Unintentionally hot chop slaps across chest of Liam alongside vigorous shaking loud yells caused him to jerk out of his sleep.

"Wh... What is it?! Where are we?! Who are you?!", Liam began interrogating no one in particular whole his head was still rebooting.

"Wake up, silly. I just saw the boy!", Cole fiercely whispered.

Liam could've sworn he got a mini heart attack with the way he was still woken up.

He rubbed his sleepy eyes to keep himself awake as he stared at the windscreen.

"There! That's him over there!", Cole exclaimed as he pointed.

Liam tried to follow his finger to the fish out the boy he was talking about amongst the fleet of children.

"Aren't you seeing him?", Cole impatiently held Liam's jaw to the direction of his finger.

At last, Liam laid his eyes on the boy.

"What the..."

Liam rubbed his eyes over and over again till his eyes were dry and was already hurting.

It couldn't be. His eyes had to be deceiving him. How was this even possible?

"What do you think? Do you think I was telling the truth when he looked exactly like me?", Cole questioned.

"Call him over", Liam said.

"What?"

"Roll the window and call him over,"

"Why? You don't still believe me?"

"Just do it. Call him over, converse with him and ask him how school was,"

To be honest, Cole was right. He still didn't believe it, despite the fact that he'd seen the boy with his own eyes. This had to be some film trick or something.

Out of frustration and options, Cole reluctantly rolled down at the window and stuck his head outside.

"Hey, you!! Little boy!!", He hollered at the boy.

He and his other group of friends turned to the call, and when Cole saw.that he had his attention, he signalled for him to come over.

The boy began trooping towards the car.

"Good afternoon, sir", he greeted.

"Good afternoon, little boy. What's your name?", Cole asked.

"My name is Tris", the boy replied eloquently.

"That's good to know. How was school today?"

"It was quite stressful, if I'm being honest,"

"Yeah, I can relate. School sucks right?"

"What? No! Not at all. School is very interesting. It's a world where we can learn all the beautiful things we need and want to learn", the young boy contradicted.

Cole was quite surprised that the boy loved school. Was he even his son at all?

"Is that so? My bad, then. So what did you learn in school today?"

"We did some biology today. Our teacher talked about how small animals can be. Did you know that, there are organisms we can't see with our eyes? She called it microorganisms. According to her, they mostly bacteria and viruses. She told us that although bacteria are germs that are harmful to our bodies, they can also be beneficial. They help us to break down our food, and they are useful for planting. Did you know that we have bacteria everywhere - even in our body?"

"Wow! I didn't know that! You must really love biology, huh?"

"I do. I want to become a doctor when I grow up. I want to help become better", he replied.

He spoke with such an aura of boyish confidence and nerdy intelligence that Cole couldn't help but fall in love with him. He smiled as Tris rambled some more about today's class.

"Well, I'm happy you're happy with school. Because of your hardwork, you'll get a little something from me", he said.

The boy grinned at the sound of a gift, revealing gaps where his tooth fell off.

Cole brought out some wads of cash from his pocket. He was in the middle of counting it, but he shook his head and gave everything to him.

Tris's smile was replaced with a look of surprise.

"This is a lot of money! How much is this?!", He exclaimed, wide-eyed.

"I don't know, actually,"

His expression of shock was taken over by one of sadness.

"What is it?"

"My mum told me not to collect things from strangers,"

Cole was quite shocked.

"Just take it from me. Tell her a friend of yours gave it to you", he said with a smile.

"Okay", he was happy once again.

"I'm sorry sir. I didn't get your name", the boy made out.

Cole looked for what to say. He couldn't tell this boy his real name. He would tell it to his mummy who would freak out.

"Uhmm... I don't have a name"

"Really?!"

"Yeah. I'll see you later then", he said and wound up. He drove away as the boy waved at the car.

"So, what do you think? You saw for yourself", Cole said to Liam as he handled the steering wheel.

Liam watched from the passenger seat as Cole spoke with the boy, and he was nothing but dumfounded. He could only stare at the boy with his jaw almost hitting the ground.

"I still can't believe it"

"Believe what?"

"That boy. He... He doesn't look like you"

"What?! Didn't you see-"

"It looked like the Moon Goddess reversed your years back to your elementary school days! It looked like you were talking to your past self! It was unreal! I've never seen anything like that", Liam exclaimed shock.

"So what do we do?"

"We still need more proof,"

"After what you just saw?!"

"We need to know some more about him. If we can do a DNA test, then we can be a hundred percent sure. Till then, we're only assuming", Liam explained. "You didn't ask for her name from him," he reminded him.

Cole wanted to call out to Tris, but he was already gone with the school bus. "Another time," he said.

***

"Didn't I warn you not to collect money from strangers?!", Amy scolded Tris, after recovering from the shock.

She'd never seen so much money in her life. How could a stranger with no name just give her some this amount of money.

"I'm sorry, mum", Tris apologized with an expression of sadness.

"I can't believe you're-"

"Let the boy be, Amy! Can't you see this is a blessing?! Look at all this money! Do you know what it can do for us?! His school fees will be settled, we'll pay bills and debts and still have something for food! I told you this boy is a blessing!"

As much as she hated to admit it, Kayla was right.

The few hundred dollars Mrs. Josephine paid her as her last salary was near exhausted. This was a blessing.

Still, that didn't stop her from getting scared.

Why her son, of all the children? Who was this stranger?