Fic: Schooling
Title: Schooling
Genre: Orig (Who the Hell are these people?)
Rating: PG (Angsty - cuz it's pretty much all I write)
Prompt: 04.07
Screen doors slam up and down the block. The back stoops are littered with identical slope-shouldered kids. There are frighteningly similar moms standing next to their frighteningly similar SUVs that are next to frighteningly similar soapbox houses.
"Mom, why?"
She sighs and jingles her keys in the same way she does every single morning. She looks me in the eye, smiles a little, and I can almost see her laughing at my joke about the world's worst singing teacher. I told it at dinner last night. "Get in the car, Andy."
I throw my backpack into the back seat just a bit harder than I maybe needed to on this morning. I also slammed my car door too hard. I'm ten. What does she want?
Pulling out of the driveway, driving down the street, I watch the houses fly by my window. We've never moved. The houses are the same - although the Kirks did get a new basketball hoop last weekend. Stupid Franky won't let me play. He says it's because I'm a baby. I say it's because I kicked his ass in WiiBowling in front of his friends.
We turn left on Cree Rd. Mrs. Rollins is walking her puntable dog towards the Starbucks. That's kind of new. Well, Mom always says it's new. It's always been there to me.
---
He's pissed. I think he heard me last night. Well, I think he heard us last night. I don't laugh anymore. In fact, I think his joke at dinner last night was the first time I've laughed in a while. But it's okay. We're okay. Or at least, we'll be okay. We get through it. It's why we work.
"So, what are you doing in school today? Art class?"
He's drawing in the mist on the window. "No."
"Science?"
"No."
"Anything you're even marginally looking forward to?"
"It's school, Mom. What is there to be excited about?"
"I don't know, Andy. Something? Good food in the cafeteria at lunch?"
He sits silent, staring out the window at the neighborhood we inhabit. It's changed a lot since Darren and I were growing up. Starbucks opens a new franchise almost every weekend, and the stress of losing the paper plant isn't the same as when we were kids. Now, we sit at the kitchen table with bills, a calculator and bitter, unspoken words hovering between us instead of listening to our parents crunch numbers like we did back then. The merger went through today. We'll know by the end of the week if Darren's job even exists anymore or if they're outsourcing it to Colombia.
He's jealous that the web-production company is doing well. When I signed on to do promotions for it, Buttercup was just my college roommate's pipe dream of an idea. Now we design websites for companies in New York, LA and Sri Lanka. I travel more than I'd like but we won't lose the house. He really hates that I make more money than he does and that I have the job security he never will again.
My fingers tap the steering wheel, and I make a snap decision. I turn south onto the interstate and grin at my son.
"Mom? School is definitely the other way."
"Don't care. We're getting out of this town. We're going to find us a bad singing teacher."
Genre: Orig (Who the Hell are these people?)
Rating: PG (Angsty - cuz it's pretty much all I write)
Prompt: 04.07
Screen doors slam up and down the block. The back stoops are littered with identical slope-shouldered kids. There are frighteningly similar moms standing next to their frighteningly similar SUVs that are next to frighteningly similar soapbox houses.
"Mom, why?"
She sighs and jingles her keys in the same way she does every single morning. She looks me in the eye, smiles a little, and I can almost see her laughing at my joke about the world's worst singing teacher. I told it at dinner last night. "Get in the car, Andy."
I throw my backpack into the back seat just a bit harder than I maybe needed to on this morning. I also slammed my car door too hard. I'm ten. What does she want?
Pulling out of the driveway, driving down the street, I watch the houses fly by my window. We've never moved. The houses are the same - although the Kirks did get a new basketball hoop last weekend. Stupid Franky won't let me play. He says it's because I'm a baby. I say it's because I kicked his ass in WiiBowling in front of his friends.
We turn left on Cree Rd. Mrs. Rollins is walking her puntable dog towards the Starbucks. That's kind of new. Well, Mom always says it's new. It's always been there to me.
---
He's pissed. I think he heard me last night. Well, I think he heard us last night. I don't laugh anymore. In fact, I think his joke at dinner last night was the first time I've laughed in a while. But it's okay. We're okay. Or at least, we'll be okay. We get through it. It's why we work.
"So, what are you doing in school today? Art class?"
He's drawing in the mist on the window. "No."
"Science?"
"No."
"Anything you're even marginally looking forward to?"
"It's school, Mom. What is there to be excited about?"
"I don't know, Andy. Something? Good food in the cafeteria at lunch?"
He sits silent, staring out the window at the neighborhood we inhabit. It's changed a lot since Darren and I were growing up. Starbucks opens a new franchise almost every weekend, and the stress of losing the paper plant isn't the same as when we were kids. Now, we sit at the kitchen table with bills, a calculator and bitter, unspoken words hovering between us instead of listening to our parents crunch numbers like we did back then. The merger went through today. We'll know by the end of the week if Darren's job even exists anymore or if they're outsourcing it to Colombia.
He's jealous that the web-production company is doing well. When I signed on to do promotions for it, Buttercup was just my college roommate's pipe dream of an idea. Now we design websites for companies in New York, LA and Sri Lanka. I travel more than I'd like but we won't lose the house. He really hates that I make more money than he does and that I have the job security he never will again.
My fingers tap the steering wheel, and I make a snap decision. I turn south onto the interstate and grin at my son.
"Mom? School is definitely the other way."
"Don't care. We're getting out of this town. We're going to find us a bad singing teacher."