Yeah, I'm restarting this. I really let myself down last time not following through, but I'm sure I'll do better this time.
Chapter One. Coffee Beans Don’t Lie.
“C’mon Professor! Why can’t you let me have the shiny Charmander? I swear I’ll make it really strong one day!”
“Well Aqua, if you promise to one day become the best trainer in the world I can give him to you.”
“Wow! Thanks Professor! Look! He already likes me!”
“Haha! Well now isn’t tha-"
The TV screened flashed to black, cutting off the show’s Professor mid-sentence. The small box, having been silenced, quickly faded into the background of the room. The room itself was small with blue walls, and a lone window poured soft morning light in, highlighting floating dust particles and leaving one brilliant ray to find its way onto Chance Roades’ face, still in bed. A couple of Pidove outside chirped idly, talking of whatever dumb things Pidove talk about. Anime, probably. The young boy squirmed and turned over in his bed feeling the familiar morning haziness he always did after a bad night’s rest. The bed creaked and cracked under the boy's weight, apparently just as tired as he was.
“Chance! Time to get up!”
A middle aged woman stood among the mess of Chance’s room. Stepping carefully over a few discarded cans of PokeCola, the woman placed the young boy’s TV remote back on to his dresser. She bent down closer to the dresser with a suspicious blue eye before blowing a layer of dirt off it. A cloud flew up in the air, disturbed at having been woken from its happy slumber, before falling back on to its rightful place. Chance’s mom frowned.
“Honestly Chance, I don’t see how you get this room so dirty! If you’re not careful all this dust will get in your lungs... and then what? Dust cancer! That’s what!”
The mother put her hands on her hips and wiped some dust off on her white apron, a homemade set of letters stitched in the side spelling out “Love you Mom.” Furrowing her brow, Vi, as her real name was, kicked the side of Chance’s bed. It gave a good rattle before staying still again. The Pidove flew away, deciding to find a better place to talk about their precious anime, one where women wouldn’t disturb them. Odd, as this was rarely a problem for them.
“Do you ever listen to me anymore? I swear I feel like I’m talking to a brick wall sometimes.”
The mountain of blankets and pillows squirmed again before a messy head of dark green hair slowly arose.
“I get it mom. Dust bad. Brick wall good.”
Chance laid his head down again on the pillow under him. Narrowing her eyes, Vi quickly pulled the blankets off of the bed, leaving Chance exposed in nothing but his boxers. Laying on the bed now was a pale body, skinnier than most, fragile as some would say. Suitable, as his mother often treated him like a walking glass house. Chance quickly rolled out of bed with a gasp.
“Jeez Mom! I’m in my boxers! I’m up! I’m up! Just get out of my room!” he said, obviously not flustered in any way whatsoever.
Chance’s mom grinned at her success. She walked casually over to the side of the bed where Chance hurried to cover his body with the blanket again. Wrapping his body up first then his head like an Arab women in the streets. The boy let out an annoyed huff and a mean pair of bright green eyes shone forth from him. Chance’s mom ignored them and walked out of the room, but not before leaving one final comment to fill the air,
“Don’t “Jeez” me Chance! It’s not like you have anything I haven’t seen before!”
Chance’s cheeks quickly shone red. In his defense, it was kind of a gross thing to say.
-------
Chance came walking down the stairs just having gotten out of the shower. After a few moments of wrestling his hair, the young boy gave up and the triumphant green mess assumed its rightful place as the leading “Mop Hairdo” in New Wave, Johto. Taking a few moments to smooth out his school outfit, a plain white button up and black slacks, Chance walked into the kitchen and quickly sat down at the table. Spotting a newspaper lying on the counter next to him, the 14 year old took it up with his hands to search through the headlines.
Page 1 first.
“Trainer breaks record for most gyms beat!”
Boring, right? Page 2.
“Johto Grandmother survives encounter with wild Ursaring! Amazing!”
Who wants to read about Grandmas? Page 3.
“Explosions! Boob! Fart!”
Pfft, like anyone likes those things. Page 4.
“Stocks take a slight downturn for Watanabe industries. CEO comments.”
Chance quickly set the other pages down and went to work reading the page. Articles about explosions? Boobs? Really? What kind of newspaper publishes those things, Chance thought, skimming over the stock article. There’s a children’s section of the Newspaper for a reason. Chance was halfway through the article, albeit not understanding a word of it, before his mother came down with her brown hair fixed into a tight bun.
“Good Morning my beautiful son!” she sang, opening the blinds and letting light into the room.
Chance turned from the intruding brightness and grunted in response.
“What do you want for breakfast today, sweetie?” she sang again, now sashaying towards her son.
Chance laid the paper down and looked up at his mom, who was now practically bending over him in anticipation of the answer.
“I’m just gonna’ have coffee. I’ll make it.” He said, sliding out of his chair and walking over to the counter where his father’s coffee maker waited. The black machine groaned and sputtered at the thought of having to do anything. It was old, probably older than the house itself. I suppose if it had legs it would have jumped off the counter and ran as far away as it could have, but this story doesn’t get that weird so soon.
“Coffee?!” she cried, “First Dust, and now Coffee? What’s next? Heroin?! Oh my sweet baby boy can’t end up jail for Heroin! He won’t last a minute! You know how crazy those people in jail are! They’ll scoop up a little boy like you in no time!”
Chance shook his head bitterly and grabbed a bag of coffee grounds from the pantry as his mother continued on.
“Oh! My poor little boy!”
“I’m not a little boy, mom! Coffee isn’t going to hurt me!” Chance spat. crushing the coffee grounds slightly in his hands
Vi backed off and looked down sullenly before brightening up again. She brought her hands up to her chest as her eyes took on a dreamy state, the kind mother’s get while at their son’s graduation or the when they think about all those crazy nights they spent taking tequila shots in downtown Goldenrod.
“Oh!! I get it!” she said with a deep smile.
“You want to be a big boy just like your father!”
Chance began pouring the coffee grounds into the machine. It let out a few gurgled objections. Somewhere, deep in its coffee making heart, it died a little.
“Oh that is so cute! I’ll have to tell your cousin Sherry all about this!” She said gleaming in joy.
Chance closed the machine and punched a few buttons. The machine slowly worked itself into action with a low, mechanical crunch.
Chance was about to turn around when all of sudden he felt his mother fall onto him an embrace from behind. He immediately tensed up as she squeezed him hard. Her arms wrapped around her son like a snake in a death grip. His eyes widened as he felt her full chest on his back. It was strange, he felt small, like really small. Like he was just a little kid again, not even big enough to see over the kitchen counter. His whole body froze. Nothing but the quiet rumbling of coffee maker wishing it was dead in the background. After a few seconds of intense awkwardness, things got even more awkward as his mother whispered,
“You’re going to be a great man someday, Chance. I know it.”
Chance’s cheeks shone red again. He quickly broke free of the grasp and headed for the door, grabbing his black backpack along the way.
“I’m going to school.”
“But what about your big boy coffee?” his mom pleaded before the door slammed shut.
A few seconds later the coffee maker exploded, fed up with the irrationality of the human race.
-------
The morning had brightened up even more as Chance walked slowly toward school. The boy shielded his eyes from the harsh glare. A rising sun was making its way over New Wave, lighting up the various small shops and stalls around, most still closed.
“…Stupid sun…”
To Chance, it looked like a big monster, rising from the ground, like it was slowly going to burn up the entire town with its rays. And the stalls just represented these insignificant people trying to get ahead of everyone else while this slow, nameless monster was descending upon them. Chance spat on to the ground next to him and kept walking forward. Was it normal for 13 year olds to have these kind of thoughts? He didn’t care.
“Chance! Chance!” a shrill voice called out.
Chance stopped and closed his eyes with a sigh, knowing exactly who it was. Aide Perrera finally arrived at his side, out of breath and bending over with her hands on her knees. She lifted her head up quick, causing her short orange hair to flip around. Under that a pair of vibrantly awake yellow eyes shone. Still out of breath, her dark red flushed cheeks pumped up and down. Overall she was full of mismatched color, the only thing organized about her being the simple black skirt and white shirt she was forced to wear as a school uniform. Chance certainly thought she was full of something, though it wasn’t color. Methane, probably.
“You left early today, huh?” she said in between breaths. “I had to run just to catch up to you!”
Chance cast his eyes away.
“My mom was bein’ weird. I had to get out.”
Aide brought her bright green backpack around and fished inside of it. She finally brought out her desired objects, a couple of PokeCereal Bars. It should be noted that the entire world seems to have this obsession with the prefix “Poke”. It’s like adding that before any generic thing suddenly makes the item in question more valuable. Often these PokeObjects will have brightly colored sugars, stickers, and other things that generally make parents want to gag. Kids find them irresistible though. How strange.
“See! I brought two! Want one?” she said with a bright smile.
Chance detested these kinds of foods but the rumbling in his stomach was plotting to betray him. Chance gave it a mental punch to its stomach-face and shook his head.
“I already drank a cup of coffee this morning.” He said in his best “I don’t care about the thing I just said” voice.
Certainly, if stomachs had mouths, Chance’s would have shouted “Liar! You Lie!” But they do not, so instead it just sat there and... digested.
“Blech! That stuff grosses me out.” Aide said, lowering the sugary bars back into her backpack. “I’ll just save these for later then!”
After a few minutes the two arrived at the outer edges of PTLA, or Pokemon Trainer League Academy. The name made it sound much more prestigious than it actually was. It was nothing more than a medium sized concrete building with a couple bushes planted around the side. Badly drawn chalk images of pokemon lay scattered in the lot, vestiges of kindergarten recess. Chance avoided their brightly colored eyes, which was hard considering most of them had eyes looking in two different directions.
Aide stopped and bent down to pet the drawing of a Shuckle.
“Aren’t they cute?” she cooed.
“You know I don’t like those things.” Chance said, staring uncomfortably at the cross eyed pokemon. “They’re weird.”
“C’mon! He just wants a hug!” Aide said, lying down on the chalk. “Here, just pet him once.”
“Why would I pet a chalk drawing?” He groaned, turning away from the Shuckle.
“Oh, I’ll love you, Shucky!” Aide said.
“You’re weird, Aide.” Chance said, waiting for the girl.
“You say that about everyone!” Aide said hopping up.
Chance flashed his head over to Aide with an angry look, “No I don’t!”
Aide began shaking her head up and down furiously.
“What about Mrs. Pear? You called her weird yesterday!”
Chance looked shocked.
“Well she is!”
Aide shook her head dismissively.
“And then the day before that it was Corrin. Before that it was Denny Horowitz. Before that-“
Chance held up his hand in a stop motion.
“Those were all isolated cases. They really were being weird!”
“Just today you called your mom weird! And then it was poor little Shucky! And now it’s me! I think you’re the weird one, Chance!”
Chance stayed quiet for a second.
It was a true in a way. He was different than everyone else. He drank coffee. (kind of) He read real articles in the newspaper. It’d been like that his whole life. He never wanted to just ‘play’. He simply wanted to be left alone. But everyone else was always being so, well, for lack of a better word, weird that he had to comment on it. It seemed like everyone else around was always acting immature and he was the only voice of reason.
Aide pushed her face close to Chance’s with a searching look in her eyes.
“Yep! Looks like you have a full on case of denial!”
Chance recoiled.
“Denial?!”
Aide shuck her head up and down again.
“Stage Three I’d say. The worst case I’ve seen in all my life.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Aide pulled out a stethoscope from her backpack.
“I so do! I’m a doctor! See my stethoscope? Shiny, huh?”
The sunlight glistened off of the medical device. It was brand new.
“Like it? My daddy got me one! You know he’s never home so sometimes he sends me cool stuff like this!”
Chance turned his nose up.
“You probably don’t even know how to use that!”
Aide’s eyes got big.
“I so do! Watch!”
Aide sprang upon Chance pushing the medical device into his ear. Chance writhed around, gasping for breath.
“Stay still! I gotta find the heart beat!”
Chance gave up struggling and lay there with a frown on his face. Aide placed the stethoscope on his chest.
“I don’t hear it…”
“Put the tong-things in your ears.”
“Those things? I thought they were for spaghetti…”
Aide placed the stethoscope properly into her ears and listened.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
A wide smile went over her face.
“There’s the beat, nurse!”
Chance rolled his eyes.
“Very good Doctor Aide. Let me up now?”
Aide rolled off of the boy who stood up and dusted himself off.
Aide gently placed the stethoscope back into her backpack, making sure not to harm it.
“You’re so smart, Chance.” Aide grinned.
After a short walk the pair arrived at the big glass doors to the school lobby. The school loomed over them and the sun was at the pair’s back, seemingly pushing them into the concrete establishment. Inside the chirping of the School’s meager staff could be heard. Pep Band meeting after school, the Soccer scrimmage in a week, but it all seemed so useless to Chance, who never had joined any extracurricular activity in his life. The two looked at each other, Chance with a frown, Aide still smiling. It was another day. Chance couldn’t help but let out a sad sigh. Aide took his hand and grinned largely.
“Aww! Don’t be so sad little Chancey!” Aide said, teasing.
Chance’s hand writhed and squirmed around uncomfortably in the girl’s grasp, trying to escape, but it was to no avail. He gave up before saying plainly, in a matter of fact tone,
“Don’t call me that.”
-------
Fever Pitch: A Tale of Winners, Weirdos, and Weathermen
Rated PG-15 for sexual innuendo, violence, and some more some more sexual innuendo.
Chapter One. Coffee Beans Don’t Lie.
“C’mon Professor! Why can’t you let me have the shiny Charmander? I swear I’ll make it really strong one day!”
“Well Aqua, if you promise to one day become the best trainer in the world I can give him to you.”
“Wow! Thanks Professor! Look! He already likes me!”
“Haha! Well now isn’t tha-"
The TV screened flashed to black, cutting off the show’s Professor mid-sentence. The small box, having been silenced, quickly faded into the background of the room. The room itself was small with blue walls, and a lone window poured soft morning light in, highlighting floating dust particles and leaving one brilliant ray to find its way onto Chance Roades’ face, still in bed. A couple of Pidove outside chirped idly, talking of whatever dumb things Pidove talk about. Anime, probably. The young boy squirmed and turned over in his bed feeling the familiar morning haziness he always did after a bad night’s rest. The bed creaked and cracked under the boy's weight, apparently just as tired as he was.
“Chance! Time to get up!”
A middle aged woman stood among the mess of Chance’s room. Stepping carefully over a few discarded cans of PokeCola, the woman placed the young boy’s TV remote back on to his dresser. She bent down closer to the dresser with a suspicious blue eye before blowing a layer of dirt off it. A cloud flew up in the air, disturbed at having been woken from its happy slumber, before falling back on to its rightful place. Chance’s mom frowned.
“Honestly Chance, I don’t see how you get this room so dirty! If you’re not careful all this dust will get in your lungs... and then what? Dust cancer! That’s what!”
The mother put her hands on her hips and wiped some dust off on her white apron, a homemade set of letters stitched in the side spelling out “Love you Mom.” Furrowing her brow, Vi, as her real name was, kicked the side of Chance’s bed. It gave a good rattle before staying still again. The Pidove flew away, deciding to find a better place to talk about their precious anime, one where women wouldn’t disturb them. Odd, as this was rarely a problem for them.
“Do you ever listen to me anymore? I swear I feel like I’m talking to a brick wall sometimes.”
The mountain of blankets and pillows squirmed again before a messy head of dark green hair slowly arose.
“I get it mom. Dust bad. Brick wall good.”
Chance laid his head down again on the pillow under him. Narrowing her eyes, Vi quickly pulled the blankets off of the bed, leaving Chance exposed in nothing but his boxers. Laying on the bed now was a pale body, skinnier than most, fragile as some would say. Suitable, as his mother often treated him like a walking glass house. Chance quickly rolled out of bed with a gasp.
“Jeez Mom! I’m in my boxers! I’m up! I’m up! Just get out of my room!” he said, obviously not flustered in any way whatsoever.
Chance’s mom grinned at her success. She walked casually over to the side of the bed where Chance hurried to cover his body with the blanket again. Wrapping his body up first then his head like an Arab women in the streets. The boy let out an annoyed huff and a mean pair of bright green eyes shone forth from him. Chance’s mom ignored them and walked out of the room, but not before leaving one final comment to fill the air,
“Don’t “Jeez” me Chance! It’s not like you have anything I haven’t seen before!”
Chance’s cheeks quickly shone red. In his defense, it was kind of a gross thing to say.
-------
Chance came walking down the stairs just having gotten out of the shower. After a few moments of wrestling his hair, the young boy gave up and the triumphant green mess assumed its rightful place as the leading “Mop Hairdo” in New Wave, Johto. Taking a few moments to smooth out his school outfit, a plain white button up and black slacks, Chance walked into the kitchen and quickly sat down at the table. Spotting a newspaper lying on the counter next to him, the 14 year old took it up with his hands to search through the headlines.
Page 1 first.
“Trainer breaks record for most gyms beat!”
Boring, right? Page 2.
“Johto Grandmother survives encounter with wild Ursaring! Amazing!”
Who wants to read about Grandmas? Page 3.
“Explosions! Boob! Fart!”
Pfft, like anyone likes those things. Page 4.
“Stocks take a slight downturn for Watanabe industries. CEO comments.”
Chance quickly set the other pages down and went to work reading the page. Articles about explosions? Boobs? Really? What kind of newspaper publishes those things, Chance thought, skimming over the stock article. There’s a children’s section of the Newspaper for a reason. Chance was halfway through the article, albeit not understanding a word of it, before his mother came down with her brown hair fixed into a tight bun.
“Good Morning my beautiful son!” she sang, opening the blinds and letting light into the room.
Chance turned from the intruding brightness and grunted in response.
“What do you want for breakfast today, sweetie?” she sang again, now sashaying towards her son.
Chance laid the paper down and looked up at his mom, who was now practically bending over him in anticipation of the answer.
“I’m just gonna’ have coffee. I’ll make it.” He said, sliding out of his chair and walking over to the counter where his father’s coffee maker waited. The black machine groaned and sputtered at the thought of having to do anything. It was old, probably older than the house itself. I suppose if it had legs it would have jumped off the counter and ran as far away as it could have, but this story doesn’t get that weird so soon.
“Coffee?!” she cried, “First Dust, and now Coffee? What’s next? Heroin?! Oh my sweet baby boy can’t end up jail for Heroin! He won’t last a minute! You know how crazy those people in jail are! They’ll scoop up a little boy like you in no time!”
Chance shook his head bitterly and grabbed a bag of coffee grounds from the pantry as his mother continued on.
“Oh! My poor little boy!”
“I’m not a little boy, mom! Coffee isn’t going to hurt me!” Chance spat. crushing the coffee grounds slightly in his hands
Vi backed off and looked down sullenly before brightening up again. She brought her hands up to her chest as her eyes took on a dreamy state, the kind mother’s get while at their son’s graduation or the when they think about all those crazy nights they spent taking tequila shots in downtown Goldenrod.
“Oh!! I get it!” she said with a deep smile.
“You want to be a big boy just like your father!”
Chance began pouring the coffee grounds into the machine. It let out a few gurgled objections. Somewhere, deep in its coffee making heart, it died a little.
“Oh that is so cute! I’ll have to tell your cousin Sherry all about this!” She said gleaming in joy.
Chance closed the machine and punched a few buttons. The machine slowly worked itself into action with a low, mechanical crunch.
Chance was about to turn around when all of sudden he felt his mother fall onto him an embrace from behind. He immediately tensed up as she squeezed him hard. Her arms wrapped around her son like a snake in a death grip. His eyes widened as he felt her full chest on his back. It was strange, he felt small, like really small. Like he was just a little kid again, not even big enough to see over the kitchen counter. His whole body froze. Nothing but the quiet rumbling of coffee maker wishing it was dead in the background. After a few seconds of intense awkwardness, things got even more awkward as his mother whispered,
“You’re going to be a great man someday, Chance. I know it.”
Chance’s cheeks shone red again. He quickly broke free of the grasp and headed for the door, grabbing his black backpack along the way.
“I’m going to school.”
“But what about your big boy coffee?” his mom pleaded before the door slammed shut.
A few seconds later the coffee maker exploded, fed up with the irrationality of the human race.
-------
The morning had brightened up even more as Chance walked slowly toward school. The boy shielded his eyes from the harsh glare. A rising sun was making its way over New Wave, lighting up the various small shops and stalls around, most still closed.
“…Stupid sun…”
To Chance, it looked like a big monster, rising from the ground, like it was slowly going to burn up the entire town with its rays. And the stalls just represented these insignificant people trying to get ahead of everyone else while this slow, nameless monster was descending upon them. Chance spat on to the ground next to him and kept walking forward. Was it normal for 13 year olds to have these kind of thoughts? He didn’t care.
“Chance! Chance!” a shrill voice called out.
Chance stopped and closed his eyes with a sigh, knowing exactly who it was. Aide Perrera finally arrived at his side, out of breath and bending over with her hands on her knees. She lifted her head up quick, causing her short orange hair to flip around. Under that a pair of vibrantly awake yellow eyes shone. Still out of breath, her dark red flushed cheeks pumped up and down. Overall she was full of mismatched color, the only thing organized about her being the simple black skirt and white shirt she was forced to wear as a school uniform. Chance certainly thought she was full of something, though it wasn’t color. Methane, probably.
“You left early today, huh?” she said in between breaths. “I had to run just to catch up to you!”
Chance cast his eyes away.
“My mom was bein’ weird. I had to get out.”
Aide brought her bright green backpack around and fished inside of it. She finally brought out her desired objects, a couple of PokeCereal Bars. It should be noted that the entire world seems to have this obsession with the prefix “Poke”. It’s like adding that before any generic thing suddenly makes the item in question more valuable. Often these PokeObjects will have brightly colored sugars, stickers, and other things that generally make parents want to gag. Kids find them irresistible though. How strange.
“See! I brought two! Want one?” she said with a bright smile.
Chance detested these kinds of foods but the rumbling in his stomach was plotting to betray him. Chance gave it a mental punch to its stomach-face and shook his head.
“I already drank a cup of coffee this morning.” He said in his best “I don’t care about the thing I just said” voice.
Certainly, if stomachs had mouths, Chance’s would have shouted “Liar! You Lie!” But they do not, so instead it just sat there and... digested.
“Blech! That stuff grosses me out.” Aide said, lowering the sugary bars back into her backpack. “I’ll just save these for later then!”
After a few minutes the two arrived at the outer edges of PTLA, or Pokemon Trainer League Academy. The name made it sound much more prestigious than it actually was. It was nothing more than a medium sized concrete building with a couple bushes planted around the side. Badly drawn chalk images of pokemon lay scattered in the lot, vestiges of kindergarten recess. Chance avoided their brightly colored eyes, which was hard considering most of them had eyes looking in two different directions.
Aide stopped and bent down to pet the drawing of a Shuckle.
“Aren’t they cute?” she cooed.
“You know I don’t like those things.” Chance said, staring uncomfortably at the cross eyed pokemon. “They’re weird.”
“C’mon! He just wants a hug!” Aide said, lying down on the chalk. “Here, just pet him once.”
“Why would I pet a chalk drawing?” He groaned, turning away from the Shuckle.
“Oh, I’ll love you, Shucky!” Aide said.
“You’re weird, Aide.” Chance said, waiting for the girl.
“You say that about everyone!” Aide said hopping up.
Chance flashed his head over to Aide with an angry look, “No I don’t!”
Aide began shaking her head up and down furiously.
“What about Mrs. Pear? You called her weird yesterday!”
Chance looked shocked.
“Well she is!”
Aide shook her head dismissively.
“And then the day before that it was Corrin. Before that it was Denny Horowitz. Before that-“
Chance held up his hand in a stop motion.
“Those were all isolated cases. They really were being weird!”
“Just today you called your mom weird! And then it was poor little Shucky! And now it’s me! I think you’re the weird one, Chance!”
Chance stayed quiet for a second.
It was a true in a way. He was different than everyone else. He drank coffee. (kind of) He read real articles in the newspaper. It’d been like that his whole life. He never wanted to just ‘play’. He simply wanted to be left alone. But everyone else was always being so, well, for lack of a better word, weird that he had to comment on it. It seemed like everyone else around was always acting immature and he was the only voice of reason.
Aide pushed her face close to Chance’s with a searching look in her eyes.
“Yep! Looks like you have a full on case of denial!”
Chance recoiled.
“Denial?!”
Aide shuck her head up and down again.
“Stage Three I’d say. The worst case I’ve seen in all my life.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Aide pulled out a stethoscope from her backpack.
“I so do! I’m a doctor! See my stethoscope? Shiny, huh?”
The sunlight glistened off of the medical device. It was brand new.
“Like it? My daddy got me one! You know he’s never home so sometimes he sends me cool stuff like this!”
Chance turned his nose up.
“You probably don’t even know how to use that!”
Aide’s eyes got big.
“I so do! Watch!”
Aide sprang upon Chance pushing the medical device into his ear. Chance writhed around, gasping for breath.
“Stay still! I gotta find the heart beat!”
Chance gave up struggling and lay there with a frown on his face. Aide placed the stethoscope on his chest.
“I don’t hear it…”
“Put the tong-things in your ears.”
“Those things? I thought they were for spaghetti…”
Aide placed the stethoscope properly into her ears and listened.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
A wide smile went over her face.
“There’s the beat, nurse!”
Chance rolled his eyes.
“Very good Doctor Aide. Let me up now?”
Aide rolled off of the boy who stood up and dusted himself off.
Aide gently placed the stethoscope back into her backpack, making sure not to harm it.
“You’re so smart, Chance.” Aide grinned.
After a short walk the pair arrived at the big glass doors to the school lobby. The school loomed over them and the sun was at the pair’s back, seemingly pushing them into the concrete establishment. Inside the chirping of the School’s meager staff could be heard. Pep Band meeting after school, the Soccer scrimmage in a week, but it all seemed so useless to Chance, who never had joined any extracurricular activity in his life. The two looked at each other, Chance with a frown, Aide still smiling. It was another day. Chance couldn’t help but let out a sad sigh. Aide took his hand and grinned largely.
“Aww! Don’t be so sad little Chancey!” Aide said, teasing.
Chance’s hand writhed and squirmed around uncomfortably in the girl’s grasp, trying to escape, but it was to no avail. He gave up before saying plainly, in a matter of fact tone,
“Don’t call me that.”
-------
