Chapter 5: Acquaintances
Matthew had just slipped his notebook into his backpack when there was a distinct but gentle knock on his door.
"Matthew?" His mother asked, opening the door and leaning inside, "Would you come down and set the table please?"
"Sure," he chirped sliding the colored pencils into a cup on the edge of his desk. He followed Michelle down the stairs and began to search for the plates. Realizing his predicament she smiled and asked if he could instead just keep stirring the onions she was sautéing and that she would show him where everything was kept after dinner. Matthew was an exhalent cook. Even though Arthur had been his "Father", Francis really raised him, and Matthew got all his skills from Francis, a French chef. However he didn't think of this when he began sautéing the onions, it was just force of habit; he had cooked most of his own meals for almost five years.
After a thorough tour of the kitchen Matthew caught Michelle yawning. He knew her job as a social worker could be very demanding of her energy, so he bit her goodnight with a smile and told her to get plenty of rest. Matthew himself was not very tired at all, so he looked through the large book shelf in the living room. Matthew's eye was caught by a bright red dust cover announcing the book to be The Original Illustrated Sherlock Holmes. The first story started on Page 11 with The Scandal in Bohemia, it began with a large calligraphy T, "To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. . ." So absorbed was he by the tales of Holmes' adventures that when the cuckoo clock in the hall struck eleven Matthew jumped and nearly dropped the thick volume. Realizing the time he yawned involuntarily and decided it was high time he went to bed.
When Matthew awoke in the morning it was not to the harsh beep of an alarm clock he was accustomed to, but a gentle shake on his shoulder. Rolling over he smiled at the beautiful face that belonged to his mother. Mother. He liked the sound of that.
"Morning," He said groggily tumbling out of bed to get ready for school. Matthew wasn't exactly a morning person but was much better than Alfred who resembled a zombie for a good hour after he was woken. After a quick shower Matthew dressed himself in simple worn loose jeans, and pale blue T-shirt and his favorite red sweatshirt. The sweatshirt was a size or two to big and was absolutely enormous on him when he first got it several years before. It was like a security blanket for him.
Matthew's mother was still getting ready when he came into the kitchen so he decided to make them both a breakfast of cheese and sausage omelets. He was half finished when Michelle entered and smiled at the nice surprise. They chatted pleasantly over breakfast and when they had finished and Matthew brushed his teeth she offered him a ride to school. He thanked her and the Car ride was filled with soft chatter and the lull of the radio on low volume.
When they reached the classic brick building Michelle bid Matthew goodbye and wished him luck at school. To the outside observer it looked as normal a scene as any, like they had been family since Matthew was born. To him, it was so much better. It was what life was supposed to be like, not what he had previously believed it was.
Matthew searched his memory for the placement of his locker, it would be incredibly embarrassing if he tried to get into someone else's by mistake. Luckily he had quite a good memory and got his things and to class with no problem. The first half of the day when rather uneventfully. Matthew still noticed people sneaking glances at him and it made him uncomfortable, he was much more accustomed to being ignored like the cracking beige paint on the walls.
When lunch came Matthew stood awkwardly by the doors to the cafeteria. The day before he had eaten with Feliciano, the blonde boy, whose name he learned was Ludwig, and a quiet Japanese boy named Kiku. They were friendly, but Matthew had felt so out of place, especially since there was definitely something more than friendship between Feliciano and Ludwig. He was looking around stiffly he recognized Katyusha, the friendly, almost Russian, girl he had spoken to the day before. She was sitting with the grumpy Italian boy, Lovino, and another boy Matthew didn't recognize. He was tall, even sitting, and seemed even taller because his dirty blonde hair was spiked a good four inches above his head if not more. They were an interesting group. Katyusha was laughing, the tall boy was chuckling lightly, and Lovino was pouting.
Matthew shuffled over and asked quietly, "C-can I sit h-here?"
"I don't know, can you?" the blonde boy deadpanned, his face completely straight.
"Uh, um- I"
"Of course you can, Matthew." Katyusha said smiling at him before glaring slightly at the boy, who looked like he was probably also a senior. "This is Lars, and I believe you already met Lovino."
"Uh, yeah, n-nice to m-meet you."
Lunched passed quickly, it was filled with meaningless chitter-chatter about random things like 1960s cars and tulip breeding. The whole thing just felt right to Matthew. It felt like he belonged, or what he assumed belonging felt like. As it turned out Matthew had sixth hour economics with Lars, and he learned quite a bit about the other students, even though his shy nature kept him from doing very much of the talking.
Truly the rest of the day was about as exciting as a normal school day. Matthew found himself sketching in seventh hour, later he recognized the smiling faces of Katyusha and Lars and the slightly less grumpy then normal face if Lovino gazing up at him form the page. They were on some kind of playground. Lovino had his arms crossed behind Katyusha who was reaching towards him as Lars looked over his shoulder slightly to the side.
Getting on the bus Matthew felt more secure than he had before, but it was still a new town, a new life that he knew nothing about.
When the bus stopped on the corner of his block Matthew and a two other boys disembarked. Matthew immediately knew Ludwig, he was hard to forget, and Matthew recognized the other from his homeroom. He had pure white hair, beautiful maroon eyes and an expression that told Matthew, "I'm the big man here, and I'm bored. Entertain me." Matthew was quite glad that there were other people at his bus stop. He hadn't taken the bus in America because if Alfred wasn't with him, often the bus wouldn't stop at his stop.
Matthew made sure to stomp the snow off his boots before he went inside and left them on the mat and his coat on one of the hooks just inside the door, by the radiator. Michelle wasn't home yet, but Matthew hadn't expected her to be. He had been assigned homework in a few of his classes and as much as he loathed it, he was the kind of person who liked to get it over with instead of letting it sit and plague his mind. He sat at the light pine desk and let his backpack fall at the feet of his chair.
Dragging his materials out of the black bag Matthew began on his homework, groaning slightly. The work itself was fairly easy, but that didn't make him want to do it any more. After about half an hour he was done and went back to the Sherlock Holmes book. He admired Sir Conan Doyle. Holmes was a genius, but he was a just a character out of Doyle's mind. If someone could think up and write for such a character Matthew believed they were all the more genius.
Matthew had just finished The Adventure of the Speckled Band when he looked at the clock and saw it was already almost six o'clock. The teenager decided to make dinner because was hungry and his mother wasn't home yet. It took quite a bit of shuffling through cabinets and drawers but Matthew managed to have fried zucchini cooking when Michelle walked through the front door. She smiled when she saw her son at the stove, humming and bouncing slightly to the music he had playing in his earbuds. She had no idea that it was hard rock beating in his ears, and found the scene quite adorable. When he tuned around the put a hot pad on the table Matthew was startled to see it already set.
"How long have you been home?" he asked his mother when she entered the kitchen in sweat pants a long-sleeved shirt and a knit shawl-blanket-sweater thing.
"About half-an-hour" she answered simply. "Is dinner ready?" her voice was sweet and slightly teasing. Dinner passed uneventfully. Matthew could get used to this, hour after hour passing unremarkably, but not boringly. It was nice, domestic. Matthew went to bed content, which was still a new feeling for him. He liked it.
Over breakfast the next day Michelle mentioned that she was sorry that hadn't spent much quality time together and that she would bring him around town that weekend. The idea was exciting to Matthew. He had seen quite a bit of the town on his bus ride to and from school, but had never really gone anywhere other than their home and the school.
When he got to school Matthew was smiling gently. The prospect of touring the town had him excited and slightly nervous, but mostly excited for the weekend. The seats they had had in homeroom were not technically assigned, but nearly everyone sat with the same people every day so they might as well have been. Matthew didn't mind that he didn't really have friends to sit with. After all, he had never had them before, why should it bother him now? Matthew exchanged a few less unfriendly than usual words with Lovino, but Matthew's shyness and Lovino's crabbiness made these few and far between.
The dull, loud clang of the bell brought Matthew's eyes to the clock above the classroom door which proclaimed there to be thirteen minutes left in class. A girl about his age noticed his confusion, "Oh, you can't trust any of the clocks here." She had hair the same color as Lars' that flowed down to in a style just a bit too long to be a bob in waves. Her eyes were an interesting blue-green-yellow that seemed very familiar to him, if he could just remember, "None of them say the same thing, and there all wrong, just trust the bell."
"O-oh. T-thanks" he stuttered back. She smiled and left with the herd of students. It was as he was packing his things that Matthew noticed most of the students were wearing watches, a lot more than had at his old school. He noted this as an oddity, but at least it had an explanation, so he didn't bother questioning it.
Art was definitely Matthew's favorite class. He was taking landscape drawing/painting to get his fine arts credits. So far all they had done was start to talk about the growing structure of trees. Mr. Ginderfew believed that art was based in science; or rather that both art and science were rooted in nature, so t study one required study of the other. Actually found it quite interesting how the wind could twist and bend trees, and how roots would burrow through solid stone to get to softer earth. Of course, at the moment they were looking at the basic tree structure rather than the intricate growing patterns, but you have to start somewhere.
By the time the students were released for lunch Matthew's stomach was letting out soft gurgling noises alerting him that it was high time to eat. Matthew had the most stereotypical looking lunches one could hope for. Every morning since sixth grade he packed Tupperware containers into a brown paper bag. The same brown paper bag. He would use each bag for almost two months before it would get too worn out to use anymore. Inside his lunch however was a more varied situation. Some days Matthew would have the odd urge to become the epitome of a school lunch. It would contain a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich – cut diagonally – an apple, carrot sticks and a chocolate chip cookie. Most days however, he just used any leftovers from the night before, or, if he got up exceptionally early, would make himself a banana-Nutella-maple-syrup sandwich, and fill his lunch with a peach or strawberries, some steamed and seasoned broccoli and other things of the like. 1
To the blonde teenager his three odd . . . acquaintances(?) were hard to miss. Matthew wasn't quite sure what to call these people. He hadn't known them long enough to be considered friends, per say, but already they were closer to him than anyone else, except Im Yong Soo, but that's a story for another day. Matthew supposed acquaintance would have to do for now and walked over to the other highschoolers.2
"H-hello," Matthew greeted quietly,
"Hi Matt" "Hey," "Yeah, yeah, just sit the hell down bastard." Were the responses of his fri-acquaintances. Honestly Matthew was not expecting any of them to answer, much less hear his soft greeting, but the fact that they did made his spirit practically glow as he sat down for another relaxed, conversation filled lunch. Matthew himself still said very little and just enjoyed being with them. Even without talking too much, Matthew never felt out of place or ignored as he had when he hung out with Alfred and his friends. Matthew didn't need to learn to love it here, he already did.
AN: To anyone who has followed, favorited, reviewed, or just read this story, thank you so much. I know I promised this chapter sooner, but I have an excuse! The swing set was broken. Yes I'm serious. I write best when I'm swinging or walking because their mindless activities that occupy my body but let my brain think. It's fixed now, but I'm not sure how permanent the fix is, and because it's older than I am, it'll soon be beyond redemption. But I will try my darlings!
Now as you may have noticed there are little exponential numbers at points in this chapter. You can expect to see them in later chapters as well. That little letter means that There is some interesting tidbit about that paragraph/sentence that is not at all relevant to the story, and so will be explained in the footnote.
1: As to the obsession to his lunch, I don't really know. I was kinda hungry when I wrote it, but mostly (for some odd reason) What people eat for lunch at school is fascinating to me. I personally have had almost the same lunch for as long as I can remember.
2: Is this a word? Should it be high schoolers? high school-ers? I don't know. According to it's High schoolers, but no matter what my spell checker says it's wrong. I love my spell checker so much, and you all should to. If it wasn't for Word's automatic spell checking, so many of the words would be wrong you wouldn't be able to usnderstand the story. Just to prove my point, I didn't use the spell cheak for this sentance or the one before. Now you understand and apprecate my spell-cheker.