I Don't Belong....And I Never Have.

The Longer Walk Home

"I'm so excited about this lesson." Alex rambled as we walked home. Conner was staring way too far ahead of himself to be paying attention,I just listened while putting my hands in my jacket pockets.

"Mrs.Peters made a very good point you know." Alex started to ramble,"Think about everything children miss out when they're deprived of fairy tales! Oh, how terrible for them! Don't you feel awful for them? Conner? Nicole? Are you listening to me?"

"Yup." Conner lied while I nodded my head. Conner started kicking an abandoned snail shell on the sidewalk. Poor thing.

"Can't you imagine a childhood without knowing all those characters and places?" While Alex continued I climbed onto one of those stone fences and walked along it like a tightrope,"Were so lucky Dad and Grandma made such a point of reading them to is when we were little."

"So lucky." Conner muttered.

This was how it would usually go down. We'd listen to Alex ramble on while we walked In a nice neighborhood, surrounded by another nice neighborhood, which is surrounded by dozens of more nice neighborhoods. We were forced to listen to Alex say ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING on her mind. Which is a giant burden for me, because of my ears.

"How am I ever going to find a story to write about? It's too difficult to choose!" Suddenly I jumped back because of Alex clapping her hands."Which one are you going to write your papers on?"

"Um..." Conner looked up from the sidewalk with a panic look, just like when he woke up,"The Boy Who Cried Wolf."

Wow....it must've taken a lot of time and effort to decide. (Note the sarcasm)

"You can't choose that one!" Alex shook her head,"It's the most obvious one! You have to select something more challenging to impress Mrs.Peters. You should pick something with a message hidden deeper inside it, not one that isn't so-on-the-surface." Conner sighed, meaning he was deciding which one to do.

Alex looked up to me,"And you Nicole?"

My eyes were glued to the upcoming sets of bushes planted along the Stone Fence. There were two stories I was debating on, but I just couldn't decide on which one to choose.

"It's a surprise." I decided to answer.

Those blue eyes fell to the concrete,"Oh....okay....Conner have you decided?"

"Fine, I'll pick 'Sleeping Beauty'."

"Interesting selection,"Alex playfully rubbed her chin,"What do you suppose the moral of the story is?"

What he said next I didn't like,"Don't p*ss off your neighbors, I guess."

"CONNER." I scolded softly,then started jogging on the stone fence because they were walking a bit faster.

"Exactly what Nicole said,"Added Alex,"That is not the moral of 'Sleeping Beauty '."

Conner snorted and stopped walking, Alex stopped a few inches ahead and looked at him, I sat on the fence,"Sure it it. If the king and queen had just invited the crazy enchantress to their daughter's birthday party in the first place, none of that stuff would've happened."
"They couldn't have stopped it from happening."Said Alex,"That enchantress was evil and provably would've cursed the baby anyway. 'Sleeping Beauty' is about trying to prevent the unpreventable. Her parents tried protecting her and had all the spinning wheels in the kingdom destroyed. She was so sheltered, she didn't even know what danger was,and she still pricked her finger on the first spindle she ever saw."

You know, I really felt like I was watching a tennis match. Conner was on my left and Alex on my right,I was literally in the middle of their argument.