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Chapter 6
He started at the Abraham Lincoln High School in the fall following his aunt's funeral, and found it a totally different experience to the Masterman school, and due to events had gone to High school with a totally different mindset. During the summer vacation he had had a sudden spurt of growth, and had bulked out so that he was no longer the slight thing that had hampered his hockey aspirations over the last three years. Despite this he had decided that he wasn't going to try out for the hockey team anyway.
During the summer he had got a job as an office boy for Trebling Software, a small local software company that had only started up the year before. He hadn't had much experience with computers previously, there were a few at Masterman, but he hadn't really used them, and he'd spent a fair amount of time in the local arcades playing on the various games. If he was honest with himself, he had not really been interested in computers, and had never considered having one.
The few weeks spent working at Trebling certainly piqued his interest, and as he got round to starting high school, he knew that the world of computers was where his future lay. He had never previously known what he wanted to do at the end of school, but he certainly did now. Towards the end of the vacation he had found himself staying late at trebling so that he could learn more about computers and could be done on them. He managed to persuade the owners, and the principle programmers, Dave Dorling and Andrew Trebilcock, to keep him on a part time basis while he was in high school. They probably didn't need him for a s many hours as they gave him to work, but they seemed to like him, and a smart, enthusiastic kid could be an asset to the firm, after all that's what they started out as.
He spent his first few days at Abraham Lincoln High changing his courses and rearranging his timetable, so that he could manage to do computing. Once again he had found something that he had a natural aptitude for, and found that computing took over from hockey as a spare time activity. Dave and Andrew let him have an old monitor and that, along with pieces from wrecked machines and spares, meant he was able to build himself a computer. This might have meant the end of contact with the outside world, and probably would have done if he hadn't met Claire.
Claire Fallenfant was a senior at Abraham Lincoln High, and he had met her in the refectory, by almost running her over whilst in a rush to grab lunch and get back to the computer lab. He had been mortified and was worried that he had hurt her, but as he helped her up, he could here her laughing, and whilst mumbling out an apology, which she gracefully accepted, he surprised himself by asking her if she wanted her if he could make amends by taking her for a drink after school. He was even more surprised when she said yes, and he took lunch at a more sedate pace that day, and never bothered with the computer lab. The drink was followed by a number of dates, and before he even had the chance to realise, they were an item.
The first year of high school rushed past, and left him wondering just where the time went. His studies were going well, and if he continued to get the kind of marks he had got during the first year then he would have no problems getting into any university he wanted to. The job at Trebling had progressed and with what he had been taught there, and on his course at high school, he had been allowed to do some test coding for one of their new games, and was therefore making decent money for a part time job, and would have the opportunity to get some serious work done during the vacation. His relationship with Claire was also going well, and they spent nearly all their spare time together. The only problem on the horizon was that Claire had finished high school, and in the fall would be off to university at Duke.
The summer vacation was the most difficult of his young life. In some ways it was a good time, with full time employment at Trebling. He was hardly doing any of the clerical work that he had originally been taken on to do the summer before, but spent time alternating between doing some coding for one of next year's releases, testing for this years releases, and writing documentation. He really couldn't believe that he was getting paid to spend a large part of his time playing games.
Despite how well this was going, he found that his relationship with Claire was somewhat strained. Claire had been accepted to go to university at Duke. The year's age difference, which should have caused no problem, seemed to loom large over the pair of them. She wanted to spend as much time with him as possible, but when they did spend time together, there was a tenseness between them that hadn't been there previously. It was obvious that Claire was apprehensive about the fact that she was going to be away at university. Even though Duke wasn't the other side of the country, it was still a few hours drive away, and both of them would be busy, with both work and study. Chances to be with each other at weekends would be few and far between, and they would only really get any time to be with each other during vacations.
The entire summer was spent with uncommunicative evenings, though at least they didn't argue. As the start of the fall term approached, things had gotten to the point where they agreed to separate, so that they could try and go on and live normal lives as individuals in different cities. If he was honest he wasn't happy with the separation, and he thought that he could have done things differently, and been more supportive, as it must have been a difficult time for Claire. They had parted on a reasonably friendly basis, and hadn't managed to have any major rows that may have soured their view of each other. They had decided to keep in touch, and for the first couple of months he wrote to her every week, just inconsequential chat, and was quite pleased to get replies from Claire on a fairly similar frequency.
Thanksgiving arrived before he could even think where the time had gone, and Claire came back to Philadelphia for the holiday. They spent a lot of time together, and the general atmosphere between them was so much better than it had been during the summer, and at the end of the break it was upsetting when Claire had to go back. As well as writing they now spoke several times a week on the phone and he took a weekend off from work and study to go up and visit her.