A/N: This is the third oneshot in my mini "Together" series. First there was 'Swing Together', then 'Watch Together', and now 'Learn Together'. The next and final one will be called, 'Stick Together'.
Now enjoy this adorable first-day-of-first-grade childish oneshot. ;D
Excitement bubbles throughout his entire body like a liter of soda shaken and ready to explode. All of his school supplies are packed in his Batman backpack (he would prefer a Green Lantern one, but they sadly don't make those, even though they should because the Green Lantern is the coolest), and his clothes are assembled on his body in the neatest of fashion (heehee, he can't wait to get them dirty and messed-up at recess). His hair is somewhat controlled, the abundance of dark curls brushed out and woven into nine cornrows. He knows the exact number because he counted them himself.
"Come on, Virgil, or you're going to be late," his mother calls from the front door.
"Coming!" he calls back as he shrugs on his backpack and slips into his Sketchers shoes. They have red and blue lights that turn on with each step; he had begged for these shoes when they went school clothes shopping, and luckily for him, they were on sale, so his mom said yes.
The small black boy hops on the stair railing and slides all the way down, giggling, and feeling exhilarated from the adrenaline-fueled sense of danger, because his father tells him all the time not to ride the banister. But Virgil will probably slide down until he's a grown-up. Because, really: he can't help it. It's just too fun!
When the mocha boy gets in the car, his sister Sharon frowns at him and sticks her tongue out. "Great, now he gets to ride with us on all your days off. Couldn't you wait to have a baby for a few more years, Mommy? Then I'd be on the bus and not stuck in the car with him right now."
"Oh, Sharon, sweetie, you know I couldn't wait. I had to hurry up and meet my little son-shine."
"That's a stupid pun, Mommy," Sharon replies grumpily. She learned about puns last year in school; her teacher even gave them an assignment to find as many puns as they could in one thirty-minute cartoon show, commercials included. Sharon had picked out forty, and some of them were really, really lame. Like the one her mother just used.
"We'll be there before you know it, hun; you'll have Virgil out of your hair soon enough," Jean relays with a wink in Virgil's direction. Then, she asks, "Are you ready for the big day, Virgie? Are you ready for elementary school?"
"Moooom, I told you not to call me 'Virgie'! That's a baby name," the young boy complains with a whine.
"You're right, I'm sorry. You're all grown up now."
"Yeah, I am! Which means I can get a girlfriend and maybe next year, drive a car!"
"Whoa, let's not get ahead of ourselves, sweetie," his mother laughs as she stops at an intersection with a red light. "Those things won't come until you're in high school."
"…And when do I get to go there?"
"After middle school, stupid," Sharon retorts.
"Sharon, don't call your brother any demeaning names. He's a very smart boy, and I'm sure if he called you dumb or stupid you wouldn't like it, either," their mother corrects. She pulls into a parking lot. "We're here now, anyway, so file on out and I'll see you at three."
"Okay. Bye, Mommy!" Sharon says as she takes her pink Barbie lunchbox and red Strawberry Shortcake backpack with her. "I love you!"
"And I love you, angel," she says. She turns around in her seat to kiss the top of Virgil's head as he stands up in the car to leave. "Have a good day, Virgil. Be good for your teachers."
"I will! I love you, Mommy," he says, and kisses her cheek before rushing off with his own backpack and lunchbox (it's G.I. Joe, which is way cooler than stupid Barbies).
"Love you," the medic replies with a kind-hearted smile as she closes the door and begins to pull away.
Meanwhile, Virgil is jogging up to the morning recess to put his stuff on his class's line-up line on the blacktop. He races in a different direction to see if he can find Richie in the chaos that is the playground. Woodchips fly left and right, kids roll around in the dew on the small grassy patch next to some houses, and there is laughter and shouting all around him as he makes his way towards the slides and jungle gym. Then, past the noise and clutter, he spots a swing-set with five swings, the far one in the corner being occupied by a gawky blond boy with large, square, purple glasses.
Once this particular blond is located, Virgil hollers "RICHIE!" at the top of his lungs. He runs as fast as he can to the swings to join his recently-acquired friend.
The blond boy jerks his head up at the mention of his name, and a tooth-missing grin breaks across his face. He stands up on his swing, and waves one arm with widespread fingers at the mocha child.
"Hey, V! I saved you a swing!" he says. And Virgil is suddenly sure that today is going to be a fantastic day.
xXx
Well, perhaps not so great. The teacher tries to make everything fun by playing name games and letting them eat their snacks whenever they want and use all the Linkin' Logs they care to, but all Virgil can think about is how long the day is dragging on.
"Are we gonna be here forever, Richie? I never was in preschool or kindergarten, but I'm pretty sure my mom didn't take this long trying to teach me stuff. And we're not even in lunch or at recess yet!" Virgil groans as the two duck away and retreat to the corner of the colorful Story Time Mat near the bookshelf. There are a few Dr. Seuss, Curious George, Horrible Harry, Junie B. Jones, and Boxcar Children books lying around, as well as Where the Wild Things Are and a book of Shel Silverstein poems.
"Yeah, I heard that kindergarten only lasted until right before lunch, but first and second and third grade goes all the way to dinnertime!" he blond boy says dejectedly.
"Dinnertime? Really? That's bad! I don't want to be here all the way 'til dinnertime! Can't we go home before that?"
Richie shakes his head. "I think we'd get in trouble if we did. You're not 'pposed to leave school early like that."
"Aww, crud." He thinks for a moment. "D'we at least get another snack time after lunch? So that we're not skin 'n' bones by dinnertime?"
Richie shrugs. "Dunno. We could ask the teacher. Mrs. Harrison is really nice."
"And pretty. She smells like the strawberry bagels my mom makes for me sometimes. She puts honey on them, and that's what Mrs. Harrison smells like to me."
"Really?" the blond inquires with a tilt of his head. "'Cause she smells like strawberry Toaster Strudel to me."
"Same thing," Virgil shrugs. Suddenly, he grimaces as his tummy rumbles like Winnie the Pooh's. "Talking about food is making me hungry. Is it lunchtime yet?"
"Almost," the teacher says from above them. Their heads shoot up as she walks by to place one of the scattered books back on the shelf. "After free time is over, the bell will ring, and then we'll all go down to the cafeteria to eat," she explains in a patient tone. She gets that question every year in the beginning, and it never ceases to make her smile. "So wait just a teensy bit longer, boys. Can you do that for me?"
"Yes, ma'am!" the two reply in unison, followed by an outburst of giggles and a double whammy of jinx-you-owe-me-a-soda.
As the teacher walks away, the boys scramble up to their feet. Richie suggests, "We could color some of the coloring sheets until the bell rings."
"I like the way you think," Virgil giggles. He follows Richie over to their desks, which happen to be right next to one another, because there are no G's in this class to separate them alphabetically.
Richie settles down in his desk after handing Virgil a Power Rangers-themed sheet. Virgil takes out his crayons, and together they fill in the black lines over white paper with vibrant color. Mostly green and red and blue, because there are only three Rangers featured, and everybody knows that the red, green, and blue Rangers are best.
"Their visors are black, right?" Richie asks while he holds a black crayon above the paper unsurely.
"Um, I don't know what a 'vyzor' is, Richie," Virgil states confusedly as his browns come together between his eyes. "But I know that these thingies are black."
The blond boy giggles. "And those thingies would be the visors, V," he informs him. "At least, that's what my Daddy called them. He said that they're a cheap rip-off of dirt biking helmets."
"Ooh, I love dirt biking! – I mean, I haven't done it yet, but I've seen it on TV with my dad. It looks scary."
Richie nods wholeheartedly. "Yeah, I def'n'tely wouldn't want to try that. I'd die."
"'Specially if you went off all those dirt-hills! You'd crash! And that would suck, 'cause I only just met you this summer," Vigil pouts.
Richie pulls a sad face as well. "Let's not think about it. And promise never to try it, neither."
"Uh-huh. I promise." And they pinkie-swore on it.
The two complete their coloring sheet in time for the bell to sound. They fly out of the classroom after grabbing their lunches from their cubbies, which are dark green bins in compartments built onto one of the walls. They follow the sea of children from their grade down to the cafeteria. Being categorized by class, Richie and Virgil get seated at a table at the far end of the cafeteria, near the garbage cans and away from the hot lunch lines. They slink down to a corner of the table where no one else is sitting.
"Whoa, lookit this, V! The table folds into the wall, so there's this big hole here!" And Richie scrunches himself into the slot where the bench part of the table would fold into.
Beside him, Virgil grins. "That's so weird. But I'd get outta there if I was you, Rich; you never know if there are spiders hiding in there. Or ABC gum."
"Eww, I hate ABC gum," Richie says with a scrunch of his nose. He could care less about the spiders; they were actually kinda neat. "Already Been Chewed gum is, like, the grossest."
"Not as gross as girl cooties," Vigil reminds the blond.
The spectacled boy snorts with laughter. "Touché, V."
"…Don't French guys say that when they stab each other with those long, thin swords?" Virgil questions as he begins unloading his lunch from his G.I. Joe lunchbox.
Richie nods. "Yeah. I think it's called 'fencing' when they do that. Which sounds stupid to me, 'cause there aren't any fences around when you play-fight with those swords!"
"That is stupid," the mocha child agrees. He lifts his sandwich to his lips and takes a hearty bite. It's bologna and Miracle Whip on white. "But it's missing something…" he puzzles aloud. Ah, he knows what it's missing! Virgil takes out his bag of Doritos and opens his sandwich. With Richie watching curiously over his shoulder, Virgil pops open the chip bag and takes out a few whole ones, placing them carefully in between the two slices of bologna. He closes the sandwich again, and takes a crunchy mouthful. "Mmm, much better."
The paler boy holds up his own sandwich. "I thought I was the only one who did that!" he exclaims, and Virgil turns his head to find that Richie's sandwich, made of ham and yellow American cheese on white bread with mayonnaise, has a layer of sour cream and onion Lays chips in the middle.
"Wow! We really are alike, huh?" Virgil grins. "High five!"
Richie gives him the high-five, and for the remainder of lunch, they munch on their sandwiches, gulp down their Hi-C juice boxes, and chat about miscellaneous things having to do with creepy insects and how cartoon characters never die when they blow up or fall from great heights.
After lunch, the two boys storm out of the cafeteria and run out onto the blacktop, towards the playground. Everything is warm and breezy with the lasting whiffs of summer scent. There is a small grassy hill near the woodchip-filled playground, and the equipment on the playground itself is a little rusty but still colorful, and oh-so inviting.
"Look, Richie, look! They have swings!" Virgil points out with unconcealed glee. The little blond boy adjusts his big purple glasses with a grin as he unthinkingly takes Virgil's offered hand, and they run off together towards the treasured set. It's not like their swing on the tree by the creek, but a swing is a swing.
There are two open swings out of the total six, and Richie and Virgil race to obtain them. They disconnect hands as they jump onto the swings, Richie landing on his belly and Virgil on his feet, neither of them actually straddling the swings in the proper manner, but hey, where's the fun in that?
"You should try it this way, V," the blond boy squeaks with laughter, "It makes you feel like you're flying, like Superman!"
"Really?" Virgil smiles, and hops off of the swing long enough to get right back on in a different position. He matches Richie's swings, his arms in front of him and his legs behind him, outstretched, just like Richie. "Wow!" he exclaims, "It really does feel like flying!"
Just then, a group of older boys trek across the playground, the towering height of the dark one in the center impossible not to notice. "Hey," the oldest boy says, "Those are our swings. Get off, or else we'll make you."
"Yeah!" another boy with a purple hat over his light brown hair says as he stands to the left of the dark boy. "Don't you mess with Ivan, or he'll mess you up."
"I told you to call me 'Ebon,'" the dark boy corrects as he smacks the purple-hatted boy on the arm. "We all made up names for ourselves, remember? You're Shiv, and I'm Ebon."
"Yeah, I know, but I think those names are weird. Like, what is a shiv, anyways? And how come you get to have a creepy-cool name and not me? Even Francis has a cool nickname!"
"Shut up!" Ebon shouts, and then resumes his attention on the two boys on the swings. Richie is still, his fingers gripping the rubber bottom of the swing with all his might. But Virgil isn't backing down; he's getting off of his swing, but holding firmly onto its chains. The tall, dark-skinned boy scowls. "You got something to say, Munchkin?"
"Yes, actually, I do," Virgil says, trying to put o his best mean-face. "I want to say that Richie and me were here firstest, and firstest is always the bestest. So go away, you big bully! You don't scare us, and you can have your turn later when we're done."
"Actually, Virg, he kinda scares me," Richie murmurs. "He's tall, and has friends. We're only in first grade! I think they're third graders. And that's scary."
"It is not," Virgil whispers in return, his head turned in Richie's direction for only a moment. Then his baby-fat face is returned to Ebon, with narrowed chocolate eyes. "And besides, if they do anything to us, we can always tell on them." He smirks. "I bet Mrs. Harrison wouldn't like to hear about you guys being naughty, would she? I bet my teacher would send you all to the principle's office, and hen they would call your parents and you'd get grounded."
The older boy visibly hardens. His friends glance at him unsurely, as if awaiting his command to pack up and leave or to stay and fight. To himself, Ivan is trying to come up with a really good lie to get him out of this, perhaps something about their teacher having no power over him since she's not his teacher, or maybe about his parents being impossible to be called because they both work. But a lie is a lie, and as tough as the youngster likes to think he is, he isn't the best at lying just yet.
Tongue-tied, Ivan grunts in irritation and stomps off, his friends frowning in confusion before sticking their tongues out at Virgil and Richie and following their leader. Meanwhile, Virgil is looking pretty smug as he sits down on his swing.
Richie attempts a low whistle, but even as he fails, he shrugs it off and says, "Wowzers, Virgil; I didn't know you were so brave."
The mocha child turns to look at his friend, a crooked smile on his chubby lips. "I'm not, that's why," he manages to say. His voice wavers.
Richie blinks twice, the action magnified by his glasses. "Gee, you sure fooled me. And them, too."
Virgil nods. "My mommy says that I have a good 'poker face,' whatever that means. But I don't know; I still shake and my heart still beats fast, even if I look brave."
"But why do you pretend like that? You might get hurt someday because of your pretending!" Richie says with heavy concern as he, too, sits up correctly on his swing.
The other boy forces a smile while he explains himself. "Because my daddy told me, 'it's better to face a problem than take it as it comes.' I think he means that I should stand up for myself instead of not do anything. 'Cause, y'know, bad things don't always hafta happen. We can stop them, if we want."
"Like just now, when we couldda had our swings taken from us and gotten a boo-boo, but we didn't because you said 'no'?" Richie clarifies as he starts to swing again.
Virgil nods. He begins to swing as well while he adds, "Egg-zactly. Sometimes, even if it gets you into trouble, you hafta try to do the right thing. That's what my daddy old me."
"Your daddy sure is smart," Richie smiles, although in his own mind, he's wishing that his daddy were the same way. "Where d'ya think he gets this stuff from?"
Virgil shrugs on that one. "I dunno. Maybe he learned it in school when he was little."
"From the teachers? Do they teach us that sorta thing?" the blond puzzles.
His friend giggles. "No, I don't think so. I think they only teach us math and reading and stuff. But maybe he learneded it in school from having to do the same thing."
"Cool," Richie approves as he starts to swing (what felt like to him) extremely high. "I hope we get to learn those sorts of things. Not that I want trouble or anything," he adds hastily, "But I wanna know how to handle stuff for when I grow up. Like, in middle school."
"Or high school."
"Or college!" Richie laughs. "My mommy said that college is easier than high school because there's less 'drama' – I dunno what that means – but really, really, really hard akka-ka-dem-i-cle-ly," he stutters, trying to pronounce the word his mother had used. "Well, she said the school-part was harder, and that the people-part was easier. I don't understand it all the way, but I think I know what she means. Right now, the people-part is easy, right? Just bullies and friends. And the school-part, too. But both get harder and harder, and then they switch later on."
"Sounds com-pill-i-cay-ted," Virgil replies with a wrinkle of his nose in both distaste to he complication of schooling and the mispronunciation of the word 'complicated' itself. "But you know what, Richie? We can do it. Because everybody before us – like Sharon and our parents and everybody else in the world – has done it. And it'll be fun, because we'll be together the whole way. Right?"
"Right," Richie smiles, and holds out his pinkie finger. "I promise."
"Me too," Virgil responds softly as he takes the pale, blond boy's pinkie in his own, "Me too."
It is nearly an impossible promise to make, to stay by someone's side forever, but with youth comes naïveté. Still, to say that this first day wasn't the most fun and complex day of their early lives thus far would be a lie. And yet the closing of it doesn't settle quite right with Richie; he feels like as soon as he goes home on this particular day, something bad is going to happen.
Despite his feelings, however, he goes through the remainder of the day – merely three hours after lunch at noon – with a smile, laughing and playing and not learning much of anything, not yet. But they will, ans in more ways than simply academics, just as Richie had been told.
"See you at school tomorrow, V!" Richie says as he races of towards his dreaded bus.
"Bye, Rich!" is the reply, and then the blond boy disappears behind the open doors of the yellow vehicle, and Virgil doesn't think twice as he boards his own bus, unaware of the days, weeks, and months to come.