1 Year Later
Raven - 6th Grade, Age 11 going on 12
Richard - 7th Grade, Age 14
Garfield - 6th Grade, Age 12
Raven
"Knock, Knock." Garfield says for the umpteenth time today.
"Who's there?" I don't want to answer him, but the alternative is another argument about how we should be supportive and help him practice for his big debut. For some idiotic reason, he signed himself up to tell jokes at the New Year's charity event. It's going to be a huge fancy ball where rich people come pretend to care about giving money to charity. We're the charity; one of many alternative placement children's homes attending because we would receive some money. Mrs. Huntington and the other staff couldn't talk about anything else for the last several weeks. The amount of money we're getting is apparently too good to be true.
The other kids are hoping for fairytales; that a rich family will fall in love with them at the ball and swoop them up. It's driving me nuts. Thank Azar I can't actually go.
"Crocodile." he smiles.
"Crocodile who?" I mentally cringe at the dumb answer he's about to give me.
"Oh sorry, in a while crocodile. I'll have to catch you later." he holds his arms out as if to say 'wasn't that great?' except that it wasn't great. It was terrible. I look away. Instead of getting discouraged, he just starts again.
"What do you call a sour apple?" he asks.
"What?" I mumble.
"A crab apple! Get it?" He laughs at his own joke. I look at Richard for help, but he's starring at his laptop screen as intently as always.
"I wouldn't make any fruit or vegetable jokes. That's just opening the door for people to call you names." Richard says without looking up. Garfield frowns and I sense his emotions shift from excitement to something less comfortable. He's already been worried that people will make fun of him, because it's happened so many times already. It's almost guaranteed to happen at the ball.
"You're right," he says. "I'll leave that one out." He should honestly leave all of them out, because they all suck, but after what Richard just said, I'm not going to tell him that. He's one of the kids hoping for a fairytale. He hopes that if he makes someone laugh while he's on stage, they might come talk to him more and maybe want to make him part of their family. Richard has taken the liberty of crushing his dreams several times. I won't encourage him, but I'm not going to discourage him either. It's pointless. If I've learned anything about Garfield this past year, it's that you can't kill his optimism no matter how hard you try. Even if it's what's best for him... It's not like we don't want him to be happy, but getting his hope up never makes him happy. It always leads to tears and disappointment when people inevitably point out his differences and reject him.
"Are you still not coming?" Richard asks me. This is the only event he's ever wanted to go to, so instead of being on my team like he usually is, he's siding with Garfield that we should all go. It's annoying.
"Not even if they threatened me with cleaning toilets." I open the book that I've been wanting to read all afternoon.
"You would seriously rather clean toilets than go to a party?" Garfield asks. "Come on, it's going to be great."
"I hate crowds, strangers, loud noises and everyone here. Doesn't sound like fun." I turn away from him slightly to face the stacks so he'll know that I'm done talking for a while. The last time I put this book down, I was getting to an exciting part. They both go on and on about all the cool things that will be at the party, but I ignore them and eventually they shut up. Garfield plays his handheld game and Richard does whatever it is he always does on his computer.
When it's time for dinner I let them go downstairs, but I'm not going. Christmas is in two days and it's hard to shield all the excited energy radiating off the other kids. I can feel it even in the library, so being that close to them is almost unbearable. This year because of the ball there's even more attention to their little Christmas miracle wish list tree. They're guaranteed to get pretty much anything they asked for and even more. Two different news stations came down here to do stories.
The quiet while the boys are gone is nice. Hanging out with them this past year has been more fun than I care to admit, but it's also nice to have the quiet back every now and then. I read and when dinner is over, they come back upstairs. Garfield puts a cookie in front of me, Richard puts half a chicken sandwich.
"You're lucky it wasn't soup again or macaroni." Richard says. He hates that I skip.
"Thank-you." I ignore his words and put my book down, so I can eat the sandwich.
"If you don't go tomorrow someone is going to notice." Garfield says. That's already been taken care of. Mrs. Huntington will tell anyone that I felt sick and she gave me permission to skip.
"If you keep nagging me, I won't listen to any more of your jokes." He rolls his eyes, because he knows I'm bluffing. He does stop nagging me though. When I'm done eating the electronics go away and we play board games until we have to go to bed.