Chapter Three: Days Are No Longer Normal

 

            I close the apartment door behind me. “I’m h—”

            Shane and Theresa are making out on the royal blue sofa that sits in the middle of the living room.

            I go to my room, slip out of my coat, and put away my stuff. Then I come back into the living room to find Shane still on top of Theresa.

            I let out a sigh. Every other day, I come home to find Theresa and Shane making out on the couch. It gets annoying sometimes, but that’s mostly just jealousy. Why can’t I make out on our couch every other day with my boyfriend? I don’t have a boyfriend. That’s why. How about I have some fun being jealous, eh?

            I get on my hands and knees and silently crawl behind in the couch. Good, they didn’t see me—or even notice me come in, for that matter. I slowly rise and…

            “BOO!”

            “What the—!?” Shane falls off of Theresa and onto the floor, Theresa gasps in surprise, and I double over, laughing.

            “Shawna!” Shane moans, standing up and brushing himself off. “What’d you do that for!?”

            Hmm, I really don’t have a legitimate reason. “That’s pay back for making me drop my spoon out the window!” Go improvising.

            “But I brought you a new spoon, though.”

            “Oh, I forgot about that. Oh, well.” I shrug and walk over to the large, royal blue armchair and then sink into it.

            “Hi, Shawna!” Theresa flashes her huge smile at me. Her teeth are, like, blindingly bright. I feel like I’m the Wicked Witch of the West every time I see her smile. ‘I’m melting, I’m melting!’

            I like Theresa. I wouldn’t mind having her as cousin-in-law. Besides her super shining teeth, she has long, thick, crimped jet black hair. Her jade green eyes look to me like jewels, and her skin is caramel-colored. Theresa is half American and half Indian—as in from India, not from Native America. All together she reminds me of a black cat with eerie green eyes, but she’s not bad luck. Just so you know, of course.

            “So, anyway, watcha want for dinner, Shawna?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “You never know.”

            Darn right, I don’t! I hate that. He always asks me what I want to eat for dinner, and, of course, I never know. There’s just nothing in particular that I ever want to eat. And whenever I do know what I want, we can’t have it.

            “Oh, we’ll have that tomorrow night,” Shane would say.

            And that’s just plain mean, in my opinion. Oh, well.

            “How can you not know?” he asks.

            I’m sorry, Shane, but that’s a really dumb question. It’s not hard to understand, or at least it shouldn’t be hard. I just don’t know what I want. Simple enough, right?

            I just shrug. Now I’m kind of ticked.

            “O-okay.” The look in his eyes tells me that he can sense my frustration. He looks really sorry. Well, I’m sorry for making him feel sorry for ticking me off.

            “…And besides,” I add, “You said the same thing two days ago.”

            I smile and Shane smiles back. He reaches out and ruffles my hair with his hand. “Ha ha, sucker.”

            “Hey! Don’t do that!” I groan. “I don’t like it when people touch my hair. It’s gross having someone else’s germy fingers touching my hair.” I’ve been really touchy about people touching my hair ever since the third grade when…Let’s just make this more interesting with a flashback.

No sun☼shine here

            Mrs. Darrell’s third grade class was having recess. Little eight-year old Shawna Kirk with her happy smiling face, red-tinted black hair, and blue-violet eyes was sitting under an immense shade tree with a group of girls in her class.

            One of them, Polly, was picking her nose. Actually, Polly was notorious for picking her nose.

            A girl sat down right behind Shawna. “Hey, Shawna, can I braid your hair?” the girl asked.

            Shawna didn’t recognize the voice. It wouldn’t matter anyway, would it? “Okay!” she agreed.

            The girl pulled her finger out of her right nostril and began to braid Shawna’s hair.

            After a few minutes had passed, Mrs. Darrell blew her whistle, signaling that it was time to go back inside for lunch. The girls stood up, and when Shawna turned around to thank the girl for braiding her pretty hair, she gasped, her eyes wide with absolute horror. The girl was Polly, who had been simultaneously braiding Shawna’s hair and picking her nose the whole time.

            “Polly!? Ew, ew, ew!”

            Later, at lunchtime, some kid spilled reduced fat milk in Shawna’s hair. She’d never forget that day. Ever.

            That whole experience traumatized me. It still gives me chills whenever I think about it. And from that day on, I still (1) despise people who pick their noses, (2) don’t like anyone touching my hair, and (3) try and keep my distance from milk—especially that darned reduced fat kind.

No sun☼shine here

            “So, Shawna, how was your day?” Shane asks when the three of us—him, Theresa, and I—are seated at the dinner table with food in front of us.

            “Uh, normal, I guess.” I say. “Except for the part with Roy. He told me that he had a girlfriend two years ago when he was only seven.”

            “Wow. Is he some kind of player-in-training?” Theresa asks.

            We all laugh. “Yeah, I actually don’t think so because for most of my visit, he just rambled on about her. Her name is Mel, or ‘Melanie Danielle Stratford,’ as he said. That’s her full name. Roy told me so much about her that I feel like I actually know this girl. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to meet her, though. I wonder where she is now.”

            “I guess that wouldn’t be bad, either. You’re making this Roy kid sound really peculiar,” Shane remarks.

            “Yeah, I wouldn’t mind meeting him myself—and Mel, too.”

            Oh, yeah. I giggle. “He said that he kissed her, or rather, she kissed him. Everything he said was really sweet. He found this rock at their lake, and he gave it Mel who took it to her uncle who drilled a hole in it and put a chain through it to make a necklace. She apparently never stopped wearing it after that.”

            “Aw, that’s so precious,” Theresa says.

            “But I’m pretty sure that Roy wouldn’t mind the company of you guys. He rarely gets visitors, and his parents don’t come as often as they used to. So, this kid’s really lonely.”

            “I feel so bad for him, and for his family, too. Y’know, if I had a kid and he—or she—was hospitalized, my heart would break,” says Theresa, her voice breaking.

            I guess it’s so heart-wrenching just thinking about it. I don’t know, though, because I don’t feel that way. I mean, that would be horrible if my kid was in the hospital, but I don’t feel anything by just imagining it.

            After taking a deep, calming breath, Theresa then asks, “Is he going to…d-die?”

            I simply nod my head in response.

            “…When?”

            I grow solemn. “I don’t know. I don’t think that the doctors really know, either. Roy’s kept on the sixth floor for special cases.” I give a nervous laugh. “I have to carry around a ‘special pass’ to be on that floor of the hospital. They don’t even know what disease Roy’s got. Like, I’ve noticed that his heart rate monitor machine beeps at speeds all over the place; sometimes, it seems way too fast, and other times it’s impossibly slow. And he coughs a lot, as well.”

            The rest of dinner’s spent in almost complete silence, except for a few words spoken here and there. Things got kind of awkward, but in a grave way, I guess.

No sun☼shine here

            “Welcome to study hall!” my sixth period teacher greets. His name is Mr. Winters and he watches over some of the study hall classes and does tutoring after school. He’s, like, the epitome of all high school girls’ fantasies. He’s only twenty-seven, and, of course, young male teachers are highly regarded with high school kids. Mr. Winters looks like a replica of Heath Ledger in that movie ‘Ten Things I Hate about You.’ He has that sort of medieval knight look about him. It’s really weird, but charming. And that’s exactly what Mr. Winters is: charming. He seems to flirt with girls around the school, but he’s definitely no pervert or pedophile. And whenever you come to his tutoring sessions after school, you can find him singing—he thinks no one’s there to hear him—and his voice kicks butt!

            Instead of going to study, most of the guys go off to hang out in their separate cliques, and most of the girls and one guy go off to swarm around Mr. Winters like moths to a light bulb. And besides, who actually studies during study hall?

            Because I have no friends, I just amuse myself by turning my attention to Mr. Winters’ crowd. It’s really funny, though, because everyone around him is practically in love with him, no joking.

            “Oh, Mr. Winters, can you tutor me this afternoon?” one of the girls asks, a dreamy look in her eyes. She looks like Pippy Long Stockings with her red hair in two long braids and the knee socks of our school uniforms.

            All of the other girls chime in, asking if they can have a tutoring session today.

            “Sorry, Virginia, guys, I’m completely booked for this week. Hopefully, you can get a spot on the signup sheet for next week.” Mr. Winters puts people down nicely.

            And, yes, he has a signup sheet for tutoring sessions every week. Because of my horrible grades in history class, I have a reserved session from 4:00-5:00 every Tuesday, which is today. I have to go see Mr. Winters after my visit with Ms. Rogers.

            The crowd erupts with nonsensically questions, and you can’t understand a word that any of them are saying. Mr. Winters seems unaffected by the annoyance of the group, but maybe that’s because he’s used to it.

            All of a sudden, I have this weird feeling that someone’s eyes are, like, burning holes in my back. I whip my head around sharply, painfully cracking my neck.

            “Ow, ow!” I mumble, rubbing my now sore neck. I actually turn my whole body around this time, just for safety precautions.

No sun☼shine here

            “—na! Shawna!”

            “Unh…”

            “Shawna, can you hear me!?”

            I’m lying down. I open my eyes to see Mr. Waters’ face two inches away from mine. I gasp and tear away from him instantly. I look around madly. “Wh-what’s going on!? Where are those…people!?”

            The whole class is crowded around where I was lying down with concerned and confused looks on their faces. I can feel my cheeks growing red from embarrassment.

            “What people?” someone asks. “It’s only us here.”

            “Shawna, are you alright?” Mr. Waters asks, walking over to me.

            “Y-yeah.”

            He helps to me my feet. “Do you need to go to the nurse?”

            “No, I-I think I’m fine now.”

            He looks me straight in my eyes.

            “I’m fine, really.”

            “I think maybe you ought to lie down in there. I know this is the last period of the day, but you’re making us all worried.”

            A few girls from Mr. Waters’ flock nod their heads in agreement.

            “I-I guess you’re right.” I grab my things, get a pass from him, and leave for the infirmary.

            I hand the nurse my pass when I walk into the room.

            “I fainted,” I say. “I’m supposed to come and lie down in here.”

            The nurse glares at me. I don’t like her. She’s mean. “Are you on any medications?”

            “No.”

            “Have you been taking any drugs lately?”

            “No.” I’m not a druggie, thank you very much.

            “Anything else I should know about?”

            I c**k my head to one side in bewilderment. “No?”

            “Go to the back and lie in one of those beds. I might not be in here when school ends, but when that annoying bell rings, you better get your skinny butt out of here.”

            “O-okay…” I stick my tongue out at her when I walk over to an empty bed-mattress thing in the back of the infirmary.

            There’s this kid in the bed-mattress thing next to mine who looks like he’s a freshman. He’s pretty short for a dude. He’s asleep, too, and his snores sound like a grizzly bear.

            I sigh, lying down. What was it that happened again? Oh, that’s right. Those…people I saw. I’m not even sure if they were people or not, but all I know is that they filled me with so much fear. Apparently, no one else saw them. And those people were talking, too. I remember what they said now.

            The moment I saw them, my mind went blank, but the memories are flowing back to me. What I saw were two skeletons wearing black-cloaks and they both were carrying a scythe. They looked like the Grim Reaper, only there were two of them, so it’s like…double death or something. I really don’t know. They were both male, though. I could tell from their voices.

            One of the skeleton guys was taller than the other, and they both had red eyes that weren’t connected to anything. The taller of the two spoke like he was a zombie or something. His voice was really monotonous and his red eyes seemed bright and yet dull at the same time. Oh, they looked super bright, but they seemed dull probably because of his personality or something. The other skeleton guy had scary bright, red eyes. He seemed to emit waves of malice, and he was shouting angrily the whole time. Both skeleton guys were crazy tall, too; seven feet tall or more, probably.

            When I turned around, I froze. And then they spoke.

            “Andrea! Your precious Nikolai requests your company!” the angry one barked at me.

            “Adrian. That isn’t Andrea.” The dull one said, without any sign of emotion.

            I’m going to assume that Mr. Angry Pants is called Adrian.

            “Shut up!” Adrian barked at his fellow skeleton guy. “Just because you’re older, doesn’t mean that you can tell me what’s what. I am not wrong. I’m never wrong.” Then Adrian turned to me once more. “Now, Andrea! Get your sorry butt up and let’s get out of here!!!”

            “Adrian. That isn’t Andrea. None of us, except Father, belong in this world. So why would Andrea be here? And Andrea would not look like this. She would be in the same state as us. We don’t look like them until we return to where we came from. You have no common sense.”

            “What are you saying…?” The look in Adrian’s eyes told me that he was about to go ballistic.

            But, just in this nick of time, another skeleton person joined them. It was a female skeleton.

            “Adrian, Angel. I’m right here. I felt you calling, but I could not sense your presence over there. So I came here. What is it?”

            “Nikolai requests your presence,” Angel said. Once again, I’m assuming that Angel is the monotonous one and Andrea is the one who just appeared.

            “Alright,” Andrea said. “We shouldn’t waste too much time in this world. We must go.” Andrea looked at me now. There was something so familiar about her, but I didn’t know what it was. Then she said to me, “You there. Have we met before?” I guess she had the same feeling that I did. Weird.

            “Andrea.”  Adrian and Angel said in unison. They left in the blink of an eye at that moment. And the next moment, I woke up to find Mr. Waters hovering over me.

            I lay there thinking for a while until the bell rings. The freshman next to me bounces up from his sleep, alarm rising through him. He sinks back down, realizing that it was only the final bell of the day.

         I grab my things and head for the door. To Ms. Rogers’ room! But, I’m still really…bewildered about all of this. Who—and what, exactly—were they, anyway? Where did they come from? What is all of this supposed to mean?