A/n—at the beginning of each chapter it says what day of the week it is. If it says 'Still ' that means the day of the week is the same as the day before it. (duh?) If it doesn't say 'Still' before it that means it is a new day. Please R&R!
Shoutouts:
Coin- yeah, Boots is a badass, isn't he? Writing on the sheet like that...
Almatari-of-Arda- thanks. I'll try, but there are teams from ITALY there. That's far, far away! They'll speak Italian and I won't know what they're saying!
Strawberri Shake- yeah, romance. That's my plan... fallin' in love over X-Box, how can you go wrong?
This is the super-long chapter because I'm going to be away for over a week and won't be able to update. Hope this holds you for now. Please review and tell me if you like how the story is going.
(Sunday)
—Jack's PoV—
"Hi Jack."
"Hullo."
"Are you…are you OK?"
"I'm fine."
"Well, then do you mind sitting up? You're lying across the whole table and I can't put my stuff down."
I glanced up at Arrow and straightened so I took up much less of the table.
"Thank you." She set her books on the table. World History. Again.
"Aren't you done World History?" I asked. Maybe she failed. Then she'd be in my class next term.
"No. I like World History."
Oh, that's right, Arrow's smart. "OK."
"Listen, Jack, about what I said before, don't take it the wrong way. I just don't want to get hurt. You're insecure right now, just take some time off for a while."
I don't want to 'take some time off'. I want to know what's going on with Sarah so I can set things right with Arrow.
Unless…
"Arrow, are you blowing me off?"
She flushed. "No, why would you think that?"
Because I'm deviously handsome and equally charming I though of saying, but decided it wasn't a good time for jokes.
"Why are you blushing?"
"Jack," she danced gracefully around the topic. "I need to get to my reading. Now, if you don't mind." She held a textbook in front of her face. Conversation over.
—Crutchy's PoV—
And please God, bring my mother and father here to me. I really need some answers and I don't know where to find them.
"Eric, are you ready to go?" Uncle Kloppman stood at the end of the pew, waiting.
Amen.
"I'm coming." I crossed myself and hurried after him the best I could.
"I'm so happy that you came with me today. You don't know how much it means to me. You parents were never ones for religion, and being your uncle I didn't feel I had to right to impress my—"
"My who?"
Uncle Kloppman realized his slip-up and a look of terror came over his face.
Thank you God!"Where are they?"
"I don't know."
"They don't write you? They don't want to know about me?"
"Eric, son, I don't know any—"
"I'm not your son! Only my father can call me that and I don't have one! I don't have a mother either! I don't know anything about me!"
"Eric, calm down, let's go somewhere private and I'll explain everything I know. I promise."
(Monday)
—Mush's PoV—
"What the hell is wrong with you? Are you on something? Do you need any help in you head?" Blink stood beside me, yelling his head off at what I'd just done.
I didn't answer, staring at Bumlets' limp body in the ground.
"Mush! Look at me! Why the fuck did you do that?"
Because I'm jealous.
"Answer me! Look at me! For God's sake, say something!"
I cleared my throat and blinked a few times.
"What is going on with you and Bumlets?" I asked.
Blink looked at me like he didn't believe what I'd just said. "What? Goddamit Mush, what're you talking about?"
"Him. Do you like him?"
"No, he's just in my guy class."
Bumlets groaned and turned over.
"Mush, just get to class. I'll take him to the nurse."
I watched him walk away. My beautiful Blink. I think I just destroyed any chance we had.
—Skittery's PoV—
"What're you doing here?" Pigeon plunked down beside me and sprawled her books across the table.
"I'm researching." I pushed back one of her books which had covered my charts and diagrams.
"Health project?" she guessed, eyeing one of the textbooks that read Handicaps of the Modern World.
"No." I told her about what I was doing for Crutchy.
"Do you like him?" she asked sceptically.
"What about Snoddy?" I asked, amazed that she would think such a thing.
"Well, I thought maybe you didn't like him anymore. I know how you blew him of the other day and everything."
How does she know this stuff? Who s her information source anyways? Peter Parker?
"I didn't blow him off. I had to work and I doubt my parents would let my leave the house after you let it slip that I was gay."
Pigeon's eyes bulged and she stared at me with a look of disbelief. "How was I supposed to know you hadn't told them? I thought you were brave, doing what you believed. What good is doing something rebellious if no one knows about it?"
"Pidge!" I shouted, ignoring the librarian's hushing. "I'm not gay because it's rebellious, I'm gay because it's who I am!"
Pigeon looked at me, eyes tearing, before she picked up her books and stormed from the room.
The librarian glared, I snapped my book shut and followed Pidge out the door. When I reached the hall she was gone.
—Spot's PoV—
Sometimes, without noticing, I catch myself thinking dreamily about Racetrack. I don't even know why, it's just the way he was staring at me the other day. Like I was amazing. Like he was enthralled by something that was plastered on my face. It felt good.
I don't think I've reacted this way to anyone before. I want to scream at him for making me feel so helpless, but I also want to jump on him and yell 'fuck me!'
This is strange. It's abnormal and the weirdest thing I've ever been through. How can it be right? With Sprinter everything fit. She was a girl and I was a guy, it was the way things were supposed to be.
If I'm right how come I'm falling in love with a loudmouth Italian boy?
People always turn to me with their problems, what do I do about mine? I'm completely clueless in this area, so far I've just been guessing my way through life, hoping that everything would work. Hoping that everything would turn out all right.
—David's PoV—
"What the hell is wrong with your face?"
I shrugged and pulled my hat further down my forehead.
"David," Sarah pulled at my hat, "David, show me!"
Off came the hat.
"Holy shit, what happened?" she gasped, spotting my eyebrows.
"I don't know." I grabbed my hat and stuffed it back on.
"What did you do to your eyebrow?" she demanded, still in obvious shock.
"Nothing, they're just gone."
"David, what's this about? Why would you do that?"
"I don't know. They were so ugly. I hated them. They just…I wanted to…" Oh my God, I am stupid, why did I do this in the first place?
"Jack."
"What did you say?"
Crap, did I say that out loud? "Nothing, I didn't say anything."
"What about Jack?"
"Nothing."
"David, I heard you. What did you say about Jack?"
"I just…"
"Did Jack tell you to do that? The bastard!" Sarah was turning very red in the face. Needless to say, it was a bit scary.
"Sarah, jack didn't tell me to."
"Then why did you say 'Jack'?"
"Because…I did it so he'd like me. So that I'd look better and he'd notice me."
"David, sorry, but you look really stupid."
I groaned. "Just leave me alone."
"Why do you care about Jack anyways? Are you really gay?"
She didn't really think I was gay?
"I mean, I only accused you of being gay because I was mad, I didn't mean it."
"Yeah, only Simon knows. I don't even know how he knows."
Sarah looked at me funny for a few seconds. "You should tell Mom and Dad, you know."
I shrugged, what makes her think they'd accept it?
"And David? I love you no matter what they say. I promise."
—Swifty's PoV—
For the first time in years I walked through the front doors of my high school. The halls were nearly empty, making them look different, but I could still find my way.
I found the cafeteria and shut the doors softly behind me. The lunch ladies were putting out flats of food and wiping lunch trays. One of them looked up and spotted me.
"Shouldn't you be in class?" she asked suspiciously.
"What time is lunch?" I avoided her question.
"Lunch is at eleven thirty. Do you go here?"
"No."
"You have to check in with the office." She stacked the trays at the end of the row of bags of chips.
"Uh, I, uh, already did," I lied.
"Where's you visitor pass?" as asked, as if sensing that I was untruthful.
"They were out off them, but the office knows I'm here." This lie was growing weaker by the second but I crossed my fingers and hoped she would think nothing of it.
I checked my watch and was disappointed to learn that it was only quarter after eleven.
"Thanks for your help!" I called before exiting to the hall.
Schools have a certain feel to them. Everything is so orderly and neat. Everything is numbered and labelled. There are no papers on the ground, having been swept up between class changes.
I venture down the tech hall, remembering which are the computer classes. Through the doors I spot kids at work and I miss school. I wish I could afford to come here every day, but unfortunately I can't.
For the next fifteen minutes I wander the halls without a visitor pass. When the lunch bell rings I am outside in a pleasant courtyard. I rush back in, to the cafeteria.
I stand at the edge of the room on my tiptoes, scoping the crowd for Boots. Someone bumps me, catching me off-balance and knocking me to the floor.
"Hey, sorry 'bout that." The boy bends to help me up. Almost instantly after grabbing my arm he releases it. "Aaron?" he gasps.
"Huh?" I catch a glimpse of his face, looking into the eyes of my half-brother for the first time in months. "Jack. Oh, hello."
"What are you doing here?" he asks.
"Preaching my homosexual ways so that every male in the school will fall madly in love with you." I say sarcastically. The damn bastard is still probably an out-of-control homophobe. He probably thinks I have the hots for him.
"Aaron, why are you really here?" He brushes off my comment like it was nothing.
"I'm just looking for someone," I spot Boots across the way, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I see them."
"Listen, Aaron," he grabs my arm before I can get away. "I'm going through a hard time. I really need someone to talk to. Do you think we can sit down for a while?"
"Jack, what makes you think I want to talk to you? I can't tell you anything, why should you be able to tell me anything? It's not a one-way street." I forget all about Boots and run from the school.
There are too many memories incorporated with Jack and they all flood back when I see him. Painful memories, but buried beneath the layers I remember when we used to be friends. Before everything went wrong.
—Boots' PoV—
"Aaron! Aaron!" My head jerked around at the sound of Swifty's name. I caught a glimpse of him before losing sight of him in the lunch crowd. The kid who was calling his name was frozen to the spot, staring blankly after him.
"Uh, how do you know Swifty?" I ask the boy.
He blinked and said, "Who?"
"Swifty! Aaron! The kid you were just talking to!"
"Oh. He's my brother."
This can't be right. Swifty lives alone over Horizontal because his father disowned him. How can he have a brother?
I was about to ask this when the kid interjected. "And who are you? How do you know Aaro---erm, Swifty?"
"I'm his boyfriend," the boy flinched as I said this," my name is Boots."
"I'm Jack. Swifty and I are only half-brothers. We don't have the same mother."
"I didn't know he had a brother," I admitted.
"Well, I didn't know Swifty had a boyfriend so I guess we're even." Why did Jack make it seem like we were competing where we weren't? Did he have an over-active competitive gene or something?
"Why doesn't he live with you?" I asked suspiciously. So far I didn't like Jack very much.
"My dad doesn't like the gay thing," said Jack shortly.
Across the cafeteria Spot called my name.
"I've got to go." I walked away uncomfortably, considering the way he had said 'the gay thing', like it was a parasite or a disease. Like it was a disability.
Jack was so far the one thing about Swifty I hated.
—Crutchy's PoV—
They're not really dead, but they are gone. Uncle Kloppman says he doesn't know where they've gotten to but that they never tried to contact him after they left me.
"I was supposed to be babysitting you for a day, they were going out to a concert downtown and they'd be back later. I felt bad for the, being forced into adulthood and having no time to be kids."
My parents were named Reggie Thornhill and Brenda Kloppman. They never got married, being only eighteen at the time of abandoning me. Uncle Kloppman said he wasn't even sure if they even liked each other very much.
"You were just the result of lust and alcohol," he said bluntly. "I'm sorry for being so harsh, but it's the truth."
I was only three weeks old, and was born premature and with a major birth defect. I cannot use my leg to this day due to lack of nutrition usually provided by mother's milk.
"Maybe they dies in a car crash, maybe they just split." Uncle Kloppman shrugged and drained his cup of coffee.
He did try to contact them through relatives and close friends, but it was as if they'd disappeared without a trace.
When I was five weeks old Uncle Kloppman applied to the state of New York to be my legal guardian.
"I never had kids, never marrying and all, but it seemed like a nice idea and I loved you like my own. Quite often I think about how different things would be without you."
Know Uncle Kloppman gave up a lot of things to make it work. He hasn't yet retired, even though he's only a few years shy of sixty-five. I never could get surgery for my leg because surgery for my leg because insurance wouldn't cover it and a new air of crutches every few years was mush more convenient.
"What if they mean to come home but they got in a crash or something?" I asked hopefully. Dead parents were less of a bruise to my ego than ones who deserted me.
"Could be the case," he shrugged. "I honestly have no idea."
I need to look deeper into this. I need to find out what really happened.
(Tuesday)
—Mush's PoV—
Life is hell. Why did I do that? What kind of idiot am I?
He won't return any of my phone calls.
"He doesn't want to talk to you," Swifty told me one time I got through. Blink's probably making the whole building gloomy because Swifty didn't sound too chipper.
I'm not jealous of that stupid kid. Why would I be? Just look how easy he went down, that's nothing to idolize.
I'm very surprised that I haven't yet been called down to the office. I know that what I did is at least worth a suspension.
Blink didn't sit with me at lunch today like he usually does, thus forcing me to eat with Dutchy and Specs, lest I be stuck eating alone.
"He'll get over it," said Dutchy, matter-of-factly.
"I think it's kind of romantic." Specs grinned after admitting that he'd beat up Bumlets a little while ago.
"Why?" I asked.
"He was dating my ex-girlfriend," he informed me.
"Are you telling me that he's straight and I just lost my boyfriend and got a possible stain on my permanent record? Over nothing?"
"I guess, but don't get mad at me, you screwed up."
"Don't rub it in," I groaned and buried my face in my arms.
The worst part is he's eating with Bumlets and his friends. Can life get any worse?
Answer: yes, but not in terms of Blink and I.
—Racetrack's PoV—
A sharp whistling made me jump, bringing me back to reality. Itey sat beside Mountie grinning at me.
"What?" I asked, slightly peeved.
"Don't stare at Spot now, we have company." He pointed to Bumlets' new friend who had introduced himself as Kid Blink.
"I don't stare at Spot."
"Yeah, gee Itey, he just has some completely drool-worthy thing on his face, thus resulting in Racetrack's staring," said Mountie sarcastically.
Bumlets doesn't say anything because he's not talking to me.
"I'm not staring at him ad I'm not drooling." I exclaimed, becoming very frustrated and angry.
"Calm down," Bumlets spoke for the first time since lunch began, though he sounded extremely grumpy. "No one really cares about your freakish obsession for Spot. It's just something to talk about."
I took one look at his bruised (from Mush's previous beatings), smirking face and lunged at him.
At a nearby table dozens of girls screamed and in a matter of seconds Itey and Blink had pulled me off of him.
"Jesus! Why is everyone hitting me?" yelled Bumlets, wiping off his bloodied nose.
Coach Snyder directed Bumlets to the nurse and strode up to me. "You. Office. Now!"
Family life down the drain: Check!
School life down the drain: Check!
Friends down the drain: Check, no friggin duh.
—Skittery's PoV—
"Pigeon told me you don't want to see me anymore."
"What?"
"She said you blew me off the other day because you have too many things to worry about right now. It's—it's OK, if that's what you want."
"I don't want to break up with you," I told him stiffly.
"Then why are you walking away?" he asked. I realized I was still striding down the hall. I turned into a less busy corridor and stopped.
"Sorry, listen. I don't want to break up with you. I had other things to do."
"So you do have other things to worry about."
"Well, you can't be the only thing or person I ever see or worry about." I reminded him about my researching for Crutchy.
"Oh, that's good. Sorry about assuming before asking you and all. It was really stupid of me." Him saying this reminds me of how much I like him. It's really big of him to apologize.
"It's not your fault. I'm not really at a good place with Pigeon right now. I'm going to have to talk with her."
Snoddy looked slightly hesitant to continue. "Do you…do you want to come over to my place on Friday for dinner?"
"I'll be there," I said, without thinking twoce.
"Promise?"
"Snoddy, I promise."
==
"Pidge, I have to—"
"Skittery, I'm soo sorry! I was mad! Please forgive me! I didn't ruin things with you and Snoddy, did I?"
"No—"
"Good," she hugged me. "Because I never meant to do that. Please forgive me?"
"OK, I guess."
—General PoV—
Racetrack sat in the office with his head in his hands. If he closed his eyes all he heard was the whirr of computers and the soft mechanical clicks of the photocopier. It was like this, with his eyes closed, that he pretended nothing happened and he wasn't up for possible expulsion.
"Anthony Higgins, the principal will see you now." The secretary looked up with an expression of almost pity before directing him towards the correct door.
In his office—which Racetrack was very surprised at the small size of—Principal Joseph Pulitzer sat behind his desk, awaiting the student.
"Take a seat Mr Higgins and tell me what you did."
Racetrack collapsed into the seat and shrugged. "I punched my best friend in the nose."
"Young man," Pulitzer looked very stern, his mouth never altering from its grim line in the centre of his face. "It does not matter of what relation this boy is to you, you cannot be violent in my hallways."
Racetrack bit his tongue to keep from pointing out that it was in the cafeteria and attempted to look solemn. "Yes sir."
"Since this is your first act of violent behaviour shown in the school you will not suffer an expulsion. Such a case as this, following your testimony to Coach Snyder that Mr Messier provoked you, the punishment would usually be a month of detention and ten extra hours of community service. But—"
Racetrack inhaled deeply. There had to be a 'but'.
"When I look over your personal record I must take into consideration your history of vandalism, including one specific drawing in the boys washroom that reads 'Coach Snyder Does it for Free'. Because of your mockery of out educators and school system I am forced to issue you a five-day out of school suspension and ten extra hours of community service. "
Racetrack nodded, amazed that his ninth grade revenge on Coach Snyder for failing him could just have bought him suspension. Luckily his parents wouldn't even notice, and if they found out they'd forget about it in no time.
"Now, I suggest you make your way home. Your five-day suspension will officially begin tomorrow."
Racetrack disappeared from the office and wandered out the school doors and off the property.
Next to enter Pulitzer's office were two people who didn't look as if they really wanted to see each other.
"Sit down boys." Pulitzer gestured to the chairs. "Mr Meyers, Mr Hunter, I trust you know why you're here. No? Well, then I will tell you. A member of faculty has recently told me of your public displays of affection between classes. While I recognize that this is modern day America I must address school policy that no public affection be shown by students of any gender, race or social status. This is just a warning but next time I will issue detentions and after that maybe in-school suspensions."
"Why don't you crack down on the damn straight kids?" grumbled Mush.
Pulitzer—gracefully—ignored him and dismissed them to class.
Busy day, busy day.
A/n: OK, I think that's a good point to end this. It's almost 4000 words! That's my longest chapter for this story so far! I hope you enjoyed the extended version, this is probably what I would have poster while I'm away, if not more. Too mush stuff happened for me to comment on so why don't you just review and tell me your favourite parts. Yay! Reviews!