Suburban Youth (ch.2 con't)
Alfred jumped and whooped and dashed back, meeting up with Matthew, Toris, Feliks, Berwald, Romano, Vash and the Baltic Bros. Even the older kids decided to play this reenactment. Heracles, Sadiq and G were busy moving the picnic tables to either side and setting them down, table tops facing each other; a sort of lazy man’s trenches.
“Romano, why aren’t you on our side?” Feliciano whined across the backyard. He’d managed to climb on Ludwig’s back and was waving his hands madly. “Famiglia sticks together, remember?”
“Shut your face and eat your stupid linguini, Veneziano,” Romano shot back. “This is for breaking my CD two weeks ago!”
“But I said I was sorry!” Feliciano whined, wiggling and falling off of Ludwig’s back.
Gilbert was in the background tying Francis, Tino, and Heracles after he’d moved the benches, to the spindly cherry tree in the corner. His face scrunched in concentration as he tried to remember off the top of his head who exactly his family’s country had invaded 60 years ago. The bickering from the Italian brothers was not helping as he couldn’t remember if he needed to tie Jakob up, or just let him roam. Though, the youngster had had orange soda; in a few moments, he’d jerking around like a two-bit crack whore off her stash for a weeks, so maybe tying him up would be a good thing anyway.
“Both of you shut up,” Gilbert said sharply, instantly silencing Feliciano; Romano gave a puh sound and leaned on the back fence. “We still have to split up everyone and I can’t concentrate with your yappin’.” He gave the knot a final tug, making sure the three “nations” were secure and looked to his friend. “Al! Who do you have on your side?”
“We’ve got me, Canada, Unit-England, England sorry! Jeez, you don’t have t’hit me! Australia played by Romano, the Baltics, China by Berwald, Poland-”
“If anyone gets Poland, it should be us,” Ludwig piped. Hearing Ludwig speak was about as rare as Arthur actually giving a damn about something. Every time he spoke, conversations would halt and people would just stare at him. His speech usually so spread apart, that people forgot what he sounded like and were always thrown back by how deep his voice was for his stature and height.
“But, like, Toris is over here,” Feliks-playing-Poland said, giving Toris-playing-Lithuania’s arm a playful punch. “I don’t want to go to your side.”
“But Poland was invaded by Germany,” Ludwig said.
The boys of the Allied and Axis teams did their best to stifle their laughter, making the back of Ludwig’s neck prickle with heat. Elizaveta-playing-Hungary rolled her eyes and smacked Gilbert on the back of his head.
“You know, since, like, we represent these countries…that like, sounds totally gross,” Feliks said with a wrist flick.
“It makes sense. Now come over here,” Elizaveta said tapping her foot impatiently.
“Fine! You don’t get to use my flat iron,” Feliks said as he stuck his tongue out and sauntered to the Axis side. He was immediately greeted with a fist-tap from Jakob and given a Nerf gun byGilbert.
“Who’s playing the Soviet Union?” Arthur-playing-England asked Alfred, “If we have the Baltic area?”
It was as if Arthur had accidently launched a nuclear warhead. The neighborhood boys groaned and Matthew threw down his gun.
“Great. We might as well not even play,” he said.
“What? What did I say?” Arthur asked, poorly waxed eyebrows pinched together. Alfred sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“We usually get into long arguments trying to find a Soviet Union to play. Every time we’ve tried to play, we try to find a USSR, and it always fails because somebody always has a problem playing commies. Watch this.” Alfred turned his attention from his cousin to the older neighborhood boys. “Hey, Kris, wanna play Russia?”
“Don’t see why I have to,” Kris said with a shrug and with as much passion as a pineapple in Alaska,“ I’m already Norway.”
“Ice?”
“I’m Iceland, Al. Sorry.”
“Berwald?”
“’M already Ch’na. Y’gave me th’spot yerself,” Berwald grumbled. It wasn’t really fair to say that Berwald “said” anything. His voice was so entrenched in baritone that everything he uttered simply came out in gruff syllables. Some said it was a speech impediment. Others said he had rubber banded braces. Others said he was just that weird. But neither Williams twin could confirm nor deny anything; they hadn’t been brave enough to check the hulk’s teeth for rubber bands or ask him to say several phrases which would indicate an impediment.
“Come on guys, we need a Soviet State to play right,” Alfred said, trying to gain control of his peers again. “Hey, Toris, how bout-”
“No. And don’t bother asking Raivis and Ed. They’ve been listening to Nana’s stories of the Old Country since they were kids and you’d think they actually lived through the horrors of the Soviet Union.”
At the mere mention of the Soviet Union, Raivis ducked behind his older brother.
“So they’re not big fans of the Soviets either then?” Alfred asked and Toris shook his head no. Alfred sighed, wanting to bang his head on the fence or cement out of frustration.
“See, Arthur? This is why we try not to bring up the Soviets,” Alfred said. He sighed again. “We could have this argument for hours.”
“Hey Allies! You figure out a Russia yet? Come on, my hair’s turning white,” Gilbert-playing-Prussia asked with an impatient huff across the yard.
“Your hair’s already white anyway, Gil,” Alfred retorted. “That’s what you get for bleaching it so many times.”
“Hey! I like the color. It makes me look dangerous,” he said with a devilish grin and wiggling his fingers. “And Eliz likes it, don’cha, sweetheart?” He wrapped his arm over her shoulders; before he could finish the movement, she’d already pushed him off.
“Shove it, Chicken Man. You look like an albino,” Elizaveta shot back. Her face contorted to make it very clear that she was not anyone’s sweetheart, especially Gilbert’s.
“I love you too, babe!” Gilbert gave her an air kiss.
“Do you guys have a Japan?” Alfred asked.
“Yup, Antonio’s playin’ him,” Gilbert said. “The Asians are invading California Yao and Kiku won’t be back until close to school starting.”
“We ready to play yet?” Matthew asked. “The sun’s gonna be down before we’ve even done anything.” He paused, sautéing a thought for a moment. “We can play without a Soviet Union.”
You would have thought Matthew killed Arthur and Ludwig’s beloved pet with the horrified looks on their faces at the mere implication that something could be done with slight historical alterations.
“That’d be historically inaccurate, though!” Arthur and Ludwig said in unison.
“The Russians were a vital part of the Allied front,” Arthur said slapping the back of his right hand into his left palm. “Without them, the cause would have surely been lost and the Axis might have…” Arthur descended rapidly into his historical lesson, with a few quips from Ludwig thrown in for good measure. Arthur would often recognize said statements with a polite thank you, I hadn’t thought of that or, wow, Ludwig, that’s fascinating. How did you know that?”
“Oh look, you started it,” Alfred deadpanned to Matthew.
“Does he ever stop?” Matthew asked. Arthur had now fully fallen into story-telling mode and was enacting the Pacific Wars with flailing arms and different tones for different world leaders. Apparently he wasn’t paying attention to his audience, because if he were, the Briton would have realized the boys were losing consciousness like ants sprayed with Raid.
Matthew was the first to speak, cutting the narrative off at the hip.
“Thank you Professor,” Matthew said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Look, seriously, we should just start playing. It’s 6:30, the sun’ll be down by 9:30 and by the time we figure out a Soviet Union, Gilbert’s roots will have grown back.”
“Never gonna happen, Williams!” Gilbert shouted.
“Do you even remember what your real hair looks like?”
Gilbert’s face contorted in thought. He gave a hmm sound, as if were honestly trying to remember the color of hair he was born with. After a moment, “No. And quite frankly I don’t care.”
“I’ll play,” came a strange, accented, male voice. The voice wasn’t like Francis’, an American trying hard to grasp to roots he almost had no ties to. But instead, resembled Arthur’s, the voice of someone who’d just stepped off the airplane and hadn’t developed the proper way of speaking yet. Actually, scratch that. The voice was neither, because it was the voice of someone who’d just stepped off the airplane and hadn’t been speaking English for longer than three years at the most.
The voice belonged to a young boy none of the neighborhood kids knew. He looked about twelve with a tall, lanky body, but his face hadn’t lost its youthful fullness. His hair the color of beach sand and his eyes an odd shade of blue, close to purple. He wore a white and red stripped t-shirt, denim jeans, Nikes that looked like they’d been stolen from the set of the Fresh Prince, a jovial smile and a scarf.
He stood in beteween two girls. The one to his left looked older, maybe 13 years. She had cropped yellow hair, held back with a black band. Her eyes, wide and cobalt. She wore overalls. The second girl, she couldn’t have been a day over seven, wore a pink party dress, pink shoes and ash blonde hair held back by a pink bow. She clung to the boy in the middle and stared blankly at the neighborhood children; her eyes the color of icicle puddles. Overall Girl and Scarf Boy had enough similarities to be called siblings, but Pink Girl shared none. The three of them stood in front of Mrs. Williams.
“Kids, these are the Braginski siblings: Ivan, Ekaterina and Natasha, did I pronounce those right? They’re new to the neighborhood from St. Petersburg was it? Yes, St. Petersburg, all the way in the Russian Federation, isn’t that fascinating you guys?”
Mrs. Williams’ enthusiasm was not shared by the neighborhood children, to say the least. In fact, their reaction would have better suited the welcome of a horde of an intelligent beetle species wielding ancient Germanic weaponry and modern vehicles from Japan. A breeze kicked in, ruffling the children’s clothes and hair. Leaves rustled in the background, a quiet hush amongst the chilling scream of distrust.
Raivis was a nervous wreck when the Soviet Union was simply spoken of. Now, there were three citizens from that country. Here. In America. In the Williams’ backyard! The nine year old felt the prickling of tears as he clung to Ed and Toris.
Gilbert’s jaw pressed together and his hand gripped around the hilt of his gun tighter. Ludwig backed to his cousin.
Berwald’s already intimidating eyes flickered and darkened. Even Sadiq, the oldest and quite possibly the most mature, pinched his lips together, white.
Alfred automatically felt that desire to protect everyone in the yard.
He was the first to step forward.
“I’m Al,” Alfred said, extending his arm to the siblings, trying to soften his expression; it was a diplomatic and mature move, which surprised Arthur, Matthew and a good number of the rest of the neighborhood. Ivan shook his hand.
“Hello,” Ivan said. He said the “he” part from his throat, making the word, the familiar English greeting, sound odd, foreign. Alfred shook the hand of the girl in overalls, Ekaterina, and the young one in the party dress, Natasha.
“You kids play nice, ok?” Mrs. Williams said to everybody, though the statement was obviously directed specifically towards her youngest and Gilbert. Gilbert quickly nodded yes, having already received the backhand of his angry mother once today, not wanting a repeat of the event. She turned and retreated to the house, but not before both Alfred and Matthew noticed she wasn’t wearing her wedding band.
“Looks like we’ve got a Soviet, eh?” Matthew said, slipping involuntarily into the Canadian accent he picked up last year. Alfred quickly silenced him with a Nerf bullet to the head. He turned back to the newcomers.
“So, you guys got Nerf guns?” Alfred asked, he jerked his chin out on you guys and looked at them over his nose. He relished the moment, wondering if this slight sense of empowerment was what Arthur felt every day.
“We hoped that you had…more,” Ivan said, sheepishly, truthfully, a blush reaching the tips of his ears. His w’s came out like v’s, his t-hs like d-y’s and words he didn’t know, awkward and jilted. “We weren’t allowed Nerf guns back home.”
“I think we have a few in the garage from two years ago,” Matthew piped. “Al, why don’t you help me?” he spoke the last part with a fake smile , through his teeth and jerked his head towards the garage, in a pitiful attempt to be discrete.
Alfred didn’t question the blatant lack of tact, instead trotted to his brother who practically speed-walked to the garage. His brother’s eyes were flashing again. This couldn’t be a good sign. Matthew punched in the code for the automatic garage door. With a ping and a whir, it opened.
The garage, well, it really wasn’t a garage, a room that was supposed to house cars, as much as it was a place that had thrown up boxes of stuff. There really was no better word for the piles of boxes and random trinkets which decorated the area. There was a couch, an ugly artifact from Mr. Williams’ college years, placed in the front, a table, a hula girl light. Boxes with dust. Some without. Some with names Sharpied into the side. Others without. Boxes stacked against each other like some sort of three-dimensional wallpaper. Sports paraphernalia on the opposite wall. Rollerblades, baseball gloves, football helmets, soccer cleats, ice skates. A small path parted the Red Sea of Stuff, and it could barely be called a path as bits of debris from the box pillars had settled on the ground.
Matthew actually began looking for the guns while Alfred leaned on the table. A silence swept over them, not the kind of silence of two people who actually had nothing to talk about, but that awkward and lingering silence, thick like the body odor of Bret Farve after practice, of two children who refused to talk about something they needed to.
“So, new kids,” Alfred said, just barely penetrating the silence. Matthew, entrenched in the shadows of Under the Table (a place bordered with more boxes, a chest-of-drawers, and the Ugly Couch, making it a musty fort configuration.) Matthew gave a noncommittal grunt. He shifted some boxes, moved out a baseball bag, from their days before football and hockey. “They’re Russian. Guess we’re gonna have to lock our stuff up at night.”
Matthew shifted another box. “They’re not the commies anymore, Al,” he said. With a clink, he put the found, albeit dusty and dirty, Nerf guns on the table. “Mom said the Cold War ended right around the time we were two.” He began to move to get out from Under the Table and hit his head with a deep thump and an ow.
“I know, but still. They have bad juju. They can’t be any good.”
Matthew leaned on the back of the couch and cleaned his glasses lenses. He looked tired, a little crestfallen and Alfred was positive it wasn’t because of the new kids and their heritage.
“Looks like they moved in the house at the end of the block,” Matthew said.
“Pfft,” Alfred waved his brother’s comment like he would an irritating insect. “None of the houses on the block are for sale.”
“Yes there are. Old Man Johnson’s house.” Alfred sampled the implication in his mind, let it swim around between his ears like a tadpole. Someone living in Old Man Johnson’s house? Impossible.
“Matt, don’t even joke about that. Three people died in that house. It’s cursed. No one lives there anymore.”
“Check it out, Al,” Matthew pointed and Alfred turned. Lo and behold, Old Man Johnson’s house, the creepy brick house from the 1930s with a porch and overgrown weeds and decaying shutters and paint-had a small Toyota sedan and mover’s truck in the driveway. Two men moved a couch inside the home.
Alfred couldn’t describe the moment any better than simply saying it was like being punched in the gut. Someone was living in Old Man Johnson’s house! The spirit of the cranky geezer of Hetalia Boulevard’s folklore was sure to have been unleashed with the disturbance! He didn’t want to die, not while he was so young and still had so much to do! And the New Kids-they were either working with the evil spirit or they’d be dead by Friday. Either way, it would be best not to get too close to the Braginskis.
“Matt?” Alfred asked, still staring at the wilting house being filled with strange people from a strange land, voice just barely above a whisper.
“Yeah, Al?”
“Are we…are we going to die?”
Matthew wasted no time in slapping the back of his little brother’s head.
“Hey, Mattie?” Alfred asked, nursing the injured spot on his head. Matthew climbed over the Ugly Couch and handed Alfred one of the old Nerf guns. “You saw Mom’s-”
“Come on, shrimp, let’s go back,” Matthew interjected, throwing his arm around his brother’s shoulders.
“Who’re you calling shrimp? I’m an inch and a half taller than you.”
>>>>Last part
“Romano, why aren’t you on our side?” Feliciano whined across the backyard. He’d managed to climb on Ludwig’s back and was waving his hands madly. “Famiglia sticks together, remember?”
“Shut your face and eat your stupid linguini, Veneziano,” Romano shot back. “This is for breaking my CD two weeks ago!”
“But I said I was sorry!” Feliciano whined, wiggling and falling off of Ludwig’s back.
Gilbert was in the background tying Francis, Tino, and Heracles after he’d moved the benches, to the spindly cherry tree in the corner. His face scrunched in concentration as he tried to remember off the top of his head who exactly his family’s country had invaded 60 years ago. The bickering from the Italian brothers was not helping as he couldn’t remember if he needed to tie Jakob up, or just let him roam. Though, the youngster had had orange soda; in a few moments, he’d jerking around like a two-bit crack whore off her stash for a weeks, so maybe tying him up would be a good thing anyway.
“Both of you shut up,” Gilbert said sharply, instantly silencing Feliciano; Romano gave a puh sound and leaned on the back fence. “We still have to split up everyone and I can’t concentrate with your yappin’.” He gave the knot a final tug, making sure the three “nations” were secure and looked to his friend. “Al! Who do you have on your side?”
“We’ve got me, Canada, Unit-England, England sorry! Jeez, you don’t have t’hit me! Australia played by Romano, the Baltics, China by Berwald, Poland-”
“If anyone gets Poland, it should be us,” Ludwig piped. Hearing Ludwig speak was about as rare as Arthur actually giving a damn about something. Every time he spoke, conversations would halt and people would just stare at him. His speech usually so spread apart, that people forgot what he sounded like and were always thrown back by how deep his voice was for his stature and height.
“But, like, Toris is over here,” Feliks-playing-Poland said, giving Toris-playing-Lithuania’s arm a playful punch. “I don’t want to go to your side.”
“But Poland was invaded by Germany,” Ludwig said.
The boys of the Allied and Axis teams did their best to stifle their laughter, making the back of Ludwig’s neck prickle with heat. Elizaveta-playing-Hungary rolled her eyes and smacked Gilbert on the back of his head.
“You know, since, like, we represent these countries…that like, sounds totally gross,” Feliks said with a wrist flick.
“It makes sense. Now come over here,” Elizaveta said tapping her foot impatiently.
“Fine! You don’t get to use my flat iron,” Feliks said as he stuck his tongue out and sauntered to the Axis side. He was immediately greeted with a fist-tap from Jakob and given a Nerf gun byGilbert.
“Who’s playing the Soviet Union?” Arthur-playing-England asked Alfred, “If we have the Baltic area?”
It was as if Arthur had accidently launched a nuclear warhead. The neighborhood boys groaned and Matthew threw down his gun.
“Great. We might as well not even play,” he said.
“What? What did I say?” Arthur asked, poorly waxed eyebrows pinched together. Alfred sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“We usually get into long arguments trying to find a Soviet Union to play. Every time we’ve tried to play, we try to find a USSR, and it always fails because somebody always has a problem playing commies. Watch this.” Alfred turned his attention from his cousin to the older neighborhood boys. “Hey, Kris, wanna play Russia?”
“Don’t see why I have to,” Kris said with a shrug and with as much passion as a pineapple in Alaska,“ I’m already Norway.”
“Ice?”
“I’m Iceland, Al. Sorry.”
“Berwald?”
“’M already Ch’na. Y’gave me th’spot yerself,” Berwald grumbled. It wasn’t really fair to say that Berwald “said” anything. His voice was so entrenched in baritone that everything he uttered simply came out in gruff syllables. Some said it was a speech impediment. Others said he had rubber banded braces. Others said he was just that weird. But neither Williams twin could confirm nor deny anything; they hadn’t been brave enough to check the hulk’s teeth for rubber bands or ask him to say several phrases which would indicate an impediment.
“Come on guys, we need a Soviet State to play right,” Alfred said, trying to gain control of his peers again. “Hey, Toris, how bout-”
“No. And don’t bother asking Raivis and Ed. They’ve been listening to Nana’s stories of the Old Country since they were kids and you’d think they actually lived through the horrors of the Soviet Union.”
At the mere mention of the Soviet Union, Raivis ducked behind his older brother.
“So they’re not big fans of the Soviets either then?” Alfred asked and Toris shook his head no. Alfred sighed, wanting to bang his head on the fence or cement out of frustration.
“See, Arthur? This is why we try not to bring up the Soviets,” Alfred said. He sighed again. “We could have this argument for hours.”
“Hey Allies! You figure out a Russia yet? Come on, my hair’s turning white,” Gilbert-playing-Prussia asked with an impatient huff across the yard.
“Your hair’s already white anyway, Gil,” Alfred retorted. “That’s what you get for bleaching it so many times.”
“Hey! I like the color. It makes me look dangerous,” he said with a devilish grin and wiggling his fingers. “And Eliz likes it, don’cha, sweetheart?” He wrapped his arm over her shoulders; before he could finish the movement, she’d already pushed him off.
“Shove it, Chicken Man. You look like an albino,” Elizaveta shot back. Her face contorted to make it very clear that she was not anyone’s sweetheart, especially Gilbert’s.
“I love you too, babe!” Gilbert gave her an air kiss.
“Do you guys have a Japan?” Alfred asked.
“Yup, Antonio’s playin’ him,” Gilbert said. “The Asians are invading California Yao and Kiku won’t be back until close to school starting.”
“We ready to play yet?” Matthew asked. “The sun’s gonna be down before we’ve even done anything.” He paused, sautéing a thought for a moment. “We can play without a Soviet Union.”
You would have thought Matthew killed Arthur and Ludwig’s beloved pet with the horrified looks on their faces at the mere implication that something could be done with slight historical alterations.
“That’d be historically inaccurate, though!” Arthur and Ludwig said in unison.
“The Russians were a vital part of the Allied front,” Arthur said slapping the back of his right hand into his left palm. “Without them, the cause would have surely been lost and the Axis might have…” Arthur descended rapidly into his historical lesson, with a few quips from Ludwig thrown in for good measure. Arthur would often recognize said statements with a polite thank you, I hadn’t thought of that or, wow, Ludwig, that’s fascinating. How did you know that?”
“Oh look, you started it,” Alfred deadpanned to Matthew.
“Does he ever stop?” Matthew asked. Arthur had now fully fallen into story-telling mode and was enacting the Pacific Wars with flailing arms and different tones for different world leaders. Apparently he wasn’t paying attention to his audience, because if he were, the Briton would have realized the boys were losing consciousness like ants sprayed with Raid.
Matthew was the first to speak, cutting the narrative off at the hip.
“Thank you Professor,” Matthew said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Look, seriously, we should just start playing. It’s 6:30, the sun’ll be down by 9:30 and by the time we figure out a Soviet Union, Gilbert’s roots will have grown back.”
“Never gonna happen, Williams!” Gilbert shouted.
“Do you even remember what your real hair looks like?”
Gilbert’s face contorted in thought. He gave a hmm sound, as if were honestly trying to remember the color of hair he was born with. After a moment, “No. And quite frankly I don’t care.”
“I’ll play,” came a strange, accented, male voice. The voice wasn’t like Francis’, an American trying hard to grasp to roots he almost had no ties to. But instead, resembled Arthur’s, the voice of someone who’d just stepped off the airplane and hadn’t developed the proper way of speaking yet. Actually, scratch that. The voice was neither, because it was the voice of someone who’d just stepped off the airplane and hadn’t been speaking English for longer than three years at the most.
The voice belonged to a young boy none of the neighborhood kids knew. He looked about twelve with a tall, lanky body, but his face hadn’t lost its youthful fullness. His hair the color of beach sand and his eyes an odd shade of blue, close to purple. He wore a white and red stripped t-shirt, denim jeans, Nikes that looked like they’d been stolen from the set of the Fresh Prince, a jovial smile and a scarf.
He stood in beteween two girls. The one to his left looked older, maybe 13 years. She had cropped yellow hair, held back with a black band. Her eyes, wide and cobalt. She wore overalls. The second girl, she couldn’t have been a day over seven, wore a pink party dress, pink shoes and ash blonde hair held back by a pink bow. She clung to the boy in the middle and stared blankly at the neighborhood children; her eyes the color of icicle puddles. Overall Girl and Scarf Boy had enough similarities to be called siblings, but Pink Girl shared none. The three of them stood in front of Mrs. Williams.
“Kids, these are the Braginski siblings: Ivan, Ekaterina and Natasha, did I pronounce those right? They’re new to the neighborhood from St. Petersburg was it? Yes, St. Petersburg, all the way in the Russian Federation, isn’t that fascinating you guys?”
Mrs. Williams’ enthusiasm was not shared by the neighborhood children, to say the least. In fact, their reaction would have better suited the welcome of a horde of an intelligent beetle species wielding ancient Germanic weaponry and modern vehicles from Japan. A breeze kicked in, ruffling the children’s clothes and hair. Leaves rustled in the background, a quiet hush amongst the chilling scream of distrust.
Raivis was a nervous wreck when the Soviet Union was simply spoken of. Now, there were three citizens from that country. Here. In America. In the Williams’ backyard! The nine year old felt the prickling of tears as he clung to Ed and Toris.
Gilbert’s jaw pressed together and his hand gripped around the hilt of his gun tighter. Ludwig backed to his cousin.
Berwald’s already intimidating eyes flickered and darkened. Even Sadiq, the oldest and quite possibly the most mature, pinched his lips together, white.
Alfred automatically felt that desire to protect everyone in the yard.
He was the first to step forward.
“I’m Al,” Alfred said, extending his arm to the siblings, trying to soften his expression; it was a diplomatic and mature move, which surprised Arthur, Matthew and a good number of the rest of the neighborhood. Ivan shook his hand.
“Hello,” Ivan said. He said the “he” part from his throat, making the word, the familiar English greeting, sound odd, foreign. Alfred shook the hand of the girl in overalls, Ekaterina, and the young one in the party dress, Natasha.
“You kids play nice, ok?” Mrs. Williams said to everybody, though the statement was obviously directed specifically towards her youngest and Gilbert. Gilbert quickly nodded yes, having already received the backhand of his angry mother once today, not wanting a repeat of the event. She turned and retreated to the house, but not before both Alfred and Matthew noticed she wasn’t wearing her wedding band.
“Looks like we’ve got a Soviet, eh?” Matthew said, slipping involuntarily into the Canadian accent he picked up last year. Alfred quickly silenced him with a Nerf bullet to the head. He turned back to the newcomers.
“So, you guys got Nerf guns?” Alfred asked, he jerked his chin out on you guys and looked at them over his nose. He relished the moment, wondering if this slight sense of empowerment was what Arthur felt every day.
“We hoped that you had…more,” Ivan said, sheepishly, truthfully, a blush reaching the tips of his ears. His w’s came out like v’s, his t-hs like d-y’s and words he didn’t know, awkward and jilted. “We weren’t allowed Nerf guns back home.”
“I think we have a few in the garage from two years ago,” Matthew piped. “Al, why don’t you help me?” he spoke the last part with a fake smile , through his teeth and jerked his head towards the garage, in a pitiful attempt to be discrete.
Alfred didn’t question the blatant lack of tact, instead trotted to his brother who practically speed-walked to the garage. His brother’s eyes were flashing again. This couldn’t be a good sign. Matthew punched in the code for the automatic garage door. With a ping and a whir, it opened.
The garage, well, it really wasn’t a garage, a room that was supposed to house cars, as much as it was a place that had thrown up boxes of stuff. There really was no better word for the piles of boxes and random trinkets which decorated the area. There was a couch, an ugly artifact from Mr. Williams’ college years, placed in the front, a table, a hula girl light. Boxes with dust. Some without. Some with names Sharpied into the side. Others without. Boxes stacked against each other like some sort of three-dimensional wallpaper. Sports paraphernalia on the opposite wall. Rollerblades, baseball gloves, football helmets, soccer cleats, ice skates. A small path parted the Red Sea of Stuff, and it could barely be called a path as bits of debris from the box pillars had settled on the ground.
Matthew actually began looking for the guns while Alfred leaned on the table. A silence swept over them, not the kind of silence of two people who actually had nothing to talk about, but that awkward and lingering silence, thick like the body odor of Bret Farve after practice, of two children who refused to talk about something they needed to.
“So, new kids,” Alfred said, just barely penetrating the silence. Matthew, entrenched in the shadows of Under the Table (a place bordered with more boxes, a chest-of-drawers, and the Ugly Couch, making it a musty fort configuration.) Matthew gave a noncommittal grunt. He shifted some boxes, moved out a baseball bag, from their days before football and hockey. “They’re Russian. Guess we’re gonna have to lock our stuff up at night.”
Matthew shifted another box. “They’re not the commies anymore, Al,” he said. With a clink, he put the found, albeit dusty and dirty, Nerf guns on the table. “Mom said the Cold War ended right around the time we were two.” He began to move to get out from Under the Table and hit his head with a deep thump and an ow.
“I know, but still. They have bad juju. They can’t be any good.”
Matthew leaned on the back of the couch and cleaned his glasses lenses. He looked tired, a little crestfallen and Alfred was positive it wasn’t because of the new kids and their heritage.
“Looks like they moved in the house at the end of the block,” Matthew said.
“Pfft,” Alfred waved his brother’s comment like he would an irritating insect. “None of the houses on the block are for sale.”
“Yes there are. Old Man Johnson’s house.” Alfred sampled the implication in his mind, let it swim around between his ears like a tadpole. Someone living in Old Man Johnson’s house? Impossible.
“Matt, don’t even joke about that. Three people died in that house. It’s cursed. No one lives there anymore.”
“Check it out, Al,” Matthew pointed and Alfred turned. Lo and behold, Old Man Johnson’s house, the creepy brick house from the 1930s with a porch and overgrown weeds and decaying shutters and paint-had a small Toyota sedan and mover’s truck in the driveway. Two men moved a couch inside the home.
Alfred couldn’t describe the moment any better than simply saying it was like being punched in the gut. Someone was living in Old Man Johnson’s house! The spirit of the cranky geezer of Hetalia Boulevard’s folklore was sure to have been unleashed with the disturbance! He didn’t want to die, not while he was so young and still had so much to do! And the New Kids-they were either working with the evil spirit or they’d be dead by Friday. Either way, it would be best not to get too close to the Braginskis.
“Matt?” Alfred asked, still staring at the wilting house being filled with strange people from a strange land, voice just barely above a whisper.
“Yeah, Al?”
“Are we…are we going to die?”
Matthew wasted no time in slapping the back of his little brother’s head.
“Hey, Mattie?” Alfred asked, nursing the injured spot on his head. Matthew climbed over the Ugly Couch and handed Alfred one of the old Nerf guns. “You saw Mom’s-”
“Come on, shrimp, let’s go back,” Matthew interjected, throwing his arm around his brother’s shoulders.
“Who’re you calling shrimp? I’m an inch and a half taller than you.”
>>>>Last part