Chapter 9: Old Dog, New Tricks

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Jack fell onto the leather sofa and threw and arm over his head. Every muscle in his body begged for sleep.


"Long day Jack?" Josh asked sinking into the lazy boy next to the coach. The springs whined under his weight.


"The longest day of my life. I forgot how tiring school could be."


"How long has it been since you were in school?"


Jack rubbed his eyes and crossed his arms. "One year ago, when I was still in New York."


"New York huh? How'd you get down here?" Josh took a drink of his coffee.


"I uh, borrowed some money from my mom and bought a bus ticket." He sighed.


"Why'd you chose Katy, Texas?"


"It's the farthest away I could get from New York."


"What's so bad about New York?" Charlie asked walking in.


Jack stared for a moment as memories overwhelmed his mind.


"Your mom." Charlie said.


Jack looked over at him. "What d' you mean 'my mom'?"


"Sorry, that's not exactly what I meant. I just ask because I ran away from my mom and thought you might have too."


Jack stared again. "You ran away from your mother, why?"


"She was a drunk and her boyfriends were abusive. But I think what you really want to know is how I ran away, being blind and all." Charlie said.


"OK," Jack said slowly. "How did you run away?"


"By using my head, how else. Just because I'm blind doesn't mean I'm stupid," Charlie said simply. "I had been saving up since I was nine for my plane ticket. Two years ago I road first class out of Santa Monica, California and ended up here."


"Here? You mean Darkwood Community?"


"Yeah, I'd been talking over the phone with David, a guy you haven't met yet."


"Someone said his name this morning in the kitchen."


"Yeah well, I found him through a friend who'd known him some years back." Charlie sighed. Even though he wore sun glasses Jack could see the pain in his face. The lines of a weary wonderer seemed to have been drawn on it.


At the front of the house someone opened and slammed the door shut. The glass pieces of the chess set on the coffee table shivered and Charlie covered his ears.

Pearl walked in.

"Sorry Charlie," she said putting a hand on his shoulder. "I had a frustrating night."


"What happened?" Josh asked.


"Let me go down the list," she started. "First, I got the finger from an old man while I was going down Grand Parkway, then, I ripped my tights warming up, then, I pulled a muscle during the teacher's warm up, then, my partner dropped me and I twisted my ankle. Not to mention Xander Collins-"


"Xander Collins?" Josh said eyes widening. "What'd that jerk want?"


"To quote 'watch me dance'," Pearl said. "Apparently he escaped two days ago and has been doing it often. But I put him back in his place."

"How d' you do that?" Jack asked.


"Froze time and called Darron. He's back in jail." She put her hands on her hips.

"Well, I'm going to go up stairs and finish my homework." Charlie said grimacing.


"Oh hey Charlie, can you help me with my Calculus?" Josh asked.


"Sure." The two boys disappeared up the stairs.


"So," Jack said. "You're a dancer?"


Pearl flopped over the side of the vacated lazy boy. "Yeah, ballet
actually."


"Really," he paused. "I figured you for a more jazzy or break dance kinda girl."


"Well I do do break dancing but I mainly focus on ballet." She swung her legs and beat the side of the chair with her heels. "So you learned something surprising about me, now what about you? What should surprise me about you?"


Jack grinned, only half of his mouth turning up. "I dance to, but not ballet. I took a little bit when I was younger but I prefer break dance and well, you know. When I was in school in New York we did the musical Newsies and I was one of the main characters so I had to dance."


"Wow, that does surprise me." Pearl said. "We have some classes like that at school. I teach the ballet and break dancing classes, you can come if you want."


Jack nodded. "Well, I'm getting tired, so I'm gonna go to bed." He stood and walked to the stairs.


"Night Jack." Pearl said.


"Night." He turned back to her half way up. "Thanks Pearl, for today I mean." With that he made his way up the stairs.


Pearl stared after him, brown eyes wide mouth agape.


Good job Jack, Charlie thought with a smile.