Читать книгу Inanimate Heroes - Zack W. Van - Страница 7

Walking down the road I’d seen all of my familiar faces. There was a former marine with a very happy family of kids. He would often take them on bike rides with his entrusted Husky. Then there came the people who were only out of their home if they were primping and polishing any imperfections that their lawn might have grown. Finally, we had the nice neighbors that lived across the street from us. They cut the grass in the lot next to ours. Their kids were often outside playing in the empty yard while I walked home from school. Our neighbor had recently passed away from cancer after being in a Veteran’s hospital for months. His house was abandoned and left to rot while in the ownership of his sister that lived far away. Why she didn’t tear down the dilapidated house and sell the lot was lost on me.

As I finally reached my driveway, I could see and hear my dog wagging and barking at the door. Sometimes she would run to the screen door so viciously that she would force it open. Trixy was only a Maltese Dachshund but like all small dogs, she was as irritating as a squeaky wheel traveling 50 miles an hour. I walked into the house and she jumped onto the back of a reclining chair where she could be near eye level with me. I ran my fingers through the hair on her head and ruffled it as she tried to sniff my hand. My mother came around the corner and greeted me elatedly. We had been as close as twins since I could ever remember. My sister Leona was also home with her computer on her lap and her boyfriend next to her watching TV. Leona had just graduated from Tomliw the year before I entered it. She was 5 years older than me and she never let me forget it.

“How was your first day bud?” I tossed my book bag onto the ground near the chair and then plopped down into it.

“It’s not bad at all. I made a new friend and I have some pretty decent teachers.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. After all, I really did meet Lauren, and I really didn’t mind my teachers that much. It was the parts I left out that had been misleading. Why would I ever even consider telling anybody in my family about what happened in the hall? So they could think that I was in danger and worry about me? It was nothing I couldn’t handle and it would only upset my family.

“Did you get lost with your big backpack?”

“Shut uppp.” I whined like a kindergartener. “My bag isn’t even that big Leona. In fact a lot of kids carry them so they don’t have to keep going to their lockers.”

“Yeah. The kids that are afraid to go to their lockers.” I really wished I had a stronger case than what I had laid out on the table. Leona was like a self-taught lawyer. She could debate anything and everything that was thrown at her and make it seem perfectly logical. She must have gotten it from my father because neither I nor my mother had ever possessed the ability. Dad walked into the room, grabbed my shoulders and shook me gently.

“How was your first day son?” I smiled and before I could even respond he slapped my back and gave me a good old “atta boy!” As if that phrase was the sound of a starting gun, everyone else began to go back to their own things again. That was pretty much all the time you got in this family. It was like when you threw food at the pigeons. They were all huddled into a group and then disbanded when the reason for their collaboration was gone. I didn’t mind it at all. I didn’t want to talk about today anyway. For a sheer instant I had a clear mind and realized two things. One was a feeling I should be having, as I hadn’t eaten all day yet and I still wasn’t hungry. The second was a feeling I shouldn’t be having. I was exhausted by all of the emotion that I had gone through.

Amazing how those exact 5 words in that exact 5-second moment destroyed the rest of the 85, 395 seconds that were left over in the day. The fact that it was so stupid and yet affected me so greatly only added wind to the dust I had become. I decided taking a nap was my best plan of action. I had a gnawing headache and an all over achy exhaustion. I walked into our living where my mom was watching TV Judge Judy was on as I put my head on the arm of the couch and closed my eyes. I bet Judge Judy never had any problems like I am right now. When I woke up it was 8pm. The only reason I even woke up was because my mom had shook me.

“You’re not gonna sleep at all tonight if you keep sleeping. Come on and eat dinner with us.” The repercussions of a nap were the exact reason why I hated taking them. I was groggy and annoyed by anything that made noise. My sister’s boyfriend was also eating over and it really didn’t bother me the much. Chris was a nice guy and my parents did in fact like him. What drove my parents to strait jackets was the way Leona acted around him. She either bossed him around and yelled at him like a poorly housetrained pet or she was apologetic for the way she had been yelling at him and moped around the house.

I told my mom I wasn’t really all that hungry or feeling well and that I was just going to head off to bed. Her built-in-mom nursing skills kicked in as she asked me a plethora of questions on my well being while feeling my head and cheeks. Once she was sure I was physically ok, she said goodnight and that she’d see me in the morning. A large part of me wanted so badly to just fess up to what had happened. To just say that a kid at school made me feel like crap and that she would say all the things that I wanted to hear. But I knew better than to do something so selfish. The information would do more damage to her than good to me.

I went into my room and put my pajama’s on. It seemed like the second I went to bed and dropped my head on the pillow, I was wide awake and felt no more fatigue at all. I contemplated washing my hair in the morning and making it curly instead of straitening it. That way it would look much shorter and they might not have a problem with it. I then had a pang of anger and shame towards myself for even caring what these people thought of me. They didn’t even have names or any previous faces in my memory. All I had was the laughing and pointing of a few boys after a comment primarily about my hair. How could something so stupid bother me so much?

As I closed my eyes and drifted off, the last thing I remember thinking was whether or not I wanted to even go to school. I had the story all set up in case I wanted to skip and say I didn’t feel well in the morning. I decided I’d wait and see until then.