A/N: I began writing this back in 2007. I'd been wanting to do a dramatic take on Erik's childhood for the longest time. But then I realized it's been done to death already. So I figured, why not do a comedic version instead? Now that's something I haven't seen around here. I apologize in advance if I am wrong and there is, in fact, someone out there who's already beaten me to it.
Type of deformity: ALW stage version
Before he was the Opéra Ghost, he was a kid—with lots of problems.
Crazy relatives, annoying neighbors, not to mention a physical handicap. Who wouldn't go mad? Will Erik, boy genius, be able to cope?
Erik's Wonder Years
Prologue
Henri was confused. As far as he knew, he was an only child. His parents never spoke of a long-lost twin, or perhaps the boy was long dead, and proved to be too painful a subject to bring up at the dinner table. Curious little thing that he was, Henri just had to know for sure.
"Did I have a twin?" he blurted out all of a sudden, earning him blank stares from his mother and father from across the table that evening.
"What do you mean?" his mother asked, snapping out of her catatonia.
"Who's Erik?" he asked right back, and it must have been the wrong thing to say as his mother's jaw dropped and his father started choking on his asparagus. Remembering herself, Henri's mother regained her composure and shut her ever widening mouth. But before she could parry the offending question with her own as to how the child had discovered this buried secret in the first place, Henri spoke up again.
"It says here he was born the same day I was," he explained matter-of-factly, producing a piece of paper his parents recognized as a birth certificate.
"That was hidden in my wardrobe. You were going through my personal things?" his mother hissed, pointing at the birth certificate with a shaking finger while her husband patted his sweaty brow with his table napkin. Apparently, the fact that their son was already able to read legal documents at age two had escaped both of them.
"It's not yours, it's Erik's. Who is he?" Henri demanded, eyes narrowing to slits. For someone who wasn't quite three years old just yet, he looked rather menacing.
His father, who hadn't said a word the whole evening, finally spoke. "It's you," he sighed without looking up from his plate. He seemed rather mesmerized by his asparagus. "You're Erik."
Oh yes, Henri was very confused, indeed.
