Stories To Be Told

chapter seven

The morning of Dan's last day of school I got up unreasonably early, same as every day. It had become a sort of ritual that I would eat breakfast with John before he went to work, and before I went back to bed. That morning, we both chose cereal as our meal. Neither of us talked as we crunched our Cheerios, but it was a comfortable silence. It wasn't long, however, until Dan came bounding down the stairs wearing a tshirt and jeans. I was still in my pajamas.

"Why are you up so early?" questioned John suspiciously.

"Couldn't sleep any longer," Dan said without really looking at his father. To me, he said, "We should go soon if you want a tour of the school."

I didn't know anything about a tour. "Oh, yeah um, sure. Lemme just get dressed real quick okay?"

"Sure."

I ran upstairs to find something to wear. From what Dan was wearing, I had an idea of what would be appropriate. Not giving it too much thought, I grabbed a pair of shorts and a tshirt, and raked a brush through my wavy hair. By the time I made it back downstairs, Dan already had a backpack ready and was standing by the door. He looked absolutely ecstatic to bring me to school with him.

"Oh my god, Dan calm down! It's not that exciting!" I said.

"Yes it is! You're going to meet all my friends and get to see where I spend, like, most of my day, and then we're going to go out for food. This is a very important day for me. And you." He nodded his head for extra confirmation.

"Whatever. Let's just get going."

Dan grabbed his keys from a jar on the table where John was sitting. John did not seem very pleased by all the conversation happening around him. Though a confident and louder person, he loved his quiet mornings.

"Oi! Get out of here, you noisy freaks!" he said from behind a newspaper.

"Ugh, Dad," responded Dan.

"C'mon," I said, pushing him toward the door. It proved a difficult task, but luckily he decided to walk in the same direction.

Right as we were leaving, I heard John mumble, "Oh to be young."

And so we started to walk to school.

Dan said, "Okay, so there's some stuff you should know about my friends." as we walked down the street. "Joey's really old dog just died, so avoid jokes about the loss loved ones. Greg smokes a lot, and I know you're really against that, but please don't make any comments. He's a really good friend of mine. Norman's got a nickname, but no one is allowed to use it except for when we want to make him feel embarrassed. It's 'Naughty Norm' by the way."

"Why?" I cut in.

"He once made out with a girl in a closet for a very long time and to this day none of us knows what actually happened, so we just assume the worst."

"Just ask the girl."

"She wouldn't answer us."

"Anything else? Do you only have three friends?"

"Haha very funny. No. I have more friends, but those are just the ones that you need to be aware of."

It kind of felt like Dan was a bit stressed out by me meeting his friends. I'm sure it was scary for him to introduce me, the girl randomly spending the summer at his house, to all the people he sees literally every day. I suddenly had a worrying thought.

"Am I keeping you from spending the summer with your buddies?"

"What? No! No, no. Not at all. Don't think that! If I didn't want to hang out with you, do you think I would come home right after school every day just to see you?"