Chapter 1: August 27, 199X - It Starts

"But I'm a creep..

I'm a weirdo..

What the hell am I doing here?

I don't belong here.."

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.

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My name is Lloyd. I'm a 12 year old who lives in Merrysville, a small town in rural America. Today was a warm August day, and I was reading a book on my bed. My mother said she was going out to run a few errands, while Dad was almost never home, being busy working in his lab.

Speaking of which, I was reading a paper on his eccentric scientific experiments. Something to do with swamps. It's a good read, but my real interest is in mechanics and computers; the first thing I've ever read was Albert Einstein's papers on Relativity. Yeah, I'm not like normal kids. I read weird books, I liked different stuff. Even my looks weren't normal because I had albinism. My big, round glasses hiding my nearsighted red eyes and greyish-white hair made me stand out from the crowd, and anybody who stood out of the crowd was either feared or disliked. I happened to be the latter type. I am the school's de-facto punchbag. Had a bad day? Lloyd the weird short kid is there for you offering his face to your fist and his ear to your insults. I was driven to hide in a trash can on the roof more than once to get away from bullies. I hope I won't get to do that in middle school.

"Lloyd, honey. Come down here, we got news for you!", a voice hollered from downstairs, cutting off my internal monolog.

Oh god. This can't be good. Mom was seldom this chipper unless a disaster was bound to happen. With a groan, I folded the page I was reading, slid off my bed and trudged downstairs. I was surprised to see mom and dad sitting in the living room with a big grin plastered on their faces. Dad is here? What happened? I approached them with a wary look on my face. My gut feeling told me that I won't like what I will hear.

"Son, we are so proud of you," My dad started while mom was nodding.

"We've decided that since you're a very smart boy, we went to your new school and registered you in eighth grade," Mom spoke excitedly, "Your grades and academic performance are some of the best they've seen, so they agreed to advance you a whole year."

Wait WHAT? My face must have looked priceless because my dad's smile wavered for a bit.

"A.. Are you serious?" I said frantically. "Tell.. Tell me it's a joke, mom."

"Now, now," Mom cooed. "You're a smart boy and we want the best for you. This is an opportunity for you to shine and show that you are smarter than boys your age."

Here's the thing, I don't need to prove that I am a ginormous nerd. This is just pushing my name higher in the school's list of nerdy dorks, if that was possible.

"But, mom, everyone would be older than me," I complained, looking at my dad for any sign of help.

"One year difference is hardly noticeable. You kids are all the same at this age," Dad asserted, apparently not taking my whining well. "It is already too late to get you back in seventh grade. And besides, most of them are your former classmates from elementary school. I think a fresh start away from those kids is a good thing for you."

"Your dad is right, dear. It's not as bad as you're making it out to be. I think you'll like it."

Ha! As if. But it's already done and I can't do anything about it.

"Okay," I shrugged. "I'm going back to my room."

"Alright honey. I'll go make dinner" Mom waved me off.

I climbed the stairs back to my room and shut the door. I looked at the calendar on the wall. It read August 27.

School starts in five days. Five days to dread the coming school year. I will be placed with older kids, with harder subjects in an all-new school. I hated it already. I huffed as I walked to my bookshelf. A good read on the theory of computation sounds like a good idea right now. Or maybe a Superman comic book. Yeah.

6:30 am

*RING*

The alarm clock was especially loud today.

"Eugh… Shut up!" I groaned as I felt around my nightstand for the pesky clock. I ended up knocking my glasses and the books I was reading last night on the floor. After a minute of fumbling around, I managed to grab the loud thing and turned it off with a 'thump'. Stupid thing, why did I need to set an alarm so early today anyway?

School, you dummy.

Oh right. I'll go back to sl-…

WAIT A MINUTE!

As if electrocuted, I jumped off bed and looked at the calendar. Today was the first day of school, and I hated being late. I picked up my glasses from the floor and spent ten minutes freshening up and pulling on my red T-shirt and brown shorts, quickly combing my hair and grabbing my backpack. I went downstairs to find that mom was probably still asleep and dad had already left. I grabbed a piece of toast for breakfast and got out of the house. It was a little cold outside, but the walk to the bus stop was brief. I had to wait a few minutes for the school bus to arrive. I noticed that I knew none of the kids that used to be with me in elementary. Two boys who looked like they were twins, but one was blond and the other was a ginger stood next to me at the stop. I kept my eyes to the ground, not wanting to start a conversation with anybody. They gave me curious looks but quickly returned to bickering with each other over something about omelettes. I don't even want to know.

The bus finally arrived, and I climbed in. The vehicle smelled of dusty old seats and a slight whiff of vomit. I ignored the stench and picked a seat, and stared at the window. The twins from the bus stop sat a row ahead of me.

"Lucas, this bus stinks!" I heard one of the twins complain. The ginger was apparently the funky one of the pair. The blond nodded sheepishly and sat next to his brother. The next stops saw the bus getting full of students. Luckily nobody sat next to me. I found it quite awkward to sit next to someone I hardly knew on the bus.

A few minutes later, the bus arrived at the school. A big building with a wide sports field behind it. I guess this is the kind of school that took its sports seriously. I hope there's some attention left to the academic nerds like me, I thought as I followed the students filing into a line out of the bus. I had to go to the principal's office and get my classes. I had no idea where the principal's office was, but a good guess would be somewhere upstairs. I found an office that read 'Principal' on the door. That had to be it. Knocking lightly on the already open door, I stepped in and looked around. There was a desk with a ton of papers strewn on it and a cranky old lady sat behind it. Her desk had a name plaque that read "Pauline".

"Yes, what is it?" She lifted her head from the newspaper she was looking at. She had a murderous look on her face that made me wince. The yardstick that laid on the desk did not help improve her hostile image either. Who peed in your coffee today, ma'am?

"Uh, Um," I stammered, suddenly at a loss of words, "I am a n-new student a..a-and I need a schedule?" Epitome of eloquence right there.

"Name?" She looked back at her paper.

"Um, Lloyd." I felt dumb stuttering at my own name. I really wish I could get rid of this habit. I mentally kicked myself that I didn't give a last name. However, the secretary seemed to have recognized me, since, you know. Who named their son 'Lloyd' in this day and age?

"Ah, you're the boy who was skipped to eighth grade, yes?" Pauline took a yellow sheet of paper and filled it out. "You're going to have seven periods today, starting with science with Ms. Farrell. You'll find the room number next to its door, and a map at the stairs." She said dryly and handed me the paper and looked back at the newspaper she was reading.. She was reading obituaries?

"OK, um, thank you," I managed to say.

"Yeah, yeah. Get the hell outta here, kid." She waved off, not taking her eyes from the obituaries. I ran away quickly to the first floor looking for the science class. Sheesh.

Author's Note: So what do you think? I just really love Loid and every single MOTHER protagonist. Anyway, this is my first fan fiction story ever, so I'm still rough around the edges on formatting, storytelling and such. I'd appreciate some feedback/reviews/panning (if you find that this story sucks) etc.

Non-American here, so I have no idea how American schools work, but I'll take cues from whatever I've read and seen about them.

I will post the next two chapters very soon. They're already written, but it's 2 AM right now here and I'm too sleepy to proofread the whole thing.

Perfunctory Disclaimer: Although I abhor stating the obvious, Earthbound Beginnings (a.k.a MOTHER in Japan), Earthbound, Mother 3 and their respective characters do not belong to me. (yet)