Chapter Seven
Junior approached the tall brick red school with a crowd of other kids who also walked. The few buses that they had were pulling up to the elementary school and releasing kids from its belly. Looking through the streams of colors and sizes like a kaleidoscope, Junior could see a faint white light in the distance.
And that light was Willow.
She spotted him but didn't say anything. She kept her head down as she headed into the school. Junior rushed the crowd and pushed through people, desperate to get to her.
"Willow," he called out to her as they both got to their lockers.
Willow remained focused on dialing her combination. "What?"
"Willow, would you go to the dance with me?"
Her icy blue eyes sharply reprimanded him. "Are you kidding me? After we haven't been talking for now three days, you just ask me—"
Junior leaned in dangerously close to her, his brown eyes melting the ice that was in hers. Willow felt her heart skip a beat as she gazed into his eyes.
"Yes. That's exactly what I'm doing."
She gulped and averted her eyes from him, fumbling around in her locker for her folders. "W-what happened to going with Jette?"
"I pulled my head out of my ass and realized what I wanted."
"What is it that you want?"
He grabbed her wrist tightly. "Willow. I want you."
Willow's porcelain white face ran red as the blood rushed to it. Junior remained ever so serious, but that cocky grin had its way of climbing across his lips.
"Willow. What do you say? Could you forgive me and go?"
"W…well I don't know…"
"Please?"
"Junior…"
"Pretty please?"
"Oh come on, you are not doing that."
"I'll get down on my knees too if you'd like."
"What?"
"But I won't propose. I don't have a rock big enough."
Willow laughed softly, shaking her head at him as he got down on both knees and took both of her hands. She had to have been as red as a tomato. This was completely unreal.
"Okay, okay!" she blurted out. "I'll go with you, I'll go with you!"
Junior jumped back to his feet. "Awesome!"
The bell then rang, but nothing would draw them out of this moment. So simple, so pure, it was probably just the beginning of something.
The beginning of them.
"Wait a second, Junior," Willow said as they were headed down the hallway to homeroom, "did you finish your speech? It's due today!"
"I got it done. And believe you me, it's gonna knock Ms. Wallace's socks off."
As Junior and Willow were headed home together after school (partially experimenting with handholding as well) they noticed how Madame Foster's black car had been pulled into the garage on the side of the house, and now Vince was spraying it with a hose. Frankie was standing on the porch sweeping the dust, and their children, Jacob and Felicity, were running around in the front yard playing soccer with a few other imaginary friends.
"Frankie!" Junior called out, waving. "Hey Frankie! I didn't think that you were getting back so soon!"
Frankie nodded. "Well, we headed back a little early."
She arched a brow, noticing that Willow and Junior were holding hands. She grinned. "Did I miss a lot while I was away?"
"Uh…" Junior and Willow exchanged a sly look. "Kind of."
"I suppose it is good that I came back though," Frankie said, propping herself up against her broom. "Your poor dad seems to have worked himself sick—literally."
"Speaking of my dear old dad, where is he?" Junior held up a few pieces of printer paper that had been stapled together and writing scribbling on it in black ink. "And can we have a house assembly?"
"A house assembly? What for?"
"I got full points on this awesome speech I made for English class. My final," he explained to her. "And I want everyone to listen to it, because everybody here has made some impact on it. It's heartwarming, good fluffy stuff."
Frankie shrugged her shoulders in agreement and then they headed inside. Junior grabbed the ridiculously shaped microphone to the intercom system and practically shouted into it.
"Yo! All members of the house get down into the foyer! I've got some mad words that I'd like to throw at ya."
Willow laughed and gave him a shove as he hung up the mic on its stand. Frankie cracked a smile and started laughing.
"Wow, Junior, gangster much?"
Some grumbling and some ever just the same, the imaginary friends shuffled into the room. Junior saw the faces that he had come to know so well over the years: Bloppypants and Yogi Boo-Boo; Fluffer Nutter, Jackie and the kids; Wilt and Eduardo; even the completely ridiculous and annoying Cheese who made beeping sounds as he walked into the room. Junior knew each and every one of them, and over the years, he had played with each of them and gotten to known them just as Mac had when he was a kid. And somehow it made Junior swell with pride, realizing that he had done the same.
He then saw his father and Bloo come down the stairs. Mac crossed his arms sternly, but his smile as bright as it usually was.
"Junior what is this about?"
Junior held up the pages. "100% on my English final!"
Members of the house cheered, but Junior rose up a hand to stop them.
"Look, I wrote this speech about my family. And you guys are my family, so you all helped me write it in your own way. I'd like to share it with you."
The friends once again cheered and Junior smiled broadly, all of his white sharp teeth glittering in the light. He then looked down at his paper, and began his speech.
"I am a person caught between two worlds, my dad Mac once told me. But that doesn't disable me from doing anything: in fact, if anything, it makes me stronger, because there's a huge story behind where I come from and who I am.
"There's a lot of people behind that, and they are my family. It's them that I have to be grateful for. It is my family who has shaped us into who I am. So, who am I?" Junior quizzically looked out at the audience, but his façade was given away by the smirk he struggled to hide.
"I come from strong roots," he said, his voice gaining in power. "I have learned—thanks to that big mouth of my father, Bloo—that I come from people who had fallen victim to life's false commodities… and those who were victims of those people. I come from a big house full of colors and kooky things… to a hotel hallway on the other side of the world. I come from great men and great women. My great grandmother, Madame Foster, I can barely remember, but she was one of the most awesome women you could ever meet, with all that she did for Foster's. My great grandfather, Mr. Herriman, was the one who for years, kept things together. And Frankie, my aunt, is just as cool with how she has always helped me with whatever I needed. All of the friends here have lived through being abandoned, and it's just an awe inspiring thing to me that they don't lose their optimism. They have enough confidence in themselves to know that one day, they will be adopted by somebody who loves them.
"My parents crossed two worlds to have me be an object of their future. They lived through hell and back and endured all that came with it, especially the venom that was projected from the mouths of haters. Of those who hated that people could be different. And then, they had to raise me and solve the problems in their own lives, and what they had in their relationship. What kept them together, what kept the three of us together, was our familial bond to each other.
"Throughout the experiences of my family, I have learned so many important lessons—like when you're an eleven year old boy, you are now too old to fit down the laundry shoot, and you really shouldn't steal anything from Duchess's room, and that you should just run away from Cheese because he will drive you crazy—but there are three major ones that I predominantly live by. One is to know yourself, and be it. The second is to learn from your mistakes and to fix them. And the final one, which is the most important… is to love your family and your friends no matter what." Junior lowered the paper and looked out at the friends, who he saw were in a trance, completely mesmerized by his words. "These are strong lessons, taught by strong people. And this is who I am."
All at once the friends swarmed Junior and were cheering and clamoring over him. Junior laughed as he and Willow were lifted up above the ground and carried around on the waves of arms, tentacles and wings in an endless circle. The whole while, everyone was laughing.
Mac and Bloo watched from the stairs, safely away from the ground floor. Both were beaming, prideful of their son's speech.
"He told me he would get it done," Mac said, shaking his head in disbelief. "I just didn't know that he would do so good on it."
"Of course he would have," Bloo protested, elbowing Mac with a grin. "He's smart like you. Mainly me, but you too."
Mac wrapped his arms around Bloo's head and kissed his lips. What Bloo had expected to be brief he now found was lasting a long time, and he saw the flirtatious, overjoyed look swimming in Mac's deep brown eyes…
"Mac? Has something happened?"
"Nothing," Mac protested, grinning.
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely nothing is wrong," Mac replied, crossing his arms and leaning against the railing. He kept smiling all the while though.
A light then clicked on in Bloo's head.
"The baby!"
"Bingo. Took you long enough there." Mac smiled. "I did the test this morning."
Bloo crowed, "No way! No way!"
"Yes!" Mac kissed Bloo in response. "Yes."
