The Whole Story - Part One
Title:: The Whole Story
Genre:: Vam 'Series'
Rating:: PG
Summary:: The story of two neighbors - from beginning to almost end.
Notes:: This started out as an entry for the Fluff competition but turned into something else. Prepare for sop.
Part One
Knock, Knock, Knock
April’s fist rapped on the door and she smiled widely as it opened just a few seconds later.
“HI, I’m April Margera, I just live next door. Me and Brandon just wanted to come say Howdy and bring you these cookies we baked, to sort of welcome you to the neighborhood, you know?”
The dark lady that had opened the door smiled and took the proffered basket, holding it with both hands close to her knees.
“Hello,” she said slowly, her mind racing through the few English phrases she felt she had mastered. “My name is Anita. Thank you. Hello Brandon,” she said, looking around April’s knees to find the boy’s sticky face. He frowned at her and buried his head back in his mom’s kneecap. Anita smiled and looked back up at April.
“I have son too. Ville. Same age as Brandon.” April beamed.
“Well that’s perfect, you needed a good buddy close to home, didn’t you, Bran?” Brandon kept his face in her knee. April laughed. “He’s kinda shy around strangers - what’s that honey?” She looked down at where her son was tugging at her jeans.
“Mama, she talks funny,” he whispered, biting his thumbnail. April stood up and laughed, hiking her son onto her hip.
“Excuse him, he doesn’t have the best grasp of manners yet.” Anita smiled and then turned around to catch up her own son, who had just fallen down the last two stairs. She soothed him in fast words that April couldn’t understand and then smiled at her visitors.
“Ville,” she introduced. “He doesn’t speak English yet.” April smiled and waved at him, rolling her eyes as her son hid his face in her shoulder.
“Where are y’all from,” she asked, jiggling her hip.
“Helsinki… Finland.” Anita let her squirming son down on the floor and April kept smiling her bright smile, even though she wasn’t exactly sure where that was.
“Bet it’s a big change to be here then,” she said. “But you’ll like West Chester. Listen, I left lunch on the stove, but you and your husband and Ville should come over for coffee sometime, or for dinner.”
“Thank you.”
“And any time you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask. S’what neighbors are for.” Anita nodded and thanked the smiling woman and her hiding son, closing the door behind them as they walked back down the sidewalk to their own house.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
“Take that! And that! HiiiiiYA!”
“Look Jess, look! I got a stick!”
“That’s good Bran, look, we have to chase him, cuz he’s the enemy!”
“He is?”
“Yeah. But he’s fast, so we gotta go, or we’ll never catch him!” Jess adjusted the bandana tied sideways around his head and picked up his wooden sword. “C’mon, let’s go!” Brandon wanted his own bandana but Jess was already running and he had to catch up, so he ran his five-year old legs as fast as he could after his brother who was already tearing through the trees behind their house, looking for their enemy.
“I found him!” Jess said, and pointed with his sword towards Ville, who was hiding under the little bridge that their dad had built across the stream that ran through there.
“Hey!” Jess called. The kid looked up at him. “You gotta get out of there cuz that’s our creek.” Ville frowned and scooted farther underneath the bridge. “See,” Jess said, turning to his brother. “He’s the enemy, he’s trying to take over our bridge!”
“Let’s chase him out then,” Brandon said, brandishing his stick. Jess nodded at him and counted to three, and then they charged. The skinny boy hiding under the bridge yelped as he realized what they were doing and scurried out from under the bridge, running through the creek, turning around and running right back into Jess and Brandon’s lawn, the two pursuers not close behind him. Ville tripped on a root from the big tree in the middle of the lawn and fell sprawled out on his stomach.
“Ha! Look, Bran, we got him!” They were about to attack when April came running out of the house, down the steps of the back deck and across the lawn.
“What are you two hooligans doing?!”
“We were chasing him, Mama, cuz he’s the enemy. And I got a stick to spear him with!”
“Yeah, yeah, Bran was gonna spear him and then I was gonna cut him up with my sword cuz he tried to take over our bridge.” Jess jumped into his pirate stance and sliced through the air with his weapon, pushing the bandana back up from around his nose with his free hand.
April looked at them, appalled.
“Leave the poor boy alone,” she said, helping Ville to his feet. “You two are horrible. Ville are you alright?”
The pale, skinny boy looked at her with huge green eyes and nodded slowly, very proud of himself for understanding.
“You two are horrible. Jess, put that thing down and take off that bandana. Brandon, put that stick down too. I don’t believe you! Why were you chasing poor Ville?” She dusted Ville off and glared at her sons, who stood next to each other looking very sheepish indeed.
“He’s weird, Mama,” Brandon said finally. “He doesn’t speak ever. And no-one in school likes him, cuz he never talks, and sometimes he talks to himself in some language that’s all made up!”
April put her hand on Ville’s shoulder, because she knew that he could understand every word her son had said.
“Brandon Margera, you should be ashamed of yourself. You’ve known Ville for two years, and now you’re attacking him because of what all those silly kids in Kindergarten think? And you, Jess, what’s your reason?!” Jess shrugged and looked at the ground. April glared at them.
“You two are both on timeout. Jess, get your butt to your room. Brandon, you come here and apologize to Ville.”
Brandon kicked the ground with his shoe, not wanting to look up at Ville, who was still standing next to April looking quite bewildered.
“Sorry for chasing you and trying to kill you,” Brandon finally mumbled after April said his name several more times in a threatening way that meant her hand would find his bottom and hard if he didn’t do what she asked right that second.
“Sokay, I didn’t mind,” Ville said. Brandon looked up at him in shock, because he’d said something. April smiled at them and then took Ville’s hand.
“Come on, kiddo, I’m taking you home. Brandon, room, now.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
“What’re you doing?” Ville walked up to Brandon, sitting on his front porch surrounded by things that Ville didn’t know all the words for.
“I’m making music,” Brandon said. “Look.” He took a wooden spoon from his pocket and banged an upturned pot with it. It clanked, and Brandon grinned. “If you hit things they all make different sounds,” he said. “Like this.” He took the lids of two of the pots he’d stolen from the kitchen and crashed them together. Ville looked impressed. “Here, you try.” He handed the pot lids to Ville, who frowned at them for a second before sitting down on the step and then clashing them together, even harder than Brandon had.
“Whoaaa,” he said. “That was loud.” Brandon nodded.
“I know, I know. You do that, and I’ll hit these, and we can make music!” Ville grinned and nodded, but waited for the other boy to start hitting the pots, bottles, wooden boxes and cake tins that he’d secreted from the house with his wooden spoon before joining in, crashing the pot lids together avidly. They kept up for a few minutes before they both fell about laughing, knocking one of the pots into the garden and smashing a gnome.
“Whoaaa, that was a cool sound too,” Brandon said, grinning. “I’m gonna go hit other things, you gonna come?”
Ville nodded, taking his two pot lids with him as Brandon ran around the house, hitting his wooden spoon against everything he could reach. They had quiet a good rhythm going - Brandon was hitting the radiator vent and Ville was clashing his lids in time - before April came out of the house, almost tripped on a pot and started yelling at Brandon for making so much noise. Ville laughed, which made Brandon glare, but Ville had to keep laughing, eventually falling on the ground to do so.
“What’s so funny, dumb-butt?” Brandon glared, as April stalked away, the pot lids and wooden spoons in her hand.
“You’re like… the boy from that cartoon. The Flintstones. The one with the club.”
“What, BamBam?” Brandon said, sitting down on the grass too, still glowering, but not so badly.
“Yeah, BamBam. I’m gonna call you that now. It’s easier than Brandon anyways.”
“That’s okay, I guess,” Brandon said, and sat there considering his new name whilst Ville continued to laugh on the grass.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
“Hi April, is Bam there?” April looked at the small, skinny boy standing on her front porch and cocked her head to the side.
“Who?”
“Bam - oh.” Ville remembered suddenly that she didn’t know who that was. “Brandon.”
“Bam, eh?” April said, smiling. The nickname certainly suited her very, very loud son.
“Yeah, like BamBam, from the Flintstones.” She laughed.
“That’s pretty good, Ville,” she said. He nodded. “So I have a BamBam and a JessJess then, huh?”
“Yeah. Anyways is he there?”
“Yeah, he’s upstairs, did you want to play?”
“No, I wanted just wanted to give him his game back, but I gotta eat now.” He handed April the small computer game insert and she smiled.
“Okay, I’ll give it to him.”
“Thank you,” he said, and then ran back to his house.
“Hey, Bam! Your friend came to give you your game back,” she yelled up the stairs. Bam ran down to snatch the game from her hands.
“He’s not my friend,” he said, and ran back up the stairs. April just shrugged and rolled her eyes.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
“That kid is so weird,” said Chris, biting his lip in concentration as he stuck dried pasta to a piece of cardboard.
“Which kid,” Bam asked, grabbing the glitter from the middle of the table.
“That one over there,” Chris said, nodding his head towards the other end of the table where Ville was carefully making a pattern with his pasta before sticking it on the frame.
“He’s my neighbor,” Bam said, shrugging. “He’s not too bad.”
“Nah, Chris is right, he’s weird,” Ryan said, grabbing the glitter from Bam’s hands.
“Hey, dumb-butt, gimme that back!”
“Make me,” Ryan said, covering his whole work area in the glitter.
“Idiot-face,” Bam said, tackling his best friend to the floor in a whirlwind of limbs. The teacher ran over.
“Boys! Quit that.” They ignored her, still fighting avidly in the middle of the room. She reached in and grabbed them both, forcing them apart. “Right. That’s it. Ryan, go sit over there and work with Brandon. Bam, you go work next to Ville.”
Ryan and Chris laughed as Bam glared, picking up his frame and sitting down next to Ville.
“You’re gonna get weird-germs,” Chris mouthed. Bam glowered and started working intently on his frame.
“You’ve got glue on your hands,” Ville said, pointing.
“Shut up,” Bam said, glaring some more. Ville frowned and went back to his own frame.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
“Wanna go to the pool, Bam?” It was Saturday morning, and Bam was sitting eating his breakfast when his Mom asked him.
“Okay,” he said, scooping more cereal into his mouth.
“Ville’s mom’s coming too,” she said. Bam dropped his spoon.
“I don’t wanna go with them,” he said. April fixed him with a stern look.
“Why not,” she asked.
“He’s weird.”
“No he’s not,” she said. Bam glowered some more. “Well, I don’t care what you think about him, I told Anita we’d go with them and you’re going to be nice, and if you’re not, then you’re going to be offlimits from the TV for a week.”
“Mooommmm.” Bam pouted, feeling distinctly indignant.
“I don’t wanna hear it. Now go get your stuff. Now, Brandon.”
They got to the pool around mid-day, and April soon found where Anita had already set up camp on a set of beach-chairs.
“Ville’s over there, Bam, if you want to play with him,” she said, pointing at the shallow end of the pool.
“Nah, I wanna go off the diving board,” he said, shucking his towel. “Come on Jess, let’s go off the diving board.”
“You can go on the diving board alone, Bam, I’m gonna go find my friends.” Bam watched with wide, annoyed eyes as Jess walked away. April grabbed Bam’s hand.
“Brandon, you can’t go on the diving board alone. Go play with Ville over there,” she said, pointing in the same direction Anita had. Bam huffed at her, but did as she said, and stalked over to where Ville was.
“Hi,” he said sullenly. Ville looked up from the water he was standing in up to his waist.
“Hey Bam,” he said. But before he could say anything else, Bam had thrown himself into the pool, making as big of a splash as he possibly could. Ville spluttered and pushed his long hair out of his face.
“This is boring,” Bam said, glaring at the waist deep water. “Wanna go on the diving board?”
Ville shook his head.
“Why not?”
“I can’t swim well enough,” Ville said. “And it’s too high.”
“You’re boring,” Bam stated, rolling his eyes. “Fine, I’m gonna go by myself then.” He looked over to where his mom and Anita were, and sure enough, they were deep in conversation. They wouldn’t notice. “You can stay here and be boring if you want.”
Ville watched as Bam clambered out of the shallow end and stalked over to the diving board. He knew, however, that Bam shouldn’t be there, but he didn’t know what to do. Bam wasn’t even going on the small one; Ville could see him waiting in line for the really tall one. He frowned, and then climbed out of the pool himself and ran over to where his mom and April were.
“What’s wrong, Ville,” Anita asked. He shook his head at her and looked at April.
“Bam’s gonna go off the high-dive,” he said, pointing; April looked and saw Bam halfway up the ladder and jumped up.
“Ooohhh, I’m gonna slaughter that child,” she said, and stalked off to pull Bam down from the ladder. Ville sat on the concrete next to his mom’s chair, hugging his arms, until April came back, holding a struggling Bam in her arms.
“Mom, let me down! Mom!”
“Bam, you sit here, and you stay here. I told you you weren’t allowed on the diving boards alone!” Bam crossed his arms and glowered up at her from his beach chair.
“Well I was gonna go with Ville but he’s too much of a scardey cat,” he spat, looking right at Ville as he said it. Ville frowned and looked away, hugging his knees to his chest.
“Well if it wasn’t for Ville, I dunno what might have happened to you,” April said, still glaring at her son. “Now, you sit there and you stay there and you think about what you did wrong, you got that?” Bam glared at her in answer.
It was fifteen minutes later when he was allowed to get up and go back to the pool; he stalked right over to Ville and stood on the edge of the pool, his hands on his hips.
“You’re stupid,” he said. Ville looked up at him from the water, his green eyes wide. “Tattle-tail,” Bam spat, as if it was the height of offense. Ville narrowed his eyes.
“Well you were the one trying to go off the high-dive.”
“I can go off the high-dive by myself, idiot. At least I can swim.” Bam put his foot in the water and kicked it in Ville’s general direction, even though the splash didn’t reach him. Luckily for Ville, at that moment Bam was tackled into the pool by Ryan, who had just come with his own mom. Soon, Ryan and Bam were splashing each other and running around with water guns and finally, they were allowed to go off the high-dive, as long as they went up the ladder together. Ville watched them from the shallow end with a shadowy face and glared as Bam fell screaming from the highest diving board, only to come up from the depths of the pool laughing as hard as he could. Ville kicked sullenly at the water and got out, going to sit by his mom instead of in the water, a towel draped over his head as he made stories with puppets made out of blades of grass and then made a grass army attack an anthill.
“What are you doing,” Bam asked, as him and Ryan came to stand over him, dripping water onto the ant-hill and destroying it, sending all the ants running.
Ville looked up at him, but said nothing as he turned away. Ryan looked at Bam, and Bam looked at Ryan; they both looked down at Ville, and then back at each other. “Weird,” they said together, and went off laughing.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
“No, sorry, Anita, I haven’t seen him. Yeah. Yeah. No, of course. Well, I’ll keep an eye out. Uh-huh. Sure. Bye.” April hung up the phone and reached over to slap Bam’s hand away from the cookie jar.
“Momm, it was my first day of school, I deserve a cookie!”
“Bam, you’ve been in school for three years, you deserve no such thing. Have you seen Ville?” Bam grabbed a cookie anyways and chewed at it, shaking his head and glaring.
“No,” he said, as if that was the most ridiculous question in the world. “Course I haven’t.”
“Are you sure?” April asked, catching his hands with her own. Bam nodded.
“Positive. Why?”
“Cuz’ he’s gone missing. Anita hasn’t seen him since this morning at the bus stop.” Bam frowned. That was weird. Him and Ville had waited for the bus on the corner of their street that morning, like usual during school, and Bam had swung into the seat next to Ryan, high-fiving him, like usual, as Ville slunk into a seat at the very back of the bus next to no-one, as usual. He’d ignored him during school - they were in the same class but it had 30 other kids in it, it was easy to not talk to him - and then they’d come home on the bus again. No, wait - Bam stopped there, frowning. He actually hadn’t seen Ville since recess. And then he’d been sitting down against the wall… no, that wasn’t the last time he’d seen him. It was only then that Bam realized who was in the middle of the circle of fifth graders that had appeared at the end of recess; and suddenly, Bam realized what had happened.
“Wait, I know where he is,” Bam said, finish his cookie and grabbing at the glass of milk his mom handed him. He gulped that down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“You do?” April said. Bam nodded. “Well what are you waiting for, Bam?! Go get him, it’s almost dark out!” Bam frowned at her. “Go! Shoo!”
“Finee,” he said, grabbing another two cookies to stuff in his pockets before running out the back door, across the lawn and into the forest. Sure enough, he found Ville hunched under the bridge, holding his knees to his chest and shaking.
“Hey, Ville!” Bam said, running down the bank of the creek and splashing through the water. “Ville, you gotta come out from there cuz your mom is all worried and she called my mom and my mom made me come down and get you.” Ville shook his head and buried it farther into his knees. Bam stopped and stared at him, frowning some more. “I have a cookie if you want…” Ville shook his head again. Bam frowned some more. “Really, Ville, you gotta come out, you’re all wet.” Ville shrugged.
Frowning, Bam scrambled underneath the bridge too, and sat next to Ville. “Dude,” he said - a word he’d picked up from the movies Jess liked to watch - “It’s like, all cramped up down here. And really really wet. Sure you don’t wanna come out?” Ville nodded.
“Go away,” he mumbled into his knees.
“You know, I would, but then April would kill me for leaving you here all wet and cold and cramped up.” Ville said nothing, just shivered.
“Why are you down here, anyways?” Ville shrugged. “Did those fifth graders say something to you,” Bam asked, nudging Ville with one elbow. This made Ville look up, which in turn made Bam gasp. His left eye was completely purple and swollen shut, and there were cuts on his lips and cheeks.
“Dude,” Bam said, frowning in disbelief.
“Yeah, they said stuff to me,” Ville said, glaring at Bam. Bam just stared… for a while. Then, because he didn’t know what to say, he held out a cookie.
“Want a cookie now?” he asked. Ville glared at him some more but took the cookie from his hand, holding it to his mouth with trembling hands.
“Dude,” Bam said again.
“You know, that word is really annoying,” Ville said, munching his cookie.
“Yeah but… dude. Your eye is like, purple.” Ville shrugged. “And you’re shivering. Come on, you gotta get out of here and like, put some ice on that before you go blind or something.” Bam tugged on Ville’s arm. After a while, Ville eventually gave in and followed Bam out of the bridge.
“Why’d they hit you anyways?” Ville shrugged.
“Cuz I’m weird?”
“Huh.” Bam frowned, thinking things over again. Then he threw his arm around Ville’s shoulders. “You know, I don’t really think you’re weird,” he said. Ville sniffled, wiping the tears that Bam hadn’t even noticed off with his hand. “I was just saying that for a while.”
“A while?” Ville asked, his voice squeaking a bit. “3 years is a while?”
“Yeah well… I changed my mind.” Ville nodded, but stayed silent. “Hey, Ville, if those guys ever do that again, tell me and I’ll get Ryan and Raab and the others and we’ll kick their butts.”
“But they’re in Fifth Grade,” Ville insisted. Bam shrugged, waving his hand in the air.
“Ah, that’s nothin’. Me n Raab n Ryan and the rest, we could take on like, the army or something.” Ville laughed a bit and wiped at his eyes again. “Seriously, Ville, I promise. Only you gotta promise that you’re not gonna hide under the bridge again and make me come get you.”
“Okay,” Ville said. Bam squeezed his shoulder and then let him go, but lead him to the porch of his house anyways. Anita screamed when she saw him and rushed him inside, but Ville turned to thank Bam before he left - only he was too late, Bam was already running across the yard to tell April what had happened.
Genre:: Vam 'Series'
Rating:: PG
Summary:: The story of two neighbors - from beginning to almost end.
Notes:: This started out as an entry for the Fluff competition but turned into something else. Prepare for sop.
Part One
Knock, Knock, Knock
April’s fist rapped on the door and she smiled widely as it opened just a few seconds later.
“HI, I’m April Margera, I just live next door. Me and Brandon just wanted to come say Howdy and bring you these cookies we baked, to sort of welcome you to the neighborhood, you know?”
The dark lady that had opened the door smiled and took the proffered basket, holding it with both hands close to her knees.
“Hello,” she said slowly, her mind racing through the few English phrases she felt she had mastered. “My name is Anita. Thank you. Hello Brandon,” she said, looking around April’s knees to find the boy’s sticky face. He frowned at her and buried his head back in his mom’s kneecap. Anita smiled and looked back up at April.
“I have son too. Ville. Same age as Brandon.” April beamed.
“Well that’s perfect, you needed a good buddy close to home, didn’t you, Bran?” Brandon kept his face in her knee. April laughed. “He’s kinda shy around strangers - what’s that honey?” She looked down at where her son was tugging at her jeans.
“Mama, she talks funny,” he whispered, biting his thumbnail. April stood up and laughed, hiking her son onto her hip.
“Excuse him, he doesn’t have the best grasp of manners yet.” Anita smiled and then turned around to catch up her own son, who had just fallen down the last two stairs. She soothed him in fast words that April couldn’t understand and then smiled at her visitors.
“Ville,” she introduced. “He doesn’t speak English yet.” April smiled and waved at him, rolling her eyes as her son hid his face in her shoulder.
“Where are y’all from,” she asked, jiggling her hip.
“Helsinki… Finland.” Anita let her squirming son down on the floor and April kept smiling her bright smile, even though she wasn’t exactly sure where that was.
“Bet it’s a big change to be here then,” she said. “But you’ll like West Chester. Listen, I left lunch on the stove, but you and your husband and Ville should come over for coffee sometime, or for dinner.”
“Thank you.”
“And any time you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask. S’what neighbors are for.” Anita nodded and thanked the smiling woman and her hiding son, closing the door behind them as they walked back down the sidewalk to their own house.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
“Take that! And that! HiiiiiYA!”
“Look Jess, look! I got a stick!”
“That’s good Bran, look, we have to chase him, cuz he’s the enemy!”
“He is?”
“Yeah. But he’s fast, so we gotta go, or we’ll never catch him!” Jess adjusted the bandana tied sideways around his head and picked up his wooden sword. “C’mon, let’s go!” Brandon wanted his own bandana but Jess was already running and he had to catch up, so he ran his five-year old legs as fast as he could after his brother who was already tearing through the trees behind their house, looking for their enemy.
“I found him!” Jess said, and pointed with his sword towards Ville, who was hiding under the little bridge that their dad had built across the stream that ran through there.
“Hey!” Jess called. The kid looked up at him. “You gotta get out of there cuz that’s our creek.” Ville frowned and scooted farther underneath the bridge. “See,” Jess said, turning to his brother. “He’s the enemy, he’s trying to take over our bridge!”
“Let’s chase him out then,” Brandon said, brandishing his stick. Jess nodded at him and counted to three, and then they charged. The skinny boy hiding under the bridge yelped as he realized what they were doing and scurried out from under the bridge, running through the creek, turning around and running right back into Jess and Brandon’s lawn, the two pursuers not close behind him. Ville tripped on a root from the big tree in the middle of the lawn and fell sprawled out on his stomach.
“Ha! Look, Bran, we got him!” They were about to attack when April came running out of the house, down the steps of the back deck and across the lawn.
“What are you two hooligans doing?!”
“We were chasing him, Mama, cuz he’s the enemy. And I got a stick to spear him with!”
“Yeah, yeah, Bran was gonna spear him and then I was gonna cut him up with my sword cuz he tried to take over our bridge.” Jess jumped into his pirate stance and sliced through the air with his weapon, pushing the bandana back up from around his nose with his free hand.
April looked at them, appalled.
“Leave the poor boy alone,” she said, helping Ville to his feet. “You two are horrible. Ville are you alright?”
The pale, skinny boy looked at her with huge green eyes and nodded slowly, very proud of himself for understanding.
“You two are horrible. Jess, put that thing down and take off that bandana. Brandon, put that stick down too. I don’t believe you! Why were you chasing poor Ville?” She dusted Ville off and glared at her sons, who stood next to each other looking very sheepish indeed.
“He’s weird, Mama,” Brandon said finally. “He doesn’t speak ever. And no-one in school likes him, cuz he never talks, and sometimes he talks to himself in some language that’s all made up!”
April put her hand on Ville’s shoulder, because she knew that he could understand every word her son had said.
“Brandon Margera, you should be ashamed of yourself. You’ve known Ville for two years, and now you’re attacking him because of what all those silly kids in Kindergarten think? And you, Jess, what’s your reason?!” Jess shrugged and looked at the ground. April glared at them.
“You two are both on timeout. Jess, get your butt to your room. Brandon, you come here and apologize to Ville.”
Brandon kicked the ground with his shoe, not wanting to look up at Ville, who was still standing next to April looking quite bewildered.
“Sorry for chasing you and trying to kill you,” Brandon finally mumbled after April said his name several more times in a threatening way that meant her hand would find his bottom and hard if he didn’t do what she asked right that second.
“Sokay, I didn’t mind,” Ville said. Brandon looked up at him in shock, because he’d said something. April smiled at them and then took Ville’s hand.
“Come on, kiddo, I’m taking you home. Brandon, room, now.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
“What’re you doing?” Ville walked up to Brandon, sitting on his front porch surrounded by things that Ville didn’t know all the words for.
“I’m making music,” Brandon said. “Look.” He took a wooden spoon from his pocket and banged an upturned pot with it. It clanked, and Brandon grinned. “If you hit things they all make different sounds,” he said. “Like this.” He took the lids of two of the pots he’d stolen from the kitchen and crashed them together. Ville looked impressed. “Here, you try.” He handed the pot lids to Ville, who frowned at them for a second before sitting down on the step and then clashing them together, even harder than Brandon had.
“Whoaaa,” he said. “That was loud.” Brandon nodded.
“I know, I know. You do that, and I’ll hit these, and we can make music!” Ville grinned and nodded, but waited for the other boy to start hitting the pots, bottles, wooden boxes and cake tins that he’d secreted from the house with his wooden spoon before joining in, crashing the pot lids together avidly. They kept up for a few minutes before they both fell about laughing, knocking one of the pots into the garden and smashing a gnome.
“Whoaaa, that was a cool sound too,” Brandon said, grinning. “I’m gonna go hit other things, you gonna come?”
Ville nodded, taking his two pot lids with him as Brandon ran around the house, hitting his wooden spoon against everything he could reach. They had quiet a good rhythm going - Brandon was hitting the radiator vent and Ville was clashing his lids in time - before April came out of the house, almost tripped on a pot and started yelling at Brandon for making so much noise. Ville laughed, which made Brandon glare, but Ville had to keep laughing, eventually falling on the ground to do so.
“What’s so funny, dumb-butt?” Brandon glared, as April stalked away, the pot lids and wooden spoons in her hand.
“You’re like… the boy from that cartoon. The Flintstones. The one with the club.”
“What, BamBam?” Brandon said, sitting down on the grass too, still glowering, but not so badly.
“Yeah, BamBam. I’m gonna call you that now. It’s easier than Brandon anyways.”
“That’s okay, I guess,” Brandon said, and sat there considering his new name whilst Ville continued to laugh on the grass.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
“Hi April, is Bam there?” April looked at the small, skinny boy standing on her front porch and cocked her head to the side.
“Who?”
“Bam - oh.” Ville remembered suddenly that she didn’t know who that was. “Brandon.”
“Bam, eh?” April said, smiling. The nickname certainly suited her very, very loud son.
“Yeah, like BamBam, from the Flintstones.” She laughed.
“That’s pretty good, Ville,” she said. He nodded. “So I have a BamBam and a JessJess then, huh?”
“Yeah. Anyways is he there?”
“Yeah, he’s upstairs, did you want to play?”
“No, I wanted just wanted to give him his game back, but I gotta eat now.” He handed April the small computer game insert and she smiled.
“Okay, I’ll give it to him.”
“Thank you,” he said, and then ran back to his house.
“Hey, Bam! Your friend came to give you your game back,” she yelled up the stairs. Bam ran down to snatch the game from her hands.
“He’s not my friend,” he said, and ran back up the stairs. April just shrugged and rolled her eyes.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
“That kid is so weird,” said Chris, biting his lip in concentration as he stuck dried pasta to a piece of cardboard.
“Which kid,” Bam asked, grabbing the glitter from the middle of the table.
“That one over there,” Chris said, nodding his head towards the other end of the table where Ville was carefully making a pattern with his pasta before sticking it on the frame.
“He’s my neighbor,” Bam said, shrugging. “He’s not too bad.”
“Nah, Chris is right, he’s weird,” Ryan said, grabbing the glitter from Bam’s hands.
“Hey, dumb-butt, gimme that back!”
“Make me,” Ryan said, covering his whole work area in the glitter.
“Idiot-face,” Bam said, tackling his best friend to the floor in a whirlwind of limbs. The teacher ran over.
“Boys! Quit that.” They ignored her, still fighting avidly in the middle of the room. She reached in and grabbed them both, forcing them apart. “Right. That’s it. Ryan, go sit over there and work with Brandon. Bam, you go work next to Ville.”
Ryan and Chris laughed as Bam glared, picking up his frame and sitting down next to Ville.
“You’re gonna get weird-germs,” Chris mouthed. Bam glowered and started working intently on his frame.
“You’ve got glue on your hands,” Ville said, pointing.
“Shut up,” Bam said, glaring some more. Ville frowned and went back to his own frame.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
“Wanna go to the pool, Bam?” It was Saturday morning, and Bam was sitting eating his breakfast when his Mom asked him.
“Okay,” he said, scooping more cereal into his mouth.
“Ville’s mom’s coming too,” she said. Bam dropped his spoon.
“I don’t wanna go with them,” he said. April fixed him with a stern look.
“Why not,” she asked.
“He’s weird.”
“No he’s not,” she said. Bam glowered some more. “Well, I don’t care what you think about him, I told Anita we’d go with them and you’re going to be nice, and if you’re not, then you’re going to be offlimits from the TV for a week.”
“Mooommmm.” Bam pouted, feeling distinctly indignant.
“I don’t wanna hear it. Now go get your stuff. Now, Brandon.”
They got to the pool around mid-day, and April soon found where Anita had already set up camp on a set of beach-chairs.
“Ville’s over there, Bam, if you want to play with him,” she said, pointing at the shallow end of the pool.
“Nah, I wanna go off the diving board,” he said, shucking his towel. “Come on Jess, let’s go off the diving board.”
“You can go on the diving board alone, Bam, I’m gonna go find my friends.” Bam watched with wide, annoyed eyes as Jess walked away. April grabbed Bam’s hand.
“Brandon, you can’t go on the diving board alone. Go play with Ville over there,” she said, pointing in the same direction Anita had. Bam huffed at her, but did as she said, and stalked over to where Ville was.
“Hi,” he said sullenly. Ville looked up from the water he was standing in up to his waist.
“Hey Bam,” he said. But before he could say anything else, Bam had thrown himself into the pool, making as big of a splash as he possibly could. Ville spluttered and pushed his long hair out of his face.
“This is boring,” Bam said, glaring at the waist deep water. “Wanna go on the diving board?”
Ville shook his head.
“Why not?”
“I can’t swim well enough,” Ville said. “And it’s too high.”
“You’re boring,” Bam stated, rolling his eyes. “Fine, I’m gonna go by myself then.” He looked over to where his mom and Anita were, and sure enough, they were deep in conversation. They wouldn’t notice. “You can stay here and be boring if you want.”
Ville watched as Bam clambered out of the shallow end and stalked over to the diving board. He knew, however, that Bam shouldn’t be there, but he didn’t know what to do. Bam wasn’t even going on the small one; Ville could see him waiting in line for the really tall one. He frowned, and then climbed out of the pool himself and ran over to where his mom and April were.
“What’s wrong, Ville,” Anita asked. He shook his head at her and looked at April.
“Bam’s gonna go off the high-dive,” he said, pointing; April looked and saw Bam halfway up the ladder and jumped up.
“Ooohhh, I’m gonna slaughter that child,” she said, and stalked off to pull Bam down from the ladder. Ville sat on the concrete next to his mom’s chair, hugging his arms, until April came back, holding a struggling Bam in her arms.
“Mom, let me down! Mom!”
“Bam, you sit here, and you stay here. I told you you weren’t allowed on the diving boards alone!” Bam crossed his arms and glowered up at her from his beach chair.
“Well I was gonna go with Ville but he’s too much of a scardey cat,” he spat, looking right at Ville as he said it. Ville frowned and looked away, hugging his knees to his chest.
“Well if it wasn’t for Ville, I dunno what might have happened to you,” April said, still glaring at her son. “Now, you sit there and you stay there and you think about what you did wrong, you got that?” Bam glared at her in answer.
It was fifteen minutes later when he was allowed to get up and go back to the pool; he stalked right over to Ville and stood on the edge of the pool, his hands on his hips.
“You’re stupid,” he said. Ville looked up at him from the water, his green eyes wide. “Tattle-tail,” Bam spat, as if it was the height of offense. Ville narrowed his eyes.
“Well you were the one trying to go off the high-dive.”
“I can go off the high-dive by myself, idiot. At least I can swim.” Bam put his foot in the water and kicked it in Ville’s general direction, even though the splash didn’t reach him. Luckily for Ville, at that moment Bam was tackled into the pool by Ryan, who had just come with his own mom. Soon, Ryan and Bam were splashing each other and running around with water guns and finally, they were allowed to go off the high-dive, as long as they went up the ladder together. Ville watched them from the shallow end with a shadowy face and glared as Bam fell screaming from the highest diving board, only to come up from the depths of the pool laughing as hard as he could. Ville kicked sullenly at the water and got out, going to sit by his mom instead of in the water, a towel draped over his head as he made stories with puppets made out of blades of grass and then made a grass army attack an anthill.
“What are you doing,” Bam asked, as him and Ryan came to stand over him, dripping water onto the ant-hill and destroying it, sending all the ants running.
Ville looked up at him, but said nothing as he turned away. Ryan looked at Bam, and Bam looked at Ryan; they both looked down at Ville, and then back at each other. “Weird,” they said together, and went off laughing.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
“No, sorry, Anita, I haven’t seen him. Yeah. Yeah. No, of course. Well, I’ll keep an eye out. Uh-huh. Sure. Bye.” April hung up the phone and reached over to slap Bam’s hand away from the cookie jar.
“Momm, it was my first day of school, I deserve a cookie!”
“Bam, you’ve been in school for three years, you deserve no such thing. Have you seen Ville?” Bam grabbed a cookie anyways and chewed at it, shaking his head and glaring.
“No,” he said, as if that was the most ridiculous question in the world. “Course I haven’t.”
“Are you sure?” April asked, catching his hands with her own. Bam nodded.
“Positive. Why?”
“Cuz’ he’s gone missing. Anita hasn’t seen him since this morning at the bus stop.” Bam frowned. That was weird. Him and Ville had waited for the bus on the corner of their street that morning, like usual during school, and Bam had swung into the seat next to Ryan, high-fiving him, like usual, as Ville slunk into a seat at the very back of the bus next to no-one, as usual. He’d ignored him during school - they were in the same class but it had 30 other kids in it, it was easy to not talk to him - and then they’d come home on the bus again. No, wait - Bam stopped there, frowning. He actually hadn’t seen Ville since recess. And then he’d been sitting down against the wall… no, that wasn’t the last time he’d seen him. It was only then that Bam realized who was in the middle of the circle of fifth graders that had appeared at the end of recess; and suddenly, Bam realized what had happened.
“Wait, I know where he is,” Bam said, finish his cookie and grabbing at the glass of milk his mom handed him. He gulped that down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“You do?” April said. Bam nodded. “Well what are you waiting for, Bam?! Go get him, it’s almost dark out!” Bam frowned at her. “Go! Shoo!”
“Finee,” he said, grabbing another two cookies to stuff in his pockets before running out the back door, across the lawn and into the forest. Sure enough, he found Ville hunched under the bridge, holding his knees to his chest and shaking.
“Hey, Ville!” Bam said, running down the bank of the creek and splashing through the water. “Ville, you gotta come out from there cuz your mom is all worried and she called my mom and my mom made me come down and get you.” Ville shook his head and buried it farther into his knees. Bam stopped and stared at him, frowning some more. “I have a cookie if you want…” Ville shook his head again. Bam frowned some more. “Really, Ville, you gotta come out, you’re all wet.” Ville shrugged.
Frowning, Bam scrambled underneath the bridge too, and sat next to Ville. “Dude,” he said - a word he’d picked up from the movies Jess liked to watch - “It’s like, all cramped up down here. And really really wet. Sure you don’t wanna come out?” Ville nodded.
“Go away,” he mumbled into his knees.
“You know, I would, but then April would kill me for leaving you here all wet and cold and cramped up.” Ville said nothing, just shivered.
“Why are you down here, anyways?” Ville shrugged. “Did those fifth graders say something to you,” Bam asked, nudging Ville with one elbow. This made Ville look up, which in turn made Bam gasp. His left eye was completely purple and swollen shut, and there were cuts on his lips and cheeks.
“Dude,” Bam said, frowning in disbelief.
“Yeah, they said stuff to me,” Ville said, glaring at Bam. Bam just stared… for a while. Then, because he didn’t know what to say, he held out a cookie.
“Want a cookie now?” he asked. Ville glared at him some more but took the cookie from his hand, holding it to his mouth with trembling hands.
“Dude,” Bam said again.
“You know, that word is really annoying,” Ville said, munching his cookie.
“Yeah but… dude. Your eye is like, purple.” Ville shrugged. “And you’re shivering. Come on, you gotta get out of here and like, put some ice on that before you go blind or something.” Bam tugged on Ville’s arm. After a while, Ville eventually gave in and followed Bam out of the bridge.
“Why’d they hit you anyways?” Ville shrugged.
“Cuz I’m weird?”
“Huh.” Bam frowned, thinking things over again. Then he threw his arm around Ville’s shoulders. “You know, I don’t really think you’re weird,” he said. Ville sniffled, wiping the tears that Bam hadn’t even noticed off with his hand. “I was just saying that for a while.”
“A while?” Ville asked, his voice squeaking a bit. “3 years is a while?”
“Yeah well… I changed my mind.” Ville nodded, but stayed silent. “Hey, Ville, if those guys ever do that again, tell me and I’ll get Ryan and Raab and the others and we’ll kick their butts.”
“But they’re in Fifth Grade,” Ville insisted. Bam shrugged, waving his hand in the air.
“Ah, that’s nothin’. Me n Raab n Ryan and the rest, we could take on like, the army or something.” Ville laughed a bit and wiped at his eyes again. “Seriously, Ville, I promise. Only you gotta promise that you’re not gonna hide under the bridge again and make me come get you.”
“Okay,” Ville said. Bam squeezed his shoulder and then let him go, but lead him to the porch of his house anyways. Anita screamed when she saw him and rushed him inside, but Ville turned to thank Bam before he left - only he was too late, Bam was already running across the yard to tell April what had happened.