Chapter 4: Peculiar

I was being clutched tightly by this strange man who was claiming to be my friend Eddy. Well it actually was him, but I just couldn't believe the garbage flowing out of his mouth. I threw him off of me and could have ended it right there and move on. But I couldn't, because like Ed, he was essentially family.

"Eddy, don't you realize that Ed was seriously hurt?" I snapped at him, my voice rife with anger. "He's at the hospital right now!"

Eddy seemed shaken by this. It either wasn't what he wanted to hear or not what he expected to hear, and it clearly showed on his face.

"What do you mean hurt?" He asked. For the first real time, his face began to showcase genuine worry. "Ed's a big boy, I'm sure he's fine." Now he was trying to sound more assured in his words.

"No Eddy he's not!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. "He might die! This is no joke!" I really didn't regret yelling at him so loudly, as he just wasn't getting it and someone needed to snap some sense into him.

Now he was truly getting it. He began squirming and scratching the big red mark on the side of his neck. It was his nervous tell; without fail whenever he was truly nervous or scared, it lit up like Rudolph's nose and that was exactly what he was doing right now. For a moment, I waited for a response, thinking I could explain the situation to him and try to make sure he didn't overreact egregiously.

But then after a moment or two of dead silence he just ran off. At first I wasn't quite sure where he went, but then I saw the light emanating from the front door of his house and realized he was just avoiding the situation. I decided that I'd been through enough that day to force Eddy to understand everything, so I decided that I'd deal with it after a night's rest as it was already 20 past 11. So I went to bed, hoping tomorrow would be better, but slowly accepting the reality that it probably wouldn't.

I awoke the next day at a shockingly late 8:55 AM for me. I was usually up at 6:30 AM every day, but I assumed the stress of yesterday's events had really taken their toll on me and I just needed the extra 2 and half hours to sleep some of the stress off. After the morning routine of showering and eating some buttered toast (which saddened me as one can imagine) I stepped outside of my front door. It was very quiet, which wasn't entirely shocking. Many of the neighborhood kids didn't get up until about 9:30, and even some like Kevin slept in past 11. Still there was usually Jimmy and maybe Sarah around playing or even Rolf caretaking the animals in his backyard, so it did feel a little unnerving for almost none at all. I took a small stroll around the cul-de-sac and did finally hear somebody talking very softly.

I looked into one of the fenced alleyways and saw Jimmy talking in a soft, quiet tone with one of his stuffed animals, I believe it was a rabbit. Anyhow I walked up to him.

"Why good morning Jimmy." I said to him.

Jimmy must have not realized I was there.

"EEEK!" He screamed right at me. The pitch of his scream resonated harshly inside my eardrums for a second, even evoking a small tear in my eye the same way an onion would have made my eyes water up. I quickly cleared my face off to try and talk to him.

"Sorry about that Double D. I overreact kind of easily." He said, sounding really remorseful.

"No problem, it happens." I began. "What are you doing on this early morning?"

He stopped for a second to properly word his thoughts. "Well I was just kind of bored honestly, as Sarah is still in a bad state because of yesterday."

That made sense. It would have been traumatic for anyone to see what had happened yesterday but it had to be especially hard for her since Ed is her brother.

"What is she doing right now?" I asked.

"She's in bed still." He replied. That kind of relieved me to an extent when I first heard it.

"Oh she's still sleeping?" I asked, kind of feeling that I shouldn't have asked right after I did.

"No, like she's just lying in bed. Like she's just not wanting to even leave her room." Jimmy said, his voice sounding increasingly distressed. "I don't understand Double D! Why is she so distraught about her brother when she barely interacted with him before this all happened! I DON'T GET IT!" His yells turned into crying by the end of his little speech.

I felt bad and just gestured for him to take a seat on the ground with me. I really didn't know how well I could really explain things properly to him, but it needed to be done. "Jimmy, I don't entirely understand what exactly is going through the mind of your sis- err Sarah. I think she's always loved her brother even though it isn't always clear through her actions, and would never want something bad to happen to him. And then when something bad did happen, her true feelings did show and right now she's experiencing the rough part of caring for someone."

Jimmy nodded throughout to indicate that he seemed to understand what I was saying, at least on some level. I really hoped I'd given him some sort of relief to at least survive the day.

"Well I hope I've helped you and I can do what I can when needed, but I have some chores to do, so I need to go." I said to him. Just as I stood up to leave, Jimmy pulled down lightly on my shoulder, indicating he wasn't quite done yet.

"One question and that's all." He said.

"Alright, what is it?" I asked.

"Well, when you started you're little thing you almost called Sarah my sister." He said. I suddenly felt very embarrassed. How could I make such a simplistic mistake?

"O-Oh I'm sorry. I just kind of slipped with t-that I guess-s." I stammered through. I felt rather stupid at that moment, and my downward look definitely sold that I'm sure. "You two are just so close is all, so yeah it just slipped."

Jimmy didn't look concerned at all. "No, it's not an issue at all. I kind of like it in fact." He said. "I mean not like blood siblings, but like the true best friend sort of thing."

It had me thinking a little bit. Who would I consider a "brother" of mine? I think Ed for sure, the loyalty has always been there. I would have said Eddy before yesterday, but now I don't know. I quickly excused myself and prepared to do my chores for the day.

The majority of the day after the morning conversation was spent doing various chores, from cleaning up the various sticky notes my parents communicated with me through to cleaning the freezer out. By the end of it all, it was already past 3:30. I had a lull between then and dinner time, so I decided to try and catch up with Eddy. I wanted to clear up whatever was going on in his head and get him to go over and see Ed in the next few days. I figured a day's rest would help him calm down after the news.

So soon after finishing, I went over to Eddy's house. I waited for a few seconds after knocking on the door, when I saw an eye peek through the eyehole in the door. Just as quickly as it appeared it disappeared. I waited for about three minutes, and then suddenly I heard an odd sound from the back of the house. Like "whoop!" or an "ooof!" sound, like something falling hard. I went to the back of the house, and I saw an odd figure, looking like a person.

I then realized that it was Eddy!

"Eddy!" I yelled at him. He sharply turned towards me, and cowered back as quickly. He then took off to the north of the house, and I gave him chase. He really wasn't that fast so up until we were in the alleyways, I was right behind him. I had a chance to catch him, but I decided to try to reason with him once more.

"Why are you doing this!?" I yelled to him. "I just want to talk to you!"

Suddenly, he threw a silver rimmed, metal trash can right at me. I had a second to react, and already losing stamina, I was tripped up and out of breath. He must have looked back because I heard a maniacal laugh of sorts going on and on until it eventually faded away from what I could hear. I was just puzzled by this above all else. Was he mad at me? Was he also struggling with what was going on?

What is your deal Eddy? Was the only thing that was still in my mind as I hobbled towards my home to shower and eat.

The next few days were mostly a blur. I don't remember exactly how many days passed between the Eddy chase and the next real significant day, but about 3 or 4 sounds right. So about 4 days since the accident, or DSA for abbreviation, I had a minimal amount of chores that day so when they were done I decided to pull from my secret stash. My secret stash was an area where I hid my allowance that I earned from these chores. It was only secret because Eddy had duped me a few times into "investing" it into the scams and I would never see it again. Then when I stopped he kind of pestered me about it, so I eventually lied about not having one and it's been that way ever since.

Anyhow on that day, with Eddy doing his odd actions and everyone else in their own worlds, I decided to go get a jawbreaker or two. And no I didn't have a special time or day when I did this usually, but times had been tough so maybe a sweet, succulent jawbreaker would do the trick. It was only a dollar and with $15 in hand, I could get as many as 15! Well not really with taxes but it would be enjoyable nonetheless. So I took the walk over to the candy shop, which was a 40 minute walk, but it was a refreshing and breezy walk through the woods of Peach Creek. When I got there, no one else was in there so I felt it was my lucky day to sit and enjoy the jawbreakers I had earned through my allowance. And for the first 15 minutes, it went that way. And to be honest, I was shocked at how decidedly average it was, at least today. It was a large sour flavor that quickly came and went. At least it was only a dollar so after two of them to make sure it wasn't a singular bad breaker, I got 4 cookies to eat. And for a little longer I ate in solace.

And then suddenly the door to the shop opened, and in walked Nazz. She seemed really hot (no, I mean heated hot!) and exhausted. I didn't really think she considered me as her friend even though we'd had the heart to heart conversation at the hospital. I just thought she was being polite to me in a time of need and that was all. So to my surprise, she came over to where I was sitting.

"Can I take a seat with you Double D?" She asked.

"Yeah sure of course you can." I replied. I instantly became sweaty as she sat down in front of me.

"I didn't realize you had money on you. I just assume you do the scams because you don't have any." She said.

"It's my personal allowance. I don't let Eddy know about it or he swindle it from me." I replied.

"So he's stolen it from you before?" She asked.

"Well, I wouldn't say stolen as much as convinced me to give it to him for… his benefit." I realized what she had originally meant as I said it.

The two of us talked with one another for about the next 15 minutes before she said she had to leave to go to some practice of hers. I figured she would be in a rush, as she got picked up at the shop, so I didn't bother to ask and just started walking home myself. I was beginning to think maybe we were friends after all. After the initial nerves went away, it wasn't that much different from talking to anyone else in the world, I thought.

Maybe the girl problem was an overthought problem after all I thought to myself.

As I thought this to myself, I looked up on the rugged forest road to see a bike coming right at me!