Eerie Jerry

Vent

When the first day of kindergarten was over, I just sat and waited for my aunt to come pick me up. My father was working and so was my mother, so my aunt Daisy was my only resort. I sat and waited in the gymnasium for my car rider number to be called. My parents and my aunt Daisy and uncle Henry had copies of my number, 168. There were other kids in different grade levels and much bigger than me. I just felt like the only pipsqueak in this gigantic gymnasium with other kids who were bigger than me. I sat there on the floor in my little dinosaur trainers, my brown shorts and my red dress shirt. I like red, but not bright red, I like a little more maroon with red and not bright red as a clown. I didn't mind the shorts because of the dark colour they were, but the bright red shirt I wore was ridiculous. They came with their own little cuff links at the bottom of the sleeve and it was a buttoned shirt all the way down. I didn't really like buttons because they might pop off and my whole chest and belly would be shown. If that happened at school, not only would the other kids laugh at me, they would probably draw all over me. From the racoon poop and the flying figures affairs, I'm sure they have labeled me as quite the clown. I had my little backpack with the building blocks monogrammed to say 'JEREMY' in blocks and in different colours in between the upper zipper and the middle pocket on my bright blue backpack. I sat waiting and waiting watching other kids get up and head for the doors when their numbers were called. So far, no 168, I had to wait some more. I was looking at what fewer kids were left and the white flying figures hovering in the gymnasium. I couldn't escape from any nuisance that always comes creeping up on me. Whether it was other kids or these strange things or the voices in my brain, there's just no damn escape. It will never leave me just like waiting forever for nobody to pick me up. I might be the last one out of the gym or maybe a teacher had to take me to my aunt's house. "168!" I heard a teacher call out. The clouds lifted, finally, I can get out of this living hell called school and go home. The teacher who called out my number escorted me to my aunt's back door of her gold sedan. My aunt unlocked the back door and the teacher opened the door for me and I climbed in the back seat of her car with my cousin, Harriet, sitting behind Aunt Daisy. Harriet wore a yellow dress with black slippers and a sun locket that hung around her neck. Her backpack had the design of a white cat for the front pocket and a line of tangible fur anybody could touch. Her front pocket was another cat design that was brown and white with furry cat ears at the top. As I closed the door, my aunt Daisy lit up. "Hey, Jeremy! How was school, kiddo?" she asked "First day of kindergarten and first day of year two! These kids are growing up!" As I buckled myself in my booster seat, I just let out some tears and covered my face. "Jeremy!? What's wrong?" "My day was terrible!" I yelled. "I was bullied, I touched racoon poop from the sandpit and nobody believed me when I said I saw the white flying figures everywhere I go!" I sobbed and sobbed, letting out the pain for what I had to endure for the past seven hours. "Oh, Jeremy... That's pants, buddy..." Aunt Daisy spoke. She always sympathised with me and understood me. I like Aunt Daisy and Uncle Henry better than my own parents. They always had the laid-back style and let their daughter and me do whatever we wanted. Harriet is my cousin, who doesn't really like the way I play with her. I would take her toys and play with them myself and I loved pranking her because hearing her whine was so funny. "Come on," Harriet said to me, "it's kindergarten, it couldn't be that bad. You'll have to keep doing this stuff until you're eighteen, you know." I just ignored her and kept bawling, healing myself of the humiliation and pain I had to go through for the entire day. "Jeremy. Jeremy. Look, I'm sorry school went bad for you. You probably just got off on the wrong foot is all." My aunt sympathised with me. "I know it's hard, little man, but things are going to get a lot better soon, I can guarantee you that, child. I'll get you all home and you can cry to me and I'll turn on the tellie to some cartoons. How does that sound?" I liked the sound of that idea and I liked it when my aunt soothed me until I was feeling better. She always did care for me like I was her own son. I nod and spoke "Okay." with a hallow voice. When she stopped at a red stoplight, she reached her arm out at me and rubbed my left knee. "There, there, it's okay, buddy. Auntie Daisy is here." I felt a little better and she acted like more of a mother than my own biological mother. "Harriet, give Jeremy some love, won't you?" "Ick! He's my cousin! That would be weird." Harriet is kind of strict and stubborn to me, but she's lucky she has good parents and not low lives. My aunt Daisy is my father's big sister, older then him by four years. I heard they did have an older brother, but a long time ago, he went to Heaven. Auntie Daisy seemed a bit more positive than my father, she always had a smile and had that attitude you wouldn't mind her waking you up from a deep sleep. Daisy had short light brown hair and light blue eyes that just painted the picture of a happy, loving mother and aunt she always is. She and her husband, Henry, spoil my cousin Harriet, who is a year older than me. She is very authoritative to me just like my mother, but ironically, her parents let me get away with it because I'm a guest and I'm the youngest in the house, so take that, ha, ha. "He's not staying the night with us, is he, Mum?" Harriet asked about me. "No, his father should be off early enough to pick him up." I remember when I was two, I had a sleepover at Auntie Daisy's house and it was like a dream come true, I had so much fun a child could ever have. Harriet and me had a fort built in the living room with two dining chairs to hold up the blanket, we had popcorn, some butter pecan ice cream, hot chocolate with marshmallows and we watched a film on the tellie together. That was one time when Harriet and me got along, but nowadays, we don't. I just like to have fun picking on her because it makes me feel better and less angry. I don't know how to put my finger on it, but I don't think about anything troubling me when I put my effort into playing with Harriet. I would write on her clothes with her markers, rip up her stuffed toys with scissors, use all the finger paint and pancake syrup before she had the chance to use it, eat up her favourite snacks and I remember I would take her toy tablet and run to the bathroom with the door locked and have it all to myself. I would remember her screaming for me to unlock the door and give it back and I would ignore her as I played with it. But, eventually, if somebody had to use the bathroom for real, I had to give up, I didn't want anyone who wasn't Harriet having an accident. She did once when she was four and I was three and I made the excuse that I was trying to get over the phobia of being alone in the bathroom. She kept pounding on the door and I plugged my ears as she beat on the door and when she finally went on herself, she was crying and Uncle Henry had to unlock the door and they they saw me holding my ears and sitting on the toilet and they told me to get out to wash Harriet off. I walked out not saying a word, but I went into the living room and laughed my head off into a marble coloured couch cushion. Yes, those were fun times, being young enough to not know any better, but Aunt Daisy and Uncle Henry would have to tell me some things I was doing were wrong. At least they didn't yell at me about it like my biological parents do. I cut the curtains from my mother's bedroom with scissors once and she spanked me so hard and took me to the naughty stool. I was hurting from that so much and I cried myself until I had a headache from so many tear production. I really didn't want to go back home anytime soon, I would rather stay with Auntie Daisy and Uncle Henry for good. "Do I have to go back home?" I asked Auntie Daisy. "Yes, sweetie, but you can have dinner with us tonight." "Yeah!" I was excited. That meant I can stay until 8:30 p.m. tonight. My father finishes his shift at 7:30 p.m., but he goes home to cook dinner and he goes to Auntie Daisy's house to pick me up. Harriet has stayed at my house a few times and she would say it's very boring and the only room that had any toys was mine. I actually agree with her, I have only one bathtoy and my room was the only kid-friendly environment in the house. All of the other rooms, including the living room, looked like an adult atmosphere, no toys, no drawings or fun magnets on the refrigerator, except for the booster seat on a chair, that was the only thing indicating a kid lived there. We would always have my birthday parties at my mother's relative's manours. Either at Uncle Fred's mansion, Uncle Stewart and Aunt Matilda's mansion or my maternal grandmother's mansion. We never had a birthday party at my house or Auntie Daisy's house, just at the aristocrat's manours. My mother was born an aristocrat and wanted the most expensive an luxurious items in her house. I really didn't like it because it went to show she cared only about herself and her needs than me and my father's. We pulled up to Auntie Daisy's house and I quickly unbuckled out of my seat and Harriet did too. Auntie Daisy got out of the car and walked us to the front door and let us in. I was ready for the fun to be had until 8:30 p.m., when my loser father comes to get me. I just dropped my backpack and made a mad dash for the kitchen and took out Harriet's yogurt and graham crackers. It was vanilla yogurt and bits of graham crackers to pour in the yogurt. I took out a spoon and dug in. "Hey! That's my yogurt! Jeremy!" Harriet yelled at me, but I didn't care, I had a long day and I just needed something to bring me out of the thoughts of those asshole kids making fun of me at school and the lunch there was rubbish anyway. "Mum! He's eating my yogurt! You can't do that, Jeremy!" "Harriet, Harriet," Auntie Daisy assured to her, "you have two more of those things, it's not the end of the world." Harriet made a loud groan and threw her backpack down in frustration and went in the kitchen and pushed me aside. "Move!" she said as she shoved me away and she fished something out of the refrigerator, a pack of gammon and a pack of mozzarella cheese slices. "Mum, lunch was nasty today, I want to pack my lunch when we have fish nuggets. They were disgusting today!" I listened to Harriet going on to her Mum about her first day in year two in school. I just went to sit down on the couch and turned on some cartoons on the tellie and I was eating away Harriet's yogurt. Harriet came into the living room and sat across from me on the other couch eating her gammon and cheese sandwich and watched what I was watching. I eyed her and just licked the spoon right in front of her. A flying white figure appeared in my face in a flash and I just jumped and screamed. "Aaahh!!!" I saw him, but Harriet didn't, she just looked at me weird. "Why did you scream?" "You-you-don't see that!?" I asked to her, pointing to the white figure in the room. "No." she remarked. "Why do you do this everyday?" "I can see them, Harriet! Strange figures in white, floating scaring me and talking to me!" Harriet blinked her eyes and looked in mine, pupil to pupil from across the couch. "What is wrong with you? There is nothing there." "But, only I can see it! How come you can't?" I asked her. "Muuuum!" Harriet calls for Daisy. "Yes, honey?" Daisy asked her as she was in her bedroom. "Jeremy's saying there's white things in the house again!" "Honey, just give him a break, he had a long day at school and he's just a kid. Don't make his day harder." Harriet just scowled at what her mum said and then at me. I just continued watching my cartoon show and ignoring more white figures that were flying in.