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Stereotyping is a hard thing to deal with. Even the most tolerant people do it without realizing, take my teachers and brother. They're all pretty intelligent and they don't where spectacles or pants up to their armpits, they don't talk with ridiculously long words or have overalls, but they don't seem to think much of me.

Just because I have a disposition to say "Dude" and "awesome" ever third or so word does not mean in any way, shape, or form that I am an idiot that is completely oblivious and unobservant to the world around me. My brother used to have the same issue but now he seems to be in on it with them and it has me annoyed.

I used to go to this "secret" school, the Wind Ninja Academy, pretty cool place; I was in the Earth section with Sensei Brooks (he has a similar problem, but he'd gotten the "Dude" cut back in his vocabulary a bit more than me, but not by much). The thing is, why does he treat me different?

I got kicked out of the school because I accidentally told one of my friend's about it; I didn't know that was against the rules! But Cam (he's the head Sensei's son) got me into the Thunder Ninja Academy and Sensei Bradley is a little slacker when it comes to those types of rules, so I've been doing okay there.

Sensei Bradley (or Hunter as he prefers) and I have a strange relationship I must say. When I first entered the school he didn't really notice me except for a few random remarks about how much Sensei Bradley and I were alike, but recently something happened. He'd been treating me differently, asking me questions about my family, especially my twin brother, kind of sketchy if you ask me.

Things like "What's his name?" "How much older is he?" "Are you actually identical?" Weird things like that that don't have anything to do with how I'm doing in class. He even asked me for his cell phone number once; I don't think they'd ever met at that point, so it scared me. When I tried to ask why he needed to know this stuff he dodges it with the ease of someone who has been doing it expertly for a long time.

Anyways, he started treating me like I was special and asked me to go to a motocross event with him, and four Sensei's from the Wind Ninja school: Cam (who is the head Sensei's son there), Sensei Hanson (Tori, really hot, never gives me the time of day), Sensei…well his name is Shane, I never had him as a teacher so I never figured out his last name at the short time I was there and Sensei Brooks (Dustin, I've mentioned him before). He also asked me to invite my brother…

So I did.

My brother, he'd only about two minutes older than me, but he might as well be a lot older now. We used to be at the same level, the kind of "jocks" him with soccer and me with my martial arts, our vocabularies similar and so on… He's different now, he kind of looks down on me, not consciously but we haven't been as close since he made some new friends and graduated from Reefside High.

Mom is so proud that he's all "mature" now, it's depressing because even my teachers/ex-teachers thing more of my brother than they do of me.

We all met at the motocross track around noon, Shane, Tori, Dustin, Cam and Blake (Hunter's brother) were waiting for me, my brother, and Hunter.

My brother had had a strange change in wardrobe when I left; almost everything in his closet was red. I'd taken to wearing yellow from my days at the Wind Ninja School but it seemed in appropriate for the event, so I wore black boarder shorts and a white T-Shirt with some logo on it that resembled a flame. My brother wore jeans and a red T-Shirt.

Normally people have a really hard time telling us apart but instantly the others went over to my brother.

"Conner! Dude! We haven't seen you in like forever!"

"Hey I didn't know you were coming?"

"How are the others?"

"Is Oliver still teaching?"

"Did you ever get the soccer scholarship?"

I was pretty much ignored until my brother had answered a few of their questions. But as I was ignored I wondered…how did they know each other? They sounded like old friends…

"How do you know each other?" I asked suspiciously looking between all of them.

Identical looks of panic crossed their faces and they blurted out about ten different answers at the same time. They all winced and looked to each other, trying to figure out who would answer and what to say. It was like they were connected somehow, their movements so similar to each other you'd wonder if they'd grown up together and what they were trying to hide.

Eventually Shane spoke up, "We met when Conner was-" he trailed off unable to think of what to say next.

"At uh…" Blake continued nervously.

"My dad and Tommy Oliver are friends," Cam recovered smoothly looking over at Conner expectantly, "we met at Hayley's when we were looking for his science teacher to give him a message from my dad."

"Yeah, they were all trying to find Dr. O and I had to give them directions, we got talking, hung out for a bit…" Conner said nodding to the others.

I could see the gears turning in their brains as they each formulated the next part of the story, but it was lost on me, they were obviously faking it. They hadn't met that way at all.

"We invited him to the X-Games," Hunter explained. He was in on it too, I was confused and hurt that they didn't trust me with the truth, "we haven't really talked since then."

Conner eyed me wearily as if well aware how stupid the story sounded, but willing me to believe it.

"You guys can tell me the truth you know…" I sighed annoyed that this stereotyping was preventing people I trusted from being honest with me.

"What do you mean?" Dustin asked as if he was genuinely clueless, "That is the truth…"

"Yeah, right," I snorted and rolled my eyes as Blake made some excuse about having to go get ready for the race and the others just nodded and went to where their seats were.

Conner weakly smiled at me and I followed putting on a brave face.

We watched the race. Blake came in second, but only by a hair and the others went wild. I had a hard time believing Conner would go to one of these things with almost complete strangers. Extreme sports were my thing, soccer was his, then again, that was how I met the teachers in the first place…

I went back to the Thunder Ninja Academy disheartened.

I sat down and pondered.

How could they know each other in a way they were too ashamed to tell me? Or maybe couldn't tell me?

I'm much more observant than they think. I'm trust worthy, Conner and I are identical, and I can't understand why they'd somehow attach to him and not me. Tori was even flirting with him! Well…to annoy Blake, but still, she wouldn't even look at me.

It was like they were a clique of their own and somehow I didn't belong in it.

I might say "Dude" and I might say "Awesome", but I don't have the IQ of a peanut. I know there's something going on with my brother and my teacher/ex-teachers, something they don't want the world to know.

I just hope someday they'll trust me enough to tell me what it is.