When A Home Is A Menagerie
Part One
There are seven people in the Urie household, and following Dad’s rules, 49 Greenheld will stay like that until the youngest is capable of fending for himself. Knowing he’s what’s holding his siblings back, Brendon is looking forward to graduating. Not just for their sakes, though that guilt is often floating around the back of his head. It’s also for selfish reasons; any university dorm is bound to have more privacy and quiet than Dad’s no locked doors policy. Of course, future privacy is all based on the ability to graduate, something that isn’t as certain was it once was. It’s impossible to know what Irving is going to be like, if things will compound into him being the first Urie dropout.
Each person has their own theory about why Brendon has to switch schools for senior year. That’s what happens, it’s what’s happened as long as Brendon can remember. Six solid opinions, data to back each, before they all cede to Dad.
There are the official reasons; told to Brendon two nights ago when they sat him down on the living room couch and explained he would no longer be going to Pine Crest. Dad said there were zoning issues. Even if he doesn’t dare accuse his father of such an act, Brendon’s pretty sure that’s a lie. As far as he knows private schools don’t follow the same district rules public schools do, so even if the districts had changed it shouldn’t have affected him. Mom, working along side Dad in the conversation as was her duty, added that it was a good thing as Pine Crest was very expensive. Brendon really hopes that’s not the reason. It would be unfair if Matt and Mason and Kara and Valerie all got a full private school education and he didn’t, like he wasn’t worth the money.
Then there are the opinions of the gallery. Brendon listens to them because he’s spent his entire life listening to his siblings. You don’t get far as a youngest sibling without learning how to listen and pretend you agree, even if you don’t. It’s not lying if you don’t vocally agree, just let them draw their own conclusions.
Matt says it’s because senior year gets wild and they don’t want that for him, insinuating as always that his ties to the Lord and moral behaviour aren’t are strong as they should be. Brendon doesn’t point out he doesn’t have any friends to be pressured into partying with.
That’s what Kara thinks is the problem; that they switched him to stop the bullying. Which is dumb because he’s not technically bullied, the students just don’t like him. It’s likely no one is going to like him at the new school either, people tend not to. So what’s the point of switching the location when the results will be the same? She thinks the fact that Kevin from church goes to Irving will change everything, that he’ll have a guaranteed friend. Considering Kevin barely talks to him at church, Brendon’s pretty sure it won’t change much.
Mason says it’s because he’s not getting straight A’s. Mason was always the one with the best grades, a path he firmly set for the other four to follow. His opinion is that if they send Brendon to a school that doesn’t demand as much academically, his grades will rise even if his intelligence doesn’t. Brendon can see that working. He’s never really talked to teachers in great length, but he knows about grading on a curve, and at Pine Crest he’s probably at the bottom of that curve.
Valerie thinks it’s not as much level of intelligence, just that he’s mentally handicapped in general. ADHD is a strong label, and Pine Crest doesn’t want any diagnosed students. Or at least students that aren’t buried under a mountain of medication. If Valerie’s right that’s discrimination. Discrimination means his parents could have fought it, but didn’t.
Brendon doesn’t know what to think. He doesn’t really want any of them to be right, except maybe Kara, everyone else puts the blame on him. But in the end it doesn’t matter anyway. Everyone’s opinion of the reason for his transferring doesn’t change the fact that he is transferring.
Before he can walk into Irving he has to officially resign from Pine Crest. Mom comes in to handle the paperwork, so the only thing left for Brendon is to return his locker lock and uniform. The principal seems unimpressed by his folding job, and wrinkles his nose at the balled socks. He doesn’t wish him luck, or a good future. Nobody says anything to him as he walks out, whether it’s hello or goodbye. It’s not upsetting, he wasn’t expecting anything anyway.
When the car pulls to a stop in front of Irving, he can’t say public school seems that much different. A red brick school, green lawn, a few kids standing in the gutter so they’re technically off school property so they can smoke a cigarette. Brendon grabs his backpack and moves up the wide sidewalk to the set of six metallic green doors. The inside isn’t particularly different either. It’s linoleum and white square brick, not hardwood and panelling, but Brendon’s not an interior decorator and it’s not a big difference to him. It smells the same, lemons from the newly mopped floor, a dozen different overly sprayed perfumes and colognes wafting off students, grease from the cafeteria that’s at the end of the hall. Irving even sounds the same, clusters of people all trying to talk over each other, feet clomping down the halls, the occasional crash of a locker slamming.
The real difference becomes obvious in seconds; the students. His parents are paying five thousand dollars a year to keep him away from this type of teenager. At least, they were. He’s no longer worth the cost, for whatever reason he decides to believe.
Brendon’s got a manila envelope of documents he needs as an Irving student. The first he pulls out is a map of the school, the second a tiny slip with two numbers. One is obviously his locker, the other the combination for the lock. He doesn’t need to use the map to find it, the numbers on each locker rise by one down each hallway. The battered metal is bigger than the one at Pine, full length instead of half. He opens it to check the lock, not because he has anything interesting to put inside yet. Maybe after his classes he’ll have textbooks or something.
There are a few more sheets in the envelope, but the one he really needs is his schedule. It’s nearly nine, it wouldn’t do to be late. The light green paper seems pretty straight forward. At Pine each grade had a floor of the building, one classroom for each course, and the students rotated. There was no need for a schedule, you only needed to remember what grade you were in, and what the first class was. Irving’s spread out differently, it obviously has far too many classrooms for that system. Still, the schedule clears it up nicely; each square tells him the course, the teacher’s name, and the classroom. Except for the first and second courses. All those boxes say is CSS. His schedule has obviously been misprinted.
The first place Brendon thinks to go is to the guidance counsellor. The principal in a public school isn’t getting paid to interact with the students, he’s paid to make sure no one smuggles in weapons. At Pine Crest Mr Taylor was primarily for attending the students’ college preparation, the role can’t be that much different here.
The map shows him the way to the guidance office, and to heck with Adam for saying he couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag with a lighter in one hands. Brendon can always figure out where he’s supposed to be. It’s just sometimes where he’s supposed to be isn’t as interesting as where he is, and he doesn’t want to leave. The office is many times larger than the one at Pine Crest, the hallway door opening to a small seating area and five other closed doors, each labelled with letters. It makes sense to have so many guidance counsellors though, considering the student population is about quadruple what Pine’s was.
Brendon feels incredibly awkward. On one end of the bench there is a girl with pink hair in pigtails crying. He doesn’t like to see people upset, but the problems of someone that makes that sort of lifestyle choice will be way out of his problem solving league. He stays standing rather than sit at the other end of the bench. Getting within talking distance will only be unhelpful for the both of them.
The longer he stays, the more uncomfortable he feels. She looks a little scary, even crying, and there’s no telling how long he’ll be trapped in here with her before one of the doors opens. And it’s entirely possible that it’s an in-school acronym that every student will know. So Brendon leaves, deciding he’ll ask the first person that looks approachable. It quickly becomes obvious that’s easier said than done. Yeah, he knew there wouldn’t be a dress code, he’s not sweating in his poorly ironed slacks and jacket, but he thought there would be a middle ground between uniform and crack dealer. Apparently not.
Once he finally finds a nice looking girl, denim patchwork ankle length shirt and an appropriately loose shirt, Brendon asks “do you know what the CSS on the first two slots of my schedule means? There’s no homeroom number to go to.”
She stills the green paper that he’s waving and looks at it for a second before smiling. “Oh, it’s just Community and Social Service. It’s mandatory, you know, every senior has to take it. You didn’t get yours figured out during the summer? Weird. You should probably, like, go to the guidance counsellor or something.”
“Right. Thanks.” Well, shoot.
***
Like all families Brendon knows, his gathers to eat dinner together, sharing their day as they eat. Today most of the attention seems to be focused on him, everyone wanting to know how his first day went. Brendon does his best to tell his siblings what they want to hear; Valerie that he was calm, Mason that he thinks the classes are pretty easy, Kara that a few people smiled back when he smiled at them. What he doesn’t tell anyone is that he has two periods of volunteering each day. Brendon is fully aware that not telling his family everything is tantamount to lying. Still, he just can’t bring himself to share the information. As soon as he does everyone will have opinions about what he should do, and as they’re all older than him he’ll be expected to listen. And that’s if dad doesn’t directly tell him what church affiliated program needs his help the most. For once Brendon just wants a moment of doing what he wants to do, not what he’s told to do.
Community Service is a rare chance at choice, and the way Brendon sees it he should choose something that will make him happy, as opposed to making everyone else happy. There are two things guaranteed to make him smile every day; baby animals and music. It helps that neither is something mom and dad or the church will oppose; there’s nothing immoral about pets. Music is good too, as long as the lyrics are appropriate.
Once the plates are stacked in the kitchen for mom and Kara to wash, Brendon escapes to his room. The closed door isn’t much of a deterrent, locked doors promote opportunities for self-stimulation and so none of the doors in the house have them. But if someone opens the door to talk to him, he should have just enough time to hide the list the guidance counsellor - Mrs Toews for U to Z- printed out for him under his pillow. It’s a two page list of potential places for the uninspired. Those with their own ideas about what part of the city or society needs help are allowed to locate their own place, as long as it’s approved before they start logging hours. Luckily though that search won’t be needed for him; there are three pre-approved animal shelters, and a program for reaching to disenfranchised children through music.
Unlike a good majority of the school -most likely at least, he can’t say for certain, his parents didn’t want him to join band because they perform alongside cheerleaders, girls obviously flaunting themselves for the entertainment of others- Brendon can actually play multiple instruments. It’s not vanity to say he plays well enough to teach others, he doesn’t brag about it, it’s just the truth. The problem that comes with joining that program is he’s never met a disenfranchised child. He’s pretty sure he can’t relate to someone witnessing or involved in a stabbing or drive-by shooting, or even to a child with divorced parents. And if he can’t connect with them he’s not doing the job right. It’s important, to the church and to himself, that he has a work ethic. It would be wrong to volunteer if he knows from the onset that he can’t fulfill the job.
***
Brendon’s got a pocket full of quarters when he steps up to the bank of payphones just inside the front doors. The shining silver is covered in Sharpie graffiti, he tries not to read any of it as he punches in the first number on the list and pops in the two quarters. He’s probably the only student in the school without a cell phone, but it’s not like he normally has anyone to call anyway.
The first number is a bust; it already has five students helping in the morning and doesn’t need any more. The second and third are the same, leaving Brendon at a loss. Part of him wants to just call the music program, surely not everyone has his skill set. But he really wouldn’t suit it in personality, and that’s just as important. He compromises with himself and tucks the list back into his binder before slinging his backpack over one shoulder and heading to the library. It can be a back up opportunity, in case he can’t find anything else that works.
It takes most of first period to compile a list of pet stores on Google and almost ten bucks in quarters, but eventually Brendon talks to a man willing to have a student to come in and help with the dogs. Apparently he’s already got someone for cats. Mrs Toews takes about thirty seconds to sign off on it, as he’s not insane she doesn’t have much use for him.
“Do you drive, Brendon?”
“I can drive. I don’t have a car though, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s too bad. I don’t know if you know the area, but the shop you’re going to be helping is about seven blocks west. If you drove you could catch up some of your time, I know you’re already behind three hours.”
Brendon shrugs, and when she asks him if there’s anything else, he takes it for the clear dismissal it is. Seven blocks really isn’t that far, it won’t take him more than fifteen minutes to walk it.
When he opens the door a chime goes off, and he can hear the muffled sound of dogs barking in response at the back of the shop. At the front is what Brendon can’t help but think of as the boring pets; the fish and birds, and tiny cages of hamsters and guinea pigs and white mice. There’s also a door painted green with a tiny placard proclaiming A. Sinthe. Brendon knocks on the door several times before turning the knob when the man grunts. He doesn’t let the apparent bad mood stop him from entering. Mr Sinthe needs to tell him what his duties will be so he can start helping, as well as sign him in and out every morning.
He’s not the most wholesome looking man, and the first thing he does is open a drawer in his desk and gesture at it wildly. “Here’s the name-tag drawer. Take whichever one you want, switch daily. It’s for plausible deniability so when someone barges in and demands you’re fired I don’t know who you are and don’t have to waste my time on that shit.”
Brendon takes offence at the idea that he’ll be bad enough that a customer would complain, but doesn’t say anything. Complaining won’t prove anything, he’ll just have to show he’s a good volunteer. Still, even the base system seems flawed. “Won’t they just describe me?”
“You’ve both got brown hair and glasses, it’ll be fine.” With that Mr Sinthe spins until the back of his chair is facing him. He takes it as the cue to go find this lookalike volunteer and introduce himself.
Said volunteer is near the back, where the cats are lined up. But if there’s one thing Brendon is positive about, it’s that he would never be confused for ‘Bill’. Bill is some strange combination of what his preacher would call a Godless thug, and gender confused. He’s wearing a shirt with a demon’s firey face on it, and the text Disturbed over the demon’s eyes. They don’t match very well to his extremely tight jeans, though the elaborate skeleton belt buckle does. And on second glance those are definitely girls jeans, they zipper on the wrong side. Not that girls should be wearing jeans that tight anyway, but it’s pretty obvious that’s not an issue he’ll have much ability to change, almost all the girls at Irving yesterday were wearing clothes far too tight, and far too revealing. The look is topped off with his hairstyle; girl-bangs and more time, effort and hairspray than would be used in Brendon’s house in a month. All of it together is enough to make him shy away from saying hello. If there’s one person Heavenly Father doesn’t want him to become friends with, it’s ‘Bill’.
***
Brendon’s not upset his dad picked his two optional classes for him. Being consulted would have been good, he could have told him that biology would be a misery. But Dad decided to chose what he thought was best for him, and unlike most teenagers he’ll respect his father’s decision. As sorely tempted as he is, he won’t skip or see if he can get Mrs Toews to change anything. He just needs to remind himself that it’s okay to suffer. Learning endurance is an important goal, especially when sooner rather than later he’ll have to start proving he’s worthy of a mission.
Of the six schedule slots, the first two belong to Paws And Claws, and then he has AP math, cooking, biology and English. Each day is like a wave, a good beginning followed by a trifecta of bad. First he eats his lunch and since Mom has perfect lunch building abilities he’s always full, then he has to eat whatever he’s made in cooking even if it looks terrible, and then when he’s absolutely stuffed to the brim he has to go write notes about all sorts of disgusting diseases.
Even considered individually, each class has it’s flaws. In biology they have to cut animals apart. Brendon likes animals, he doesn’t want to cut them apart, not even if they’re already dead. Cooking’s subject matter is obviously a lot better, but there are eight kitchen stations for twenty five teenagers, and his partners are a girlfriend and boyfriend that spend more time with their hands on each other than kneading dough. Math is just plain boring. A lot of the time he doesn’t have enough patience for plugging everything into a graphing calculator, and it’s easy to not even notice he’s doing it wrong until he gets a zero for in-class work.
English is his refuge, a class where he is expected to talk and have opinions he’s not parroting from the Book of Mormon. He shouldn’t be enjoying it as much as he does. If Brendon told his parents about some of the subject matter they’ve already discussed, they would lodge a complaint about inappropriateness to the principal. Even the room would be considered offensive; the walls are plastered in witty signs, student created advertisements, and book covers of novels his parents would never let him read blown up into posters. Brendon decided the first day of the course he wouldn’t tell anyone. What his family doesn’t know can’t become an issue. It’s somewhat shameful, but if he has to suffer three bad classes he should be allowed a single nice class. Surely Heavenly Father would understand.
The best thing about the class -aside from being encouraged to have his own thoughts- is the interesting assignments. It’s not a literature based English course, there are no copies of Jane Eyre or To Kill A Mockingbird on the spinning rack beside Mr Anglia’s desk. In fact, he said on the first day that they’re learning essentially everything except novels. When he stands and hands out a stack of lavender papers to the front of each row, Brendon waits impatiently for them to be passed back. Whatever the homework is, it’s bound to be interesting. Even if he has to spend all of lunch doing it because it’s something he can’t risk looking at in his bedroom, it’ll be worth it.
“This is an outline for your final project. It’s due the week before exams, and I know right now that’s not for forever,” Brendon snickers quietly as Mr Anglia waves his arms sarcastically, “but if you leave it to the last day, I will be able to tell, and you will probably fail. So don’t. It will be a compendium of the ways of getting a message across, on a subject of your choice. It will require a poem, an interview, a photograph, and not something taken from Flickr or Google Images, that’s plagiarism, which again, will lead to a fail, so you best keep a copy on your camera if it seems suspect-”
Brendon draws bubbles around the requirements on the purple sheet as he waits for the three hole punch to make its way to him. He snickers again when Katrina complains it’s a lot of work. She clearly doesn’t know what work is, it’s far more difficult developing a speech as a priest in the church. She also doesn’t seem to understand that complaining never gets anyone further in life, it just makes people lose their respect for you.
The problem with his theory is that her complaining works. It takes only a minute of the class all chiming in together for him to allow for partners. Brendon didn’t think Mr Anglia was that weak, but maybe he just doesn’t want to read thirty projects when he can read fifteen. Either way it doesn’t matter, partners are optional and there’s no one in the class he’s friends with to pair up.
“New kid, be my partner?”
Brendon looks over as a guy in a green shirt crashes into the seat beside him. He seems totally earnest about the suggestion, which makes Brendon suspicious. He’s not going to do the entire project just so someone else can write their name beside on his as they share a grade. “Why me?”
“Because I’m always the bitch.” Brendon blinks, then looks down at his scrawled over assignment sheet. He has no idea how to answer that and asking for clarification probably isn’t the best idea either, so underlining the due date until his pen is about to rip through the paper is the next best thing. “It’s nothing personal, new kid. I’m not saying you’re making me a bitch. It’s just Navarro and Saporta have this Not A Thing, or a Thing Except It’s Not, or a Not Quite A Thing, God only knows, and even though it’s their sex I’m always the bitch. It’s fucking ridiculous.”
Heavenly Father help him, he’s curious. Nobody ever talked like that at Pine, at least not to him. And he’s entirely certain none of the priests have ever spoken like that at church. “What’s the difference?”
“What? Oh. Well, a Not Quite A Thing is exactly what it sounds like; each keeps bitching out and waiting for the other to make a move. A Not A Thing is them having sex and saying it doesn’t mean anything and it may or may not. And A Thing But It’s Not is the opposite; basically they have fun sexing it up and they wanna love each other because the sex is so good, but it’s just not happening.”
“Wow.” Brendon had no idea relationships were so complicated when sex was involved. There’s a difference between the Elders telling the Priests, and the Priests telling the Teachers and Teachers telling the Deacons, and hearing it from someone that actually has experienced sexual intimacy before marriage.
“Yeah, so, we’re not actually sure which one it is, but there’s always tension. And if it’s stuff in pairs it’s always them, and Ry being a gentleman to Victoria, and me being the bitch fifth wheel. Except none of them are in this class, but the new kid is always the bitch, so I figure better two bitches together than you with the kid that sniffs White Out.”
Again, Brendon has no idea what to say. The guy misinterprets his silence and frowns before questioning “unless you wanna be with the kid that sniffs White Out?”
“No.” Eagerness to listen to potentially offensive educational matter or not, there are lines Brendon knows not to cross. Befriending someone with a substance abuse problem is definitely one of those lines.
“Cool. Then what do you think our subject should be? Remember, it needs to be multi-anglenable.”
“Is that a word?”
“If it isn’t I should have a red squiggly line under my feet.” He backs up the chair to the desk of the person behind him and raises his feet but Brendon’s not dumb enough to look when it’s obviously a joke. The guy on the other hand peers down before saying with mock relief “good, there’s nothing. Multi-anglenable it is. But probably something real, considering the small research article.”
“I think the advertisement will be easy, you can sell anything. But the letters to the editor and the picture might be hard.”
“Bears,” the teen says firmly.
“What?” It’s kind of a non-sequitor.
“Bears!” he repeats more emphatically. “No. Clouds. It should be clouds. There’s an assload of science, we can take a picture before lunch, we can have like cloud nine slippers or something. It’s fucking great. Unless you have a personal vendetta against clouds.”
“What?”
“You know, like if clouds killed your mom and you can’t rest until every last one has been obliterated from the sky.”
“No? But that could totally be the fiction piece?” Brendon likes the mental image of some man going around in a hot air balloon, capturing clouds in giant nets and making them pay.
“Clouds it is. We’re gonna take those columbus mother fuckers down.”
“Actually I think it’s cumulus.” Brendon knows it is, there was a weather pattern unit in natural science last year, but sounding like a know-it-all isn’t conducive to keeping friends.
“Whatever. Close enough.” He waves off the distinction instead of getting mad at the correction, and then starts to sketch out an ad for Cloud Nine slippers. He’s not a very good artist, but that doesn’t seem to stop him from drawing massive blobs all over the bottom half of his notebook page.
It’s not until Brendon’s nearly at his locker to deposit his biology textbook and pick up his math one that he realises he doesn’t know the guy’s name, and the guy probably doesn’t know his. Brendon shrugs. The best thing about Irving’s schedule compared to Pine’s is he has each class every day instead of three rotating five class days. He’ll have English again tomorrow, he can ask him then.
*
Brendon loves playing with Sniffler. He loves it so much that it’s almost impossible to believe at the end of the semester he’s going to get a credit for hanging out with her. It’s like getting a credit for playing the guitar, or for singing in the church choir. It’s not like he’s going to make his life harder and refuse the credit. Nor is he going to switch to helping the janitor at Irving like one of the drug addict students that hang out at the side door is. It’s just nice to not have to do something uncomfortable with a smile on his face.
Sniffler is a chocolate Labrador Retriever. He knows because he took a picture and then looked up different dogs on Google until he found one that matched, not because Mr Sinthe knew. Sometimes Brendon suspects Mr Sinthe doesn’t care about the animals in his shop. He’s fairly certain he isn’t all in his right mind. It’s easy to forget about his boss though. He only sees him for a minute when he walks into the office to get his log signed and to grab another fake name tag, and then he’s with all the dogs, making sure they know they’re loved. Sniffler in particular. She’s going blind, which means probably no one will ever adopt her. Everyone wants a perfect animal, never mind that no living creature or human can be perfect.
It’s a terrible thing to think, but Brendon’s almost happy for people’s pickiness. If nobody adopts her, he can take care of her forever. There aren’t a lot of toys at Paws And Claws -Brendon’s considering going to a better pet store and buying all sorts of items- but Sniffler doesn’t need them. She loves a belly rub, and he loves how much she loves it. He could just rub her for the whole hour forty five minutes, and he doesn’t think she’d disagree.
He’s on the floor, making her legs kick in joy, when a chime rings out. It takes Brendon a minute to place it as the door chime. He’s been helping here a month, and in the thirty seven logged hours there haven’t been any even potential customers.
“I’ll be right back, I promise,” he tells Sniffer, unfolding to his feet. He gives her a parting rub and hurries to the front. He doesn’t trust Kittyboy’s ability to persuade a customer into giving one of the lovely pets a permanent home. To be honest, Brendon doesn’t even trust his ability to show courtesy. Not when they’re halfway through their fifth week and he hasn’t said a single word to him. Brendon has had to resort to thinking of him as Kittyboy for his constant presence in the cat section. It’s easier than noting which fake name tag he grabs each day, and he has to call him something.
First impressions say she’ll want a Bulldog or a Great Dane. Or a Python, not that they sell them. Something intimidating, at least. It’s the only polite word he has for her. She’s got black hair mussed into dreadlocks, and piercing in places he didn’t even know you could pierce. He’s seen people with nose and eyebrow piercings, but she has two gold balls on her throat, and he can see through the hole in her earlobe.
When Brendon had sprinted in from the parking lot at quarter to nine -never just be on time, Brendon, it shows disinterest- he had belatedly wished he was wearing a jacket. She’s only wearing a tank top, but she must be made out of sterner stuff than he is because she’s not shivering. The wind must have picked up from when he was out, her dreds are everywhere. She shakes her head, scattering them more, then raises her arms to pull them into a ponytail that she doesn’t tie. With her arms up he gets a glance of their undersides, one is covered in the bright colours of a tattoo.
Kittyboy -today it says Adam- is smiling at her. The gesture is hardly a surprise, even if it’s the first time he’s seen the expression on his face. Brendon smiles at people he sees wearing crosses, even though as a Mormon he doesn’t wear one himself, to encourage their faith. Of course Kittyboy, seemingly gothic and hardcore from head to toe, smiles at a girl with dreadlocks and a tattoo.
Then, instead of walking the extra foot to slip past the gap in the front desk, she puts both hands on the teal laminate and heaves herself over, like she’s hopping a fence. Once she’s half over, Kittyboy’s hands curl around her shoulders, and they remain after she’s firmly planted. It’s only seconds before they’re kissing, not quite as passionately as Devon and Katie from cooking class, but somehow more confident. Brendon looks away after a moment. He should do more than that. He should be leaving before he witnesses anything more. It’s against his faith, and she’s obviously not a customer.
Instead he stays near the door, and doesn’t understand why the feeling he self-diagnoses is disappointment. It can’t just be that it’s obvious they’re having premarital sex. Brendon wouldn’t wish spirit prison on anyone, even knowing most will eventually get to join the Telestial Kingdom, but he’s come to accept that most people will have to suffer for a time. He’s only able to shake it off when they pull apart, and the girl turns to show Kittyboy her arm. There are a series of hoop piercing in it, and a ribbon strung through them.
“Holy shit, Alicia,” he says, awestruck. Brendon winces at the phrasing, but agrees with the sentiment. Although it’s a bit sad that Kittyboy’s shocked now, Brendon likes to think he would have noticed the moment she hopped over the counter.
“What? It’s not a full corset.”
“Your mom is still going to kick your ass. You can’t exactly hide that shit.”
“It’s not my mother’s skin, is it?”
“Don’t show Gee.”
“Why not? It’s art, he could draw me.”
Kittyboy doesn’t seem to like that response. He snorts before elaborating, “it’s needles, he’ll puke.”
She smirks. “So then I shouldn’t take him back to the parlour when they start to reject and I need to remove them?”
“If you want to carry his unconscious body out of the shop, that’s your choice. I’m not coming with.”
This, somehow, is more uncomfortable than the making out. Brendon slips back through the door before he has to listen to any more banter. At least dogs don’t have weird body mutilation fetishes.
***
“I’ll roshambo you for who has to do the damn poem.” It’s been weeks since Brendon informed him that Mormons don’t like vulgar language and Alex is still swearing. Brendon knows he should be horribly offended by the lack of consideration as well as the words, and refuse to be his friend, but he’s not, and he won’t. In his opinion it’s enough for the saviour if he doesn’t swear himself.
“I have no idea what that means.”
“Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t understand a South Park reference. For the record though, the writers love the shit out of Mormons. Joesph Smith and the gold plates and all that. Tell me you know what rock paper scissors is, that it isn’t like, gambling or something.”
“It’s not.” At least he’s almost positive it’s not. Brendon shakes his fist three times before making a fist, at the next desk Alex splays his middle and ring fingers.
“Fuck. Why am I always the bitch?”
“You are not, I had to figure out three letters to the editor about clouds. Do you know how hard that was?”
“I didn’t think Mormons were allowed to complain.”
“Alex, you don’t think Mormons are allowed to breathe.” Plus, not that he can admit it to anyone, but he’s pretty sure he’s not the best abiding, most faithful Mormon. Lately his failure in comparison to his siblings has just been shining clearer and clearer.
As the oldest, Mason has always been the one to create the paths the rest of the Uries follow. In love it’s no different, he’s been devoutly chaste with Elizabeth as the Lord commands. Brendon was happy for him when he first found out he was getting married, and interested in witnessing his first sealing ceremony. But with the wedding a week away he’s turned into a horrible person with only negative feelings about the event. He’s jealous that Mason will soon get to know what a woman is like. He’s worried that he’ll never find someone that interests him. He’s egocentric, not wanting to face the after party with dozens of people asking him what his plans are when he graduates. Blasphemy is even rearing it’s ugly head, he can’t help but think their first kiss will be nothing like what Devon and Katie enjoy between every stir or cracked egg, and maybe being forced to wait until marriage is silly.
The answer occurs to him in English class. There’s something in the potent combination of having a stimulating room, a opinionated teacher, and a real friend, that makes Brendon’s brain work in ways it hasn’t before. It’s the end of the mandatory twenty minutes of silent reading, Alex theorises it’s a surefire method of not having to make a full lesson plan, but Brendon appreciates the time. There are things he’s not allowed to read, but Mr Anglia doesn’t know, and if he did he wouldn’t care. Brendon puts his book on top of his backpack -if it goes into his bag he might forget and bring it home, and if someone found Ironman, there would be, as Alex so succinctly puts it, a shitstorm- and leans over to him. “Will you go to a wedding with me?”
“Uh, you know I’m straight, right?”
“Yes?” Of course he is, but Brendon doesn’t understand what that has to do with anything.
Alex continues like he hadn’t said anything at all. “Because I can probably find a cool bi guy to go with you though, I know a lot of those.”
“I am very confused.”
“Well, it all started long ago and far away when you asked me out on a date.”
“What? I did not!” He’s Mormon, he’s not allowed to be Gay.
“You asked me to go to a wedding. That’s a classic. I mean, it’s a classic for a thirty year old woman, but I figure Mormons do their shit early. World travel for teenagers, child brides, you know.”
“We do not have child brides! Mason’s twenty three! I just don’t want to be there alone. Everyone else will be nagging me if I’m there alone. If you’re there, I’ve brought a possible convert and everyone will be proud of my preaching skills.”
“You realise you’re not converting shit all, right?”
“As long as you don’t say that after the sealing ceremony, I don’t care.” It’s a lie, and lying at the temple is probably one of the worst things he could do, but it still seems better than facing what works are you going to create for yourself and your family for five hours.
“And you’re sure this isn’t a date.”
“Very sure.”
***
It does kind of feel like a date. Or at least it would if Alex wasn’t the wrong gender.
***
Normally he wouldn’t be outside during his volunteering time. Even if Mr Sinthe is always in his office, and won’t notice or care, it feels wrong to cheat the system, and it feels worse to desert the animals. But with Mason married and living with his wife, there’s no more being dropped off on the route to Mason’s work. Instead it’s Valerie waking up specifically to drive him to Paws And Claws, and she’s always been one to sleep in until the last minute. She doesn’t wake him up in time to have breakfast, and ever since that one time he spilled a Slurpee in the family van, she doesn’t trust him with food in her new car. By Wednesday he’s learned to bring a jumbo muffin with him.
Of course he can’t eat it inside because the dogs get pouty. Which leads to him being out here in mid-November, a experience he doesn’t particularly need in his life.
Instead of yellow or white lines painted on the asphalt, the parking spaces in the lot are noted by short wooden posts. There’s a fist sized hole drilled in at the top of each post, a heavy chain threaded through almost all. Only the posts directly in front of each store in the strip mall are exempt. Brendon’s perched on one, ripping chunks off the plate sized muffin when Kittyboy comes out. He seems surprised to see him, though from the brief encounters Brendon’s had he’s not much for facial expressions, so it’s more of a loose interpretation of the slight pause in Kittyboy’s gait than solid dropped mouth proof. He can understand the surprise, technically one of them should be inside at all times, and he probably didn’t peg Brendon as the shirker. But he’s hungry, and he can’t eat with Rascal drooping in his general direction, so for the first time it seems the plausible deniability name tags will come in handy.
Kittyboy takes a red package out of his pocket instead of saying hello. He pulls a cigarette from it before cramming the pack back in. Brendon’s not surprised, Kittyboy’s jeans are always ridiculously tight, and the bulging square can only be so many things. It still takes everything he has to not start repeating the Word of Wisdom and it’s stance on tobacco. Before the silence can spur him into speaking, a guy from a few stores down the strip mall comes out and walks over to them. He only stops when he’s right beside Kittyboy, almost awkwardly close. He takes the cigarette from his hand, and Brendon has a moment to think the stranger is going to be bold and crush it beneath his shoe before being proven wrong. The man shakes his head so his greasy femininely long hair isn’t on his face, then takes a drag.
Brendon isn’t trying to listen in on their conversation, but his post is only a few feet away from where they’re standing, wind thankfully blowing the smoke to the left so he doesn’t get interrogated by Valerie at quarter to eleven. He learns a lot in the next fifteen minutes, like Gerard thinks his break is the only think keeping him alive, that working at a scrapbooking store sucks, and that Jodie is trying to scalp her Maple Kings ticket for only ten bucks above original price if he wants it.
When Gerard says his goodbyes before going back into his store, Brendon learns two additional important facts. The first is that they’re brothers, which makes him wonder if the feminine qualities run in the family, if their dad wears makeup or high heels. And the second is that Kittyboy is Mikey. He still can’t use it in Paws And Claws, Mikey would know he was eavesdropping. But at least he has something better to call him in his head, something that doesn’t evoke images of the tall teenager with a tail and tiger striped cat ears.
***
Brendon wakes up to Kara shouting at him from the bottom of the stairs. “Brendon! It’s your friend on the phone!”
She doesn’t clarify more, but then she doesn’t have to, it’s not like he has more than one. While his parents or brothers and sisters might consider the others his age at church friends, Brendon knows better. They’re friendly because that’s what God commands. Alex actually seems interested in him for reasons all his own. He’s an atheist, God has nothing to do with any of his decisions, which is wrong, fascinating, and terrifying all at the same time.
Superior friendship or not, he’s still not someone that anyone in the family would approve of if they knew him better. Between Alex knowing when to keep his mouth full of one bite desserts and Brendon carefully steering him away from those that would ask too many or too detailed questions, they managed to come out of Mason’s wedding alive. Alex stuck on one end of the phone, with Kara of all people on the other, is far more dangerous. Brendon bolts out of bed, grabbing his housecoat from its hook and tossing it on as he races down the stairs. The longer time Kara has to ask seemingly innocent questions, the higher the chance of Alex saying something completely inappropriate.
“Thanks Kara,” he says as he slides to a stop on the hardwood. He thrusts out his hand impatiently, though his worry is slightly abated. Alex not being hung up on is a good sign. She gives him a bit of a look as she passes the phone over, an expression he’s used to from anyone older than him. It doesn’t even hurt anymore.
“Hi. What’s up?”
“Just called to make sure you were suffering with the rest of us slackers.”
Brendon doesn’t really think it’s slacking if his three make up hours are from not knowing he needed to volunteer, but he doesn’t say it. Nor does he say that working at Paws and Claws isn’t suffering, and he’ll probably spend longer than the necessary three hours just because he can. “Yeah. Had my alarm set for ten. Sometimes you need to sleep in a little, you know.”
“Not to sound egocentric, but do you realise how many boxes are donated at Christmas? I’ll be doing heavy lifting forever. There’s not a chance I’ll be given sorting or packaging. They always give the easy shit to the girls and the old people. Which is stupid because both Victoria and her grandmother could kick my ass.”
“If you’re so against it, just don’t show up.”
Alex’s sigh is impressively loud, Brendon’s heard quieter screams. “Can’t bail on Harvest, unfortunately. I need to make up the time for when I skipped. Saporta’s friend Bilvy once had a mental breakdown, well, or insane drug binge, we’re really not sure. But anyway, he ran away to live in a hotel for two weeks, blew a fuckton of money. He almost failed all his classes, and he forgot to make up his cee ess ess and since it was a mandatory credit he had to repeat half the year, just for it. He graduates after exams, it fucked up his university, it’s crazy. That shit’s not happening to me.”
***
He’s been at Paws and Claws for three hours, and he’s not the only one. Mikey was here when he arrived. Brendon can only figure Gerard still had to work a shift, and he tagged along. It’s strange because Mikey shouldn’t have any make up time, unless he missed the first day too. But as the day stretches and neither of them leave it becomes somewhat of a relief. He isn’t the weird, overly-attached kid if Mikey’s here too. Not that they can leave anyway, at least one of them needs to stay to make sure the shop doesn’t get robbed. Mr Sinthe left almost an hour ago, with no mention of when he’d be back.
Owning a pet store isn’t a potential career for him, no more than Alex will be running a business to feed those below the poverty line. There has to be a bunch of paperwork he’s not seeing, Mr Sinthe’s office is full of portable metal containers. Worrying every day about costs, and what food to be giving the animals, and if the cat or dog or guinea pig is going to a good home, it’s too stressful for Brendon, not to mention what happens if an animal gets sick. Surgeries for animals are as expensive as human surgeries, and most of them probably aren’t cost effective. That all being said, full day volunteering is nice. Around one he walks to the gas station and picks up a bag of chips and a caffeine free soda for lunch. Mikey leaves a few times, presumably going to visit his brother. There are no customers, so Brendon grabs a few papers from the office to write down some cloud based song lyrics when they come to him. For his part, Mikey is never seen without his cell phone in hand, texting constantly.
Brendon’s making a rare visit in the cat section when Mikey’s phone rings. It’s a rock song, Brendon can tell that much, even if he doesn’t know what the song is, or which band. He folds to his knees to let Panther chase the ribbon in his hand to justify his presence, and Mikey doesn’t even look at him before answering it. “Hey.
“Same as always, playing with Bluebell and Whiskers.
“Oh, fuck you, I didn’t name them.
“No I can’t use nicknames, I already confuse them enough by only being here two hours a day.
“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure you see Patrick more than two hours a day.
“Cumulatively, then. Tell me it’s not fourteen hours a week and I’ll give you a lollipop.
“You could.
“You want to? How about now? Unless you’ve already changed your mind about wanting to see me more than two hours.
“You know where it is?
“Love you too.”
Brendon puts Panther away then stations himself at the front of the store, slowly filling up the bird’s food and water. He wants to be there when the girl with dreads comes in. He wants to see if her arm scarred from the body modification, or if she’s done anything else crazy.
Unfortunately for his curiosity -the nearly full food dishes mean he won’t be able to stay up front much longer- when the door opens it’s not dreadlocked girl. Instead it’s a teenage boy, their first customer of the day. Brendon’s never actually run a til, nor does he have any idea if they have to sign any papers, or get their record checked like people trying to buy guns do. Asking him to leave and come back when Mr Sinthe is around has to be bad business practice, even if he’s exceedingly polite the guy probably won’t come back. Hopefully Mikey knows the procedures, Brendon can hear him whispering to the cats as he puts them in their cages so he can open the door without them bolting.
Mikey’s delay is his gain, he immediately starts to compose a pitch for selling Beldon. She’s a great dog and would be an excellent Christmas present. They could probably even deliver her on Christmas day; his family doesn’t celebrate until the afternoon. Getting a great dog for Christmas would be the best present ever, and he’d love to see the look on this guy’s sister’s face. Presuming she doesn’t look as strange as he does. His clothes look like a box of markers exploded on him; multiple primaries down to green shoes and a red streak in his hair. The only thing a solid expanse of colour are the grey-black tattoos littering his arms and peeking from the collar of his shirt.
Brendon realises he’s got things wrong when Mikey calls hey Pete as he comes through the door. But he knows he’s got things direly wrong when Mikey goes past the front desk to give Pete a hello kiss. All this time he’s been working with a Gay, how could he never have realised?
Part Two
There are seven people in the Urie household, and following Dad’s rules, 49 Greenheld will stay like that until the youngest is capable of fending for himself. Knowing he’s what’s holding his siblings back, Brendon is looking forward to graduating. Not just for their sakes, though that guilt is often floating around the back of his head. It’s also for selfish reasons; any university dorm is bound to have more privacy and quiet than Dad’s no locked doors policy. Of course, future privacy is all based on the ability to graduate, something that isn’t as certain was it once was. It’s impossible to know what Irving is going to be like, if things will compound into him being the first Urie dropout.
Each person has their own theory about why Brendon has to switch schools for senior year. That’s what happens, it’s what’s happened as long as Brendon can remember. Six solid opinions, data to back each, before they all cede to Dad.
There are the official reasons; told to Brendon two nights ago when they sat him down on the living room couch and explained he would no longer be going to Pine Crest. Dad said there were zoning issues. Even if he doesn’t dare accuse his father of such an act, Brendon’s pretty sure that’s a lie. As far as he knows private schools don’t follow the same district rules public schools do, so even if the districts had changed it shouldn’t have affected him. Mom, working along side Dad in the conversation as was her duty, added that it was a good thing as Pine Crest was very expensive. Brendon really hopes that’s not the reason. It would be unfair if Matt and Mason and Kara and Valerie all got a full private school education and he didn’t, like he wasn’t worth the money.
Then there are the opinions of the gallery. Brendon listens to them because he’s spent his entire life listening to his siblings. You don’t get far as a youngest sibling without learning how to listen and pretend you agree, even if you don’t. It’s not lying if you don’t vocally agree, just let them draw their own conclusions.
Matt says it’s because senior year gets wild and they don’t want that for him, insinuating as always that his ties to the Lord and moral behaviour aren’t are strong as they should be. Brendon doesn’t point out he doesn’t have any friends to be pressured into partying with.
That’s what Kara thinks is the problem; that they switched him to stop the bullying. Which is dumb because he’s not technically bullied, the students just don’t like him. It’s likely no one is going to like him at the new school either, people tend not to. So what’s the point of switching the location when the results will be the same? She thinks the fact that Kevin from church goes to Irving will change everything, that he’ll have a guaranteed friend. Considering Kevin barely talks to him at church, Brendon’s pretty sure it won’t change much.
Mason says it’s because he’s not getting straight A’s. Mason was always the one with the best grades, a path he firmly set for the other four to follow. His opinion is that if they send Brendon to a school that doesn’t demand as much academically, his grades will rise even if his intelligence doesn’t. Brendon can see that working. He’s never really talked to teachers in great length, but he knows about grading on a curve, and at Pine Crest he’s probably at the bottom of that curve.
Valerie thinks it’s not as much level of intelligence, just that he’s mentally handicapped in general. ADHD is a strong label, and Pine Crest doesn’t want any diagnosed students. Or at least students that aren’t buried under a mountain of medication. If Valerie’s right that’s discrimination. Discrimination means his parents could have fought it, but didn’t.
Brendon doesn’t know what to think. He doesn’t really want any of them to be right, except maybe Kara, everyone else puts the blame on him. But in the end it doesn’t matter anyway. Everyone’s opinion of the reason for his transferring doesn’t change the fact that he is transferring.
Before he can walk into Irving he has to officially resign from Pine Crest. Mom comes in to handle the paperwork, so the only thing left for Brendon is to return his locker lock and uniform. The principal seems unimpressed by his folding job, and wrinkles his nose at the balled socks. He doesn’t wish him luck, or a good future. Nobody says anything to him as he walks out, whether it’s hello or goodbye. It’s not upsetting, he wasn’t expecting anything anyway.
When the car pulls to a stop in front of Irving, he can’t say public school seems that much different. A red brick school, green lawn, a few kids standing in the gutter so they’re technically off school property so they can smoke a cigarette. Brendon grabs his backpack and moves up the wide sidewalk to the set of six metallic green doors. The inside isn’t particularly different either. It’s linoleum and white square brick, not hardwood and panelling, but Brendon’s not an interior decorator and it’s not a big difference to him. It smells the same, lemons from the newly mopped floor, a dozen different overly sprayed perfumes and colognes wafting off students, grease from the cafeteria that’s at the end of the hall. Irving even sounds the same, clusters of people all trying to talk over each other, feet clomping down the halls, the occasional crash of a locker slamming.
The real difference becomes obvious in seconds; the students. His parents are paying five thousand dollars a year to keep him away from this type of teenager. At least, they were. He’s no longer worth the cost, for whatever reason he decides to believe.
Brendon’s got a manila envelope of documents he needs as an Irving student. The first he pulls out is a map of the school, the second a tiny slip with two numbers. One is obviously his locker, the other the combination for the lock. He doesn’t need to use the map to find it, the numbers on each locker rise by one down each hallway. The battered metal is bigger than the one at Pine, full length instead of half. He opens it to check the lock, not because he has anything interesting to put inside yet. Maybe after his classes he’ll have textbooks or something.
There are a few more sheets in the envelope, but the one he really needs is his schedule. It’s nearly nine, it wouldn’t do to be late. The light green paper seems pretty straight forward. At Pine each grade had a floor of the building, one classroom for each course, and the students rotated. There was no need for a schedule, you only needed to remember what grade you were in, and what the first class was. Irving’s spread out differently, it obviously has far too many classrooms for that system. Still, the schedule clears it up nicely; each square tells him the course, the teacher’s name, and the classroom. Except for the first and second courses. All those boxes say is CSS. His schedule has obviously been misprinted.
The first place Brendon thinks to go is to the guidance counsellor. The principal in a public school isn’t getting paid to interact with the students, he’s paid to make sure no one smuggles in weapons. At Pine Crest Mr Taylor was primarily for attending the students’ college preparation, the role can’t be that much different here.
The map shows him the way to the guidance office, and to heck with Adam for saying he couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag with a lighter in one hands. Brendon can always figure out where he’s supposed to be. It’s just sometimes where he’s supposed to be isn’t as interesting as where he is, and he doesn’t want to leave. The office is many times larger than the one at Pine Crest, the hallway door opening to a small seating area and five other closed doors, each labelled with letters. It makes sense to have so many guidance counsellors though, considering the student population is about quadruple what Pine’s was.
Brendon feels incredibly awkward. On one end of the bench there is a girl with pink hair in pigtails crying. He doesn’t like to see people upset, but the problems of someone that makes that sort of lifestyle choice will be way out of his problem solving league. He stays standing rather than sit at the other end of the bench. Getting within talking distance will only be unhelpful for the both of them.
The longer he stays, the more uncomfortable he feels. She looks a little scary, even crying, and there’s no telling how long he’ll be trapped in here with her before one of the doors opens. And it’s entirely possible that it’s an in-school acronym that every student will know. So Brendon leaves, deciding he’ll ask the first person that looks approachable. It quickly becomes obvious that’s easier said than done. Yeah, he knew there wouldn’t be a dress code, he’s not sweating in his poorly ironed slacks and jacket, but he thought there would be a middle ground between uniform and crack dealer. Apparently not.
Once he finally finds a nice looking girl, denim patchwork ankle length shirt and an appropriately loose shirt, Brendon asks “do you know what the CSS on the first two slots of my schedule means? There’s no homeroom number to go to.”
She stills the green paper that he’s waving and looks at it for a second before smiling. “Oh, it’s just Community and Social Service. It’s mandatory, you know, every senior has to take it. You didn’t get yours figured out during the summer? Weird. You should probably, like, go to the guidance counsellor or something.”
“Right. Thanks.” Well, shoot.
***
Like all families Brendon knows, his gathers to eat dinner together, sharing their day as they eat. Today most of the attention seems to be focused on him, everyone wanting to know how his first day went. Brendon does his best to tell his siblings what they want to hear; Valerie that he was calm, Mason that he thinks the classes are pretty easy, Kara that a few people smiled back when he smiled at them. What he doesn’t tell anyone is that he has two periods of volunteering each day. Brendon is fully aware that not telling his family everything is tantamount to lying. Still, he just can’t bring himself to share the information. As soon as he does everyone will have opinions about what he should do, and as they’re all older than him he’ll be expected to listen. And that’s if dad doesn’t directly tell him what church affiliated program needs his help the most. For once Brendon just wants a moment of doing what he wants to do, not what he’s told to do.
Community Service is a rare chance at choice, and the way Brendon sees it he should choose something that will make him happy, as opposed to making everyone else happy. There are two things guaranteed to make him smile every day; baby animals and music. It helps that neither is something mom and dad or the church will oppose; there’s nothing immoral about pets. Music is good too, as long as the lyrics are appropriate.
Once the plates are stacked in the kitchen for mom and Kara to wash, Brendon escapes to his room. The closed door isn’t much of a deterrent, locked doors promote opportunities for self-stimulation and so none of the doors in the house have them. But if someone opens the door to talk to him, he should have just enough time to hide the list the guidance counsellor - Mrs Toews for U to Z- printed out for him under his pillow. It’s a two page list of potential places for the uninspired. Those with their own ideas about what part of the city or society needs help are allowed to locate their own place, as long as it’s approved before they start logging hours. Luckily though that search won’t be needed for him; there are three pre-approved animal shelters, and a program for reaching to disenfranchised children through music.
Unlike a good majority of the school -most likely at least, he can’t say for certain, his parents didn’t want him to join band because they perform alongside cheerleaders, girls obviously flaunting themselves for the entertainment of others- Brendon can actually play multiple instruments. It’s not vanity to say he plays well enough to teach others, he doesn’t brag about it, it’s just the truth. The problem that comes with joining that program is he’s never met a disenfranchised child. He’s pretty sure he can’t relate to someone witnessing or involved in a stabbing or drive-by shooting, or even to a child with divorced parents. And if he can’t connect with them he’s not doing the job right. It’s important, to the church and to himself, that he has a work ethic. It would be wrong to volunteer if he knows from the onset that he can’t fulfill the job.
***
Brendon’s got a pocket full of quarters when he steps up to the bank of payphones just inside the front doors. The shining silver is covered in Sharpie graffiti, he tries not to read any of it as he punches in the first number on the list and pops in the two quarters. He’s probably the only student in the school without a cell phone, but it’s not like he normally has anyone to call anyway.
The first number is a bust; it already has five students helping in the morning and doesn’t need any more. The second and third are the same, leaving Brendon at a loss. Part of him wants to just call the music program, surely not everyone has his skill set. But he really wouldn’t suit it in personality, and that’s just as important. He compromises with himself and tucks the list back into his binder before slinging his backpack over one shoulder and heading to the library. It can be a back up opportunity, in case he can’t find anything else that works.
It takes most of first period to compile a list of pet stores on Google and almost ten bucks in quarters, but eventually Brendon talks to a man willing to have a student to come in and help with the dogs. Apparently he’s already got someone for cats. Mrs Toews takes about thirty seconds to sign off on it, as he’s not insane she doesn’t have much use for him.
“Do you drive, Brendon?”
“I can drive. I don’t have a car though, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s too bad. I don’t know if you know the area, but the shop you’re going to be helping is about seven blocks west. If you drove you could catch up some of your time, I know you’re already behind three hours.”
Brendon shrugs, and when she asks him if there’s anything else, he takes it for the clear dismissal it is. Seven blocks really isn’t that far, it won’t take him more than fifteen minutes to walk it.
When he opens the door a chime goes off, and he can hear the muffled sound of dogs barking in response at the back of the shop. At the front is what Brendon can’t help but think of as the boring pets; the fish and birds, and tiny cages of hamsters and guinea pigs and white mice. There’s also a door painted green with a tiny placard proclaiming A. Sinthe. Brendon knocks on the door several times before turning the knob when the man grunts. He doesn’t let the apparent bad mood stop him from entering. Mr Sinthe needs to tell him what his duties will be so he can start helping, as well as sign him in and out every morning.
He’s not the most wholesome looking man, and the first thing he does is open a drawer in his desk and gesture at it wildly. “Here’s the name-tag drawer. Take whichever one you want, switch daily. It’s for plausible deniability so when someone barges in and demands you’re fired I don’t know who you are and don’t have to waste my time on that shit.”
Brendon takes offence at the idea that he’ll be bad enough that a customer would complain, but doesn’t say anything. Complaining won’t prove anything, he’ll just have to show he’s a good volunteer. Still, even the base system seems flawed. “Won’t they just describe me?”
“You’ve both got brown hair and glasses, it’ll be fine.” With that Mr Sinthe spins until the back of his chair is facing him. He takes it as the cue to go find this lookalike volunteer and introduce himself.
Said volunteer is near the back, where the cats are lined up. But if there’s one thing Brendon is positive about, it’s that he would never be confused for ‘Bill’. Bill is some strange combination of what his preacher would call a Godless thug, and gender confused. He’s wearing a shirt with a demon’s firey face on it, and the text Disturbed over the demon’s eyes. They don’t match very well to his extremely tight jeans, though the elaborate skeleton belt buckle does. And on second glance those are definitely girls jeans, they zipper on the wrong side. Not that girls should be wearing jeans that tight anyway, but it’s pretty obvious that’s not an issue he’ll have much ability to change, almost all the girls at Irving yesterday were wearing clothes far too tight, and far too revealing. The look is topped off with his hairstyle; girl-bangs and more time, effort and hairspray than would be used in Brendon’s house in a month. All of it together is enough to make him shy away from saying hello. If there’s one person Heavenly Father doesn’t want him to become friends with, it’s ‘Bill’.
***
Brendon’s not upset his dad picked his two optional classes for him. Being consulted would have been good, he could have told him that biology would be a misery. But Dad decided to chose what he thought was best for him, and unlike most teenagers he’ll respect his father’s decision. As sorely tempted as he is, he won’t skip or see if he can get Mrs Toews to change anything. He just needs to remind himself that it’s okay to suffer. Learning endurance is an important goal, especially when sooner rather than later he’ll have to start proving he’s worthy of a mission.
Of the six schedule slots, the first two belong to Paws And Claws, and then he has AP math, cooking, biology and English. Each day is like a wave, a good beginning followed by a trifecta of bad. First he eats his lunch and since Mom has perfect lunch building abilities he’s always full, then he has to eat whatever he’s made in cooking even if it looks terrible, and then when he’s absolutely stuffed to the brim he has to go write notes about all sorts of disgusting diseases.
Even considered individually, each class has it’s flaws. In biology they have to cut animals apart. Brendon likes animals, he doesn’t want to cut them apart, not even if they’re already dead. Cooking’s subject matter is obviously a lot better, but there are eight kitchen stations for twenty five teenagers, and his partners are a girlfriend and boyfriend that spend more time with their hands on each other than kneading dough. Math is just plain boring. A lot of the time he doesn’t have enough patience for plugging everything into a graphing calculator, and it’s easy to not even notice he’s doing it wrong until he gets a zero for in-class work.
English is his refuge, a class where he is expected to talk and have opinions he’s not parroting from the Book of Mormon. He shouldn’t be enjoying it as much as he does. If Brendon told his parents about some of the subject matter they’ve already discussed, they would lodge a complaint about inappropriateness to the principal. Even the room would be considered offensive; the walls are plastered in witty signs, student created advertisements, and book covers of novels his parents would never let him read blown up into posters. Brendon decided the first day of the course he wouldn’t tell anyone. What his family doesn’t know can’t become an issue. It’s somewhat shameful, but if he has to suffer three bad classes he should be allowed a single nice class. Surely Heavenly Father would understand.
The best thing about the class -aside from being encouraged to have his own thoughts- is the interesting assignments. It’s not a literature based English course, there are no copies of Jane Eyre or To Kill A Mockingbird on the spinning rack beside Mr Anglia’s desk. In fact, he said on the first day that they’re learning essentially everything except novels. When he stands and hands out a stack of lavender papers to the front of each row, Brendon waits impatiently for them to be passed back. Whatever the homework is, it’s bound to be interesting. Even if he has to spend all of lunch doing it because it’s something he can’t risk looking at in his bedroom, it’ll be worth it.
“This is an outline for your final project. It’s due the week before exams, and I know right now that’s not for forever,” Brendon snickers quietly as Mr Anglia waves his arms sarcastically, “but if you leave it to the last day, I will be able to tell, and you will probably fail. So don’t. It will be a compendium of the ways of getting a message across, on a subject of your choice. It will require a poem, an interview, a photograph, and not something taken from Flickr or Google Images, that’s plagiarism, which again, will lead to a fail, so you best keep a copy on your camera if it seems suspect-”
Brendon draws bubbles around the requirements on the purple sheet as he waits for the three hole punch to make its way to him. He snickers again when Katrina complains it’s a lot of work. She clearly doesn’t know what work is, it’s far more difficult developing a speech as a priest in the church. She also doesn’t seem to understand that complaining never gets anyone further in life, it just makes people lose their respect for you.
The problem with his theory is that her complaining works. It takes only a minute of the class all chiming in together for him to allow for partners. Brendon didn’t think Mr Anglia was that weak, but maybe he just doesn’t want to read thirty projects when he can read fifteen. Either way it doesn’t matter, partners are optional and there’s no one in the class he’s friends with to pair up.
“New kid, be my partner?”
Brendon looks over as a guy in a green shirt crashes into the seat beside him. He seems totally earnest about the suggestion, which makes Brendon suspicious. He’s not going to do the entire project just so someone else can write their name beside on his as they share a grade. “Why me?”
“Because I’m always the bitch.” Brendon blinks, then looks down at his scrawled over assignment sheet. He has no idea how to answer that and asking for clarification probably isn’t the best idea either, so underlining the due date until his pen is about to rip through the paper is the next best thing. “It’s nothing personal, new kid. I’m not saying you’re making me a bitch. It’s just Navarro and Saporta have this Not A Thing, or a Thing Except It’s Not, or a Not Quite A Thing, God only knows, and even though it’s their sex I’m always the bitch. It’s fucking ridiculous.”
Heavenly Father help him, he’s curious. Nobody ever talked like that at Pine, at least not to him. And he’s entirely certain none of the priests have ever spoken like that at church. “What’s the difference?”
“What? Oh. Well, a Not Quite A Thing is exactly what it sounds like; each keeps bitching out and waiting for the other to make a move. A Not A Thing is them having sex and saying it doesn’t mean anything and it may or may not. And A Thing But It’s Not is the opposite; basically they have fun sexing it up and they wanna love each other because the sex is so good, but it’s just not happening.”
“Wow.” Brendon had no idea relationships were so complicated when sex was involved. There’s a difference between the Elders telling the Priests, and the Priests telling the Teachers and Teachers telling the Deacons, and hearing it from someone that actually has experienced sexual intimacy before marriage.
“Yeah, so, we’re not actually sure which one it is, but there’s always tension. And if it’s stuff in pairs it’s always them, and Ry being a gentleman to Victoria, and me being the bitch fifth wheel. Except none of them are in this class, but the new kid is always the bitch, so I figure better two bitches together than you with the kid that sniffs White Out.”
Again, Brendon has no idea what to say. The guy misinterprets his silence and frowns before questioning “unless you wanna be with the kid that sniffs White Out?”
“No.” Eagerness to listen to potentially offensive educational matter or not, there are lines Brendon knows not to cross. Befriending someone with a substance abuse problem is definitely one of those lines.
“Cool. Then what do you think our subject should be? Remember, it needs to be multi-anglenable.”
“Is that a word?”
“If it isn’t I should have a red squiggly line under my feet.” He backs up the chair to the desk of the person behind him and raises his feet but Brendon’s not dumb enough to look when it’s obviously a joke. The guy on the other hand peers down before saying with mock relief “good, there’s nothing. Multi-anglenable it is. But probably something real, considering the small research article.”
“I think the advertisement will be easy, you can sell anything. But the letters to the editor and the picture might be hard.”
“Bears,” the teen says firmly.
“What?” It’s kind of a non-sequitor.
“Bears!” he repeats more emphatically. “No. Clouds. It should be clouds. There’s an assload of science, we can take a picture before lunch, we can have like cloud nine slippers or something. It’s fucking great. Unless you have a personal vendetta against clouds.”
“What?”
“You know, like if clouds killed your mom and you can’t rest until every last one has been obliterated from the sky.”
“No? But that could totally be the fiction piece?” Brendon likes the mental image of some man going around in a hot air balloon, capturing clouds in giant nets and making them pay.
“Clouds it is. We’re gonna take those columbus mother fuckers down.”
“Actually I think it’s cumulus.” Brendon knows it is, there was a weather pattern unit in natural science last year, but sounding like a know-it-all isn’t conducive to keeping friends.
“Whatever. Close enough.” He waves off the distinction instead of getting mad at the correction, and then starts to sketch out an ad for Cloud Nine slippers. He’s not a very good artist, but that doesn’t seem to stop him from drawing massive blobs all over the bottom half of his notebook page.
It’s not until Brendon’s nearly at his locker to deposit his biology textbook and pick up his math one that he realises he doesn’t know the guy’s name, and the guy probably doesn’t know his. Brendon shrugs. The best thing about Irving’s schedule compared to Pine’s is he has each class every day instead of three rotating five class days. He’ll have English again tomorrow, he can ask him then.
*
Brendon loves playing with Sniffler. He loves it so much that it’s almost impossible to believe at the end of the semester he’s going to get a credit for hanging out with her. It’s like getting a credit for playing the guitar, or for singing in the church choir. It’s not like he’s going to make his life harder and refuse the credit. Nor is he going to switch to helping the janitor at Irving like one of the drug addict students that hang out at the side door is. It’s just nice to not have to do something uncomfortable with a smile on his face.
Sniffler is a chocolate Labrador Retriever. He knows because he took a picture and then looked up different dogs on Google until he found one that matched, not because Mr Sinthe knew. Sometimes Brendon suspects Mr Sinthe doesn’t care about the animals in his shop. He’s fairly certain he isn’t all in his right mind. It’s easy to forget about his boss though. He only sees him for a minute when he walks into the office to get his log signed and to grab another fake name tag, and then he’s with all the dogs, making sure they know they’re loved. Sniffler in particular. She’s going blind, which means probably no one will ever adopt her. Everyone wants a perfect animal, never mind that no living creature or human can be perfect.
It’s a terrible thing to think, but Brendon’s almost happy for people’s pickiness. If nobody adopts her, he can take care of her forever. There aren’t a lot of toys at Paws And Claws -Brendon’s considering going to a better pet store and buying all sorts of items- but Sniffler doesn’t need them. She loves a belly rub, and he loves how much she loves it. He could just rub her for the whole hour forty five minutes, and he doesn’t think she’d disagree.
He’s on the floor, making her legs kick in joy, when a chime rings out. It takes Brendon a minute to place it as the door chime. He’s been helping here a month, and in the thirty seven logged hours there haven’t been any even potential customers.
“I’ll be right back, I promise,” he tells Sniffer, unfolding to his feet. He gives her a parting rub and hurries to the front. He doesn’t trust Kittyboy’s ability to persuade a customer into giving one of the lovely pets a permanent home. To be honest, Brendon doesn’t even trust his ability to show courtesy. Not when they’re halfway through their fifth week and he hasn’t said a single word to him. Brendon has had to resort to thinking of him as Kittyboy for his constant presence in the cat section. It’s easier than noting which fake name tag he grabs each day, and he has to call him something.
First impressions say she’ll want a Bulldog or a Great Dane. Or a Python, not that they sell them. Something intimidating, at least. It’s the only polite word he has for her. She’s got black hair mussed into dreadlocks, and piercing in places he didn’t even know you could pierce. He’s seen people with nose and eyebrow piercings, but she has two gold balls on her throat, and he can see through the hole in her earlobe.
When Brendon had sprinted in from the parking lot at quarter to nine -never just be on time, Brendon, it shows disinterest- he had belatedly wished he was wearing a jacket. She’s only wearing a tank top, but she must be made out of sterner stuff than he is because she’s not shivering. The wind must have picked up from when he was out, her dreds are everywhere. She shakes her head, scattering them more, then raises her arms to pull them into a ponytail that she doesn’t tie. With her arms up he gets a glance of their undersides, one is covered in the bright colours of a tattoo.
Kittyboy -today it says Adam- is smiling at her. The gesture is hardly a surprise, even if it’s the first time he’s seen the expression on his face. Brendon smiles at people he sees wearing crosses, even though as a Mormon he doesn’t wear one himself, to encourage their faith. Of course Kittyboy, seemingly gothic and hardcore from head to toe, smiles at a girl with dreadlocks and a tattoo.
Then, instead of walking the extra foot to slip past the gap in the front desk, she puts both hands on the teal laminate and heaves herself over, like she’s hopping a fence. Once she’s half over, Kittyboy’s hands curl around her shoulders, and they remain after she’s firmly planted. It’s only seconds before they’re kissing, not quite as passionately as Devon and Katie from cooking class, but somehow more confident. Brendon looks away after a moment. He should do more than that. He should be leaving before he witnesses anything more. It’s against his faith, and she’s obviously not a customer.
Instead he stays near the door, and doesn’t understand why the feeling he self-diagnoses is disappointment. It can’t just be that it’s obvious they’re having premarital sex. Brendon wouldn’t wish spirit prison on anyone, even knowing most will eventually get to join the Telestial Kingdom, but he’s come to accept that most people will have to suffer for a time. He’s only able to shake it off when they pull apart, and the girl turns to show Kittyboy her arm. There are a series of hoop piercing in it, and a ribbon strung through them.
“Holy shit, Alicia,” he says, awestruck. Brendon winces at the phrasing, but agrees with the sentiment. Although it’s a bit sad that Kittyboy’s shocked now, Brendon likes to think he would have noticed the moment she hopped over the counter.
“What? It’s not a full corset.”
“Your mom is still going to kick your ass. You can’t exactly hide that shit.”
“It’s not my mother’s skin, is it?”
“Don’t show Gee.”
“Why not? It’s art, he could draw me.”
Kittyboy doesn’t seem to like that response. He snorts before elaborating, “it’s needles, he’ll puke.”
She smirks. “So then I shouldn’t take him back to the parlour when they start to reject and I need to remove them?”
“If you want to carry his unconscious body out of the shop, that’s your choice. I’m not coming with.”
This, somehow, is more uncomfortable than the making out. Brendon slips back through the door before he has to listen to any more banter. At least dogs don’t have weird body mutilation fetishes.
***
“I’ll roshambo you for who has to do the damn poem.” It’s been weeks since Brendon informed him that Mormons don’t like vulgar language and Alex is still swearing. Brendon knows he should be horribly offended by the lack of consideration as well as the words, and refuse to be his friend, but he’s not, and he won’t. In his opinion it’s enough for the saviour if he doesn’t swear himself.
“I have no idea what that means.”
“Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t understand a South Park reference. For the record though, the writers love the shit out of Mormons. Joesph Smith and the gold plates and all that. Tell me you know what rock paper scissors is, that it isn’t like, gambling or something.”
“It’s not.” At least he’s almost positive it’s not. Brendon shakes his fist three times before making a fist, at the next desk Alex splays his middle and ring fingers.
“Fuck. Why am I always the bitch?”
“You are not, I had to figure out three letters to the editor about clouds. Do you know how hard that was?”
“I didn’t think Mormons were allowed to complain.”
“Alex, you don’t think Mormons are allowed to breathe.” Plus, not that he can admit it to anyone, but he’s pretty sure he’s not the best abiding, most faithful Mormon. Lately his failure in comparison to his siblings has just been shining clearer and clearer.
As the oldest, Mason has always been the one to create the paths the rest of the Uries follow. In love it’s no different, he’s been devoutly chaste with Elizabeth as the Lord commands. Brendon was happy for him when he first found out he was getting married, and interested in witnessing his first sealing ceremony. But with the wedding a week away he’s turned into a horrible person with only negative feelings about the event. He’s jealous that Mason will soon get to know what a woman is like. He’s worried that he’ll never find someone that interests him. He’s egocentric, not wanting to face the after party with dozens of people asking him what his plans are when he graduates. Blasphemy is even rearing it’s ugly head, he can’t help but think their first kiss will be nothing like what Devon and Katie enjoy between every stir or cracked egg, and maybe being forced to wait until marriage is silly.
The answer occurs to him in English class. There’s something in the potent combination of having a stimulating room, a opinionated teacher, and a real friend, that makes Brendon’s brain work in ways it hasn’t before. It’s the end of the mandatory twenty minutes of silent reading, Alex theorises it’s a surefire method of not having to make a full lesson plan, but Brendon appreciates the time. There are things he’s not allowed to read, but Mr Anglia doesn’t know, and if he did he wouldn’t care. Brendon puts his book on top of his backpack -if it goes into his bag he might forget and bring it home, and if someone found Ironman, there would be, as Alex so succinctly puts it, a shitstorm- and leans over to him. “Will you go to a wedding with me?”
“Uh, you know I’m straight, right?”
“Yes?” Of course he is, but Brendon doesn’t understand what that has to do with anything.
Alex continues like he hadn’t said anything at all. “Because I can probably find a cool bi guy to go with you though, I know a lot of those.”
“I am very confused.”
“Well, it all started long ago and far away when you asked me out on a date.”
“What? I did not!” He’s Mormon, he’s not allowed to be Gay.
“You asked me to go to a wedding. That’s a classic. I mean, it’s a classic for a thirty year old woman, but I figure Mormons do their shit early. World travel for teenagers, child brides, you know.”
“We do not have child brides! Mason’s twenty three! I just don’t want to be there alone. Everyone else will be nagging me if I’m there alone. If you’re there, I’ve brought a possible convert and everyone will be proud of my preaching skills.”
“You realise you’re not converting shit all, right?”
“As long as you don’t say that after the sealing ceremony, I don’t care.” It’s a lie, and lying at the temple is probably one of the worst things he could do, but it still seems better than facing what works are you going to create for yourself and your family for five hours.
“And you’re sure this isn’t a date.”
“Very sure.”
***
It does kind of feel like a date. Or at least it would if Alex wasn’t the wrong gender.
***
Normally he wouldn’t be outside during his volunteering time. Even if Mr Sinthe is always in his office, and won’t notice or care, it feels wrong to cheat the system, and it feels worse to desert the animals. But with Mason married and living with his wife, there’s no more being dropped off on the route to Mason’s work. Instead it’s Valerie waking up specifically to drive him to Paws And Claws, and she’s always been one to sleep in until the last minute. She doesn’t wake him up in time to have breakfast, and ever since that one time he spilled a Slurpee in the family van, she doesn’t trust him with food in her new car. By Wednesday he’s learned to bring a jumbo muffin with him.
Of course he can’t eat it inside because the dogs get pouty. Which leads to him being out here in mid-November, a experience he doesn’t particularly need in his life.
Instead of yellow or white lines painted on the asphalt, the parking spaces in the lot are noted by short wooden posts. There’s a fist sized hole drilled in at the top of each post, a heavy chain threaded through almost all. Only the posts directly in front of each store in the strip mall are exempt. Brendon’s perched on one, ripping chunks off the plate sized muffin when Kittyboy comes out. He seems surprised to see him, though from the brief encounters Brendon’s had he’s not much for facial expressions, so it’s more of a loose interpretation of the slight pause in Kittyboy’s gait than solid dropped mouth proof. He can understand the surprise, technically one of them should be inside at all times, and he probably didn’t peg Brendon as the shirker. But he’s hungry, and he can’t eat with Rascal drooping in his general direction, so for the first time it seems the plausible deniability name tags will come in handy.
Kittyboy takes a red package out of his pocket instead of saying hello. He pulls a cigarette from it before cramming the pack back in. Brendon’s not surprised, Kittyboy’s jeans are always ridiculously tight, and the bulging square can only be so many things. It still takes everything he has to not start repeating the Word of Wisdom and it’s stance on tobacco. Before the silence can spur him into speaking, a guy from a few stores down the strip mall comes out and walks over to them. He only stops when he’s right beside Kittyboy, almost awkwardly close. He takes the cigarette from his hand, and Brendon has a moment to think the stranger is going to be bold and crush it beneath his shoe before being proven wrong. The man shakes his head so his greasy femininely long hair isn’t on his face, then takes a drag.
Brendon isn’t trying to listen in on their conversation, but his post is only a few feet away from where they’re standing, wind thankfully blowing the smoke to the left so he doesn’t get interrogated by Valerie at quarter to eleven. He learns a lot in the next fifteen minutes, like Gerard thinks his break is the only think keeping him alive, that working at a scrapbooking store sucks, and that Jodie is trying to scalp her Maple Kings ticket for only ten bucks above original price if he wants it.
When Gerard says his goodbyes before going back into his store, Brendon learns two additional important facts. The first is that they’re brothers, which makes him wonder if the feminine qualities run in the family, if their dad wears makeup or high heels. And the second is that Kittyboy is Mikey. He still can’t use it in Paws And Claws, Mikey would know he was eavesdropping. But at least he has something better to call him in his head, something that doesn’t evoke images of the tall teenager with a tail and tiger striped cat ears.
***
Brendon wakes up to Kara shouting at him from the bottom of the stairs. “Brendon! It’s your friend on the phone!”
She doesn’t clarify more, but then she doesn’t have to, it’s not like he has more than one. While his parents or brothers and sisters might consider the others his age at church friends, Brendon knows better. They’re friendly because that’s what God commands. Alex actually seems interested in him for reasons all his own. He’s an atheist, God has nothing to do with any of his decisions, which is wrong, fascinating, and terrifying all at the same time.
Superior friendship or not, he’s still not someone that anyone in the family would approve of if they knew him better. Between Alex knowing when to keep his mouth full of one bite desserts and Brendon carefully steering him away from those that would ask too many or too detailed questions, they managed to come out of Mason’s wedding alive. Alex stuck on one end of the phone, with Kara of all people on the other, is far more dangerous. Brendon bolts out of bed, grabbing his housecoat from its hook and tossing it on as he races down the stairs. The longer time Kara has to ask seemingly innocent questions, the higher the chance of Alex saying something completely inappropriate.
“Thanks Kara,” he says as he slides to a stop on the hardwood. He thrusts out his hand impatiently, though his worry is slightly abated. Alex not being hung up on is a good sign. She gives him a bit of a look as she passes the phone over, an expression he’s used to from anyone older than him. It doesn’t even hurt anymore.
“Hi. What’s up?”
“Just called to make sure you were suffering with the rest of us slackers.”
Brendon doesn’t really think it’s slacking if his three make up hours are from not knowing he needed to volunteer, but he doesn’t say it. Nor does he say that working at Paws and Claws isn’t suffering, and he’ll probably spend longer than the necessary three hours just because he can. “Yeah. Had my alarm set for ten. Sometimes you need to sleep in a little, you know.”
“Not to sound egocentric, but do you realise how many boxes are donated at Christmas? I’ll be doing heavy lifting forever. There’s not a chance I’ll be given sorting or packaging. They always give the easy shit to the girls and the old people. Which is stupid because both Victoria and her grandmother could kick my ass.”
“If you’re so against it, just don’t show up.”
Alex’s sigh is impressively loud, Brendon’s heard quieter screams. “Can’t bail on Harvest, unfortunately. I need to make up the time for when I skipped. Saporta’s friend Bilvy once had a mental breakdown, well, or insane drug binge, we’re really not sure. But anyway, he ran away to live in a hotel for two weeks, blew a fuckton of money. He almost failed all his classes, and he forgot to make up his cee ess ess and since it was a mandatory credit he had to repeat half the year, just for it. He graduates after exams, it fucked up his university, it’s crazy. That shit’s not happening to me.”
***
He’s been at Paws and Claws for three hours, and he’s not the only one. Mikey was here when he arrived. Brendon can only figure Gerard still had to work a shift, and he tagged along. It’s strange because Mikey shouldn’t have any make up time, unless he missed the first day too. But as the day stretches and neither of them leave it becomes somewhat of a relief. He isn’t the weird, overly-attached kid if Mikey’s here too. Not that they can leave anyway, at least one of them needs to stay to make sure the shop doesn’t get robbed. Mr Sinthe left almost an hour ago, with no mention of when he’d be back.
Owning a pet store isn’t a potential career for him, no more than Alex will be running a business to feed those below the poverty line. There has to be a bunch of paperwork he’s not seeing, Mr Sinthe’s office is full of portable metal containers. Worrying every day about costs, and what food to be giving the animals, and if the cat or dog or guinea pig is going to a good home, it’s too stressful for Brendon, not to mention what happens if an animal gets sick. Surgeries for animals are as expensive as human surgeries, and most of them probably aren’t cost effective. That all being said, full day volunteering is nice. Around one he walks to the gas station and picks up a bag of chips and a caffeine free soda for lunch. Mikey leaves a few times, presumably going to visit his brother. There are no customers, so Brendon grabs a few papers from the office to write down some cloud based song lyrics when they come to him. For his part, Mikey is never seen without his cell phone in hand, texting constantly.
Brendon’s making a rare visit in the cat section when Mikey’s phone rings. It’s a rock song, Brendon can tell that much, even if he doesn’t know what the song is, or which band. He folds to his knees to let Panther chase the ribbon in his hand to justify his presence, and Mikey doesn’t even look at him before answering it. “Hey.
“Same as always, playing with Bluebell and Whiskers.
“Oh, fuck you, I didn’t name them.
“No I can’t use nicknames, I already confuse them enough by only being here two hours a day.
“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure you see Patrick more than two hours a day.
“Cumulatively, then. Tell me it’s not fourteen hours a week and I’ll give you a lollipop.
“You could.
“You want to? How about now? Unless you’ve already changed your mind about wanting to see me more than two hours.
“You know where it is?
“Love you too.”
Brendon puts Panther away then stations himself at the front of the store, slowly filling up the bird’s food and water. He wants to be there when the girl with dreads comes in. He wants to see if her arm scarred from the body modification, or if she’s done anything else crazy.
Unfortunately for his curiosity -the nearly full food dishes mean he won’t be able to stay up front much longer- when the door opens it’s not dreadlocked girl. Instead it’s a teenage boy, their first customer of the day. Brendon’s never actually run a til, nor does he have any idea if they have to sign any papers, or get their record checked like people trying to buy guns do. Asking him to leave and come back when Mr Sinthe is around has to be bad business practice, even if he’s exceedingly polite the guy probably won’t come back. Hopefully Mikey knows the procedures, Brendon can hear him whispering to the cats as he puts them in their cages so he can open the door without them bolting.
Mikey’s delay is his gain, he immediately starts to compose a pitch for selling Beldon. She’s a great dog and would be an excellent Christmas present. They could probably even deliver her on Christmas day; his family doesn’t celebrate until the afternoon. Getting a great dog for Christmas would be the best present ever, and he’d love to see the look on this guy’s sister’s face. Presuming she doesn’t look as strange as he does. His clothes look like a box of markers exploded on him; multiple primaries down to green shoes and a red streak in his hair. The only thing a solid expanse of colour are the grey-black tattoos littering his arms and peeking from the collar of his shirt.
Brendon realises he’s got things wrong when Mikey calls hey Pete as he comes through the door. But he knows he’s got things direly wrong when Mikey goes past the front desk to give Pete a hello kiss. All this time he’s been working with a Gay, how could he never have realised?
Part Two