The small cup of water fizzed in howards hands, he looked down at it instead of everyone else, they all had their little conversations to pay attention to. He was sat by the new girl, Riley, there was plenty of space in the seat where he sat but he still couldn't help himself, he shrunk down and away from the two adjacent people, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. The prospect of going to a party at the scrap yard was not exactly promising as a good night for him, then he heard her speak. The soft quiet, murmurs of an angel escaping her lips, it made his heart miss a beat. He slipped his hands under the table to where his back pack was, tucked away under his chair and pulled out a note pad and pen and scrawled a note on it, it read: 'you don't have to go you know, well let you in regardless.' he slipped the note into Riley's hand and excused himself from the table. "I'll be back." he rasped and stood up, walking past the group towards the door.
"Hey, Pip-squeak!", Howard froze, startled out of his skin. "you can't take that glass outside." Howard scurried over to the counter where Mick stood, arms crossed in impatience, the timid boy gulped and put the glass of fizzing water infront of Mick.
"could you save my dr-" he was cut off by the sound of pouring ad mike poured the glasses contense into a sink. Howard just slumped and went back to the door where he exited into the cold night outside. Sitting on the concrete steps outside the diner he looked up as the incandescent glow of northern Aidensville blocked out the majority of the stars. He slipped a book from his back pack and exhaled a sigh of relief, he opened the bible's black cover and took a deep sniff of the pages, the scent of the worn leather of the book calming. He looked at the inscribing on the inner cover:'The Kingdom of God is Within Man.'
"Thanks dad." he whispered and started to read where he left off.