WARNING: Explicit language! Cover your freaken ears!
(C) Copywritten 2004
����������� Tuesday afternoons always dragged on the longest for the high school senior. The uncomfortable chairs that he was forced to sit in for his computer science class were squeaky and after an hour made his back hurt terribly. Nathan had finished his work twenty minutes ago and just wanted to go home. He was sick of the week already and was in a big rush to get it over with.
����������� He spied Marty push himself away from his computer and begin to make his way to the back of the classroom. Marty was an annoying little pest--the most annoying little pest in the class--and everyone knew it. Nathan figured he had another stupid question to ask him. He really didn't feel like answering it and debated whether he should get up and make for the door, saying he had to go to the washroom or something like that. Before he could decide, Marty was leaning over his monitor. "Hey, Nath. Um, can I ask you a really quick question?" As always, he had his hands together in front of his face as if he was praying.
����������� Nathan answered the same way he always did when Marty or anyone else asked if they could ask a question: "I believe you just did."
����������� Marty rolled his eyes. "You always say that Nathan gees. I just have a quick question, okay?"
����������� "What is it?" As Nathan had expected, Marty's problem was a simple and trivial one that he could have easily been able to figure out himself if he had bothered to listen the lecture at the beginning of the class. His was the kind of simple little naivety that Nathan really didn't want to be bothered with, but nevertheless he got out of his chair and followed Marty back to his workstation.
����������� "I can figure out why this error message keeps coming up when I try to run this subroutine" the chubby fellow explained. His voice contained the same fake sense of concern it always did, and Nathan tried his best not to sarcastically comment on it. Marty showed him what he was trying to do, and sure enough, Nathan saw exactly what his mistake was.
����������� Repeating similar steps their teacher Mr. Cobb had shown them earlier in the class, Nathan changed Marty's sloppy code around until it made sense.
����������� "Wow" Marty bellowed, "I'm such a moron. That was so simple. Thank you so much Nathan. I owe you big time on this one man!" His fake concern had shifted smoothly into a fake gratitude.
����������� "You're welcome" Nathan chirped before returning to his seat. He made a little mental note that that tiny favor brought the number of "ones" Marty owed him up to somewhere around thirty-five or forty. "Some day I really should collect" he thought.
����������� As the orange chair squeaked again under his weight, Nathan gathered his notebook and pens into his shoulder bag. He looked back at the clock. Only two minutes had passed, and Nathan was starting to get really impatient. He had a busy afternoon after he got home. His Monday chores were still not finished, and he would probably have to drive his sister to her soccer practice. On top of all that, he had three hours of physics homework to complete and he still had to study for a test in calculus he had on Thursday.
����������� "It's a long hard road out of hell" he said to himself as the bell finally rang. The class began gathered their belongings and Nathan was quickly out the door before anyone else. He shuffled his way down the busy hallways.
����������� As he made his way to his locker, he noticed Heather waiting for him. Her cherry-blonde hair and dark eyes were unmistakable and she stood with her arms crossed as she gazed at him past all the other students. Heather Murphy was Nathan's ex-girlfriend's best friend, and he knew that whatever it was she wanted, he was not in the mood for it.
����������� "Are you done being a dickhead, Nathan?" she said quietly as soon as he reached her.
����������� "Nice to see you too, Heather. S'there something I can do for you?" he mumbled as he fiddled with his combination lock.
����������� "All she wants to do is talk to you? What's your problem?"
����������� Nathan let his frustration get the better of him. "There is nothing to fucking talk about, okay? Cindy is with Mike now. That's it. Got it?"
����������� "You didn't even give her a chance to explain what happened, okay?" Heather snapped back at him. "She at least deserves that, don't you think?"
����������� "Look, I just assumed that when I saw Mike with his hands all over her and hers all over him, you know... we had decided to see other people." His locker door swung open and Nathan began stuffing books into the already cluttered locker.
����������� "She just wants to talk to you, you know? She still likes you."
����������� "Whatever, okay? Just tell her I hope she enjoys her summer with meathead Mike alright?"
����������� Heather gave up. "Fine. Fuck you, you asshole." she screamed and stormed off down the hallway. Nathan continued to gather the books he would need for his homework. As he closed the door, he noticed he still had a picture of himself and Cindy and a few other friends of theirs on it. They were all gathered around a fireplace toasting their respective drinks to whoever it was that was taking the picture. He wanted to rip it off the door and tear it to pieces, but he just slammed the door close and locked it. "Fucking Mike" he cursed.
����������� The drive home was uneventful. Nathan usually found driving from the school to his mother's house was relaxing. It took him a good ten minutes to get from one place to the other even in light traffic, and he was always able to listen to a couple of songs on his stereo before he arrived. Today was different though. His little encounter with Heather kept distracting him, and he became impatient behind the wheel, something he could never stand to see himself become. He had only had his license for a year but he never really felt comfortable driving unless he had enough time to get where he was going without having to rush.
����������� He pulled into the driveway and locked the car. Greeting him as always from behind the screen door was his sister's dog Max. The tiny mutt yipped and yapped over and over as he walked up on the porch. His bag was heavy from all the text books and he could feel it bearing down on his shoulder.
����������� "Shut up, dog" he cried out in vain as he pulled the rusted door open. Max continued to yelp and bark as he kicked off his shoes. He dropped his bag at the bottom of the stairs that leaded up to the second floor and went into the kitchen. He had worked through his lunch hour that day trying to get some of his homework done early and felt at the very least he needed a glass of juice. He pulled a plastic cup from the cupboard and placed it down on the counter next to the pile of unopened mail that sat there.
����������� "Nathan?" he heard his mother's voice cry out down the stairs. He rolled his eyes as he responded to the nasal voice his mother always shouted across the house whenever she wanted his attention.
����������� "What ma?" he yelled back.
����������� "You have to take your sister to soccer practice now"
����������� Nathan felt frustrated once again. His mother always sounded so condescending when she told him to do things, even when he already knew what it was she wanted him to do and had also already agreed to do it beforehand. "I know mother" he shouted back matter-of-factly.
����������� "What's the matter with you?" she inquired, demanding an immediate answer.
����������� "Nothing" he replied. There were plenty of things the matter with him at that point, but nothing he felt she could be bothered with. Undoubtedly Nathan's mother was upstairs getting ready for her afternoon shift at the hospital where she worked. "Where is she ma?" he called out. He waited for a response. "Mom? Is Trisha ready?"
����������� Finally after a second or two, she called back. "What?"
����������� Nathan hated repeating himself. "Is she ready yet?"
����������� "I don't know" she answered. Nathan left his empty cup on the counter and climbed the stairs. He knocked on his sister's door, which was always closed. "Trisha, you ready or what?"
����������� "Almost" he heard her call back. He opened her door. Her room was a mess as usual, and Nathan saw his kid sister bent underneath her bed, looking for something. Her uniform was on all except for her left shoe, which was missing. He smiled and leaned on the doorway.
����������� "What did you lose now, brat?"
Trisha backed out from under the bed with her missing shoe in hand. She spun around and laughed sarcastically at him. "Very funny wise guy." The two of them giggled at each other, and Nathan helped her tie her other shoe on. He always teased Trisha every chance that he got, but she always took it in good humor, especially for an eight year old.
"C'mon you. You're going to be late again."
"Kay" she replied and grabbed her red and yellow sports bag.
����������� Nathan heard his mother yelling out across the house again, this time from down the stairs. "Nathan, god I wish you would pick up your bag and put it in your room when you came home." He pretended not to hear her and followed Trisha down the stairs.
����������� His mother was checking herself in the mirror a final time before she went off to work. She spoke without looking away from it as Nathan put his shoes back on. "Don't forget you've got chores to do, Nathan. I want both upstairs and downstairs vacuumed and Max's food refilled."
����������� "I know mother" Nathan repeated.
����������� "There are frozen pizzas in the freezer you two can have after Trisha gets home, okay? I'll be working late tonight." She finally finished her inspection and turned towards the door where Trisha was waiting. "Have fun tonight, Trisha dear. Don't get grass stains all over your uniform now, I just washed it." She kissed Trisha on the head and turned to say goodbye to Nathan. "You need a haircut soon. Okay, I'm leaving. Love you."� Before she was even finished, she was out the door and into her white van, which sped off down the street.
����������� Nathan was trying to grow his hair long for the summer, even though his mother didn't like it. He brushed his hand through it.�"I like it the way it is" Trisha remarked.
����������� He smiled again and told her to get into the car. Locking the house, he started his car up again and before long, the two were on their way to the park.
����������� Nathan liked to sometimes hang around at his sister's soccer practices. He usually saw one or two other older siblings there he knew. There were even a few good looking girls who took their younger sisters to the games on occasion. Nathan had stopped being on the lookout for them since he had started going out with Cindy a few months back, but he figured maybe it was time to take the old habit back up again. It would have to wait for another afternoon though; he had far too much to do tonight.
����������� As the park neared, Trisha asked him "When is Cindy coming over again?" Trisha and Cindy had bonded well during the few times Nathan had brought her home with him. All he could think about when he heard her name now was meathead Mike with his hands all over her.
"I don't know brat. We'll have to see."
"Well I hope soon" she replied.
The parking lot of the White Creek Park was crowded, and Nathan resolved to just stop the car and let his sister jump out. "Have fun, brat" he called out to her as she grabbed her bag and jumped out of the car.
����������� She slammed the door on him. "Goodbye, dork!" She giggled and ran off to join the other girls who were already warming up. Nathan watched her as she skipped her way onto the grass. He could remember when he was younger and his dad had gotten him into minor league softball. His team never won many games, but he could remember really enjoying just being on the team.
����������� His concentration broke as he saw Trisha and a few of her friends running back towards his car. He rolled down his window as they approached. "Nathan, Alex said I can come over to her house for dinner tonight. Can I go?"
����������� Nathan looked at Alex, the short red haired girl next to her. "Is it okay with your parents?"
����������� "Yeah, they said it's okay" she said as she turned and pointed. Nathan could see her parents across the field. Trisha and Alex were best friends and he had met her parents a lot of times when he had gone over to pick her up from Alex's house. The two of them were waving at him, and he could see Alex's father giving him the thumbs up.
����������� He waved back. "Okay, well I'll come by at around nine to get you, okay?" Trisha nodded. "Make sure you are ready, because if mom gets home before us she'll flip out, okay?" She nodded again and giggled. The girls all ran back to their practice and Nathan began to drive home.
����������� He knew his sister was not suppose to be out at a friends house on a school night, but he figured if he got her home before ten, his mom wouldn't know. She said she was working late that night anyway.
����������� Nathan thought about Cindy again as he drove home. He tried not to, but he couldn?t help it. Trisha had sounded like she really wanted to see her again. He finally tried to get his mind off her by thinking about what he had to get done when he got home. The chores and homework that were waiting for him didn?t brighten his spirits any more than his ex-girlfriend did. By the time he returned home, he felt just as exhausted and drained as he had when he had left school.
����������� Max was barking furiously again as he entered the house and kicked his shoes off. He screamed at the dog, "shut up!" Once again, it didn't work, but since nobody was home, he could be just as loud as Max was being and nobody would get on his case about it.
����������� He returned to the kitchen and poured the glass of juice he hadn't had time to earlier. As he drank the sour yet refreshing orange juice from the plastic cup, he wandered over to the phone on the one wall of the kitchen. The message light was blinking. He pressed the button next to it and listened as the mechanical voice on the machine told him how many messages it had recorded.
����������� The first message started. It was his mother. "Nathan. I forgot to tell you, you need to replace the garbage bags in the kitchen and in the upstairs bathroom. There are clean ones under the sink. I'll be home late like I said. Make sure Trisha is in bed before I get home. Okay, goodbye."
����������� Nathan pressed the eight key, which erased the message and played the next one. "Jesus, mom. Do you want me to build Trisha a new closet too while I am at it?"
The next message started. "Hi Nathan, its Cindy. Call me, okay? I want to talk--" Nathan slammed on the eight key before he let the message finish. "Fuck off, Cindy!" he shouted in anger.
����������� The machine beeped, signaling the end of the messages. Nathan finished his juice and tossed the cup into the sink. It landed with a loud bang and clatter as it rolled around in the empty sink. "You send your friends after me, you leave me messages" he began rambling on, "you probably send me fucking letters too, didn't you Cindy? Let's have a look here."�He grabbed the pile of envelops from the other side of the counter. Flipping through the first few that had his mother's name on them, he found a blue envelop with the name "Nathy" on it.
����������� "Nathy? What the hell?" He stared at it. It was just a blue envelop with no return address on it. There wasn't even a stamp. "Nobody has called me Nathy since I was a kid." He tried to think who could have dropped off an envelope at his house and known the name his grandparents had called him when he was his sister's age. No faces came to his mind. Though curious, he continued looking through the mail. There were no other envelops with his name on them.
����������� Dropping the pile back where he had claimed it from, he took the envelope with "Nathy" on it into the living room. The back of it was sealed and the name on the front was written in magic marker in what looked like a kid's handwriting.
����������� "Maybe it's the brat playing a joke on me" he said to himself. He began to think again. How could Trisha know about his kid name? Maybe she found out from their grandparents the last time they went to see them? Regardless, he was sure that somehow his sister had left it for him. He smiled again. "I'll open it later, brat. I got homework to do first."
����������� Nathan sat at the kitchen table and opened his bag. He lifted three heavy textbooks from it and slammed them onto the table, followed by his notebook. He got another glass of juice and turned the small radio he had bought at a garage sale when he was twelve on. It cracked to life and started sputtering distorted music from his favorite station. Nathan fought with the tuning knob for a minute and then gave up. The station was not coming through the cleanest he had ever heard, but he didn't want to bother with it too much in the first place.
����������� Sitting back at the table, Nathan began going over the physics homework he had already started. He churned over the problems for close to an hour, writing out solutions and equations in his notebook. The work was not hard, but simply repetitive and tedious.
Finishing up the last of the problems, Nathan switched the light that hung above the table on. Though the days were getting longer, it still was fairly early into the day when the sun went down. The golden rays that had been spilling into the living room when he had gotten home were dimming into a deep blue color that made everything in the house barely visible.
Nathan pushed himself away from the table. "Enough of that bullshit for now" he thought as he went to the hallway closet. He fought to release the ancient beast of a vacuum cleaner that slept inside. Plugging it in, he started it up with a roar of noise. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Max dart out down the hallway towards the stairs. The tired boy pushed the machine over the living room floor, being careful not to get any of his mother's carpets stuck in it.
As he mindlessly drove the vacuum, his thoughts began to wander once again. He still had a lot of homework to get finished up, and there was that weird letter his sister had left him. He figured when he finished cleaning upstairs, he would open it and see what she was up to.
Nathan finished up the living room and switched the vacuum off. As its violent roar silenced, he could hear the phone ringing. "Shit" he cursed as he bolted for the kitchen phone. He grabbed the receiver just in time to save the caller from the mechanical voice in the answering machine. "Hello?"
"Yo, Nathan!" the voice was that of Berry, his oldest school friend.
"Hey Berry" he answered back.
"How goes it, buddy?" Berry's voice sound flustered. Nathan could hear commotion in the background behind him. People were laughing and shouting things he couldn?t understand.
Nathan jumped up on the counter and sat. "Meh, it goes my friend." He tried his best to sound as if he wasn't exactly having the best of days without sounding too obvious.
"Cool. Listen, Eddie and Wacky Mack are over. We were going to watch a couple of movies and get a pizza. Are you interested?" Wacky Mack was a short little guy that Nathan and his friends had known for years. He was always acting goofy and making people laugh. Nathan loved hanging around him--everyone did.
"Shit, I don't know" Nathan answered. "I got shit to do tonight man."
"Aw, c'mon man. Do it another night. Wacky Mack is working the rest of the week."
Nathan really wanted to go, but he couldn't. He debated whether or not to try and come up with some kind of excuse, but in the end he just didn't feel like taking the risk of getting grief from his mother for not doing his chores. "Naw, sorry man. You guys have fun."
"You suck" Berry blurted out. "Hey, I heard about Cindy. What the hell is that about?"
Nathan didn't feel like running through the story again there on the phone. He had been through it enough times in his head. "Fuck man... I'll tell you about it later."
"Alright, well if you get through playing with yourself, head over." Another burst of laughter spouted from behind Berry.
Nathan chuckled unenthusiastically. "Yeah. If I don't see you, I'll see you tomorrow in class, alright?"
"Alright man. Peace." Berry hung up with a loud click. Nathan placed the phone back on its holster. He jumped off the counter and began to grumble to himself. "Figures the one night Wacky Mack can make it out..." he griped as he lifted the vacuum and carried it up the stairs.
Cindy was in his head again as he shoved the heavy machine around the corners of the upstairs hallway. Nathan thought about what Heather had said, and wondered if maybe Cindy did have some kind explanation for him. He quickly dismissed the notion in anger, cursing her and Mike for what had to be the one thousandth time that week. "She probably just wants a chance to formally break it off with me" he thought to himself. He was violently thrusting the vacuum in and out of his mother's room, not even paying attention to what areas he had already covered.
With his cleaning done, Nathan returned the vacuum to its dusty home in the hallway and sat back down at the kitchen table. He sighed and opened his calculus book. Max hopped into the room and began barking playfully at him. "I'll get you your food later, dog" he muttered as he flipped through his math text book. Max ran past him and went upstairs.
Nathan hated calculus. It was the only course he was currently having trouble with, and he became frustrated every time he couldn't figure a problem out. Struggling through the first half of it, he began to feel discouraged and debated whether or not to finish the rest up. Throwing his pencil onto his book and slumping in his chair, he looked at his watch. Six o?clock, it read. His arm fell to his side and he sat staring at the ceiling for a few moments.
Finally he got up and walked into the living room, stretching his arms and neck out. On the end table next to the couch was his sister's letter. Nathan decided to open it up and have a look at it.
Running his finger under the sealed flap of the blue envelope, Nathan tore a messy hole the length of the envelope into the top of it and looked inside. A single sheet of lined paper was folded inside. He fished it out and unfolded it.
The writing on the paper was in the same handwriting and in the same magic marker as "Nathy" was. Nathan flipped it over and saw there was no writing on the back, and nothing else was in the envelope. Slowly he began to read it.
My name is Nathy. I am eight years old. Do you remember me? I am you! I like to play soft ball. I play third base. My favourite food is pizza. I go to Clarke Road Elementary School. I am in grade 3. Mr. Ridgestone is my teacher. He is cool, but he gives me too much homework. Once he gave me so much homework I couldn't go to softball that night. That made me sad. My friend Berry is my very best friend. We play tag during recess. I don't have any bothers or sisters, but I want a brother. I don't want a sister. Girls are stupid. They give you cooties! Do you still play softball? Are you the greatest player in the world yet? Thats what I want to be. I want to be the greatest third base player in all of the world. I will get lots of money and then Berry and I are going to by our own planet! We are going to call it Planet Awesome. Can you please write a letter to me? I want to know how big and strong I will grow up to be. I am going outside to play catch with dad now. Goodbye Nathan.
Nathy
PS Have fun in the future!
His breathing had quickened its pace. "What..." he began to say, but could't finish. He didn't know what to say at all. His mind was still racing. Slowly he bent over and picked up the letter. Taking in into the kitchen, he sat down to read it again under the light. He thought that maybe he had misread some of the words, but even under the yellow light beaming down on him from the kitchen ceiling, the words did not change.
He only read half of the letter the second time. Before he could even finish he jumped from his chair and ran for the phone. Punching numbers frantically, he waited in silence with only his heavy breathing and the low static like chatter of the radio penetrating the stillness of the room.
One ring... and then another. His eyes darted around the room, and finally rested upon the letter sitting on the table. "Hello?" A woman's voice screamed into his ear, and it startled him.
"Eh hello" he stuttered. "Mrs. Williams?"
"Nathan! How are you son!" her voice was loud and Nathan winced as she cried out to him from the other end of the line.
"Good, um... is Trisha there with you guys?" He spoke quickly, trying to get the words out before he even had time to think of which ones he was going to use.
"Why yes she is. Hang on a second." Nathan heard the muffled sound of Mrs. Williams calling out into the background. A moment later he heard the sound of his sister on the phone.
"Hello?" she said.
"Trisha? It's Nathan." He paused and waited for a response.
"It's only six-ten Nathan. You said you would come and get me at nine" she wined. Nathan hadn?t realized that his sister would figure the only reason he would call would be to tell her to get ready to leave.
He didn't bother to assure her that he wasn't leaving the house yet. "Trisha did you leave a letter for me in the mail?" He looked back at the pile of mail on the counter, then at the letter again.
"A letter?" she repeated.
"Yes, a letter in a blue envelope with my name on the front."
"No" she replied. "I didn't write any letter."
Nathan became scared. "Don't lie to me, brat! Did you write a letter about me and leave it on the counter or not?"
He could hear his sister become very defensive and annoyed at him. "No! I didn't. I'm not lying."
"Are you sure? Do you know who did write it? This isn't a joke, Trisha!"
"I swear" she cried "I didn't do it."
Nathan couldn't be sure, but somehow he began to believe her. He tried to calm himself down. "Okay, sorry brat.You... never mind." He rubbed his eye. "You be ready at nine like I told you okay?"
"Okay" she wined much like he had earlier when his mother had reminded him about her soccer practice.
"Okay" he replied. "Goodbye brat."
"Goodbye dork" she said with heavy emphasis on the word "dork" and hung up on him. Nathan was staring at the letter again and he held the phone to his ear until the operator came on and instructed him to hang up.
Nathan hung the phone up. The radio was playing nothing but static now, and he switched it off. Silence filled the house. He sat down at the table in front of the letter. His hands were sweating and he could feel chills running up the back of his neck. Hesitating only a moment further, he read the letter again.
He carefully read each line several times each. There wasn't a single inaccuracy in any of the statements in the letter at all. Nathan could remember Mr. Ridgestone's class perfectly at Clarke Road Elementary. He could remember the one night as a kid when he had asked his mother if he was ever going to have a brother to play with. She had avoided the question, naturally, but Nathan could still remember asking it.
"How the fuck did..." he started saying slowly as he read on. The part about his and Berry's plan for Planet Awesome was what confused him the most. Only Berry would know about that?only Berry could have written the letter. At the same time, however, only his parents would know about his kid name "Nathy". Was the whole thing some giant prank that his mother and Berry were pulling on him?
He got up to call Berry, but stopped himself. "What if Berry didn't do it?" he thought to himself. "I'd look like a paranoid idiot if I started accusing him of sending me letters with a whole bunch of personal stuff in it, wouldn't I?"
Nathan paced back and forth, in and out of the kitchen, trying to find some kind of reason. He began to get frustrated as each and every explanation he could come up with only led to more questions.
"This is so stupid" he screamed. "It's just a fucking letter!" Finally he grabbed the letter off the table and began crumpling it into a ball. He didn't understand why he was so angry. All he wanted was to get rid of the strange letter he had apparently written himself ten years ago. He threw it across the room and it hit the wall in the hallway with a soft smack before falling to the floor.
Sitting back down, Nathan plunged himself into his remaining homework. He didn't want to think about the strange letter anymore. He scratched away at the calculus problems for about twenty minutes, but the lines of letter were all he could think of. His frustration was slipping rapidly into fear. Nathan decided to make something to eat, hoping it would calm him down enough so he could figure out what he was going to do about the troublesome mail he had received.
Making his way to the kitchen, Nathan dug out a pair of frozen mini-pizzas from the freezer. He didn't much care for frozen pizza. "I always liked real pizza delivered right to my--" he stopped suddenly. Panic gripped him again as he realized what he was saying. Nathy had said his favorite food was pizza in his letter.
Nathan laughed nervously at himself. "Well, I guess it still is." He flipped the dial on the oven and slid the two stiff pies onto the pan inside the stove. The orange juice container was nearly empty and he poured what was left into his glass before tossing it into the garbage pail hanging on the cupboard door under the sink.
Memories of Mr. Ridgestone's class were swimming through Nathan's head as he swallowed a mouthful of juice. He was amazed at the number of little details about the classroom he was sure he had forgotten. Yet here they were now playing out in his head like an old home video. Mr. Ridgestone was a jolly fellow that laughed hard and loud every time someone made a joke. "How could I forget someone like him?" Nathan thought as he snickered.
As he stood rubbing the back of his neck, Nathan looked over at the crumpled paper that was lying dead on the floor in the hallway. He was still angry and frightened by it, but at the same time thinking about himself as a kid had made him stop and wonder a little more about it. He still could not understand who could have possibly sent it, but nevertheless there it was on the floor. The scribbles of handwriting on the page had made their way to their destination and now all he could do was just stare at it.
His staring went on longer then he realized. The smell of melted processed cheese grabbed his attention out of the blank stare he was captured by, and he hurried over to the stove. Pulling one of his mother's ripped oven mitts on, he drew the oven door down. He shied away from the blast of hot air that rushed into his face and pulled the tray out, laying it on top of the stove.
The edges of the pies were crisp and black, and the cheese in the middle was a dark brown. Nathan had burnt his frozen pizzas yet again. "I forgot why I hate these things" he said as he pulled some paper towels from the dispenser next to the stove. He wrapped the two hot pizzas in the towels and threw them into the garbage on top of the orange juice container. "I wasn't that hungry anyway" he kidded himself as he turned off the oven.
The kitchen stank of burnt cheese. The yellow light that streamed down on the table seemed to compliment the smell. Nathan knew he wasn?t going to get any more homework done that night, and began packing his books back into his bag. "I'll finish it tomorrow during lunch" he said as he put his bag in the living room, where he always left it each night.
The boy walked towards the stairs that led up to the bedrooms. He bent over and scooped up the crumpled letter and began unwrapping it as he climbed the stairs. "I should just throw this stupid thing out" he thought. At the top he looked into Trisha's room and noticed Max curled up on the pair of pillows at the head of her small bed. Nathan nodded at him and turned into his room and closed the door.
Switching on the lamp next to his bed, Nathan stretched out on his mattress. He stretched his arms and legs, and then arced his back up above the mattress. He felt bones and muscles loosening as he strained to hold himself up as long as he could, and then let his body flop back on the bed. Comfortable for the first time that day, Nathan let out a long sigh.
He sat up with his back against the headboard and straightened out the letter. His curiosity as to who wrote it had fizzled away somehow, and he didn't feel scared of it anymore. All he wanted to do at that point was read it.
My name is Nathy. I am eight years old. Do you remember me? I am you!,
Nathy
PS Have fun in the future!
����������� "I wonder if he meant my future or his future" he whispered. His eyes felt heavy and he closed them. Nathan fell asleep thinking about the letter from Nathy. He wasn?t thinking of Cindy and how much he hated Mike for stealing away his girlfriend any more, or how he was missing out on a night of chumming with Berry and Wacky Mack. He didn't even feel bad about not getting his homework and chores done. It wasn't like the world was going to come crashing down on him over all that stuff anyway.
����������� Hours passed as the tired teenager laid in silence on his bed. His clock struck upon eight forty in the evening as he woke up. He yawned, feeling relaxed and comfortable. He looked at his watch. ?Uh oh? he croaked as he rose slowly. "Better get a move on, there Nathy. The brat will be waiting for you."
����������� The boy stepped down the stairs loudly and grabbed his coat out of the closet. As he tied his shoes on, he yelled up the stairs. "Don't let me forget to feed you, Max. You hear me?" Silence followed, and Nathan snickered to himself. "I'm sure you won't, but I'd just thought I'd make sure."
����������� Whistling as he locked the door behind him, Nathan climbed into his car. It had started to rain, but he kept whistling as he pulled out of the driveway and sped off to pick up his sister.
