HI!!!
That's right. Its the Skittery chapter. Sorry I didn't give you
guys a chapter yesterday, but I was tired and not inspired in the
slightest and I did give you two fics the other day...so there.
Klover: BAH! Who cares about the spelling? All that matters is the kick assness!!!!
Southern Spell: hmmm…should I call you Getcha??? THANKS FOR THE REVIEW!
Sqky0o7: Bumlets rocks everyone's socks!!! Oh…and no more Ace Ventura. My newsie mind can't handle it. Hehehe. Kidding. Well…maybe not. Good to hear how much you LOVE Jack!
Hotshot: As much as we adore Specs, to not love Bumlets would be newsie sacrilege. AND HOW DARE ME MAKE JACK A NICE GUY??? BAD STRETCH!!!
Gypsy Ruth: AWWW!!! THANKS!!!!
Whew! Okay, thanks to all of you wonderful people for your reviews
on all the fics. Here is the next chapter of Alone...dun dun DUN!
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I don't blame him for always shying away from people. He did that
for at least a year after I met him. He slowly got used to being
around people though, and realized that not everyone wanted to hurt
him. A year really isn't that bad, considering how awfully they
treated him for the first eleven years of his life. When I first lay
my eyes on him I thought he had been in a fight with one of the
scabs in the area. I was soon to find out that the black eye and
busted lip was from an uncle of his. Skittery, we called him, and it
stayed that way.
There were times he had to vent about his past. Some people prefer
to keep it hidden, but to him it was a poison that he had to get out
of his system. Skittery would often come to me to release his pent
up anger. Through his venting sessions I got know a great deal about
his childhood. He bounced around to different aunts and uncles, and
it was obvious that none of them wanted him. He was another mouth to
feed. They never saw him as their nephew, just a waste of their hard-
earned money. I don't know what happened to his parents, and I would
be surprised if he even knew the truth. Each set of guardians told
him something different. After a while, he just learned not to ask
and not to pay attention to what they said.
Some of them really didn't talk to him to begin with, though. They
usually let their fists do the talking. Hell, some of them could
give the Delanceys a run for their money. It was only a matter of
time before Skittery ran, but it would take him longer to deal with
the scars they left him with.
He didn't let anyone get to know him for a while. I guess he was too
accustomed to people hurting him. It made sense to Skittery that
anyone he got to know would only hurt him in return, emotionally and
physically. That was the way the world worked through his eyes. As
depressing as it is, some people can't help but see the world around
them as sinister and livid.
The shield he kept up began to melt away after a few months as he
realized that we weren't here to hurt him. Instead of staying in his
bunk silently after selling his papers, he began to join in the card
games that lasted for hours in the lodging house. Skittery started
to learn about the others and where they came from, why they were
selling papes on street corners. He, in turn, became more
comfortable with the world around him, but also gained a small chip
on his shoulders from the anger his childhood left him with.
Racetrack particularly got on his case about the attitude he had
gotten, but even he had to admit that Skittery wasn't all "glum and
dumb", as he used to call him. He had a sense of humor that would
often cheer up the others on a bad day. There were always bad days,
and we had to deal with them the best way we could.
Like the others, his time to leave came soon enough. He came to the
lodging house bruised and broken, scared of anyone that would even
glance in his direction. He left with his head held high and a smile
on his face. True, he had a black eye, but this time it was from a
fight he started. I wondered as he closed the door behind him, if I
would ever see or hear from him again. For a while I was sure that
it was an empty wish, but he managed to remember me somehow. Not too
long ago he waltzed in to see me, with that same smile on his face
as the day he left some years back.
"I write," he told me. This came as a surprise to me, coming from
someone who wasn't all that great at reading and writing to begin
with. He learned though, just as he learned to trust the world
around him. It took him a while of course, but all things worth
learning usually do. He decided to write a book about the lodging
house, and how it helped him. I asked him why he became a writer,
since it never appealed to him since I knew him. He laughed slightly
and said, "I have two things that all writers require, a bad
childhood and a chip on my shoulders."
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There you go! Another chapter done. Hope you like it!!! I say that a
lot...BUT ITS TRUE!!
Stretch