## Chapter One: A Walnut in the Bin of Oblivion
It all started with a torn backpack.
Yuri stood in the middle of the school's back alley, watching his bag settle atop a mound of cardboard boxes inside a massive metal dumpster.
"Ew, Yuri, don't touch it," Rex said, laughing with his friends. "It was sitting right next to some leftover tuna. You'll probably catch the plague."
Yuri hesitated for a moment, then began to climb the edge of the rusty container. He realized Rex might be right about the smell, but he also felt that leaving the bag there would be wasteful—his mother had worked so hard to buy it for him. Besides, Yuri figured that germs didn't particularly like his "type," so why would they bother him?
"Need some help?" Rex asked sarcastically as he walked away.
Yuri didn't answer. He was too busy trying to maintain his balance atop a pile of soggy papers.
He tumbled into the dumpster. The fall wasn't as painful as it was embarrassing. As he scavenged through the black dust with stained hands, a long shadow suddenly stretched over him, blocking the sunlight filtering in from above.
"Are you searching for happiness among the refuse? Or have you simply decided to move in?"
Yuri looked up. A man stood at the edge of the bin, dressed in a solid black suit so sleek it didn't seem to catch a single speck of dust from the polluted alley air. Even his hands were covered in soft black gloves.
"I'm looking for my bag, sir," Yuri said innocently, holding up the hole-ridden backpack. "I finally found it."
The man smiled behind his black mask; Yuri could see a slight curve at the corners of the mask that suggested friendliness. "You are a fascinating creature. Most boys your age would have spent the day crying or plotting revenge, yet you look as happy as if you'd found treasure."
"The bag isn't a treasure," Yuri explained earnestly, wiping his dirtied shirt. "But my brother Greg says we have to take care of our belongings. Are you the new janitor?"
The man let out a warm laugh and began to buff the tip of his polished shoe with a small cloth from his pocket. "Let's just say I clean up a different kind of mess. Since you were honest and didn't curse the peers who threw you in here—and since you have a face that suggests you couldn't hurt a fly—I shall give you a reward."
From his suit pocket, the man pulled a small silver sphere, about the size of a fist. It shimmered with a quiet brilliance, as if it were absorbing the surrounding light.
"What is this? Is it an expensive glass marble?" Yuri asked, his eyes wide.
"It is a tool for training the mind," the man said, placing it into Yuri's grime-streaked hand. "Listen to me, Yuri. I'll give you an analogy: humans are like walnuts. Some have a rough, hard exterior but are hollow inside. Others might look like they have a crushed shell or seem simple-minded, but inside, they hold the finest oil."
The man patted Yuri's shoulder gently and added with a hint of humor: "Keep it. It's a 'toy' that will make the walnut in your head grow faster than everyone else's. Just don't tell anyone it's magical, or they'll try to steal it from you just like they did the bag."
Before Yuri could ask how he knew his name, the man turned and walked away with confident strides until he vanished around the corner of the alley.
Yuri tucked the crystal into his pocket next to an old tissue and muttered to himself, "A truly nice man... but I don't really like walnuts. I prefer cheese sandwiches."
Yuri knew his father wouldn't be pleased with the state of his clothes. His father always insisted that Yuri be "orderly" like his brother Greg, the overachiever who spent all his time reading. His father couldn't understand why Yuri insisted on falling into trouble when he had everything he needed to be a model student.
But where else could you find a man in a full black suit who hands out silver spheres? In truth, it was mysterious—just like the superhero stories Greg always read. And that was exactly why Yuri loved the sphere immediately. "You never know where they come from," as Greg always said about mysterious things.
Yuri headed home, feeling a strange, warm weight in his pocket.