'The good thing about dreams is that they're limitless, you can build the perfect world for yourself. But that's just that, they're dreams. Intangible desires and wishful thinking. Eventually, you have to wake up.'
The world was full of lies, a truth Harold Hutchins learned early on.
His parents had been in love with each other, it had oozed between them, exuding not only towards themselves but their children as well. They felt whole, everything was the it should have been. They were a happy family.
. Until they weren't anymore.
Strained smiles and sickening facades were broken by arguments, ones his parents were sure he couldn't hear in back rooms and behind sugar coated words. Whenever his parents were together, his stomach lurched, churning with pained anticipation. The truth was leaked in subtle ways, the way they acted when they were together, the looks they gave each other. Being in the same room, alone with just them- one could feel it hang heavy in the air, like humidity before a storm.
They hated each other. They wouldn't say it out loud, couldn't.
Harold so dearly wanted to believe things were the same, that they were still that picturesque family that you saw on tv and in the pictures. A full family of four, laughing and smiling- that's the way things were supposed to be, wasn't it?
It was all a lie- all that it would ever be. A lie.
He could struggle and flail in a desperate attempt to keep himself immersed in this false image of a life that was already gone.
Harold didn't want his parents to go away, didn't want to have to say goodbye to one or the other forever, but this- he didn't want this either.
Harold could feel himself suffocating under these layers and layers of not so secret secrets. He needed to break the shatter the surface of this glass world. Harold needed to rebel, to unveil the truth.
Alas, Harold Hutchins was only one boy. A boy who didn't even have any friends at that. How could he ever hope take on a world so full of injustice by himself?
Fate, it would seem, was not so cruel after all, because George Beard moved in one day.
The George Beard who would help lift Harold's spirits, give him his drive to do what they needed to do. George who vowed to help him no matter what, his first and truest friend. He was steadfast and loyal, quick and clever but most importantly of all, he understood. George was one of the few people in the world who could make him laugh, wipe away his tears and fears if only for a little while. Despite everything that happened in his short life, George was the one person Harold could trust above all else.
The best friend Harold could ever have asked for.
It was them against the world, an never ending uphill battle. Their primary battle field? The school.
It reeked of everything Harold had grown to loathe. A cheerfulness that Harold just knew was fake. The more gratingly saccharine the person was on the outside, the nastier, angrier they had to be deep down. So it was no surprise to either of them that their Principal, Mr. Krupp had to be the worst of all.
For one, he was the most annoyingly cheerful man Harold had ever encountered. The goofy grin on his face, the bounce in his step-even the aggravatingly upbeat tune he'd sometimes whistle n the hallways. It would send a chill up Harold's spine, a sickness in his stomach.
He had never met someone so dedicatedly disgusting in this facade of carefree happiness.
Mr Krupp would stop and chat with the gaggles of children as they passed through the hallways- strolling along, always going somewhere. For a man whose job was centered around an office, he was a lot more up and about than expected. The way he'd douse fellow students with compliments- lies to make them feel good about themselves only for the world to set them ablaze with the harsh realities of life.
He was perfect.
Underneath that demeanor there had to be something truly cruel and mean. The two did would do the most logical thing. They would let it out. Getting into his office, getting to their target, was laughably easy. His door was open to anyone at almost any time, as if he secretly wanted to be a part of their plans. His naivete was painfully clear in his face, the ways it lit up, his stupid smile spread as they entered.
They strode in with confidence, unflinching and baring their own sinister smiles. The boys were on a mission. They were here to make a statement. A statement that came to into it's own, out of their heads and into the real world.
A statement they called Captain Blunderpants.
He stood there, tall and proud, more real than they could ever believe. That glare, that smile of pure malice and mischief. He radiated chaos just waiting to happen. Captain Blunderpants was more than perfect.
He was theirs, the very embodiment of their jaded childhood. Blunderpants was energy, was defiance and righteousness in the only proper way they knew how- through anarchy. Break the rules, the arbitrary restrictions that existed because someone said they had to.
Although their key to freeing the Captain from the recesses of his mental prison was a little complicated at times, it was but a minor inconvenience for the sense of the three of feeling whole and together. Everything felt right when they were together, a family of their own. Whatever they wanted, whatever they needed, Blunderpants was there. He never questioned their reasoning, never left their side unless it was from their bidding. The city was painted in shades of disarray, the mayhem left in Blunder's wake peeled back the paint on the orderly functions of Piqua. It was beautiful to witness, seeing life, energy of a different sort breathing through the streets of the place they called home. At the end of their escapades, the police would undo some of the progress created by their caped creation. The aftereffects of their adventures still lingered, like graffiti that had been painted over.
Those days, those glorious days- they seemed like they would never end. Like the summers that don't come fast enough and leave too soon, Blunder was gone as well. It had been a group effort, spearheaded by-by some scientist who spent his days otherwise helping out with the fire department. Getting cats out of trees, putting out fires and giving lectures on fire safety- the Professor-given the lack of science that Harold saw him do, he was almost hesitant to use the title-he reeked of being a good two shoes.
The wholeness that Harold had felt before was gone now. There was a void in the universe where Blundepants used to be. His former alter ego still walked free and alive, where Blunder no longer could. His menacing absence was celebrated, Professor Poopypants, hailed a hero, solving the problem that police struggled to deal with for years.
The sun shone brightly and the clouds were far and few. The world had never felt colder to Harold. Blunder was a mere ghost, living faintly in the collective memories of the townspeople. The whispers of what Blunderpants would have said ghosted over Harold's mind, saved only in hastily scribbled paragraphs and lines. The barest of glimpses of their beloved Captain, possible only by George's skilled hand.
It had been enough before, when he was still a dream, an embodiment of an ideal. Now that he had been real, had lived, it wasn't enough. What had once been pages and notes full of life now seemed lifeless. They couldn't replace someone who was once there with them, laughing and grinning with mere graphite and paper.
Every fiber of Harold's being, the very core of his soul grieved for Captain Blunderpants. His lovingly crafted villain, the man he'd poured so much of himself into….hopes and dreams, fears and ideals…they were gone like the eraser shavings, gone with the wind.
School had always been some degree of unbearable for George and Harold, but now it was hell. Every day he was forced to hear the voice that once belonged to Blunderpants, see the man who once housed him in the halls. Everything they had done as a trio may as well have never happened. The world was back to how it'd been before. Fake cheery smiles, plastic politeness- it made Harold feel even sicker than before. Sicker because he'd had his perfect world, even if it was only for small stretches of time, this one pocket of the world. It was almost like none of their adventures mattered, nor their actions. In the grand scheme of things, what had it all been for?
The tears wouldn't stop coming, Harold's body was wracked in sobs. His throat clenched, his eyes burned. The cement was splattered with tears, his face wet.
"Come on' Harold." George pleaded weakly, wringing his hands. "Let's go back to the tree house."
Harold didn't answer, almost didn't hear him. All his energy was focused on grieving.
"Harold, please."
He didn't, couldn't move. He wasn't sure he wanted to.
Eventually, he did. Painfully, slowly. Wiping his tears with his free hand, vision still blurry. George sat there, watching, waiting, grieving as much as he was. If there was a truer, more steadfast friend in the world, Harold hadn't found them.
"Let's get out of here. Together."