The jangled twanging of crashing guitar strings caused Roy to drop the video game controller he'd held in his hands, and rush from the den of the Hunter family home and into his own bedroom upstairs. Storming in, he found what he had expected...his guitar lying face down on the floor, and on the bed above it a wide set of blue eyes and a thicket of dark hair trying to hide under a blanket, as if this would prevent them from the shouting that was soon to come.
"What are you doing in my room?" Roy didn't even stop to inspect the damage; rather he took to the yelling right away. This caused the small figure to huddle in closer under the blankets.
"Roy, quit picking on Rick," This was his mother, somewhere in the house; doing one of the many chores she did working for the Hunter's. Roy scowled back over his shoulder, as if his mother was sitting right there.
"He won't leave my stuff alone!" Roy howled back, crossing to his beloved guitar. It had been his father's, one of the few things he had left of Jim Fokker. This, a picture of his grandfather, and an antique model Fokker airplane his father had gotten him for a birthday, these were the only things that Roy had left to him. And Rick Hunter had managed to damage all of them at some point. At five-years-old, the small boy was a menace.
"I'm sorry Roy," Rick snuffled from under the blankets. "I was just playing a song!"
This snuffling was a typical Rick tactic to try and get out of trouble. He always thought by turning on the tears he'd get away with anything. The problem was he nearly always did.
"I told you not to mess with my stuff. I told you to stay out. But you never listen!" He picked up the guitar. The bridge was cracked clean off, and the strings hung limply from the neck, broken. The guitar was one of Roy's few sacred artifacts; it now was in ruins in his hands.
Blindly, he reached a hand over to the blanketed lump, and ripped the fabric back as hard as he could. Beneath it, the dark head cowered under tiny hands, and sobs were shaking the small shoulders. Roy was tall for his age, and despite gangly arms, he was strong. He grabbed the boy up by one shoulder, forcing him into a sitting position, and ignored the wet, red face that remorsefully looked back at him. All Roy could think of was that this uncontrollable brat had just destroyed everything that meant something to him, and no one seemed to care enough to do anything about it.
"You monster," Roy screamed harshly," You can't leave anything alone, can you? You think just because you are so little, you can get away with anything. Well you can't. Just because your mom died, doesn't make you special or anything, got it."
Rick only managed to sob harder as mucus began running out of his little nose.
"Roy Fokker, you unhand that child right now!" Sandy Fokker's voice was as cold as an Arctic wind, and just as shocking. Roy felt his red-hot anger quell beneath it, as he released the boy, and turned towards her. Rick for his part snuffled, slid off Roy's bed, and ran to Sandy, crying hysterically as Sandy wrapped a protective arm around the boy.
This gesture brought on a fresh wave of irritation, now directed at his mother. "Sure, protect him why don't you, everyone seems to anyway." Roy shot, seething despite the piercing glare of his mother's bright blue eyes. "Doesn't matter if he destroys anything that matters to anyone else, he gets off..."
"That's enough," Sandy roared, shutting off her son's tirade, but not his anger. He glared at her mutinously. "You are acting like a bully."
"And he's acting like a brat," Roy shot back, holding out his guitar in front of him as somewhere behind his eyes, a mysterious stinging began to form. "I found this, and him hiding in my bed."
Sandy looked down at the instrument brandished in front of her, and her flashing eyes softened somewhat. She recognized it immediately, and despite the still sobbing child attached to her leg, she moved to take it.
"Roy, it's just a guitar, it can be fixed," she started to say, but before she could even reach it, Roy had snatched it away from her, shocked she would say something like that.
"Just a guitar," Roy repeated, stunned. "It was DAD'S guitar, it was his, and he used to play it on the porch. Have you forgotten that?"
"Of course not, Roy," Sandy began, but Roy was too angry to continue.
"He broke it; he broke the only thing of Dad's I haven't had to fix. He comes into my stuff and messes around, as if he belongs here or something."
"He does belong here, Roy, it's his home too," Sandy tried to be reasonable.
"Yeah, and we are just guests in it," Roy retorted, and with a sudden angry gesture, he tossed his guitar towards his bed recklessly, bouncing it off the side wall, where he heard another sickening crack.
"It doesn't matter, it's just a guitar," Roy screamed back at his mother's shocked look, and rushed past her, towards the hallway, towards the front door.
"Just because his mother died doesn't mean he's the only one who doesn't have a parent," he hollered, as he ran hard out the door, down the porch, out towards the barns where the Hunter's kept their planes. Perhaps Uncle Joe would be there, working on something, and Roy could go and sit with him. But when he got inside, Joe Hunter was not there. The place was dark and cool, and musty with the scent of dirt and engine oil. It was a comforting place; it always had been, ever since the days he and his father used to work on their old Fokker plane together.
The old plane was just a pile of junk now, stowed away in the corner of the barn, most of it broken and unusable save for parts. It had been the instrument of his father's death, actually, he had crashed it on its first test flight. That had been eight years ago. Roy hoped someday to repair it and make it fly again, like it had when he was a boy. But for now it, like everything else he had of his father's, was just a broken memory.
He didn't know how long he'd been in the barn curled up in the remnants of his father's dream, when Uncle Joe had come in and found him. It was dark outside, and it might have been for hours.
"There you are," Joe had gruffed, as he spied the white-blonde hair amongst the dirty and tattered canvas covering the old Fokker plane. "You're mother's about frantic."
"I didn't think she cared," Roy shot back, but not meeting Joe's eyes. He knew he'd made his mother worry, and secretly was glad for it.
"Well she cared enough that she was about to call the Sheriff out here to look for you." Uncle Joe shrugged, and settled on an old oil drum that was sitting nearby. Joe Hunter was around the age Roy's father would have been had he lived; they had served together in Vietnam. But Joe Hunter looked far too old already; he had steel gray hair, and a squinted, weathered face. Roy knew he should only be in his forties. He looked more like Roy's only grandfather, who lived far away in Topeka.
"She should know I'd be here," Roy grumbled, stretching muscles stiff from sitting for far too long. Joe nodded in agreement.
"That's what I said, hence why I came out here. She's awful sorry about the guitar, Roy,"
"Why, she didn't break it," Roy tried to sound nonchalant.
"No, but she didn't mean to let Rick into your room either."
"He went in there all by himself; he's always going in there," Roy returned hotly,
"She just won't do anything about that."
"And that's what she means. She thought she had sent Rick outside to play, but he had come in and gone upstairs without her knowing. And she's sorry for not keeping a better eye on him."
"He gets away with everything, you know," Roy muttered petulantly. "Every since Aunt Delia..." Roy felt horribly guilty then, bringing up Delia Hunter the way he did. He remembered being Rick's age when his own father died, and how much it had hurt. And he remembered Aunt Delia being the one to make him feel better. He couldn't imagine how it would feel if someone had accused him of being a brat just because his own father had died.
"Well, there is something to that," Uncle Joe nodded knowingly. "I've been telling Pop for a while now that Rick isn't getting any proper discipline. Mitch is so eaten up by Delia's loss." Again, another wave of guilt hit Roy. "And he's not been as mindful of Rick as he should be. The boy misses his mama, what can I say, and there's only so much that you or I or your mom can do. He just wants someone to spend time with him and make him feel like everything will be OK."
"I would, but he's always messing in my stuff," Roy insisted, feeling that this point was getting forgotten once again.
"That he is, but maybe it's because he wants to be like you, Roy."
"Why would he want to do that?" Roy wrinkled his nose. The idea was weird to him.
"Well, think about it, he hasn't got any brothers or sisters; the closest he's got is you. You've been there all his life. He looks up to you, Roy. Hell, every time you go up in the air with Pop, he stands on the ground watching you. And when you are talking with me about how things work in the engine, or the design of the latest model, Rick tries to listen to every word you say. He adores you, Roy."
Stunned, Roy blinked for several minutes quietly, as he processed this information. "Rick wants to be like me? Why?"
"Cause, you're the only big brother he's ever going to have." Uncle Joe said simply.
When Uncle Joe and Roy returned to the house several minutes later, Roy was much more subdued and thoughtful. His mother tearfully apologized and promised to repair the guitar, which had now also gained a crack in the soundboard thanks to his rant. He apologized for his outburst, and this patched things up between mother and son, but little Rick watched Roy with careful, sky-blue eyes all evening, as the Hunters and Fokkers settled to dinner. Not feeling particularly hungry, Roy ate enough to satisfy his mother, and excused himself to his room, where he sat quietly, thinking about the day's events, and the responsibility he just discovered he had.
He hadn't noticed the small knock on his door, or that it had even opened. It wasn't till a small voice beside his bed caused him to jump that he even noticed a tearful Rick standing there, with a plush, stuffed airplane clutched to his chest. Most children would have a teddy bear; Rick Hunter had Arnie the Airplane. Holding it tightly, like a talisman, he stared down at his feet, not meeting Roy's eyes.
"What's up, bub," Roy finally spoke as the little boy sniffled.
"I was gonna say I was sorry, Roy, for breaking your guitar," Rick finally murmured in a voice so small Roy could barely hear it.
"I know," Roy said simply. "And I'm sorry for calling you a brat." Rick nodded, but still didn't meet Roy's eyes.
"Listen," Roy finally said after a minute of watching the small boy standing there, picking at his stuffed airplane. "Why don't you get me that book your mom used to read all the time, the one with the knight and the fairy princess?"
Rick looked up, his blue eyes bright. "Really,"
"Yeah, I'll read it to you if you want." Roy recalled how he had wanted his father to be there to read to him so badly when he was Rick's age. And he remembered how he wished he had someone to read to him like his Dad did.
"Will you make the dragon noises, like Mommy did?" Rick asked, real delight shining in his face.
"Sure, but don't make me talk all girly for the princess, OK." Roy laughed, as the dark head turned and ran out of the room quickly, calling back he'd be back in a minute.