Hello Peoples!
"In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit." Albert Schweitzer
Now…
I own nothing you may recognize and some things that you won't.
The Dark Phantom:: Book One:: Growing Pains:: Chapter 8
3rd Sep.
The small child stretches across his bed, causing an angry bicycle bell to ring from the floor. He blinks and sees that the sky is still the indigo of the night. He rolls over and closes his eyes, only to roll over a little while later. After several minutes of this fruitless tossing and turning, Danny finally swings his legs over the side of the bed and hops down.
Arching his back, he walks to his closet to get dressed for the day. Blue, seeing this, dances up from the floor and then dives through it. Danny huffs a laugh, having seen the dive out of the corner of his eye.
The child enters the kitchen and immediately breaks into giggles. Blue is making circles of light on the ceiling. He grabs a bowl of cereal, sits down, and starts munching on it. Blue watches the whole thing with no small amount of amusement.
"Danny?" Maddie asks the small child sitting on the living room floor, playing with air. He looks up in response and then starts to snicker at something.
"What's so funny, young man?"
He shakes his head in response.
She hums in disbelief, "You need to go in an hour. Did you have breakfast?"
He nods, then gets distracted by snickering at the TV. She sighs and shakes her head. Heading into the kitchen to make food for the rest of the family, she wonders what he finds so amusing.
THUMP
"That would be your father."
"DAD!"
"And that would be your sister. You should get everything you need for school. Your sister will want to take off as soon as she's done."
THUD, THUD, THUD, THUD
"DANNY-BOY! Wait, why are you already down here?"
Danny slips past the large male and up the stairs. He grabs some colored pencils Jazz had gotten him for a birthday present and a never used sketchbook. He opens his closet and works out a small black and purple backpack on his tippy toes. He moves to his bed and drops the sketchbook and colored pencils into the bag.
He is starting down the stairs, backpack on when Jazz calls up, "DANNY, TIME TO GO!"
They're silent as they enter the building; the receptionist smiles, waves them in, then goes back to jotting things down on paper.
Jazz turns to him, "I'll pick you up after school. Have fun and be good."
She then turns and heads out the door after his nod; he makes his way into yesterday's room.
Mrs. Cleaverwood smiles at him, "Hello, Danny. Tucker isn't here yet, but he likely will be soon."
He smiles at her before nodding and walks to the 'art' table. He plops into a blue chair and begins to draw.
Danny looks up from his doodles, realizing it's been a while and there is no Tucker. He looks around and spots the red beret across the room. He gets up and walks over.
"Tucker?"
"S-sorry. D-d-dash t-threatened me if I t-t-talk t-to you. I-I want t-t-to be your friend. D-d-dash t-t-threatened me."
"Tucker?" He asks, a hurt puppy face appearing.
Tucker ducks his head and ignores Danny. Danny jerks back. Where is Jazz's help when he needs her? Blue starts to go in and out of Tucker's head, blood red and sounding like a dying duck: anger, sadness. Danny turns and walks away; Dash, Dash will keep everyone away, force him to be alone and isolated, won't he?
Danny jerks awake, nearly hitting his head on the table. Blue grumbles, upset at having been moved from its comfy spot.
"Sowary." He mumbles low to the wisp, not to disturb anyone else.
He peaks out from under the art table, absently noting the sleeping bodies scattered around the room. Mrs. Cleaverwood stands across the room near the door, talking with another adult in hushed voices. His head tilts as he tries to make out the words.
He shakes his head and turns over when he realizes they're too quiet for him to understand. Grabbing the still grumbling wisp, he curls under the table and tries to go back to sleep.
"LUNCHTIME EVERYONE!"
Looking up from his colorful sketchbook, Danny sees all the other kids surrounding today's serving table. He gets up and wanders over to wait in line.
About halfway back to the art table, he's stopped by the biggest kid in class.
"Gimme you lunch." The bulky blonde demands.
"Why?"
"Cause I bigger then you. You haveta listen me."
Danny's head tilts to the side, "Haveta?"
Dash's chest puffs out, and he punches a fist into his other hand. "Yeah, haveta."
"Don't haveta, but here." Danny hands his lunch to the bully, trying to stop himself from laughing as Blue tries and fails to hit the other.
He walks past the stupefied Dash towards his table, where he stops and looks back at his lunch. Hopefully, the adults will remember they exist tonight and don't bring the food to life.
A shadow looms over the doodling child, blocking out his light.
"Need somethn?"
"Wha happen to you friend?" The blonde idiot sneers.
"You." Danny looks at Dash and cocks his head to the side, "Wha friend?"
"Beret-boy, tha friend."
Danny thinks for a moment, "Not friends."
"You buddy-buddy yayday?"
Danny sees Mrs. Cleaverwood from the corner of his eye; he focuses back on his drawing, knowing Dash can't do anything now. Dash huffs in frustration and walks away.
"Danny? Why are you all alone and not with Tucker, or any others?" Mrs. Cleaverwood asks, standing next to the child. He seemed so happy yesterday.
"Nothin."
"I'm sure Tucker would like someone to play with."
He finally looks up and makes eye contact. He blinks a few times, "He won't want to."
She cannot stop her eyes from widening, "Do I need to talk to him?"
He shakes his head, "No, just watch."
"What do you mean?"
Danny shakes his head, "Just watch."
She raises an eyebrow, "Watch who, Tucker?"
He once again shakes his head. She lets out a heaving sigh, kids. She'll have to watch the children's interactions much closer now; maybe it's time to get an assistant. The kid is back to drawing; it looks like he's been improving too.
"How would you like to learn something new?"
He looks up at her, cocks his head, and blinks. He then nods. She beams at him and then bounds to a filing cabinet across the room. She comes back with a flimsy plastic bound notebook with 'Aa' and an apple on the front and a plain blue metal bound notebook.
She sets them both on the table and pulls out one of the chairs. She sits on it; it's not exactly comfortable. She opens the plastic-bound one and shows it to him.
"This is A, and this picture here starts with the letter, such as apple. You first trace the big letter following the arrows. You trace them here, then you can write them here. The alphabet goes: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, and Z. The last few pages will have you writing some words that match the pictures.
"You may do them as fast or as slowly as you like, and this notebook here," she picks up the metal bound one, "is a college-lined spiral notebook which you can use for extra practice." She finally takes a breath. "When you are done with a page, come and have me look over it, okay?"
The poor thing looks overwhelmed, oops ~ maybe she went a little overboard.
"If you need any help, please ask. I'd be happy to help."
Now she has to watch some trouble-making rascals, shame ~ she wants to introduce a new mind to the beautiful world of books.
Chapter Stats: 5 pages 1322 words.
Part of chapter 7.
Peace and Pieces,
Sugar