There is a small problem in my small town. We call him Matthew.
Matthew was a small teenage boy that lived in the woods. I never saw him much, but everyone in my neighborhood knew about him. Probably because of his tendency to shout his name at the top of his lungs wherever he went. Yep, Matthew was a crazy young boy.
I was an eight-year-old boy, but my classmates thought I was ten. My mother always said that I was a big boy for my age. I had two friends, Jacob and Alexander. Jacob was the smallest kid in the neighborhood, even though he was a year older than me. Alexander was the most average kid in the entire city. He actually liked to read books and helped the librarian put away books. He had light brown hair compared to Jacob's ginger hair and my solid black scalp.
The first time I met Matthew was in the second grade. He was pretty scary since he was so much older than the rest of us. There were rumors going around that he had been held back in the second grade for three years. Our teacher, Mr. Balto, knew this and he always put Matthew in the back of the room, out of everyone's vision. In retaliation, Matthew would try and interrupt Mr. Balto whenever he spoke. When Mr. Balto would yell at him to be quiet, Matthew would laugh at the teacher and keep on doing it. Nearly every day, Mr. Balto would send Matthew out of the room for the entire class period. It looked rehearsed, almost.
One day, however, Matthew didn't show up to school. It wasn't surprising to me at the time, but even with his crazy attitude, Matthew had a better attendance record than me. The few times that Matthew was absent, it was news on the playground. What was surprising to me, was that no one seemed to notice. In my mind, there was still a tangible remnant of Matthew still sitting at his desk, waiting to yell profanity at the teacher. Everyone else just moved on so easily, like Matthew wasn't there in the first place. Jacob didn't talk about Matthew, neither did Alexander, and even Mr. Balto seemed ignorant of Matthew's absence.
Although, I did somewhat enjoy Matthew's absence. I began to pay much more attention during class. I raised my hand more often and Mr. Balto seemed surprised at my sudden enthusiasm. Whenever I went to give my answer, my classmates that sat right next to me (including Jacob and Alex) would all turn with respect in their eyes as I spoke. My self-esteem was at an all-time high when the bell rang and we went out to the playground. I would normally swing on the swings that would make a screeching sound whenever I got to the peak. However, as I sat in the rubber seat, one of my classmates, a girl named Maddy, came up to me and asked to swing with me. Soon, Maddy's friend, Anna, asked to take turns swinging with me. Like a ripple, more and more students wanted to swing with me.
From what I remember, there were fifteen kids in my classroom, excluding Matthew, and by the end of the school day, all of them had become my new friends. Almost all of the class asked me to come over for a sleepover or asked if I could host a sleepover at my house. I didn't think that my mother would let me go to anyone else's house on a school night and we didn't have any guest bedrooms, so I declined their offers.
Recess was right before the day ended at my school, and I could see the various school buses line at right outside the school. I scanned the buses and looked for the bus with my route number, route 249. None of my other classmates lived on my street, all of them lived on 243. Luckily, almost all of the students from a class the grade above me lived on the same street as me, so the school gave my street a bus. The bell rang and, like a single unit, we headed to the buses, everyone saying their goodbyes to me while I was walking into my bus, I waved at them. I sat in my usual seat, which was the seat right behind the driver. The loud and obnoxious kids usually sat in the middle and back row seats, so I would usually sit by the driver and read my books. Matthew never took the bus, but he always seemed to get to his little patch of forest before the buses did. My classmates hypothesized that he crawled through the sewer drain to get to and from school, which was why he always smelled bad.
Matthew was a strange kid, and he had some strange habits, like wearing his mask. I don't know how he got it or where he got it, but for as long as I knew him, Matthew had his mask. It looked nearly destroyed but didn't fall apart when Matthew wore it. The paint on it was very worn down, but Matthew said it was a spider with rows of fangs and poison dripping off of one of the fangs. Whenever Matthew wore the mask, he wouldn't say a word, I couldn't even hear him breathe. It was really creepy. I think Matthew knew that I would be freaked out by it, so whenever I got home, he would look at me with his mask on, not moving. I would usually ignore it, but it still gave me nightmares the first few days he did it. The eyeholes in the mask weren't symmetrical, the right eye was much lower than the left eye. To counteract this, Matthew would tilt his head to see through both eyeholes.
My house was right next to the bus stop, so I reached my driveway quickly. I would enter my house through the garage, and I went to punch in the numbers to open the garage door. I looked to my right, expecting to see Matthew with his spider mask, staring at me and waving creepily. I was confused when I realized that Matthew wasn't there, that was odd. What was odder was that, while I stood there for a solid twenty seconds in pure shock, I hadn't put in the code to my garage. In fact, I hadn't even remembered the code. I stood for five minutes, waiting for the code to come to me, but I came up blank. I tried, "1, 2, 3, 4", but it didn't work. I tried seven other various codes before giving up. I walked over to the backyard of my house, maybe I could get in through there. We had a glass sliding door in the backyard, so I looked through and, when I saw no one moving inside, I concluded that my parents weren't home yet.
I started wondering about how I could get in when an idea popped into my head. I remembered that we had a small rock pile right beside the screen door. My father and I were collecting them to fill up a nearby ditch that had been created by a terrible storm. I walked over and picked one up using both of my hands. I wobbled around and almost fell down before I gained stability again. I took a small running start, then threw the rock straight at the screen door, expecting it to shatter into pieces and allowing me access through. Instead, a large crack surrounded by several, smaller cracks were made. I picked up the rock again and threw it again, creating a small hole. I picked up the rock, hopefully for the final time, and threw it straight at the hole with all the strength I had left. The hole considerably widened and I figured that I could wiggle my hand through and open the door from the inside, like in all of those cop movies my dad let me watch. I pushed some small glass shards out of the way with my hand and unlatched the lock on the inside of the screen door. I pulled my hand back out and realized that I hadn't been careful enough, there was a cut perpendicular to my wrist created by the glass. I hadn't even noticed. I quickly pushed the screen door over and ran into the bathroom, hopefully, I could clot the blood with toilet paper.
My mother was off somewhere and my dad returned back home only a few minutes after I did, so I waited in the bathroom until I heard his van pull into the driveway. I opened the door with my good hand, the toilet paper applied to my hand was soaked in blood. I ran over to the front door and opened it, but then stopped. I didn't want to panic my dad, he would already be stressed from seeing my bloody hand, he didn't want me thinking that there was a person in the house and call the police. A scarier thought entered my mind, if my dad did call the police, they would discover the hole and I would surely get grounded for a very long time. I took a deep breath and stepped outside onto the little walkway to the front door.
The weather was good, for this time of year, it was slightly chilly with little chance of rain. I didn't want to keep walking over to my dad, so I stood on one of the stones we used for our walkway. I caught something out of the corner of my eye, a small person. I instantly thought of Matthew and looked to my left. Confirming my suspicions, it was Matthew with the familiar mask on his face. I didn't know what he was doing: practicing his theater role as Peter Pan, showing off his professional skill with knots, or pretending to be a scarecrow. Then I realized something.
I realized what Matthew was doing.
It was something my brother did, once.
My former brother.
He wasn't moving, but he was definitely looking at me.
My father saw my bleeding hand and rushed over to me, asking me what happened, but a single thought overpowered my mind. Without considering the consequences, I spoke to my father.
"I didn't know that a rope that small could hold a person that big."