The Cool Kids - JJ Maybank

Walking Red Flags

“What are you doing?” My mom demands.

I look up from the piano, regretting how I had been playing one of the fun songs I learned in my free time instead of the song I was taught for my show. “I thought-”

“Don’t think about it,” she tells me. “The whole point is to know the song without thinking about it.”

“That’s not-”

I notice Sarah as she comes through the door with her spare key. She stops when she hears my mom continue to get pissed about how I’m practicing but continues toward us, smiling at my mom with a clearly forced smile as she says, “Morning, Mrs.Turner. Do you mind if I steal your daughter? I need help organizing my bookshelf and she’s the best at helping me with it.”

My mom frowns. “Your bookshelf?”

Sarah nods solemnly. “It’s very important to me. All those books in a certain order.” She grabs my hand before my mom can argue. “Thank you, Mrs.Turner! She’ll be sleeping over as well!” The two of us are out of her view and now she can’t exactly run after us without showing something’s wrong.

. the cool kids .

The dynamic between Sarah and me is strange. While I’m sitting, writing lyrics for a song that just cannot come to me on its own for reasons I’m aware of but cannot admit to, she’s swatting the birds diving toward the mice with a tennis racket. Although, I seem to have adopted one of the mice that I’ve named James after the Marauder because if he dies, then it matches, and if he doesn’t, then that’s great.

“Sarah!” The blonde’s father calls her name, startling James who is curled up next to me.

“I’m busy!” She yells back, clearly out of breath.

I can almost hear his frown and roll my eyes. “What are you doing?” He questions.

“The burrows filled with water from the surge!” Sarah answers. She keeps swatting the birds but one dives past her, quickly flying away with one. “The birds are having a field day!”

“The birds have to eat too, Sarah,” Ward Cameron says, irritation clear as day in his voice as he walks toward her. I glance up when he passes and catch the attention of a woman following him. If I remember correctly, she’s Lana from the Cut; I remember that she and Tasha used to get along well. She used to give the blonde homemade cookies that eventually got to me.

“No,” Sarah argues, “it’s a mouse genocide out here- no!”

He sighs out. “It’s the cycle of life, sweetheart. Now, come on.”

“I can’t be a part of it. First, they came for the mice, Daddy-” I hate it when she calls him that but know it’s how she gets what she wants out of him.

He interrupts before she can rant, “Okay, well, I have an actual human being that you might help.”

“Oh, my God,” Sarah stutters. She shakes the woman’s hand. “I’m Sarah. I’m so sorry.”

Ward - clearly enjoying the fact that Sarah’s probably going to think about this moment for at least the rest of the day and how it will look for her - seems more relaxed. “This is Lana, Scooter’s wife.” I was right. “You were storm prepping with him, right?”

Sarah nods. “Yeah. He helped me latch the cabin on the Druthers.”

“Last night?”

“No,” I reply sarcastically before I can stop it, “during a different hurricane.”

Ward doesn’t acknowledge me but Lana does with a confused frown as he continues to question his daughter, “And did he go out after that?”

Sarah glances at me and I shrug. She focuses back on her dad. “From here?” He nods. “No. Are you crazy? There was a hurricane,” she says with a forced laugh, "like Gwen said."