The Apple Doesn't Fall
A Drabble by a-little-blonde-distraction
And all my walls stood tall, painted blue And all I feel in my stomach is butterflies
But I'll take 'em down, take 'em down
And open up the door for you
The beautiful kind, making up for lost time
Taking flight, making me feel light
Maddie stood on the street corner, nervously tugging at her purple floral dress while she bit her bottom lip. The big yellow bus would be there at any moment and the anxiety of trying to find a seat would begin. It never got any easier, and Maddie prayed for a quick bus ride every day. She fiddled with the straps of her backpack and when she glanced around, she saw the bus approaching in the distance. She took a deep breath and remembered what her mother had said that morning at the breakfast table about it being just a way to get to school-not determining her path for the rest of her natural life-and the bus soon slowed to a stop, the doors opening slowly for her.
The driver smiled at her, turning to his clipboard to check off her name off the list, and soon the doors were closing behind Maddie. She glanced around and she saw a bunch of smiling faces, all paired up with not a seat to spare and she practiced her deep breathing when she finally spotted a seat in the back completely empty. Perfect, she could just sit and keep to herself and wait until they got to school. She was one of the last stops, so she was bound to keep the seat to herself.
As she strode back towards the empty seat, she glanced over and saw the top of today's newspaper headlines over the seat ahead on her left. She approached the seat, and its peculiar occupant, cautiously and curiously. Standing beside it, she could see a young boy sitting behind it, his fists clenching the sides of the paper. He had a mop of blonde curls and his blue eyes were dancing along the newsprint words and soon they slid from the page to her.
"I'm sorry, I, um..." Maddie started to mumble, embarrassed not realizing that she'd been staring, but the towheaded boy interrupted her.
"Would you like to sit with me?" He asked, the lilt of an accent in his voice that Maddie had never heard before weaving through his words. She felt a warm, comfortable feeling rush over her as he gazed at her smiling and she felt herself nodding and she quickly slid off her backpack and sat beside him. He scooted over, picking up a thermos that had been on the seat beside him, making room for her to sit down and smiled.
"I'm Oliver," he said confidently with a smile and Maddie found it impossible not to smile back at him.
"I'm Maddie," she replied, settling her backpack in her lap and placing her hands crossed hands over it.
"Maddie," he repeated with a smile. "Is that short for Madeline?"
"Yeah," Maddie said, never loving the way her name sounded more than she did then. "My mom was named after a character from a book, so she named me after Madeline."
"'In an old house in Paris that was covered in vines, lived twelve little girls in two straight lines...'" Oliver quoted, smiling at Maddie, who knew the words just as well as he did, and she smiled back at him. "One of my favorites. My aunt used to read it to me when my dad went out of town for business. I've got all of them memorized."
"Me too," Maddie grinned at him, her blue eyes shining and her dimples reflecting his own. Soon a comfortable silence fell between them and Oliver smiled at her before turning back to his paper and taking a sip from his coffee cup.
"Is that really coffee?" Maddie asked, her curiosity finally getting the better of her.
"Only decaf," he admitted. "My uncle snuck some for me this morning, but he forgot to add enough milk."
"Then why are you still drinking it?" she asked and Oliver studied the cup a while before he replied.
"I don't know. I just am. Weird, huh?" he chuckled as he sipped and finished the drink, Maddie watching him with fascination the whole time. "Oh I'm so sorry," he quickly said, glancing at her, "I should've offered you some!"
"No, that's okay!" Maddie said, holding up her hands. "I've had some of Mom's coffee before, and even though it was sweet, I didn't like it much. But thanks asking..."
"Of course, Madeline," Oliver replied. Maddie smiled. No one usually called her Madeline; only teachers just getting to know her or her mom when she was in trouble and used her full name. But she liked how Oliver said it, so she didn't correct him.
"You talk funny. You're not from here, are you?"
"No, I'm not. My family is from the United Kingdom, but I was born in New Orleans. My family lived here years ago and I moved back here with my dad since he and my mum separated."
"I'm sorry. My parents got divorced too..." Maddie said empathetically.
"Well my parents were never really married," Oliver corrected her gently. "My mum really just wanted to find her family there. My mum and dad decided I was better off with him and his family, so I get to see my mum on holidays."
"That's nice," Maddie nodded. "I get to see my dad every other weekend, but I live with my mom."
"Scary how no one stays together these days, eh?" Oliver said jokingly.
"No... well, my mom and dad are better apart than they are together," Maddie confessed as she fiddled with the zipper of her backpack, and she nervously peered over at Oliver, who was nodding.
"Mine too..." He admitted, and comfortable silence fell between them again until Maddie spoke up.
"I really like talking to you, Oliver," she said, smiling shyly at him. "It's really easy to talk to you. It's not easy to talk to the other kids."
"You too, Madeline," Oliver replied, smiling back at her. "What teacher do you have?"
"Miss Dries," Maddie replied and Oliver's smile grew even wider.
"Me too! How's about we sit together?"
"I'd like that!" Maddie replied, so happy to have finally found someone here that she might be able to call a friend.
"Oliver, please, try and save some of the frosting for your classmates!"
The voice of their teacher, Miss Dries, carried from the other side of the room and Maddie giggled as she looked to her right and saw the mountain of blue and green frosting that overwhelmed Oliver's sugar cookie.
"Like you don't have a cabinet full of frosting at your disposal," Oliver muttered to himself as he reached for the yellow tube just out of his reach, which Maddie leaned over and pushed closer to his grasp. He glanced at her and gave her a small, knowing smile and said, "Thanks," before turning back to Mount Frosting.
Maddie simply smiled before turning back to her perfect and intricately designed cookie that she'd decorated with a perfectly scalloped edge of white frosting and a red flower made of red M&Ms and a green sprinkle stem and green sprinkle leaves.
"And big surprise, Madeline's cookie is perfect," Oliver suddenly said, his voice full of exaggerated and feigned annoyance. "Everything she makes is perfect, everything she does is perfect..."
"I made it for you, stink brain," Maddie replied with a laugh, pushing the wax paper towards him and Oliver stopped teasing her, mid-frosting squeeze and stared at the tiny snack.
"Really?" He said, the wonder and awe in his voice as his tiny blue eyes raised up to meet hers.
"Really," She replied with a friendly smile and soon Oliver glanced back at his cookie.
"Well it's not quite done yet, but...I was making one for you too," he said uncomfortably as he glanced between his pile of liquefied sugar and her perfectly decorated treat.
Maddie simply giggled again before taking hold of the wax paper beneath Oliver's wild and colorful concoction and pulling it closer to herself and inspecting it. She glanced back up at his sheepish face, smiled an appreciative smile at him, and said, "It's perfect," before she swiped a bit of frosting with her little pointer finger.
The band room was filled with a cacophony of noise and an even more rambunctious flurry of movement as the music instructor Ms. MacKenzie tried to get everyone to quiet down to instruct them to no avail. Maddie and Oliver sat over to the side and removed from the chaos that consumed their classmates. Oliver strummed at a guitar as best he could while Maddie lay on her stomach watching him.
"I think this is a D chord... It looked different though when Dad did it, but his hands are bigger than mine," Oliver admitted as he struggled to position his small fingers on the frets.
"I think it sounds great," Madeline said, her elbows on the floor with her chin resting in her hands. "Try it again from the beginning."
Oliver smiled at her and turned back to the neck of the guitar and did his best to play the four chords he knew on guitar, Madeline swinging her feet in time to the redundant melody her friend played.
"Grayson, give Madeline back her Capri Sun or you're gonna be sorry!" Oliver said warningly, waving his clenched fist at the young boy who had ripped off the straw from the package.
The young boy had ripped the straw's plastic wrapping away and had it positioned, ready to puncture the silver container and drain it of it's cool, fruity contents. However, the look on Oliver's face told the boy that he'd no doubt make good on his threat and he quickly thrust the drink pouch back into Maddie's grasp. The boy scampered off and Oliver turned back to his Maddie with a proud smile which slowly faded as he took in his friend's expression.
"What?"
"I don't need you to fight my battles for me, Oliver," Maddie said seriously, turning and her long blonde locks swirling around her as she huffed over to the swings. Oliver followed her cautiously and when she sat down at a swing, he took a seat in the swing beside her.
"I know you don't need me to fight for you, Madeline," Oliver said after Maddie gave him the silent treatment, nearly finishing her PB & J and animal crackers before she turned to look at him. "I knew I'd go easier on Grayson than you would, so I gave him a chance to spare himself the humiliation of being beaten up by a girl at lunchtime." Maddie did her best to hide her smile from him, but soon Oliver was holding out his pinkie finger to her.
"I promise if he comes for your apple slices, you get the first punch."
Maddie looked at him with a smile and couldn't contain her giggles any longer and wrapped her pinkie around his.
"Pinkie swear."
He didn't know why she was over on the edge of the soccer field making funny shapes with her arms and legs. He didn't know why she was over on the edge of the field by herself when everyone else was chasing a soccer ball around the grass. But Miss Sonnenshine had nodded when she'd leaned down for Maddie to whisper her question in her ear and Maddie had marched over, declaring her own bit of space silently, and began doing what she'd called 'Sun Salutations.'
Oliver didn't know that the Sun needed saluting, but here she was, 'saluting the sun' like she allegedly did most Saturday mornings with her mom. She wasn't even facing the sun as she stood facing forward at a 90 degree angle from the sun, with her legs spread and her arms out beside her and her left hand planted on the ground, her right sticking up in the air.
And here he was, beside her, looking just as ridiculous and glancing over at her occasionally to mimic her and make sure she hadn't changed positions when he wasn't looking. She hadn't asked him to join her and he hadn't asked her, nor had he asked Miss Sonnenshine, but neither Maddie nor their teacher stopped him. Soon Oliver was scrambling to straighten up as Maddie moved to stand straight up, raising up her right leg slightly to balance on her left foot with her palms pressed together and her hands resting in front of her heart.
He figured that she was doing that meditating thing that his aunt did whenever his dad did something to annoy her-which was often-but he didn't question her and only took her cue and followed suit and closed his eyes. Even though it was confusing and didn't make much sense to him, it was the most relaxing and serene P.E. classes he'd ever taken part in, and he knew it was less to do with the poses and more to do with his partner.
"Paris, the capital of France, is located in Northern France on the river Seine. With a population of over 12 million people, the city is a bustling hub of commerce, culture and history. Paris earned her name 'the city of light,' during the Age of the Enlightenment and..."
Maddie sighed, a wistful smile on her face, as she and Oliver sat in the back watching the video on the projection screen at the front of the classroom.
"Paris looks so beautiful," she murmured, gazing at the beautiful sights that danced across the vinyl screen and Oliver turned to her.
"Have you been there?" he asked and she shook her head. He smiled at her brightly. "I'll take you! Wherever you want!"
"Don't be silly," she said shaking her head, even though a smile graced her face.
"I'm not! I will take you!" Oliver insisted. "We'll go to see the Eiffel Tower and go all the way to the tippy top and we'll go to that café my dad took me to and get that yummy bread I ate with my dad. It'll be great!"
Maddie laughed and shook her head, but secretly she hoped Oliver would make good on his promise. He'd been such a good friend to her, and there's no one else she'd like to see the world with. She was snapped out of her daydream as Oliver poked her arm and tilted his head towards the door that was cracked open just past them.
"C'mon!" he whispered excitedly as he crouched down and snuck quietly from his seat out the door and Maddie followed him without hesitation.
Soon they were in the arts and crafts room after making an appearance in the "pet room" and visiting Harold the snake, who happened to be both Maddie and Oliver's favorite school pet. Even though the lights were turned out, sunlight flooded in from the windows on the far side of the room.
"Hey look!" Maddie exclaimed, pointing to the other side of the room and grabbing Oliver's hand and running to the cabinet over by the closet door. The door, for some reason, had a mirror attached to it, and Oliver soon saw what Maddie had been pointing out: a cup of Magic markers that the teacher had forgotten to put away.
"And people think I'm the bad influence," Oliver laughed as he and Maddie reached for markers, and in no time, Oliver had a unibrow and a great big black mustache that stretched from one dimple to the next under his nose. Maddie had a rainbow across her forehead, flowers trailing down the left side of her face, and a blue nose. She eyed him as she worked on the unicorn on her right cheek and finally paused a moment to watch him turn his attention to his cheeks and chin.
"What are you doing?" she asked and Oliver glanced at her knowingly.
"I'm giving myself stubble, like my dad," he said plainly. "Because I'm a man."
"If you say so," Maddie giggled as she turned back to the mirror and began applying a copious amount of fuschia marker to her lips.
"I did just say so!" Oliver retorted and soon he groaned in horror as Maddie grabbed his face and planted a big kiss on his cheek. "Ughhhh now you got cooties in my stubble!"
"Oops!" Maddie said flippantly as she turned back to the mirror, ready to apply some blue marker eyeshadow to her eyelid. She coated her right eyelid then she opened it, ready to make its twin match. She glanced over and saw that her kiss print was perfectly intact on Oliver's cheek, no smudges or smears and smiled to herself as she closed her left eye to finish her makeover.
Once she was through, she began dancing around to music only she could hear and soon she heard clapping. The little boy with messy blonde curls and drawn on marker stubble was applauding her and she indulged him with a curtsy.
"I really like that one thing you did," he said, half mimicking her movement and she smiled.
"Arabesque?" She said, repeating the movement and he clapped his hands once.
"Perfect! Stay just like that!" He exclaimed, running over to a table and grabbing a large sheet of paper from the drawer.
"What are you doing?" She asked, bringing her arms and leg down to stare at him expectantly.
"I wanna draw you!" Oliver said excitedly as he grabbed a marker and turned back to her. "Now do it again!" He demanded, readying his marker on the paper.
"Fine, fine," Maddie said exasperatedly, hiding her smile and posing again in the dance position. Within ten minutes, Oliver had completed his masterpiece and Maddie rewarded him with another kiss on the cheek, and Oliver didn't make a peep about it.
"'The long dining tables had vanished and a golden stage had appeared along one wall, lit by thousands of candles floating overhead. The ceiling was velvety black once more and most of the school seemed to be packed beneath it, all carrying their wands and looking excited...'" Oliver read aloud, sitting with his back against the big oak tree on the corner of the playground, his legs outstretched in front of him. Maddie lay perpendicular to him on the ground, the back of her head resting on his legs as she listened and stared at the sky, one of the oak tree's leaves between her fingers.
"What house do you think I'd be in if we went to Hogwarts?" Maddie wondered aloud, glancing up at him and Oliver paused in the middle of reading to think. His lips twisted as he thought, The Chamber of Secrets resting against his chin as he gazed out at the playground.
"I think Hufflepuff. You're loyal and honest. That's my favorite thing about you. You're the most honest person I know, and I always know that I can trust you," Oliver finally decided and Maddie smiled up at him.
"I think you'd be a Slytherin," she said and Oliver gasped, his brow furrowing.
"But they're the bad guys, Madeline! Are you calling me a bad guy!?"
"No! Not all Slytherin's were bad guys! Slughorn stayed and fought in the Battle of Hogwarts and Tonks's mom was a Slytherin that married a muggle-born!" Maddie argued passionately and Oliver considered her rebuttal.
"Hm. That's true," he finally admitted and Maddie smiled knowingly.
"You'd be in Slytherin because you know what you want and you go after it," she added. "And you're a leader. It's one of your best traits! You just have to use it for the greater good and not just your own..." Oliver listened to her intently, smiling down at her as she spoke.
"Maybe I was wrong...maybe you'd be a Ravenclaw," He said, smiling fondly at her. "You're awfully clever."
"And don't you forget it," Maddie said, blushing and turning back to the oak leaf she'd been fiddling with for the last hour. Oliver smiled and turned back to the book they'd both read cover to cover, seeing the story and characters anew through his friend's eyes.
"I can't believe I'm not going to see you for 10 days!" Oliver huffed as his orange crayon ran across the page of his sketchbook.
"Well my mom said that I can call you once a day if I want," Maddie said as she pulled her blunt cross stitch needle through the fabric of Oliver's hoodie sleeve. "You said you're going to your uncle's for Thanksgiving right? Well then give my mom your uncle's number before your dad comes to pick you up today. My mom will be here to pick me up too..."
"Once a day?!" Oliver whined, angrily tossing his orange crayon down and dejectedly picking up a green crayon and resuming his half-hearted drawing. "It's like being in prison!"
"How would you know?!" Maddie snorted as she finished stitching up the hole Grayson ripped in Oliver's sleeve and knotting the thread.
"I've seen movies," Oliver muttered.
"With your uncle while your dad's not around?" Maddie added, peering at her friend with an amused expression.
"Yeah," Oliver said, smiling as he remembered the last time he binged with his uncle. "We get a pizza, which Dad never does, and we drink soda and watch action movies and it's the best."
"Maybe I can come over sometime and we can do that together!" Maddie said. "I wanna meet this crazy uncle of yours."
"All my uncles are crazy, this one is just the coolest of them all," Oliver clarified as they began to gather their things at the sound of the bell ring.
"I wish I had crazy cool uncles," Maddie said, pulling her backpack over her shoulders and holding out Oliver's hoodie. "My mom's an only child. So is my dad."
"Yeah, well, sometimes family reunions get a little crazy with all of us together...there are so many of us!" Oliver said, taking his hoodie from Maddie and slipping it on and smiling at the little red X that was stitched over the hole on his left sleeve. They both walked out together and glanced around and Maddie was the first to spot her ride.
"Mommy!" She exclaimed as she ran towards the woman with long blonde locks like her daughter's and wrapped her arms around her waist, her face pressing to the peplum hem of her mother's purple blouse.
"Hey squirt!" Maddie's mom replied chuckling before kissing the top of Maddie's head. "Ready to get stuffed like a turkey with Grandpa Stephen's yummy mashed potatoes?"
"Yeah!" Maddie cheered as she gazed up adoringly at her mother. Her mom, however, glanced behind her daughter and cleared her throat before glancing back at Maddie.
"Who's your friend, sweetie?" Maddie's mom asked, although she already had a hunch of who the towheaded boy was from her daughter's animated descriptions.
"This is Oliver, Mom!" Maddie said excitedly looking at the sheepish boy who was still smiling his dimpled smile at Maddie and her mom.
"Hello, Oliver! It's very nice to meet you," Maddie's mom said, taking the boy's outstretched hand with a smile and shaking it gently. "Such lovely manners you have."
"Thank you, ma'am," Oliver replied politely and Maddie's mom smiled knowingly at the boy, whom she knew to be more of a devil in disguise. It'd taken days for the marker to fade off of Maddie's face and eyelids, but she'd never seen her daughter so happy, so she told herself she couldn't hold it against the boy too much. And she fought the nagging feeling that she knew the boy even though they'd just met. She told herself he wasn't the only boy with dimples and she shouldn't be so hung up on how uncanny the resemblance was to a man in the back of her mind and distant memory.
"Well Maddie and I are going up to spend Thanksgiving with Grandma Liz and Grandpa Stephen, but here's the phone number you can reach her at if you'd like to call her," Maddie's mom added as she reached into her jean pocket for the pink Post-It note with the phone number on it. "Just try to keep them to maybe once a day please so she can spend some time with her grandparents."
"Thank you! And I will!" Oliver said with a huge smile, taking the Post-It from her and throwing his arms around Maddie in a giant hug.
"Oliver Henry Mikaelson!"
Oliver looked past Maddie and her mom to see his dad waving at him and he smiled.
"There's my dad! I'll see you later, Madeline!" he said as he released her and ran to his father.
"Bye, Oliver! Happy Thanksgiving!" Maddie called after him as she waved and she smiled when her friend waved back at her.
Both children remained blissfully unaware of their parents' reactions to seeing the other as they waved and smiled at each other. Maddie's mom had frozen when Oliver's dad called out to him and she slowly turned to see Klaus taking his son up in his arms in a tight bear hug and spinning him around. After Klaus set him down, he tousled the boy's messy blonde curls and fended off the boy's feeble attempts to fight him with a smile. That smile slowly faded as he looked up in the direction his son had come from to see Caroline standing next to the girl that was waving back at Oliver.
She was the spitting image of her mother, just as Oliver was of his father; save for his face being the same shape as his mother's, but he'd not inherited another single feature from Hayley. Klaus and Caroline gazed at each other for what seemed like an eternity until both were pulled from their reveries by their children. Oliver was doing his best to climb Klaus like a tree so Klaus finally crouched down for the boy to scamper up onto his back and Maddie was tugging on Caroline's hand, pulling her towards the car.
They glanced at their children before looking back at the other, and Caroline was the first to smile; a sad, wistful sort of smile, one that carried a million and one memories and dreams that never came true. Klaus smiled back at her, his smile just as understanding, and the two glanced at their children before turning and going their separate ways again.
Author's Note:How about those apples, huh? (Pun intended) I hope you liked the twist at the end! I hope that it wasn't to obvious where I was going with this but I also hope that it made sense in the long run! I got inspired by the music video for "Everything Has Changed" by Taylor Swift featuring Ed Sheeran a while ago and I finally felt like posting this little drabble I wrote for funsies... :)
READ & REVIEW PLEASE!