When he first opened his eyes, he couldn't remember where he was. He was lying on the floor of his bedroom, between his door and the bed, unable to remember how he got there. He couldn't recall falling asleep on his floor and why would he choose to sleep on the floor when a perfectly comfortable bed was inches away from him? He couldn't even remember agreeing to go to party the night before. Was it even morning, his curtains where still drawn, his ceiling light glowing and his alarm clock red 8:35pm. It couldn't be. It wasn't until he tried to sit up, did he feel every muscle in his body begin to protest, feeling sick to his stomach. Not only that, put he also became aware of the large damp patch across his crotch.
Closing his eyes briefly, Puck tried to regain control of his emotions. He was confused, that was an understatement. His body hurt all over, he had lost control of his bladder and he couldn't remember why he had ended up on his bedroom floor. What was happening to him? He jumped out of his skin when there was a loud knock on his bedroom door.
"Noah! Noah!" Sarah shouted through the door, knocking once more. ". . .Noah! I've finished my homework. Can you come help me with my science project please?"
So he hadn't gone to sleep then. Sarah had been downstairs completing her homework still and their mom was still at work. Only a brief amount of time had passed since he had left Sarah downstairs in the lounge.
"...Noah!" Sarah shouted, growing impatient with the passing minutes without a response.
"wha'?!" Noah slurred, surprised by his inability to form words now. He took a second, breathed in and tried again. "What Sarah?"
"Can you come help me with my science project please?" She repeated with a sigh.
"Yeah I'll be down in a minute." Puck told her.
"What are you doing in there?" She asked, the door handle beginning to turn.
"-No don't come in Sarah!" Noah ordered, pushing himself up on to his elbows forgetting about how much his body ached in the urgency to tell her not to come in. He couldn't have her walk in and see that he had wet himself. It was embarrassing!
"Why not?!" She huffed. He could imagine her stamping her foot on the other side of the door.
"Because I said so! Just go downstairs, I'll be down in a minute." Noah told her. "Play another game of Mario bros."
"Wooo, awesome!" The eight year old exclaimed before he could hear her footsteps retreat down the stairs.
Noah dropped head, his chin resting on his chest as he let out a sigh. Now all he needed to do was get up off the floor and grab a quick shower before he went downstairs to help his little sister. He would hide his clothes until Sarah went to bed before he stuck them in the wash to be finished by the time his mother returned home from work. There was no way he was telling anyone about this. They would just think he was a freak, even worse, if the found out he had wet himself. He was eighteen years old, meant to be graduating high school soon and on his way to making something of himself, living this town behind him.
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Sarah had quite happily skipped downstairs, having been allowed to play another game on the Xbox. She left her brother upstairs, to carry on with whatever he was doing.
She had begun to grow worried when he didn't answer her after a couple of minutes. She had been knocking on his door and shouting his name for quite some time before he finally did answer and even then he didn't sound like her brother. He sounded different, not like himself. She had soon shrugged it off when he had shouted at her to go away.
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Noah had soon jumped in the shower earlier and cleaned himself up. After dressing into a fresh pair of clothes, opting for a pair of sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt, he had gone downstairs and helped Sarah start her science project. All the time he had been sat on the sofa, pushing her to think of something to focus her project on, he had been fighting the urge to just fall asleep. His body was exhausted. The shower had helped a little bit to ease the ache that had overcome his muscles. However, he was drained, both physically and mentally.
Before Sarah had gone to bed, he had ended up snapping at her a few times. It wasn't even over anything serious and she wasn't really playing up. It was over stupid, silly little things and he regretted it each time he had snapped at her. She was only eight years old and it wasn't her fault he was feeling so crappy. He had made sure to apologise to her before she had gone to sleep. He may be the resident badass at school, but when it came to his little sister he didn't like her going to sleep without making things up to her if he had been mean that day.
He would have quite happily of crawled into his own bed when he had put Sarah to bed. But unfortunately, he had some laundry to take care of and a living room to tidy up. He made quick work of filling the washing machine with his dirty clothes and loading it up with powder and detergent. He shut the utility room door behind him and headed into the lounge to tackle the mess of colouring pencils, glue, paper and scissors. He grabbed Sarah's box from the corner under the side table and began chucking the mess that was scattered round the room into it. Once he had finished with that, he switched the TV off and the ceiling light before leaving the room and going back upstairs.
This time he managed to reach his bed and crawl underneath the covers, relaxing into the mattress and pillows as he closed his eyes. He let his exhaustion take over him, welcoming the arms of sleep that surrounded him and pulled him under.
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The following morning, Deborah Puckerman returned home at seven, having finished her night shift at six before popping into a 24 hour supermarket to grab a few things for breakfast. She ditched the shopping bags on the floor by the door, so she could take her coat off and hang it up, before carrying on through to the kitchen. She was a little surprised to not see either Sarah or Noah up getting ready for school; they were both leaving it a little bit late.
Te n minutes later she had eggs and pancakes cooking on the stove and fresh fruit cut and placed on the table in bowls. She quickly grabbed herself a cup of coffee before heading out into the hall to stand at the bottom of the stairs.
"Noah, Sarah! Come on you two get up and get ready for school!" She called up to them hoping they would hear. "Noah! Sarah! You're already running late!"
A few moments later she could hear movement coming from her youngest child's room, before the door opened to reveal a still sleepy looking Sarah.
"Come on you. I've made pancakes and brought some strawberries." She smiled as her daughter seemed to light up at the news of her favourite breakfasts waiting for her downstairs.
She disappeared back into the kitchen, serving a few pancakes on to a plate before grabbing a handful of strawberries, dropping them onto the plate too before placing them in front of Sarah who had just then sat down.
"I'll leave you to eat your breakfast, while I go chase your brother up." Debbie said, turning the stove down and leaving the room.
She knocked once on her son's bedroom door before walking straight in. She didn't care about walking in on him half naked; she had seen it all before. He was her son; she had changed his nappies and cleaned up after him when he was very young. He was still lying fast asleep in bed. She gave him a gentle shove to wake him up. He was still deep into the land of nod. She tried again, and again and again, still no luck. A whole football stadium could have shouted and cheered in his room and he wouldn't have woken up.
He was going to be late for school if he didn't wake up soon and start getting ready. She flung his duvet off of him hoping the sudden change in temperature would awake him, drawing back his curtains too to let the sun shine through and shouting at him. "Come on Noah! Rise and Shine!"
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He woke to his mother standing over him, shouting at him to wake up and get ready for school; apparently he was late with only a few minutes to spare. Unfortunately his body still ached as he tried to roll out of bed. It felt like he had run three marathons, swam his way to Ireland, biked across the Rocky Mountains and wrestled with a few bears. He had no idea why he felt like this! The previous night was still a complete mystery to him.
"Come on, up you get sleepy head. I've made breakfast downstairs." His mother told him, slapping him on the leg before leaving him to it.
Not having to shower cut a few minutes off his time to get ready for school. He had showered the previous evening so he needn't shower again that morning. He ditched the clothes he had slept in, swapping them for a pair of jeans and a hooded sweat shirt over a grey t-shirt. He then pulled his football Jersey out from the bottom of his clean pile that stood on his desk, shoving that into his backpack before going downstairs.
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Debbie was sat at the kitchen table with Sarah when Noah eventually came downstairs to join them for breakfast. He sat himself down opposite her and stacked a couple of pancakes on to his plate and poured himself a large glass of orange juice, downing half of it before even beginning to eat. As she sat opposite him, eating her own breakfast she began to stare at him, taking in his appearance. He looked a little rough, his skin a little pale and his face drawn a little, like he was worried about something. She also noticed how slowly he was moving like everything was such a great effort to do, like he'd worked to hard in the gym the previous day. His left hand also shook when he used his knife folk.
"Is everything okay Noah?" Debbie asked, swallowing a bite of pancake. "You haven't been pushing yourself too hard at football practice or in the gym have you?" She knew all to well what young boys were like. She had seen quite a few appear in the emergency room because they had pushed themselves too far during a workout and ended up with torn muscles, heart problems or broken bones.
"No, I'm fine ma." Noah assured her.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"hmm, if you say so. . . Sarah did you finish your homework?" Debbie said, turning her attention to her other child.
The youngest at the table, nodded her head eagerly, her mouth full of strawberries and pancake, unable to verbally answer. She swallowed her mouthful and spoke "Noah was acting strange last night ma."
Debbie couldn't help but notice how her son froze and shot daggers at his little sister. "Oh? What do you mean sweetie?"
"He was just acting strange." She shrugged. "I don't know."
"-Shut up Sarah!" Noah barked.
"What! I'm just saying, you were acting strange and you know it!" Sarah exclaimed, annoyed with her brother.
"I was not acting strange. You were just being a little brat-."
"Noah!" Debbie scorned, halting her son's words there. She wasn't going to have arguing at the table.
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He regretted it as soon as the last word had left his mouth. He was never mean to his sister, but this morning it seemed he was. He couldn't believe he had just called her a brat. That was a low blow.
He pushed his chair back, leaving the majority of his breakfast untouched as he stood and grabbed his bag. "I'm gonna head to school." He mumbled before he walked out into the hall and left through the front door.