The edited version of Small Hardships. If you guys want an update on Chapter 2, it's about 60% done (as of April 9th 2021), I would say... I'm just making some edits because I was too lazy to make these beforehand. Lmao I'm such a joke.
2: Small Hardships
A young adolescent sits at his high school desk, where he collects a notebook and a few pencils from his biology binder. An entomology paper dogged him for days, and a planned field trip had given him the opportunity for some interactive research. Today was the day! The Genetics Laboratory of Detroit (GLOD) was constantly expanding their research on all types of organisms, and their entomology section was nothing short of popular. The class was heading there for a few lessons on different types of insects and how their bodies function. The boy, who had just prepared his materials, spots someone entering the classroom from the corner of his eye, and he glances up. It was his teacher.
"Good morning everyone! I hope you've all been well... especially when you have me as a teacher." Mr. Nicolas greets, laughing a little at his witty remark. "As you all should know we're going to the GLOD today… Hopefully, this trip will take some of the weight off your backs, because we'll be learning a lot of useful information, so make sure to bring the right supplies for note-taking! We'll do the roll call, then we'll pack up and head out."
The boy grabs his notebook, the pencils now sticking out amidst the pages in a bookmark fashion. As his teacher cycles through the attendance list, he listens to his peers reply with the usual "here!" and "present!"
"Lincoln Loud?" Mr. Nicolas calls out loud.
"Here, sir. Good morning." the white-haired boy answers.
Lincoln adjusts himself, and sits sideways in anticipation for their departure. Unfortunately, he can't help the stiff feeling of awkwardness. He takes a quick glance at Arnold Sawyer, one of his bullies, and he looks back sharply, almost as if he felt his presence. He wore a smug grin, reminiscent of a traumatizing encounter the two had. Uncomfortable, Lincoln averts his piercing gaze without hesitation, trying to brush him off. There's no doubt that Arnold instills a lot of fear into his victims.
Lincoln's unfamiliar with the majority of his classmates, and tends to be socially awkward around new people. Given that his white hair is all-natural, he gets a lot of stares from his peers—good and bad. Sadly, his friends from elementary school were stuck in different classes; they figured that always sticking together was a dream too far-fetched, and chose programs in accordance with their interests. Even though everyone had accepted the decision, it still bothers Lincoln, considering his current situation.
Be that as it may, he has one person who's more than willing to brighten the mood, and that's his friend from the first day of high school: Birtz Robern. He sits at a desk in the bottom left corner of the room. The two sit at opposite sides of the room, Lincoln sitting in the far right corner. For the past six months they've been the bestest of friends, and luckily, Birtz has been as loyal as a dove.
"Birtz Robern?"
"Present."
Mr. Nicolas snaps the attendance booklet shut. "Alright guys, everyone showed up on time so we'll be leaving in... I'd say the next couple minutes." He pauses for a moment to set the attendance booklet down, then advises everyone, "Make sure to get ready; don't forget to gather some materials for notes and shut off any devices in advance!" The moment Mr. Nicolas finishes his sentence, the entire classroom is abruptly filled with the sound of chairs and desks being pushed, the sound of students' chatter soon following. Amid the chaos, Lincoln spots Birtz approaching him from the side, maneuvering through the crowd of students.
"Hey Linc," Birtz stands right in front of Lincoln face-to-face, resting his hand on the desk's wooden surface to lean in a cool fashion. "Ready for the field trip?"
Lincoln captures Birtz' apparel - a large black hoodie, zipped down to reveal a plain white t-shirt. He's also wearing light blue denim jeans, which stretched down until his ankles, exposing white socks that accompanied red and white basketball shoes. Birtz isn't an amazing basketball player, mostly wearing basketball shoes for the looks, but he can still put up a good fight. His dark brown hair is messy yet tidy, being fixed up in it's usual fashion. The white-haired boy has often joked that Birtz' hair, "Kicks more ass than the bullies at school."
Lincoln jokes, "Um, totally not. Why would I want to go in the first place? It's not like I've been ripping my hair out trying to write this paper!" The two share a quick giggle before Birtz addresses the entomology project again.
"So, have you even started yet?"
"No, but I've got a pretty good layout for it. An epic paper which explores the principles of insects, including genetically modified ones and their role in science. I'd probably separate it in 3 different sections: different insects' basic functions, why insects are divided into different groups and their impact on the environment and science."
"Cool! For my paper I plan on… uh.." Birtz falters, and watches as Lincoln shakes his head in disdain. "I'm not sure at all."
Lincoln grumbles, "Dude, seriously? Not even one thought or note on it? You realize we don't have that much time to work on it... right?"
"Yes, of course I know there's not a lot of time to work on it! Look man, I had a few basketball games, and they seriously hinder my schedule." counters Birtz. "So I didn't have any time to."
"That's just another bold faced lie." chuckles Lincoln. "Since when do you play on a basketball team?! I've never heard you say anything about it, and there's no hint that you even play basketball, apart from your shoes." He gestures to Birtz' feet. "And if you really do, what's your team name and what team did you play against."
"Well, I can't say anything. Of course I don't play." admits Birtz, defeated. He stares at the floor jokingly, mocking the actions of someone racked with shame. "We should sign up for the summer team. We've got the height and potential."
Lincoln found himself to be anything more than the sport-type. If you asked him to describe his physical build in three words, it would be "frail, skinny and weak."
"Buddy, you should know that I'm anything but an athlete. I'm so flimsy, most of my weight is from my height." deflects Lincoln. "I wouldn't survive on the court. I'm better off playing video games, and staying in my room all day."
The white haired boy had grown to a slender five feet, ten inches tall over the past couple years, but he's still the skinny kid who can't fight to save his life. Many other changes happened over the years too, such as Lincoln gaining a passion for science and math, ultimately making them his best subjects.
"No, I think you are just fine. You could knock some sense into some of those punks who keep picking on you." insists Birtz, giving Lincoln a sense of hope. "You'd be great on the court, I promise! We just need to practice a bit, that's all. Maybe even work out! You know, gain that muscle and bulk up!" Birtz brings his forearm closer to his upper arm and decreases the angle between the two, 'flexing' his bicep and letting out a huge grunt. Lincoln laughs at the sight. "Heh, just kidding around."
"Dream on bud..." taunts Lincoln. They both share a quick chuckle before the teacher clears his throat to make a class announcement. He walks to the middle of the room and waves his arms up and down, which catches the eyes of many students.
"Ahem-hem-hem! Alright everyone, settle down. We are leaving now and everyone follows me. We'll go to the main entrance and there will be buses waiting for us in the front parking lot. Try not to be disruptive because people are working nearby."
Everyone in the class obeys the teacher, following him out the door. However, the students who exit the classroom end up forming a messy clump of students blocking the hallway. The teacher takes note and raises his voice in an attempt to get everyone in order.
"GUYS! Everyone please keep in order, stay together and don't block the hallways. If someone passes by, and we're moving around like this, they'll get run over by a thousand buffalos!" Most of the students comply, and try to squeeze into a single file, but some students awkwardly stick out of the line. A few students even ignored the teacher's instructions and continued to yap away with their friends.
As the line came to a standstill, Birtz moved up the line to stand beside Lincoln, who looked unfazed.
"This is so embarrassing. We are walking by classrooms with their door wide open and I bet everyone will be staring at this mass of students in the hallway. Oh my goodness, I can almost feel people staring into my soul, it's like piercing my heart, dude." Birtz says, in a whispery tone. He was trying to get a few laughs out of his friend, but Lincoln never answered, he just stared at the neighboring wall. "Lincoln? Hey, snap out of it."
Lincoln shook his head left and right in a quick, swift motion. Something had been bothering him for a while, and it had slipped into his mind, causing him to suffer from a great deal of unease. He snapped himself away from his thoughts, his concerns and his feelings. At this point, they were starting to pester him, so the white-haired boy decided to shed some light on them.
"Sorry Birtz. There's something that's been bothering me since the beginning of the school year. It's got to do with..." Lincoln sighs and stares at the ground, while his friend starts to question him.
"What's up? What's it got to do with?"
The white haired boy perks his head up.
"I feel like I'm going to lose my friends…" admits Lincoln. Birtz stares at his friend in disbelief, not believing the words that came out of his mouth.
"Wait.. what, why, why?!" sputters Birtz, "You're a great guy. I would never leave you in the dust, and I'm certain your other friends wouldn't either. What's making you feel this way? I'm genuinely confused..."
Lincoln stares at his friend with empty eyes. "It's not... you, Birtz. It's specifically the friends who go way back to elementary." Birtz nods his head, giving Lincoln the impression that he's listening. "You should see how they act now compared to before. Nowadays, when, or even if, I get to the table in the cafeteria, everyone seems so… emotionless. The only time there'd be a happy vibe was when something exciting was going on. We used to be the team who solved mysteries together, who forgave each other after any mistake, who were always.. together. Man, if you saw what we were like before, you'd be surprised!"
"Wow, uh... that sounds complicated? I wonder what's going on with them. Are you sure it's not just the high school environment?" queries Birtz. Lincoln feels glad that his friend wants to give him a sense of support. He's not surprised anyways—he's grown to know Birtz as an understanding and caring person.
"Yeah, no. I'm almost certain that's not the case. This stupid problem's been active since grade 8, last year of middle school." sighs Lincoln, he briefly looks away. "I just got to find out what I did to cause this mess." Birtz is almost taken aback by this statement. "It-"
"Dude what?!" puzzles the brown-haired adolescent. "That's bologna! I'm just going to let you know, there's no way this is you're fault. I doubt it has anything to do with you personally... How could you even think like that? It's not healthy to always pin the blame on yourself."
"I don't know man." Lincoln says. He returns Birtz' gaze. "Just feels like I have something to do with it. Maybe it's guilt from causing things in the past. But maybe you're right, and it's just us being bombarded with schoolwork."
"It depends," states Birtz. "How have they been keeping up during summers? I mean, the burden of schoolwork is gone, so the only other reason to be bailing on your friends are extracurriculars and summer school."
"Summer goes a bit better. We'd hang out as a group on occasion, but when someone misses out, all the sudden they're the 'worst' because they bailed out on our already limited time together. But, that is pretty rare." says Lincoln.
"Sounds like the separation from classes are really putting you guys on edge." suggests Birtz. "Perhaps you guys need to adapt to the changes and hang out more on weekends. Also, maybe your guys' schedules are messy during the school year and you can't find ways to hang out without everyone being busy. Communicate your schedules and organize them properly. Problem solved, no last minute delays."
"Wow, I haven't thought about the schedule part. Man, I wouldn't be surviving out here without you by my side. You're really trying to be my therapist." says the white-haired boy, thanking his best friend. Birtz doesn't hesitate to offer his friend a high-five, to which Lincoln immediately accepts. "Wait a minute, what if the teacher assigns something at the last minute?"
"Well in that case, you can just mark the time when you want to work on it on your schedule. Worst case scenario, cancel anything that isn't important. If it's something easy, no problem. Just work on it as soon as you can." suggests Birtz. He tries to go on with his advice, but a student standing behind them gives the two nerdy teens a nudge. They immediately turn around to see a kid standing behind them, seemingly pissed off.
"You morons, stop doing your nerd talk. The line is moving forward and you two are just standing here like imbeciles." the annoyed kid condemns. Lincoln and Birtz turn back around, and realize that Mr. Nicolas had given the students the go-ahead to move forward.
While the pair of friends pick up their pace to catch up with the students up ahead, Birtz quickly whispers to his buddy, "We'll continue on the bus. I'm no good at talking on-the-go. I'd end up running into a wall or something."
Meanwhile, as the two loyal teenagers continue to grow their friendship, Clyde McBride sits at a table in his visual arts class with two others, contemplating whether his friendship with his long-time best friend will last any longer. Problems arose around the last year of middle school: their hangouts had become void of emotion, and crowded, messy schedules got in the way of their hangouts. Then high school came along. A few of their friends chose different programs, causing even more separation. But, whenever he could, Clyde would see in his best friend's eyes, that this was bothering him the most. If anybody knew Lincoln the best, it was him. The two were known for having the best bromance in elementary school, but his grip on it is starting to loosen. He tries to hold on tight, but it keeps slipping away as conflict within the friend group is constant and damaging the friend circle.
"I'm not giving up this easily!" Clyde thinks. "I have a plan to bring us closer together. I'll do it for Lincoln, for all of us."
The teen pulls out his sketchpad full of drawings, and flips through the thick pages, each being occupied by a drawing, a sketch or a concept art. Not until near the middle of the sketchpad is a blank page found. Clyde starts jotting down a few ideas on how to keep their friendship on par. Clyde's friend, who's one of the two sitting at the table, takes a quick glance at the teen and sees that he's writing down notes instead of drawing; something that isn't required in this class, or needed at the moment.
"Clyde... whatcha doin? Taking notes in art class?" the teen questions. Clyde looks up to get a view of his friend, who sports a thick orange shirt and black track pants. His curly orange hair is extremely messy, similar to the way someone's hair would look when they get out of bed. He raises his right eyebrow; questioning his friend.
"Don't mind me, Rusty." replies Clyde. The teen's as nerdy as his white-haired friend, wearing large circle glasses, a blue zip-up hoodie over a yellow comic book t-shirt and black jeans. "I just have some... concerns to address." Rusty doesn't buy his friend's excuse.
"Check it out dawg." whispers Rusty, nudging the shoulder of the kid beside him. It's Zach, another friend who's part of the group. He was in the middle of sketching when Rusty nudged him, causing Zach to accidentally screw up his work. He looks up and gives a strong glare at Rusty, annoyed. He's wearing a turquoise polo shirt, blue jeans and large glasses. "Clyde's taking notes on the class… when nothing has been taught today yet."
"Shut up." shoots Zach, gesturing to the apparent scribble on his drawing. "You ruined my sketch, just look at what you did!" Rusty flinches a bit at his sudden outburst.
"Cool it, Zach. It's not even that big of a mark, stop overreacting." insists Rusty. He gestures to the scribble, which barely covers half an inch of the drawing. "You can easily just erase that small part and reconnect it."
Zach calms down a bit.
"Yeah, I can see that. No biggie, sorry for going psycho on you." apologizes Zach. "So what were you going on about? Clyde taking notes in art class?"
"I agree, he's such a dweeb." taunts Rusty. "I wouldn't be surprised if he has a binder on physical education, or even one for our lunch break." The two teens share a laugh, while Clyde gives them the death stare, one that was even distinguishable through his glasses. Of course, his friends are only joking, something that happened a lot during art class; there were plenty of times where they would find ways to make fun of each other's work, apparel or mistakes. Most groups of friends in the school loved to have pissing contests.
"Let's see what he's writing down. Come on, let me see it." goads Zach. Clyde shakes his head in refusal, to Zach's annoyance.
"No. Give me a second to finish writing this down." the teen says. The redhead shows no sign of backing down, so he decides to take Clyde's plea literally. No, he doesn't let Clyde finish writing, instead he counts down from one.
"One." jokes Zach. "There you go, I gave you a second." With a sly grin, the redhead rests his hand on the smooth, wooden table and forcibly pushes himself to reach Clyde, who sits directly across from him. He slaps his hand on the sketchbook and pulls it towards him, causing the page to crinkle. Clyde watches as his friend plops back down into his chair and clasps the book, adjusting it so he can read what's on the page. He doesn't fight back to regain it's possession to avoid the risk of damaging the pages even more.
"Am I a joke to you? You know what, whatever. Fine…" sighs Clyde. "Go ahead and take a look. But you won't get anything out of it." The teen reluctantly watches as Zach scans over Clyde's writings. The redhead looked like he was on the verge of bursting out in laughter. To Clyde, this was clearly the end of his plan. He anticipated the sound of his friend's annoying laughter, and that's exactly what ensued. Zach bursts into laughter.
"Look Rust, Clyde thinks the gang is falling apart." Zach says. Looking for Rusty's opinion, Zach grabs him by the collar of his orange shirt and tries to pull him closer, but instead pulls him from his chair and to the ground. Rusty angrily slaps Zach's hand away, as he tries to get back up onto his chair from the vinyl flooring.
"Gee, relax." says Rusty, steadying himself. "I was going to look over on my own." After getting to his feet, he peered over Zach's shoulder for a better look of what's written. Rusty raises his right eyebrow again, questioning his friend once more, but this time a cocky grin is plastered onto his face. "Dude, seriously?" The redhead laughs under his breath. "If our friend circle is really failing, it's not our fault. That Birtz kid is taking Lincoln away from us."
Clyde looks at Rusty, knowing well what the ACTUAL problem is.
"What? No!" objects Clyde. "He's just… making other friends! You know, his classes are all different. He should have someone to hang out with." Zach glared at Clyde, obviously in agreement with Rusty. The boy rested his elbow on the table and leaned in towards Clyde.
"Clyde, I'm surprised you aren't taking this seriously." reasons Zach. "Lincoln is replacing you and you're just brushing it off."
Well, if one would think this sentence is harmless, somebody lied. The Lincoln and Clyde duo used to be inseparable, but now it feels like their friendship's being balanced on a tightrope. Hearing that your best friend is replacing you is no different than a punch to the gut for Clyde McBride, and their current situation just added fuel to the fire. Even with all the pressure, Clyde uses his best efforts to ignore Zach's dreadful claim.
"Zach!" chastises Clyde. "How about you look at it this way: Lincoln has it difficult without us so he just needs a friend to help him out. Besides, I'm sure Birtz could be our friend. He would be a great addition. I'm sure he would join right? Even Stella joined our friend circle despite the incident we caused."
Zach scoffs. "Stella and Birtz are two different people. Plus that incident was many years ago! It was quite embarrassing too, I wish I could erase that memory... anyways we've never even talked to Birtz. Who knows what that guy is like?"
"Well, I guess we need to find out. What do you think about this idea: we invite Lincoln and Birtz over to our table at lunch. They should be at school in time after their field trip."
"I guess we can try that out," says Rusty. "I do kind of feel bad for those guys. Imagine having a field trip to a laboratory full of insects and other garbage, out of all places."
"It's for an assignment." replies Clyde. "Don't you remember? Lincoln mentioned it."
"Damn, he needs to write a paper on that too? Must suck. I wouldn't last a day trying to write on that stuff." says Rusty. The tall boy has a small interest in writing—he finds it relaxing and fun to express and nourish his creative side.
"Well, at least he ain't writing a paper on how it feels to meet the love of your life." taunts Zach, poking fun at his writing habits. 'You know, Rusty, maybe you should put your writing smarts into something else. Your romantic fantasies sometimes get out of hand."
The three teens share a laugh. They're all friends who love to joke around and have fun. It's no question that their relationship can be rocky at times, but they're definitely on the path for a lifelong friendship. Clyde stays put at his chair, hoping that Birtz will fit into their friend circle without a problem. Though the three adolescents don't share identical beliefs, they all have a small part in them, striving for the return of their gang's glory days.