A/N: I had to write this. Just to see if I could and whether or not it would turn out decently at all. Let me know what you think! Please.
I'm going to go work on my chapter fic now…
On a warm Friday afternoon, Simon stood outside Broadview Elementary with his Superman backpack slung over one shoulder and a crisp sheet of Manila paper held tenderly in both hands as he waited for his father to arrive. Simon examined the drawing on the paper thoughtfully. Two people drawn in bold red crayon stood in front of a blue house. Big green trees surrounded the house, and a bright yellow sun cast happy rays in all directions. It was a pretty good drawing, Simon decided. He couldn't wait to show it to Dad. Dad would like it.
"Bye Simon!" yelled a girl with curly blonde pigtails, waving as she skipped down the sidewalk towards her mother's SUV. Simon gave a halfhearted wave in return. Girls could be so annoying, especially that girl. She'd followed him around all during recess today, getting in his way while he was trying to play cops and robbers. He hoped that she'd get tired of following him around soon, because he didn't really want to have to tell her to go away. He didn't want to be mean.
Simon focused his attention back on his drawing when the girl finally skipped out of sight, tracing a finger along the waxy Crayola lines. He would have to ask his dad if he could have one of those big packs with a hundred different colors like Michael Canton had. He could draw some pretty neat stuff with twenty, but a hundred would just be so much cooler. Plus, the big packs had those neat built-in plastic sharpeners.
"Simon, your father's here," Mrs. Wickersham said, smiling as she placed a hand gently on his shoulder to get his attention. There was his dad's car parked at the end of the sidewalk. Finally! Simon simultaneously broke out into a grin and a run, though he was careful not to crinkle the picture in his haste.
"Slow down!" called Mrs. Wickersham. Reluctantly, he slowed to an energetic speed walk.
"Dad!" Simon exclaimed as he yanked open the car door. "Today in art we got to draw pictures of our families and I…" he stopped short when his eyes fell upon a strange scene. There was another little boy already buckled in to the middle seat of the car, fast asleep, dark shaggy hair falling into his eyes. Simon's father had his pointer finger pressed to his lips, a sign that he should keep his voice down. The drawing was briefly forgotten as he crawled into the seat next to the boy and buckled up.
"Who is that?" He whispered loudly, completely taken by surprise.
"This is Derek." His father replied quietly. "I'll explain when we get home, but for now let's be quiet so we don't wake him up, okay?"
"Okay." Simon whispered again. He looked at the boy in puzzled silence for a brief moment before his curiosity got the better of him. "Where did you get him from? Is he going to spend the night? Are we taking him somewhere?" His father only shook his head and made soft shushing noises. The rest of the short drive home was torture for Simon, who was nearly bursting at the seams with questions. He itched to ask and be answered and had nearly made up his mind to speak again when they pulled into the driveway. After all, it didn't look like Derek was going to wake up anytime soon. He seemed pretty sleepy.
Simon's father unbuckled the unconscious boy and lifted him from the seat, motioning for his son to follow. He carried him through the house and into Simon's own bedroom where he placed him gently on top of the covers. Then, he paused and looked down at Derek, pinching his fingers over the bridge of his nose like he had a headache. After they'd stood that way for more than a minute, Simon began to worry that his father might have forgotten that he'd said he'd explain, so he tugged on his pant leg and made impatient faces. His father smiled and ruffled his hair, then walked back into the living room.
"Weeeeelllll?" Simon prompted as soon as his father sat down.
"Well, this is going to be a little difficult to explain, but I know you're a very smart boy Simon, and I love you very much, so I hope that you'll try to understand." He paused to gaze at the ceiling and run his fingers through his hair for a moment, then continued, "Derek's parents aren't around to take care of him, so he's going to be living with us."
"Like they're on vacation? For like a week?"
"No," he paused, "probably a lot longer than a week. Derek doesn't have a family of his own, so I decided that he could become part of our family, you see? Won't that be nice? You'll have a brother to play with now." Simon nodded slowly, mulling things over.
"Where did you get him from?" He repeated his earlier question. His dad thought for a moment.
"From a hospital."
"Is he hurt? Is that why he's sleeping?"
"No, no. Derek is fine. He's just a little tired." Well, that was just about all Simon needed to hear.
This. Is. Awesome! Simon had always wanted a brother, and now he had one. It was like a birthday present or early Christmas. And he didn't even have to wait for him to grow up and stop being a boring baby! They could play right now! Well, as soon as Derek woke up anyway. His very own brother, Simon thought. They were going to have so much fun!
Oh! Simon had almost forgotten something.
"Hey Dad, do we have any red crayons?" If Derek was going to be his brother, he needed to add him to the picture he had drawn in class so that he didn't feel left out. Simon's father looked at him, confused.
"I'm sure we have some somewhere…Simon, do you understand what I've been telling you?"
"Yeah? But I need crayons." For a minute, Simon was starting to wonder if his dad was going to let him have the colors or not because he kept rubbing his chin like he was thinking really hard about something. Finally, he stopped, knelt down in front of Simon, and scooped him up into a tight hug. Adults sure could be strange sometimes.
Simon hugged back until he grew a little impatient.
"Dad? Can I have the crayons?" His father laughed.
"Sure, sure. Let's go see what we can find, but we're going to talk more about Derek later, okay? You be sure not to ask him a whole lot of questions about his parents or where he came from, alright Simon? It might upset him."
"Okay." They walked into the kitchen and started to poke around in drawers full of odds and ends. In the end, no red crayons could be found, just a stumpy black and an old orange. Simon opted for the orange, as it resembled the red he had already used more closely. It wasn't perfect, but he was sure Derek wouldn't mind.
"Do you need any paper?" his father asked.
"No, I have some." Simon replied just as the telephone rang. His father answered politely, paused to listen, started to look a little angry, and then told his son that he would be in the study if he needed anything.
Not wanting to waste any more time, Simon quickly retrieved his drawing and sat at the kitchen table to work. When he was finally satisfied with the addition, he tucked the picture safely away into his backpack and went into the living room to watch cartoons, but with the excitement of having a new brother weighing on his mind, it was difficult to focus on the antics of animated figures for very long. After two commercial breaks, Simon decided that he would go and check on Derek. He tiptoed into his room cautiously, but soon discovered that there was no need; the other boy was already awake, sitting in the far corner of the room, hugging his knees to his chest. And he'd looked so sleepy earlier.
"Hi! I'm Simon," he introduced himself grinning widely. Derek met his enthusiasm with a cautious gaze and silence. He was probably just nervous, Simon thought. Moving could be scary when you didn't know anyone. Simon pulled two of his favorite action figures from a plastic toy box at the foot of his bed and walked over to his new brother. He plopped down on the floor in front of him and held the figurines up for Derek to see.
"Who do you like better, Batman or Superman?" No reply.
"Well, Superman is my favorite, but you can play with him if you want." Simon held Superman out, then wiggled him when Derek didn't move to take it.
"It's okay, you can have him. I don't mind." Simon smiled. Gingerly, slowly, Derek reached out and took the action figure from his grasp. After several proposed scenarios for the heroes to engage in, however, it quickly became clear to Simon that Derek wasn't very good at playing pretend. In fact, he was starting to wonder if the other boy could speak English, because instead of bobbling his action figure about and inventing dialogue, Derek just turned it over and over in his hands, inspecting Superman like he'd never seen him before.
Oh well, they didn't have to play superheroes. Simon had just gotten a new kickball last week, and he was sure that even someone who couldn't speak English would know how to play with a kickball. So, abandoning Batman to the toy box once again, he called for Derek to follow him to the garage, making large, obvious hand gestures to explain himself, just to be sure. After obtaining his ball, he led Derek out to the front lawn. It wasn't large and it was surrounded by a short metal fence, but there was enough room to play.
"Do you know how to play catch?" Simon spoke loudly and slowly, then threw the ball up in the air and caught it to demonstrate. Derek nodded.
"Cool!" Without further talk, the boys began their game. After a couple test throws to ensure that Derek actually did know how to catch a ball, Simon was sufficiently convinced of the other boy's abilities. He then decided to show off a bit, spinning in circles and bouncing the ball between his legs. Derek didn't seem to share this desire to impress, but Simon thought that he was probably amused. He was sure he saw him crack a smile at least once. Thus encouraged, Simon struck a silly heroic pose before bouncing the ball hard into the ground on his next turn to pass. Unfortunately, the ball bounced high over Derek's head, over the fence, and into the road.
"Oops, sorry," Simon said. "Hang on, I'll go get Dad so he can…" but the other boy was already opening the fence latch and heading out to retrieve the lost ball.
"Hey wait!" Simon called, chasing after him, but to no avail. Derek was about to step into the road just as a car came around the corner. Simon grabbed his shirt and yanked him backward before he could set foot off the curb. The car screeched to a halt, horn blaring.
"What were you doing!?" Simon yelled. "Don't you know you're supposed to look before you cross the road? And we're not supposed to be out here, anyway!" Derek stared at the car as it resumed its journey, wide-eyed and panicked looking.
"Hey," Simon shook him. "Are you okay?" Derek didn't respond. "I'm not mad at you, but you have to be careful! You could get squashed!" He smacked his palms together for emphasis. Derek still looked stricken. "Let's leave the ball there and go back inside. I know what will cheer you up: Oreos and milk!" He grabbed the other boy's wrist and guided him back to the kitchen. He motioned for him to sit at the table in the while he found two plastic tumblers in a low cabinet. He had to poke the Oreos with a yardstick to get them off the pantry shelf, and he made a little bit of a mess when they fell. He picked up a few that didn't look dirty and left the rest.
The milk was a little trickier. He stood on a chair to get it out of the refrigerator, which was pretty hard because the jug was heavy, but he managed without dropping it. Pouring it into the tumblers was another matter. About half of the gallon wound up on the floor, mixing with the cookies and turning into a sticky sludge. Simon stuck a wad of paper towels on top of it and then took the snack to the table where Derek was still waiting patiently. Simon demonstrated the various ways to eat an Oreo before digging in. They ate in silence for a while until Simon remembered something.
"Oh hey, I have something to show you!" Simon went to retrieve his picture from his backpack, squashing Oreos and milk into the linoleum tile, then tracking grayish footprints on the living room carpet. When he returned, he set the paper on a clean part of the table in front of Derek.
"See? This is me, and this is Dad, and this is you. Sorry you're orange. I didn't know that you were coming today, and we don't have any red crayons." This time, Simon knew that Derek was pleased. All previous negative emotions had completely vanished from his face. The other boy grinned widely as he stared at the picture, transfixed.
"Simon!" his father yelled from the living room. "Get in here right now!" Uh oh…he sounded angry.
"You should probably wait here. I think I'm in trouble," Simon told the other boy as he walked somberly toward his fate. Derek's face fell, and he started to look panicked once again.
"Simon, what is this?" His father pointed at the footprints.
"Uhm, Oreos and milk?"
"Simon, this is awful! I told you to come get me if you needed something didn't I?" He shook his head, disappointed. "Come on, you know what happens when you don't listen." Great. Time out. And he'd just started having fun with Derek too. His father took him by the hand and was beginning to lead him to the corner of the living room where a stool sat for purposes such as this when Derek sprung out from the kitchen and latched on to Simon's wrist.
"No!" He screamed, looking more frightened than he had been when he'd almost been flattened by the car earlier. "I did it! I made the mess! He didn't do it! He wasn't being bad!" Tears welled up in the boy's eyes and his grip on Simon's wrist was getting a little painful.
Then, Simon's father surprised him. Instead of sending Derek to time out as well, he let go of Simon's hand and bent forward to talk to him in a gentle voice.
"Derek, it's okay. I wasn't going to take Simon anywhere. I was just going to make him sit down and think about the problems he caused for a little while. He wasn't going to get hurt. I promise." Derek didn't look convinced.
"We're going to forget all about the mess, okay?" His dad promised and smiled. "It's all going to be okay Derek. This is home. This is a safe place." Then he pulled both boys toward him for a hug. The tears in Derek's eyes started to roll down his cheeks silently. He accepted the hug, but he never let go of Simon's arm.
Derek sure was a strange kid, Simon thought. Interesting and fun, but definitely strange.