I'm sitting in the kitchen eating cereal and attempting to watch the news. I haven't seen Gold yet, maybe he decided to sleep in his bed for once in his lifetime. Well, at any case Gold isn't going to wake himself up soon. I check the date and see that it's Saturday before deciding against waking him up. I've turned my attention back to the Television when I hear a knock on the door.
I get up and walk over. I open the door…
I hear and sudden noise and I'm ripped from my dream. I'm panting even though I have no reason why. I struggle to slow my breathing, and focus on what could have made the noise. It could have been anything from Gold, to… well someone other than Gold. Most people in town know us and I'm sure they wouldn't bother to break in our house at… 4 in the morning… to tell us something.
I roll over and attempt to get back to sleep. I hear the sound again but this time it can't be ignored. It sounds like people tromping around in the woods on the edge of our back yard. I peer out the window into the darkness of the night. All I can make out is a shadow.
I hear another crunch and the shadow whips around. "Will you be quiet?" The person whispers loudly. "I don't want anyone to know we've been here, okay?"
I roll my eyes and return to my bed. It's nothing serious, just a bunch of fools walking around in the forest at night foraging for flowers… but there aren't that many edible ones. I yawn as I let sleep take me again.
When I wake up again, it's bright outside and I can tell I've overslept. Gold's probably still asleep, and the soft snoring I hear confirms it. I stretch and get out of bed, shower and then dress myself. I have a feeling that we'll be doing something important today.
I step out the living room. Gold slept on the couch as usual. Even though he's had to have slept at least eight hours last night, he seems oddly tired, but then again Gold doesn't strike me as a person who normally goes to bed on time.
I walk pass his sleeping form and out the door, I think I could use some fresh air today after that nightmare and all.
Nothing seems to be out of the ordinary. Except for one thing: Bianca is outside; Now that by itself is nothing new, but at this time of the day? She has to be up to something.
I watch her run frantically up and down the street putting letters into people's mailboxes. If I didn't know any better, I'd say she got a job as a mail carrier. I decide not to call her out on her new morning exercise session and just walk back into the house.
"Oh, you're up," Gold said, as he let out a yawn and stretched. "Then again, you always get up before me," I don't reply so Gold asks, "Anything new?"
I shake my head without thinking. "Bianca's running around putting letters into people's mailboxes." I reply. That didn't seem like much news, but it was new.
"Well, that's good. She got a new job." I attempt to stifle a laugh.
"So, what are we going to do today?" I ask. I really have no idea what to do today. I normally rely on Gold to plot out activities for the day.
"Cheren's mom wanted me to bring you over to visit." Gold said, as he slid into the couch. This meant exactly what he said, but I'm sure Cheren's mother worded it differently.
"When are we leaving?" I hope it's sooner than later, because I really have nothing to do today.
"In four hours. They should be good and awake by then." I should have known it would be later. Gold was getting into nap mode and that always means we won't be doing anything for a while.
I decide to go back outside and find out what Bianca is doing.
"Hey, Bianca!" I yell. She seems to have slowed down a bit and she's panting. "You okay?"
Bianca nods and catches her breath before talking. "Can you help me deliver these?" She says smiling and holding out some envelopes.
"What are these?" I ask. Bianca doesn't seem like the type of person to have a pen pal or anything, but she could be passing out letters for her parents.
"Uh-uh. It's a secret! Black-chan!" Black-chan…? "So don't let anyone see you with 'em and try to deliver as fast as possible." Bianca chirped before disappearing into her house.
I try not to think hard about what she said as I deliver the letters.
When I get home Gold is sitting on the couch watching a children's show.
"And people say I'm childish." I say as I enter the door.
"You know what I just noticed?"
"What?" I ask, plopping down on the couch.
"There are no adults in this show…"
"Who needs adults when you have the power of friendship?!" I mock. Gold lowered his eyes at me. "You know that's basically what they're saying."
"Anyway… You were gone for quite a bit. Where did you go?" Gold asked as he turned his attention back to the TV.
"I was helping Bianca deliver some letters." I let my head hit the back of the couch. What does Chan mean anyway?
"She didn't want to feel guilty about not finishing her paper job so she passed it onto you?"
"I guess," I said, before yawning. Gold asked something shortly after that but I was too deep in the dream world to hear it.
Gold woke me up later. Shaking me and calling my name. "Black? Black!" He called, before I gained consciousness. "It's time we get going to Cheren's house."
I get up whining about the whole visit. Surprisingly, I felt more refreshed when I fell asleep. Gold ignores me and drags me out the door.
I'm still sleepy so I lean against Gold as he holds my hand to keep me walking.
"Can't I sleep five more minutes?" I ask, slurring the syllables.
"No, we're supposed to be there in five minutes."
"Fine, but I expect cookies and milk when we get there."
Gold ignores me and keeps walking.
When we get there, Cheren's mother meets us at the door and ushers us in. She sits us down at the dining room table. Gold and her make small chitchat, while I try to break my drowsiness. The whiff of something sweet catches my nose and I can't help but asking.
"Is that muffins I smell?" I ask calmly. She nods. "Can I have one?" She lets out a laugh before going to get a muffin for me. I'm awake, now that I have something to nibble on so I get down to business. "Where's Cheren?" I ask, in a pause in their conversation.
"He should be in his room, but I would knock before entering." She warns, as I walk off to Cheren's room, muffin in hand.
I knock on the door to Cheren's room. He doesn't answer at first but when I knock again, he asks who it is.
"It's me Black," I say taking out another bite of the muffin. "I've come to see you." I hear Cheren fumbling with something on the other side of the door. Then he opens the door.
"Come on in." He says, and I walk past him into the room. Cheren's room is meticulously clean, unlike my room… which is just mostly empty. I wonder what he was fumbling with. "So what do you want to do?"
I take another bite of my muffin. "Let's just play some video games." Cheren always has the coolest video game; that's just one of the perks of being an only child. Cheren sets up the game while I go to get another muffin even though I'm not done with the one I had.
"Is that one for me?" He asks when I return. I nod awkwardly. "Not really hungry." I'm glad because I had no intentions of giving it to him.
I sit down next to him with my legs crisscrossed and place my muffins in the gap between my legs. "Is this game new?" I ask, recognizing the title from a commercial.
Cheren nods. "Why don't you have any video games?"
"Gold says that lazy mentors give them to their children when they don't want to take care of them." Which I guess, is true. Judging by how much time Cheren spends cooped up in his room.
"That's just an excuse so he can save his money." Cheren replies.
"I never thought about it that way… but he does have to take care of us both with his money." I turn away from the TV thinking about the muffins.
"But he doesn't have to pay taxes." Cheren's voice gets strained like he's talking through his teeth. He must be fighting a boss.
"What are taxes?" I ask, finishing off a muffin.
"My point exactly." Cheren say, as he kills the boss. "Yeah, I killed it!"
Cheren is happy until he dies on the next level. The game over screen pops up and he holds out the controller. "You want to play?" I shake my head and Cheren goes back to killing zombies.
"Has Bianca told you about her sleepover?" I shake my head. "Well, I guess she hasn't given you an invite either. I'm not invited, for obvious reasons." I would ask what those reasons were, but Cheren said they were obvious… The most obvious thing about Cheren is his glasses, in a way, but I don't wear glasses so it must be something else. Maybe it has to do with this whole 'chan' thing?
"Black! It's time to go!" Gold calls out. I stand up hastily and say goodbye to Cheren before leaving. I walk out to the living room where Gold is saying his goodbyes to Cheren's mom.
"Well, I'll talk to you some other time, okay?" Cheren's mom says as we leave and I say goodbye to her.
We walk silently at first until I decided to break it. "So what did you talk to Cheren's mom about?" I asked.
Gold hummed something. "We were talking about the stages of children, or phases as some people call them."
"What do you mean by phases?" I ask, getting in front of Gold and walking backwards.
Gold stopped walking and crouch down to my level so I stopped walking too. "Do you remember when one day you woke up and decided that chocolate ice cream was your favorite flavor? And you asked me for some everyday?" I nod. I remember that time well. "Then one day you woke up and decided that you liked vanilla?" I nodded again. "That is what I call your chocolate ice cream phase." Gold stopped crouching and began walking again.
I began walking too. "So what phase were you talking about with Cheren's mom?" I just remembered; I left my muffin.
"Puberty." Gold said, frowning.
"What's that like? Is it bad?"
"Eh… no. It's necessary to become an adult in a sense, but not necessarily good or necessarily bad. It's like getting shots, or eating your vegetables; you just need to do it." Gold stopped. "Wait, that's wrong." He kicked a rock, lying close to his foot. "It's more like breathing or… eating… yes, like eating and breathing. You must do them so life can go on."
"So you can't live without puberty?" Gold nodded.
"But as long as you go through it at some point in your life you'll be okay." Gold added.
"So what happens during puberty?" I ask, beginning to skip.
"Well, when I went through puberty… I got taller, my muscles grew, and I decided I wanted to become a mentor."
"Will that happen to me? Will I be as tall as you when I grow up?" I'm the one to stop walking now, and Gold follows my action.
He scratches the back of his neck. "Maybe, I'm not so sure, but doctors can predict how tall you can be, so if you really want to know you can ask." Gold then mumbled something.
"Huh, what did you say?"
"I said that they like playing jokes on people though." We are almost home now, and Gold starts walking a bit faster. Then Bianca walks up to us and Gold and me stop walking.
"Hey, Black. Hey, Gold." Bianca says cheerfully.
"Hello, Bianca. How are you doing today?" Gold replies.
"Hey. Bianca." I choke out. What she said earlier is still giving me the creeps; it didn't seem like her…
"Fine, Gold." She told him before turning to me and handing me and letter, much like the ones I was passing out earlier. "I wanted to invite you to my sleepover, I'm having tonight." Then she walks away. "I hope you can make it Black-chan." She says as she waves.
All I can hear while waving back is Gold's snickering. "What are you laughing about?" I ask him, when Bianca is out of sight.
"In the house and then I'll tell you." I follow Gold into the house and close the door behind me. "Oh, kids these days."
"Mind telling me what's so funny?" I ask, as I cross my arms.
"Let me see the letter." I hand the letter to Gold. He reads over it before laughing a bit. "Just as I thought." He says, handing the letter back.
"What?"
Gold stares at me for a moment before realizing that I'm very serious and the smile drops from his face. "She thinks you're a girl."
I'm taken aback, appalled. Bianca thinks… I'm a… girl? "How do you know?" I ask, curiously.
"She called you 'chan' and invited you to an all-girl sleepover party." I snatch up the letter and read it.
Hey, this is Bianca and if you got this you are officially invited to my sleepover party! It's going to be today at my house, starting at nine o'clock! Only girls will be there so make sure to bring your dolls and pillow! And don't forget to bring your jammies! Hope to see you all there!
Loads of fun,
Bianca
"So what should I do?" I ask, panicking.
"Calm down. You'll go." Gold says calmly.
"What do you mean I'll go? I'm not a girl!" I tell him, slouching into the couch. "How do they not know I'm a boy?"
I can see Gold rolling his eyes out of the corner of my eye. "Ok, we'll bring all your stuff, because you were invited and then we tell her mom that you're a boy and see what's up. If she says you can stay, you can stay and if you have to go, we go." Gold glances at the clock. "Besides, you're nine."
"What does how old I am have to do with anything? Gold, they're questioning what gender I am!" I whine.
"It may not make sense to you but it makes a lot of sense to adults." I try to grasp this. Maybe it's like taxes?
Gold abruptly stands up. "Well, let's go pack your stuff." I sigh and follow Gold into my bed room. He gets a gym bag out and places, my pillow, my blanket into it, and then some clothes to sleep in before switching it all around and places the clothes on the bottom. Then he gets my toothbrush and toothpaste and puts in in a plastic bag and places that in the gym bag.
I feel like I'm getting kicked out of the house.
Then before I know it were heading to Bianca's house. I know it's not nine so I protest. "But, Gold! It's only 8:30."
"We're leaving early so we can clear things up and leave the premise if we have to before nine." Once again it's something I don't understand but I don't argue.
We reach Bianca's house and Gold knocks on the door, which is immediately opened by Bianca's mother. "Hello!" She chirps, much like Bianca would, before letting us inside.
"How are you today?" Gold asks. Bianca's mother replies with an 'excellent'. "Well, sorry about coming early (insert an 'Oh! It's alright' here) but I noticed that it was an all-girl party and Black is a boy… so I came to clear things up…"
Bianca's mother stares off in space for a moment. "I'm fine with him staying, but what about the other parents? Do you think they'll be okay with it?"
"We can call them to make sure?" Gold suggests. Bianca's mother eagerly agrees and we go to the kitchen so Gold and Bianca's mom can call up each parent of a person Bianca invited. Most of the calls didn't stick out to me but one did. Gold seemed to be arguing with the person on the other line and despite his best attempts to stay calm and relax I could tell he was getting upset.
It all started with one line: (Well, two, counting the person on the other side.)
The person said something and Gold replied with: "Because he was invited." You could hear it in his voice. He was getting upset. "Excuse me? What is that supposed to mean?" Gold switched the phone to his other ear. "Why am I defending him? I am him!" Gold paused to listen to the person. "What do you mean you feel sorry for me? I feel sorry for you, being so ignorant and self-centered that you can't realize that you're doing your child more harm than good."
Bianca's mother held out a plate of cookies to Gold and Gold motioned for her to set it down. "Depriving her of food so she doesn't become 'fat' is not healthy. So-" Gold paused again and let the other person talk. "She isn't fat! It's genetical and you-" The person cut him off again. "I'm not blaming anything on you but depriving her of dinner and telling her that she's ugly and fat isn't going to make it any better." Gold paused again. "What do I suggest? I suggest instead of deprived her of food, you just gently persuade her to play outside more. Go play catch with her or something, and if she gets tired rest and drink some water. And then if she wants to continue, you do. Make it fun and don't push her. Make her feel special, and tell her that she if beautiful and stuff like that."
Gold paused for a moment, daydreaming. "What do you mean that's stupid?" Gold grabbed a cookie off the plate. "That isn't stupid! Did your mother do that to you?" Gold paused again. "Excuse me? I don't force him to do anything. He does it of his own free will, because I TAUGHT him how to be healthy and accepting of yourself." Gold ate the cookie. "Yes, I do accept myself." Gold paused. "Are you… are you done yet? Ok, then if you don't mind I'm going to hang up now."
Gold hung up the phone and sighed. "Ugh, people sometimes…"
"Who was that again?" Bianca's mother asked.
"You know Diana's mom?" Bianca's mom shook her head. "The really thin lady, size four body?"
"Oh… her…"
"Well, apparently she didn't take kindly to Black being here and then we started arguing about how she's starving Diana… I just hope she doesn't take the exercise thing to the extreme, if she does it at all." Gold, said as he let his head hit the table.
"Some others are still coming though, um… who were they…? Willamina, Agatha, Sandra, Victoria, and… who was it? Oh and Tiara's mother said she was coming." Gold added, eating another cookie.
"You had more luck than me," Bianca's mother said. "No one I called still wanted to come; most had the 'flu.'" Gold and she laughed, as Gold got another cookie. That's true though, most of the people at school were out because they had the flu.
"But everyone but me, Cheren, and Bianca we out on Friday with the flu." I pipe in. Gold and Bianca's mother stop laughing.
"You want to go join Bianca? I'm sure she's waiting for you." Bianca's mother asks. "Here take the cookies too." She says handing me the tray.
"Yeah, Black." Gold whispers in my ear. "Let the grown-ups talk and I'll tell you about it tomorrow, ok?" I nod and go to deliver the cookies to Bianca's room.
I step in and greet Bianca, who is happy to see me. "Hey, Black-chan! I knew you would make it!" She says happily as she helps me with the cookies.
"Everyone else should be on their way. I need to get my bag, ok?" Bianca nods and I go back to get my bag, but I overhear Gold talking.
"-I just don't know what to do sometimes. I feel like people don't respect me as a person, y'know?"
"We all make mistakes Gold." Bianca's mother comforts.
There's a big pause and I take this time to go in and get my bag. Neither Gold nor Bianca's mother say anything.
Then I hear the doorbell ring, and Bianca's mother goes to get it as I head up the stairs. "I think everyone else is here," I say as I sit down against a wall. I hear footsteps and all of a sudden there are six girls in the room.
"Hey, Bianca!" They say in unison before piling in. Then they notice me. "Hey, Black-chan!" They make little squeals and giggle.
I wave back shyly.
Bianca gets up and gives them all a hug. Saying their names. " Hey, Agatha, Vicki, Sandra, Tiara and Willy! Hello, to all of you. And as you know I even got Black-chan to come! Now we can all ask Black questions!" I start feeling nervous. I'm not really good at answering questions.
I suddenly surround by a group of girls, all sitting crisscrossed and making a circle. Now I regret sitting against the wall.
"Black-chan? How do you get your hair like that? It looks so soft." One of them asks, I think her name is Agatha?
"Yeah, and that hairstyle is so cute!" Vicki complements, and I can't help blushing.
"Can I touch it?" Tiara asks.
"Yeah! I want to touch your hair too!" One of the girls agrees, and suddenly all of the want to touch my hair.
"I-I guess I-it's o-okay…" I stutter. Some of the girls squeal while others twirl locks of my hair in their fingers.
"It is soft!" Agatha sighs. Many of the others nod. I notice 'Willy' isn't taking part in all of these. I should feel a bit glad, but I feel concerned.
"One more coming up!" Bianca's mother yells up the stairs. "Go on, they're waiting for you." Seconds later a slightly chubby girl walks through the door.
"Hey, Diana!" They say all say in unison. Then I give a little smile and wave.
Diana's eyes widen. "You guys got Black-chan to come? This is awesome! Make room." She says and they expand the circle to fit her. "Oh my goodness, you are like the prettiest girl in the whole school!" Diana gushes to me.
"But… I'm not a girl…" I tell them. Most of them don't look shocked.
"Ha!" Willy laughs, pointing an accusing finger. "I knew it! I'm the prettiest girl in the whole school."
Most of the girls ignore her.
Vicki punches me on the shoulder, which kinds of hurts. "We know, but we can still ask you about why your hair is so soft!"
"Or how you keep your figure." Diana gushes.
"Or where you buy your clothes!" Agatha chimes.
"So, you see." Vicki starts. "We don't care if you're a boy, because you make a pretty awesome girl!" Everyone else nods, including Willy. And we all finally wind down from the questions, watch a movie and then go then go to bed.
Gold doesn't have to pay taxes because he's paid by the state; they just subtract his taxes from next week's pay.