Charles

“Still taking Latin and Spanish?” Charles asked. He was taller than last year, and his voice was deeper too, but the slithering, creepy way he came up to you and started conversations remained. I turned to him triumphantly.

“German, too.” I grinned, placing the new Komm Mit book on the table beside Ven Conmigo and The Cambridge Latin Course. They all had matching green covers I had decorated myself. 100% Sharpie. With anyone else, I’d be more subtle. This was Charles. This was war. He wasn’t impressed.

“You’re just jealous of me for being in Spanish 4.”

“Yeah right. I’m in Latin 4, and unlike you, I had to do both year’s work.” I retorted instantly, starting a bit of a debate on who had it harder. I was just glad he took the bait… despite my words, it did hurt that he had skipped a year, and he probably knew it. Or maybe not – despite his brains, he was incredibly inept at social mechanics.

But no… I still surpassed him in Language, but he shouldn’t have been shining at all. Language was my area… mine. We used to compete over everything; Who could make the best maze, who could eat the most Old Country, who could beat the Pokemon game the fastest, who scored highest on the vocab test. When we went into middle school, we split, to a degree. He took math, and I took language. It was the only way we could keep from ripping each other apart – and half the school in the process. For a while things had been calm, but here he was again.

Here he was again. They say opposites attract, but I don’t see idiots sticking to me like flies. Only Charles – in my life, again and again. Even our due dates were the same, March 9^th. There’s a bond in such things that years and rivalry can’t even touch.

Brian the Chef

We sat in silence. I was reading, he was cooking something or other, probably something he learned from Emeril. I closed the book at last, having had enough Irish fiction for one day. Despite his intelligence, Brian had never been a reader, never understood the fascination books held for so many. He read the paper; that was about it.

“Theyre printing books different lately. The pages are thinner.” I reflected, half to myself. I didn’t expect Brian to answer, and sure enough, he kept his eyes on the stove. I picked up my bowl and carried it over to the trash can. Whatever he was making smelled edible, but plain old ezmac was good enough for me, as always. More for the rest of them.

“Does this look like half and half to you? Vegetables and Pasta?” He looked up at me at last, displaying two pans filled with their respective food groups. I nodded, hardly looking at them – they were in vastly different containers, like the types you use to give optical illusions. If he couldn’t tell, how should I? He seemed pleased enough.

“I am such a good cook.”

“Humble, too”

“Toot toot my own horn. Your mother would be proud.”

“Salmon, too?” I said, eyeing the fish soaking in a dark, strong smelling substance. I did have a weakness for fish.

“Mhmm”

“That’s nearer the mark.”

Edit: That's the name of that cartoon guy, too! Hah. He's also my cousin.

The Newspaper

“This today’s paper?” She asked. She prodded the front page with a finger as short as mine. But she was getting to be blind as a bat, she could barely read the headline from there, much less the date. My sister nodded and made some affirmative noise as she poured herself another bowl of cereal. “You brought it in?”

“No. Miranda.” Melissa replied, distanced and bored. Mother looked my way. She was still in her bathrobe, had crawled down the stairs in a vain attempt at seeing her daughters off on their first day, but found herself unable to go through with it. She surveyed my head briefly, almost in appreciation. Almost.

“Well, I’m going back to bed.” She said. That was the end of that. She turned to leave.

“Your welcome” I said, hardly audibly.

“You expect me to say thank you?” She turned with a snarl in her voice. “You’re not getting it. You expect too damn much.”

“A thank you for fetching the paper is hardly demanding.” I was getting angry now.

“Well, look how its all over the table and messed up! I didn’t even want you to get it.” She turned and left, well aware that she’d lose the argument if she stayed. The anger was directionless. It hovered a moment in midair and then faded. Hurt replaced it.

“That Bitch.” I said, using hard words to try to stay mad. Mad was better than breaking down crying; it was my first day after all. Melissa might have been silent. She might have grunted. She never looked up from her cereal. I looked away from her. Mom never picked on her. Not like this. Probably got sick enough of badgering her over her room, her laundry, her clothes without adding this new imaginary crap to the mix.

Morphic Resonance

“I try to be open-minded.” She told me. “After all, you can’t see with closed eyes, how can you learn with a closed mind?” Mrs. Burroughs, I thought, You’re so open-minded you’re brains are practically falling out. I let her continue.

“Have you ever heard of Morphic Resonance?” I shook my head. “You might want to use it in your writing sometime. Morphic Resonance.” She repeated it, louder and more definitively. “It’s kind of a collective conscious thing… like if you teach a group of chickens something, it will be easier for another group of chickens to learn it, across the world.”

“You know me. Normally I wouldn’t think about something like that, I’d think it was silly. But I saw the things they were doing in Christ Church. Made you think.” No time for me to respond. She rushed on. “And there was another woman I met, on the meadow behind it. She used to teach economics, you know. Before they were all about how to get rich, when they were about cultures, and people. She quit when they changed like that, and has been looking at trees ever since. She knows all about them; the stages of their life, their shapes, their colours. She tells me they each have a different personality. We look at a tree and see the leaves, she sees the branches underneath.”

“I wouldn’t tell just anyone this, Miranda. I know you would appreciate it. She really sees the world a different way.”

“You see the world a different way,” I insisted lightly. She smiled at that.

“We all do.”