"Yes, hello – I know you've just closed but I hope you can help me...my son Terrence was supposed to come in this afternoon and pick up his new glasses...Well see he isn't home yet and I was just wondering if you've seen hi – yes. Yes, he's thirteen. Yes, that sounds like – what?"
Mac watched his mother on the phone from his seat at the kitchen table. She had come home late bringing fast food fried chicken, and they had waited until seven o'clock before Mom got worried because Terrence still wasn't back. She was now on the phone with the optometrist's office. Mac frowned as she paused, her expression turning from worry to confusion.
"What?" she said again. "I don't understand. I'm afraid you have my son mixed up with another – yes, Terrence is thirteen, he has black hair…" She unconsciously held out one hand indicating his height although she knew the receptionist couldn't see it. "Yes, well...that sounds like a very sweet thing to do but I'm afraid my son would never – "
At that moment the door burst open to admit a badly winded Terrence (minus his glasses), who had just half-skated, half-run over a mile and then ran up the apartment steps without resting. He flung his backpack and skateboard on the floor and hung in the doorway, trying to catch his breath.
"Yes thank you he's home now goodbye," Mom blurted hanging up the phone. She flew to Terrence's side as he managed to shut the door behind him. "Terrence!" she cried, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Where on Earth have you been?"
Terrence tried to reply but was still too winded to speak so Mom went on: "It's dark out Terrence! You know I want both of you boys home before dark!"
Mac understood her worry. The last neighborhood they had lived in had been a fairly dangerous one. Although this one was scads safer at night he knew Mom couldn't help fearing the worst when one of her sons was late coming home.
"Where were you?" Mom demanded, giving Terrence a shake.
"I'm sorry," Terrence managed feebly, snuffling some due to going straight from the chilly outdoors to the warmth of the apartment. "I…I didn't know…it was so late," he huffed.
Mac, figuring it was okay to eat now, started in on a cold chicken leg. He watched the scene with interest.
Mom stood back, wrinkling her nose. "Well," she said, hands on hips, "did you get them?" She decided trying to pry her teenaged son's whereabouts for the last four hours out of him was useless, and she went for the important information instead.
Terrence snuffled again, wiping his nose with his sleeve. "Huh?" he replied.
Mac grinned and munched on his chicken leg. It was a lot like watching a monkey in a zoo. He made mental notes so he could recount everything to Bloo tomorrow.
Mom exhaled. "Your glasses," she reminded her eldest, drumming her fingers on her hips. "You remember, those round things that go on your face."
Terrence scowled. Maybe Mom needed to hang out with Sally. "Yeah, I got 'em," he said. Fearful of breaking them, he had put them in their hard case before he started skating home. Now he pulled the case from his back pocket and held it out to her. But she didn't reach out for it.
"Well, don't give them to me," she said impatiently. "Put them on."
Mac grinned around his chicken. Dumb old Terrence.
Terrence exhaled sharply. He opened the case, took out the glasses, unfolded them, and put them on. He held out his arms. "There," he spat, annoyed.
Mom frowned at his attitude, narrowing her eyes. But, she had to admit, he did at least do something she had asked him to do, even if it had taken him four hours. She nodded. "All right," she said. "Go wash up and come eat." She turned and sat down at the kitchen table.
Terrence cast a glance at Mac, who quickly twisted back around in his seat and pretended that he had been facing the other way the whole time. Scowling again, the teen scooped up his skateboard and backpack and threw them in his room, then went to the bathroom to wash his hands. Ordinarily he would have loved to skip dinner so he wouldn't have to be in the same room as Mac, who was clearly enjoying himself at his expense, but his appetite had returned shortly after leaving the optometrist's office, and he was starving. He'd just have to suck it up and go to dinner.
He washed his hands quickly, then looked up into the mirror. He'd seen himself briefly in the mirrored walls of the Vision Center but now he took a good hard look at his new acquisitions. The frames were pretty basic: black, plastic, not too nerdy, he thought hopefully. He'd seen the same frames sported by trendy teenaged boys all over the place so maybe he wouldn't really be considered too much of a freak. He remembered that Sally had suggested them and figured she probably dealt with a lot of teenaged boys. He vaguely hoped they didn't all give her a hard time. She was a nice old lady. He dried his hands, went to the kitchen, and threw himself into his chair.
Mac was in the middle of telling a story from his day at school. "...And then Eddie MacPhearson painted a dinosaur on Julie's paper eating the rabbit she had drawn and the teacher gave them both an A for doing a – " he paused to remember the difficult word – "collaborative project. Julie thought it was really funny." Then he turned to Terrence, who was tucking into a biscuit. "I think they look nice," he declared matter-of-factly.
Terrence glared at him as he swallowed, figuring the little meatwad was just trying to look like a goody-good in front of Mom (who was smiling encouragingly at both of them). Terrence glanced at her, then decided to fight fire with fire. He looked Mac square in the eye. "Thanks," he said mildly. When Mac smiled at him, he looked away and dragged the box of chicken towards himself and fell silent. He wasn't falling for any of it. He knew Mac still thought he was stupid, thought he looked stupid. But he'd show Mac soon enough that he – and that bigmouthed blue blob – was dead wrong about him. He'd show them, and everyone else too.
After dinner, Terrence sat in front of his computer with his History textbook in his lap, reading the assignment at the end of Chapter 24. It was an essay on the Age of Industry. He took a steadying breath. Right. No problem. He read the chapter carefully and examined all of the illustrations, trying hard not to miss anything. Over an hour later he started to peck out something on the word processor.
There was a knock on the door. "Terrence?" It was Mom. Terrence quickly threw the book under his bed and fired up a shooting game as if doing his homework was forbidden – the truth was that the concept was so alien to him that it really did feel like he was doing something forbidden. "Yeah?" he squeaked.
Mom opened the door and poked her head into the room. "Terrence, its getting late. You know how I hate dragging you out of bed in the morning. Are you playing a game?"
"Um, I'm doing my homework," he gave her the standard excuse, then grinned wickedly at the irony. Mom made a face at him.
"Well finish up and go to bed," she told him, and withdrew, closing the door. Trying not to laugh, Terrence brought the word processor back up and went back to hunting and pecking.