Garfield

Garfield should be sleeping, but he thinks he heard something downstairs. The last time that happened he caught Richard sneaking out. Now that Richard is a seventh grader, he's in the room with the older boys. He isn't in the same class anymore either. This past year has been rough for Richard. Garfield doesn't know what happens in the other room, but whatever it is sometimes leaves Richard with bruises on his knuckles and once a black eye.

Richard sneaks out of the house sometimes too. Twice he's been caught and Mrs. Huntington has threatened to move him somewhere else. Richard says he isn't scared, but Garfield is. This has been the best year since his parents died. He has not one, but two good friends and the other kids have mostly kept their usual teasing to a minimum. If Richard gets kicked out, things will suck again.

Garfield creeps out of bed and puts a pillow under his covers, just in case they do a room check. This time of year, everyone tends to behave, so they probably won't, but if they do maybe, he won't have to clean toilets.

The hall is quiet. He turns into a mouse. His pajamas hit the floor louder than he expects them too. Hopefully if anyone finds them, they'll just think the boys need to do better on their chores. There's no way he's checking out Richard's room. The older boys scare him. If they catch him snooping in there, especially as a mouse, who knows what they'll do? Instead, he risks transforming into something bigger: a cat and heads downstairs. He checks the kitchen first, but the back door is locked up. If Richard had gone out it, he wouldn't have been able to re-secure the latch. Next is the living room. The door is locked and latched, but the window is open a crack. He turns into a dog and sure enough he gets a faint scent of Richard on the windowsill. He turns into a gorilla for just a second to open it a bit more, then crawls through as a mouse. Once he's outside he turns into an owl. Thankfully Richard hasn't gotten too far away, he's still creeping slowly across the lawn. The crunch of his boots in the snow is loud in the silent yard and Garfield zones in on him in seconds. If he'd gone much farther Garfield would have had to let it go. He's never transformed that much before and he's too tired to chase his friend. He flies into his face a couple times.

"Garfield! Stop!" Richard swats him away. He can't transform into a human, because he doesn't have his clothes. Richard has seen him naked at least a dozen times now, but it never stops being embarrassing and it's cold.
"screech," Garfield wishes he could actually yell at him, but all that comes out in a screech.

"Do you want me to get caught?" Richard says in a hush voice. Garfield lands on the ground in front of him and gives him his best owl glare. "I'll be back in an hour, two tops." Garfield still stares at him and doesn't move. "Go ahead and tell on me if you want to." With that, Richard keeps walking. Garfield can't tell on him though. If he does and Mrs. Huntington makes good on her threat, Richard will disappear from their lives. He's mad that Richard is breaking the rules and even more mad that he won't tell them why, but Garfield can't rat him out.

The next morning Richard sits down at the table in the dining room as if everything is normal. Raven doesn't come, which they expected. Both of them had bugged Raven about why she ditches plenty of times, but she won't answer. She won't even lie. She just ignores them, so they'd given up. Still, they make sure she doesn't go hungry and she pretends not to appreciate it. Garfield puts his granola bar in his pocket. Richard puts his cup of yogurt and spoon. They eat the rest of their food and go upstairs, neither one speaking. Garfield mostly just doesn't know what to say. If he asks Richard where he went, he won't get an answer. He doesn't feel like pretending everything is fine either.

His foot pauses on the last step. Richard takes a couple more steps before noticing, but then he stops and turns around. Garfield meets the other boy's crystal blue eyes and frowns.

"I didn't tell anyone." He just wants to be clear.

"I know." Richard says, but he doesn't say where he went. He keeps walking and Garfield follows. Richard stops in the entry way. When he catches up, he sees why. Mrs. Huntington is in the library with Raven. At the sight of the boys, she stops talking. Garfield didn't catch what she was saying, but Mrs. Huntington rarely said anything good. "We can discuss this more later." Despite her words, she uses the tone adults always use when they don't plan on bringing up a subject again. She walks away from the table and the boys move to make room for her to pass them. "Good morning boys."

"Good morning," They mumble together. When she's gone, they approach the table. Instead of her normal calm, almost emotionless expression Garfield can tell she's upset, maybe even angry.

"What did she want?" he dares to ask. She doesn't say anything. She just balls her hands up at her sides in fists. For a minute, he thinks she might get up and walk away, but she doesn't.

"Well?" Richard presses. "Aren't you going to tell us." She's quiet for another second, but then she speaks.

"She's making me go to the ball." the words are low, he can barely hear them, but when he does, he grins.

"Yes!" Garfield jumps in the air. Richard turns and gives him a high five.

"It's not a good thing," she says.

"It's going to be awesome. We'll have so much fun. You'll see!" Garfield grins. "And you'll get to see my act."

"Yeah. This will be great." Richard says. Garfield puts his granola bar down on the table and Richard puts his yogurt. Then he all but runs to the back shelf where they've been stashing their important stuff. Things they don't want the other kids to touch like his video games and Richard's laptop. He grabs his joke notebook from the shelf and heads back to the table. Now that Raven is coming, he's got to make sure he has his best material. If he makes the audience laugh, she and Richard will finally have to admit that he's funny.