The noise of the alarm woke him from his slumber. Laying in bed, he took a moment to fully wake, then, inwardly groaning, he reached out to his bedside table and deactivated the alarm. Struggling with the blankets, he threw his legs out of bed. Holding his head in his hands, he sat there for a minute or two. He bemoaned himself for not going to bed earlier. As his mother always told him, teenage boys had to get enough sleep so they could grow.
At last he stood up, stretching, and got ready for the day. Glancing at the mirror while brushing his teeth, he saw two quotes he had put there a while back:
“Only a life lived for others is worth living- Einstein”
“Just because you’re mute doesn’t mean you can’t do great things, Adam.”
The last one had no author, since he had written it to himself. He glanced to the right of the quotes and looked into his own brilliantly green eyes. He hoped that those eyes would be able to communicate things well enough to people today. As a fifteen year old in high school you needed all the help you could get.
He finished and packed up his school stuff. As quietly as he could he opened his door, left the room and closed it, not wanting to wake up his mom in the other room. Working two jobs, one day and one night, he wanted her to have the most rest that she could.
In the kitchen he pulled out a few slices of bread and made himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and grabbed a water bottle. Stuffing them in his backpack he went to the fridge. To his dismay there was only half a gallon of milk left, half a dozen eggs, a bit of cheese and some leftovers from two days ago to work with. Disappointed but not put off, he grabbed two eggs and a bit of cheese then went to the burner and started to make scrambled eggs.
Crossing his fingers, he flicked the switch on the electric stove, praying that it still had power today. It did, and he proceeded to make breakfast. In 5 minutes he was finished and took a quarter of the eggs for himself. The rest he put on a plate with a fork and wrapped in tin foil before silently making his way to his mother’s room.
Pushing open her door he found her fast asleep, still in her work clothes from last night as always. Laying the eggs at her bedside table, he looked at her for a moment and smiled. To him she was the most beautiful creature on the planet.
Bending down he kissed her on the forehead and hurried out.
Checking his watch he realized he was running late and in a frenzy grabbed his backpack and hurried toward the door. The minute he opened it, however, he was greeted by a pack of stray cats, all of who began to meow and yowl. Adam’s eyes widened. There had never been this many cats before! They must have been telling their friends. He ran back inside, being sure to close the door so the cats didn’t come in and wake his mother, grabbed a stale pizza crust from inside the fridge, and returned. Breaking the bread into pieces and then crumbs he sprinkled it around a bit for the cats to eat, then grabbed his bottle and poured a bit of water into a bowl next to the door. He put a little more than usual in this time, seeing as there were so many more cats today, even though he knew what remained wouldn’t tide him over. He’d have to use the disgusting water fountains at the school today.
After locking the house, Adam ran to where he knew the bus would stop and waited. He looked around for other kids that might come, but he knew there wouldn’t be any. There never was. Most kids in this neighborhood ditched out on school.
A couple houses down he saw an old woman with a walker trying to bend down far enough to grab the newspaper. She must have been 70 years old at least, dressed in a nightgown and robe with slippers. She was having a hard time of it, so without thinking he ran over to her. Grabbing her paper, he straightened and handed it to her.
“Thank you very much young man,” she said, smiling up at him. “What’s your name, son?”
Adam reached into his backpack and pulled out a whiteboard and marker. After writing on it for a second he turned it to her.
“My name is Adam Rathburn and I’m mute. What’s your name?” it read.
“Oh. You’re that mutie with the young single mother I heard about,” she said, her face darkening a bit. “Your mom works hard, I’ll admit that. I see her rushing about all the time and what not. But she should be ashamed of getting pregnant so young, and without being married to boot! Why if I-”
But Adam had wiped out the words on his board and written more which he held forward to her: “My dad was married to my mom and I love her. My dad died before I was born.”
“Oh really, boy? That’s not what I hear! The gossip around is that your papa was a drinker and liked his ladies! I’ll have you know- Wait! Where are you going, boy?” she yelled at him, for he had run off to catch the bus which had come when he wasn’t looking and which was now leaving without him. “Bah! Stupid kid!” she yelled, before turning and hobbling back to her house.
Adam ran as fast as he could and tried to bang his chest and the parked cars to make some noise but nothing worked. The bus didn’t even notice him. There was nothing to do but run after it.
As he ran he couldn’t help but think about the old woman. She was wrong about his dad. His mom had shown him the newspaper article about his father’s mugging and murder in the city on his way back from work. She’d also shown him her wedding pictures. There was no disputing those facts... But still people gossiped about it. Adam couldn’t help but feel that whoever had started it had to have been a cruel, cruel being.
After a block or two the bus came to a stop and Adam finally managed to catch up. A girl about his age was the only passenger for this stop, and she stood staring at him as he leaned against the bus and caught his breath. He’d seen her before; he missed the bus a lot, so he was familiar with her.
She had light brown hair and thin glasses. She was kind of thin but not petite, and wore jeans and a stylish but inexpensive t-shirt and coat. As far as he could tell her name was Lillian, though her friends called her Lily; but he’d never asked her so he couldn’t be sure. The biggest thing about her was her eyes, Adam thought; blue eyes, which stood out from the brown of her hair and the lightness of her face. He liked those eyes…
After a moment he caught his breath and smiled at her. Stiffening, Lillian nodded curtly and hurried into the bus. Adam, grimacing a little at her reaction, hurried to the door as well.
“Well, well! You managed to catch up, did you Adam?” asked the bus driver, a cruel, rotund man with a sour smile. “Figured you needed the exercise!” he said, his mouth laughing and his pudgy eyes squinting.
Adam ignored him and turned to the back of the bus. You kind of had to ignore people like that when you can’t talk back.
Just then a commotion arose.
“Get off of me you jerk!”
“Don’t you want to sit with me, Lillian? You know I’ve got a seat here and you can always sit next to me.”
“I don’t want to sit next to you Brandon! Let go of me!”
“Are you sure? I’m not so bad once you get to know me!”
Looking down the rows of seats Adam saw what was happening. Brandon, the high school jock, seemed to be manhandling Lillian and trying to get her to sit next to him. Holding her shoulders, he was half pushing, half steering her to a pair of empty seats while she struggled to break free. All of the girls knew that you wanted to avoid sitting next to Brandon at any cost, so they often tried to exchange seats with a guy if push came to shove. They whispered in the halls that he didn’t keep his hands to himself. It looked like he had gone on the offensive, now though. If he couldn’t get girls to sit with him he’d make them do so.
The rest of the bus, girls and boys alike, sat talking in their seats, not paying any attention. Realizing this, Adam rushed forward and, with a shove, pushed Brandon into his seat and away from Lilian.
In an instant the bus went silent.
Brandon stood up.
“You’ve got a lot of guts, kid,” he said, glaring down at him. Only now did Adam realize just how tall the guy was. “But… obviously you don’t have the right guts in you if you can’t even talk, you dumb moron.” Three or four guys, known to all as Brandon’s flunkies, laughed and guffawed on cue as he turned to smile stupidly at them.
Then, with a quick movement, Brandon punched him in the stomach.
A gasp of air left Brandon’s lungs, but he made no sound. Nor did any cry or scream escaped his lips when his attacker kicked him once, twice, three times.
“Hey, stop fooling around back there!” called the driver. “Everybody get in your seats!”
Adam, blinded by his pain, felt himself lifted into the air and carried to the back of the bus. He felt himself hit the back bench and dully registered a pain in his head from the shock. Then he heard Brandon whisper in his ear.
“Never do that again you little bastard or I’ll beat another of the five senses out of you.”
And then he was alone.
He opened his eyes a couple seconds later after he’d determined that he wasn’t badly hurt, and saw briefly the scared face of Lilian. He smiled at her again, but her eyes just grew wide and she turned to face the front just like everyone else who was avoiding looking at him.
And since nobody was looking at him it was very easy to curl up in the corner and cry a couple tears.
Soon Adam found himself in Pre-Algebra.
He’d been the last to leave the bus and had tried to ignore the cruel look the bus driver threw at him, and after general assembly he’d walked to class without much thought at all. His mind was still on the bus with Lilian and Brandon, and it was still with the old woman from earlier. It wasn’t until class was halfway through that he snapped out of it and realized where he was.
Glancing around, he could see teens sitting at desks strewn across the room. Half of the kids weren’t paying attention, while the others were dull eyed and writing whatever the teacher said. All in all, it was a sad sight, and Adam felt a pang of annoyance with himself when he realized he’d been in just as bad a state moments before.
The teacher, one Mr. Egbert, made such idleness and dullness forgivable, however. Whatever school he had learned teaching methods at should be torn down and all of its faculty fired, or so was the opinion of the school at large. The only enthusiasm he displayed was in making terrible jokes at the students expense. Though not a cruel man, he lacked the social confidence successful people possessed and so attempted to garner favor with students in an altogether childish manner, much like how children first begin to flirt by making fun of one another.
“You, miss Martinez, don’t seem to know your denominator from your decimal point.”
“Mister Flannigan, only an idiot wouldn’t know what a fraction was.”
“Do any of you ignorant children understand the genius of this equation?”
Such were his comments most of the time. Students often commented that if he really wanted them to like him he could at least call them by their first names, but, though students had complained before, he persisted with calling them “Mister” and “Miss”. Today it looked like it would be Adam’s turn to experience Mr. Egbert’s childishness.
“Mister Rathburn, would you come up to the board and solve this problem for us?”
Adam nodded and rose from his chair. Studying the problem as he approached the whiteboard, he saw that it wasn’t that difficult at all. Then again, he was an excellent student. He studied constantly, unlike some of his classmates. This might have been due in part to Adam’s lack of any significant friends to hang out with, but it had its benefits.
Pulling his own marker out of his pocket, Adam reached up and finished the equation with ease; X ended up equaling 42.
“Very good, Adam,” said Mr. Egbert. “Perhaps the language of mathematics is one of the few languages you can actually speak!” He turned to the class and got a few stifled chuckles from the more cruel kids. “Well…” he said, a little disgruntled, “it certainly doesn’t make up for your being a cripple. Back to your seat.”
And with that, Mr. Egbert continued with his lecture.
On his part, Adam gave up taking notes and instead stared sadly into space for the rest of the class, dreaming of a quality education rather than the drivel before him.
The lunch bell couldn’t have come sooner. The one good thing about Pre-Algebra was that it was the closest class to the cafeteria, so everyone there got to be first in line.
Adam had managed to get a spot somewhere in the middle of the line when the rest of the school arrived. Almost immediately someone cut in front of him; a big boy with a mean look.
“Hey, no cutting!” called the girl behind Adam.
“This kid here was saving me a spot! Weren’t you, kid?” he said, leering at Adam.
Adam shook his head no, but this only caused the guy to laugh.
“Sorry, bud! You’ve got to speak up!” and he turned away from them.
Creeps like that took advantage of Adam’s muteness all the time in line. If they could take advantage of him fast enough then Adam would have no opportunity to write anything by the time they got away. This cutting in line thing was usual, so Adam, while dejected, wasn’t surprised when it happened. At least this time it was only one guy.
After getting some of the free food the cafeteria offered to compliment his sack lunch, Adam found himself an empty table close to the back of the room, though not too far back. He hoped that people might choose to sit with him voluntarily, but today was no different. Everybody sat with their friends at the other tables. Adam consoled himself that this was because everyone was afraid of the bullies that pushed Adam around. If they made friends with Adam they’d just be a target too, so Adam didn’t blame them.
So, regretfully, Adam found himself doing what he usually did after finishing his lunch: talk to himself. Or, perhaps more correctly, write to himself. Laying out his board in front of him, he wrote whatever came to his mind. When the board got full he’d wipe it clean. This was partly a writing exercise, partly a coping mechanism, but for whatever reason Adam found it useful and enjoyable.
“Maybe I could talk to Lillian sometime,” he wrote. “She’ll recognize me now. And she’s not that far away from my house. I could hang out with her! Maybe invite her over! But… wait, that wouldn’t work. The house needs a good cleaning, and we need more vacuum bags. Maybe eventually. And helping her out like that was only the 14th time we’ve interacted. (Why do I remember that number?) Well anyway, it was only the 3rd major time.”
He paused to wipe the slate clean.
“Perhaps I should wait. Nah… you’re just scared. Get over it. Scared… maybe she’s scared like everyone else who doesn’t hang out with me. I only got beat up that one time. Just the once. Ah, but I bet they haven’t done it again because I’m too easy. What if the kids aren’t scared? What if they just don’t like me? Nah, they don’t even know me. What if they’re all just so narrow minded they won’t give me a chance?”
For a moment Adam stared at the board. A pulse of deep sadness coursed through him.
Then he wiped the board clean and wiped out the sadness along with it.
On the way to his next class, History, Adam overheard some whispers from a huddled group of girls in the hall.
“Yeah, that puny kid Dirk broke down in class today
“I know, right?”
“What’s his problem?”
“Apparently his uncle died or something.”
“What a shame.”
“Should we say something?”
“Nah, let him suffer. He’s annoying anyway.”
Adam stopped and thought for a moment. He knew Dirk. He was a nice kid, it seemed, though he was definitely thin. He was two years older than Adam, but wasn’t very popular either. Adam felt sympathetic, and immediately resolved to write Dirk a note of condolence.
Quickly, for classes were starting, Adam wrote out the letter on a nearby wall, but he immediately ran into a problem: he had no idea how to get the letter to Dirk. He paced for a second, the gears in his brain silently working at the problem, when suddenly he remembered which locker Dirk used and ran to find it. It took several minutes to locate, by which time most of the students had gotten to class, but he felt satisfied when he stuck the letter in the locker door.
Checking his watch, Adam realized that he was going to be late. History class was on the completely other side of the school, and the only way to get there in time was to run. So run he did.
Until, of course, the janitor yelled at him to stop running in the hallways, of course.
So yeah, he was going to be late.
Can't wait to read the rest!
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