Alice dangled her pencil in her hand as she sat at her desk, staring at the textbook. First day and she was piled down with homework. That's what she got for being placed in the honors classes. She could hear the television from downstairs loud and clear, making it more difficult to concentrate.
"Dad!" she called,
"Dad! Can you turn that down please?"
No change. She stood up and walked downstairs, she peeked around the wall that led into the living room, "Dad?"
Louis was laying on the couch as usual, sadly for Alice, she wasn't surprised to see a "Blue Moon" in his hand, "Yes?"
"Could you turn that down? I'm trying to do my homework." He sat up,
"I'm sorry I'm sorry." he turned it down until she could barely hear it.
"Thanks." she turned away, but then she walked into the living room and sat on the coffee table in front of him, she grabbed the bottle from him, "You promised you'd stop drinking."
He leaned forward, "I know."
"Then what's with this?" she waved it in front of him,
"I needed it…rough day."
Needed? Ha…Alice hated it when he claimed he 'needed' drinks. How could anyone drink alcohol anyway? Let alone enjoy it? On New Years Eve when she was 10 for good luck, Louis let her try a sip of champagne. Afterwards, Alice found herself chugging down iced tea for hours to get the bitter taste out her mouth. She stood up,
"No you don't." she tossed it in the trash, "I'm doing this to help you!"
"Ali I know!…but after seeing an alien kidnap my daughter I think I could use a little drink."
That was his excuse every time, Alice was starting to get sick of it. She opened up the fridge, there were about 3 more. She grabbed them all in one hand and dumped them in the sink one by one before tossing the bottles. She proceeded to sit back on the coffee table,
"Dad…you don't need to drink to deal with problems."
She straightened her posture out, "You don't see anyone else drinking after what happened do you?" she commented in hopes of getting something through to him even though she knew it wouldn't work.
Alice insisted they go to Sanibel in hopes of getting his mind off of everything that had happened. It worked for the week they were gone but once they got home, the first thing he noticed was the huge crater left in the ground where the water tower once was. She had this talk almost every night since.
Louis sat their answerless. After a few seconds of looking at each other Alice stood up, "I'm gonna finish my homework." she walked up the first few steps,
"I love you Ali."
She stopped, peering over the wall, "I love you to."
The next day, since they lived directly next door, Preston planned to walk to school with Martin. He wasn't there much to his surprise and walked by himself. He had just made it to the steps of the freshman building then on the side, he saw Martin with David. He watched them talk; David seemed in intrigued and Martin somewhat cocky.
"Martin!"
He turned his head and signaled him he was coming in a second…he sat there and waited for 10 minutes until Martin finally came running up,
"What was that about?"
He shrugged, "Dave just wanted to have a before-school chat."
Preston still had that suspicious look, "And what was this chat about?"
He waved a hand, "That doesn't really matter but get this; he wants us to sit with him at lunch!"
Preston raised a brow, "He wants us to sit with him?"
Martin nodded, "Yeah! How cool is that?"
The first bell rang, "Let's just get to class…" he walked in the building with a now suspicious Martin behind him.
Charles was with Cary who was trying to pry his locker open as the lock broke. "I still can't believe you invited him to have milkshakes after school…" Cary began shaking the lock in irritation,
"Well, I apologize for trying to be nice."
"I'm not saying what you did was bad, but we don't even know this guy; for all we know his mom could be one of those anti-social psychos."
Cary was about to scream at his lock until he turned to Charles, "By the way Richard described it that would be a positive maybe." he turned the lock again. No dice.
"Maybe we should say we're not going. For all we know he could be plotting to murder us behind the diner."
"Yes Charles 'cause many people love killing other people behind cheerful diners-" he finally lost his temper with the lock.
"OH MY GOD! OPEN YOU STUPID-" he started pounding the lock against the door as students stared.
Suddenly, this kid walked up, a confused look, "What are you doing?" Cary stopped,
"This is my locker…"
He nodded, "No…this is mine."
Cary let go of the lock, he stepped one more to the side and entered his combination, the lock came loose, "…oh."
Charles laughed as Cary looked away in embarrassment. He opened his locker; On the top shelf were piles of fireworks.
Charles wasn't surprised, "Really?"
Cary grabbed his P.E. uniform out of it, "What? Just in the principal decides to blow up the school I'm prepared."
The second bell rang and Joe had just walked into his homeroom. Alice was sitting their already starting the journal entry for the day.
"Hey." he sat down,
"Hi."
He looked on the board and began to get his binder out for the class. She kept glancing at Joe every few seconds.
Her and her dad had a talk that morning about if she can trust him or not. She scolded him how every night she finds fresh bottles of beer in the fridge and has to dump them all. After he insisted he could stop, She thought to herself, if she doesn't find anymore beers in the fridge or anywhere for the rest of the week, her dad will have won her trust… but she felt she couldn't do it alone.
She tore of a corner of her sheet of paper and wrote a little note. As the teacher walked in, she held it out underneath Joe's desk.
It read,
Can we talk at lunch? I need your help.
When Joe looked up, he saw Alice looking at him, he nodded a yes. She smiled and turned her attention to the teacher. Joe smiled to himself, even though it was to help with a problem, he'd be spending some time with Alice.
When the hour was over Martin and Preston began walking to their next class as Martin continuously blabbed on and on about David's invite;
"And so after that he asked me if I wanted to meet a couple of the jocks and of course I couldn't refuse tha-"
"Martin! Ok. I get it. He invited you to sit with him. That's cool."
"But here's the best part. He said you should come to."
Preston stopped walking, "What?"
Martin nodded excitedly as Preston began to think…
"What is it?"
"That's not right…"
Martin shrugged, "Who cares? We just might-"
"Martin, I'm sitting with Joe and them. And I think you should to. He's planning something I know it."
Martin rolled his eyes, "God when are you gonna stop playing Sherlock Holmes and come to?" he walked past him and to their next class. Preston followed, now hurt.
Ms. Yingst walked around class handing out worksheets, "Today in class you will be using you textbooks to fill in the blank spots in groups no more than three." Cary and Charles scooted their desks closer while every one else in the class piled their desks in one corner. Richard was sitting their alone, grabbing his textbook from underneath his desk, Yingst walked over;
"Richard…why don't you work with…" she looked around the class, "Cary and Charles?" he hesitated to stand up, but gathered all of his things and walked over,
"Hey guys, Yingst said since your less than three; I should work here."
Cary was writing their names on the paper, leaving Charles to talk, "Um, ok."
He grabbed an empty desk, pushing it so he was right in front of the two. Cary read through the chapter,
"Igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks; ooh…so challenging." he remarked with his usual sarcasm. As the twp began jotting down the facts Richard stood there, the dull look in his eyes made them somewhat uncomfortable…especially with the way he was looking at them. Charles paused on a sentence, he realized he had been just sitting there and staring the whole time;
"You know…you can help if you want." Richard then came out of his little trance;
"Sorry what?"
Charles looked at him confused; Cary snickered, "Where have you been this entire time wonderland?"
Richard side-smiled, meaning he did have a sense of humor. Charles sighed and looked at the paper, "How much do we have left?"
Cary flipped over the paper, "Like…10 more questions."
Charles looked at the clock, "And we have five more minutes, woop dee doo."
"Stop being pessimistic and help me find the answers." he scanned the book for the matching sentence. Richard looked at the blank question then leaned forward,
"Oh, it's right there." he pointed halfway down the page Cary was on. He rapidly mumbled the words to himself before looking back at the paper,
"Your right…how'd you know that?"
"Oh, this was my textbook from last year. We had to review that chapter at last year."
Cary looked at him both amazed and confused, "You took Earth, Space Science last year?"
"Well…yeah…erm, actually," he scratched the back of his neck, "This is my second time in 9th grade…"
Their eyes widened, "You serious?"
Richard nodded, he clicked his tongue, "Yup."
Charles now had to know, "Did you…fail out or some-"
"Look!" he slammed his pencil down on the table, "I'd rather not talk about it."
Charles and Cary gave each other weird looks before eyeing Richard, Cary threw in a nervous laugh, "Ok jeez, no need to go hulk on us." the nervous laugh sounded obviously forced. Richard looked down and the two felt knots in their stomachs.
X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-X
At lunch, Joe and Alice were sitting at a small round table by themselves, she explained the deal with her dad.
"So in order to get back my trust, I can't find any beer anywhere in the house at all for a week!"
Joe nodded, intrigued but confused at the same time, "So wait, why are you asking me for help?"
She leaned back in her chair a little, "You see…sometimes he cheats and goes to bars and since I'm not aloud of the house alone…maybe sometimes you can bike by and tell me if you see him or anything?"
She seemed hopeful that he would agree, and really, how could he turn down something as important to her as that?
"I'll do it. I'll bike around that corner bar every night and watch for him until curfew."
Alice smiled, she leaned across the table and hugged him, "Thank you so much." he patted her back, smiling,
"It's no problem…really."
Martin and Preston were sitting alone at another table, Preston was trying to eat his sandwich but Martin was still talking about David.
"You know right now, we could be having the time of our lives but instead, you insist we stay in our little group for eternity."
He swallowed, "I didn't say that. I said we can make other new friends."
Martin folded his arms, Preston nodded,
"You know…ones that won't take advantage of us."
Martin sighed, "What happened to the positive Preston?"
"He's trying to give positive advice to his friend."
Martin grew more irritated as he looked at the jocks over on the other side of the cafeteria. Preston leaned in,
"Martin! Those aren't our friends."
He sat back in his chair, Martin didn't respond as Preston awkwardly stared back and forth between him and the table for the rest of the lunch period.
Two hours later, they were both leaving the building when David caught the two of them,
"Where the hell were you two today?"
Martin spoke up, "I'm sorry, my friend here got wrecked in gym class and…needed help getting to the nurses office." he lied. Preston stood there, not following along,
"Where did he get hurt?" he didn't seem to buy it.
Preston suddenly got a spark, "My ankle…I twisted it but its fine now."
Martin nodded…desperate he would believe it. David stood there.
"Alright…wanna try that again?"
Preston laughed, caught, "What do you mea-"
"You two chickened out right?"
Martin stepped up, "Look, lets try again? And if we don't show, you can beat us up as much as you want. Deal?"
"WHAT THE FUCK MARTIN?" Preston wanted to punch him in the back of the head right then. David smirked and held out a hand,
"Deal."
They shook as Preston looked in fright. After David walked off, Preston smacked Martin's back,
"What was that for-"
"Do you know what you just did? Now we HAVE to sit with them!"
"And what's so bad about that?"
Preston exhaled, aggravated, Martin laughed,
"Do you want to be popular or not?" he playfully punched his shoulder, "They say smart girls like jocks."
Preston walked away, leaving a confused Martin on the main steps.
Cary, Charles and Richard were sitting at a booth in the diner waiting for the waitress to call their number. Cary sat on one side alone while Richard was with Charles.
"So how does this work?"
"We order our food, which we did, and when they call our number we pick it up and chow down."
Richard nodded, Charles sat there uncomfortably. Cary put his head down looking out the window,
"I wish they'd hurry up, their never slow on school days."
"Is that why you guys came today?"
"Yup." they both replied at the same time.
"Number 9?"
Cary went to scoot out of his seat but Charles got up, "I'll get it." leaving him there with Richard. They sat there in awkward silence until he finally spoke,
"Do you guys do this every week?"
"No…only when we feel like it pretty much."
"Well…do you guys have a special hang out or something?"
Cary was feeling more and more awkward "…here."
After 5 seconds worth of silence Cary sat up, "Why don't we…get to know each other better?"
Richard seemed to like that, "Ok. The way I do it is I play 'name that' in which you choose a topic for example, 'name your favorite color' then the other answers."
Cary would take anything as long as it didn't mean silence, "Ok. Go!"
"Name your favorite holiday."
"Easy. Fourth of July." He licked his lips, "Ok…name…something that pisses you off."
He fumbled with his fingers, "…When my mom announces she's on her time of the month."
Cary winced in disgust…he felt a baby barf in his throat. He was figuring out something to say, "…Ew."
Richard shrugged it off, "Ok name something tha-"
"CHARLES!" he saw him talking to a tall girl on the other side of the restaurant, with all of their drinks in his hands, "STOP BEING FAT AND GET OVER HERE!"
He said something sweet to the girl then turned to Cary, "CARY! STOP BEING A MIDGET AND COME GET YOUR OWN DRINK!"
Richard finally continued, "That annoys the hell out of you." he laughed realizing he got his answer. Cary turned around back at him, annoyed he now had to wait for his drink.
"He does this every time we come."
Richard snorted, "And you yell at him like that every time?"
Cary shrugged, guiltless, "He's used to it."
Charles finally sat down with their milkshakes, "Cary…why must you ruin every chance I get at hooking up with a hot girl?"
Cary shrugged, "You're the one who wanted to be my friend."
Richard sipped his drink, "How long have you guys known each other?"
As Cary said "6th grade." Charles responded "1st grade." Then the looked at each other confused,
"…6th grade Charles. Mrs. Tenebaum for math?"
"Cary…it was 1st grade, at the playground, when you were playing with sparklers."
Cary sat there in confusion, "…I don't remember that."
"But either way, you two have known each other for a while?"
Cary was slurping his milkshake eyeing Charles to talk,
"Yup."
"Wow…I've never had a friend that long."
Cary stopped, "More than a day?" he asked not thinking, Charles kicked him incredibly hard under the table. Cary didn't mean to be rude…but it really was a question he wanted to know.
Richard nodded, "Nope."
They stared, now shocked, "What?"
He smirked in guilt, "I did have this one friend…3 months we were inseparable. But it was my fault… I did something cruel and…we stopped talking."
Cary raised a suspicious brow, "That's it?"
Richard nodded sipping his drink.
Charles still hadn't taken a sip, but he couldn't at this point, "What did you do?"
Richard drank his milkshake before sitting back up, "That doesn't matter now…lets enjoy our time now right?"
Cary spaced out in his own confusion as what he could've done as Charles finally sipped his drink,
"Right…"
