Runaway - A DEVIL'S NIGHT FANFICTION (PTBR + ENG)

Chapter 5 - Ivar

Four years ago...

My father's car pulls up and I try to unbuckle my seat belt and open the door to get out quickly, but I feel his hand on the collar of my shirt and stop, returning to my seat.

"Hey, little punk," he calls as he stops me. – "How about opening your backpack and showing me the heavy books you have inside it?"

I look down at the backpack between my legs on the floor of the car and look at the school again.

Winter is coming and soon we will be out of school for a while. I was counting down the days to Fire Night, which marked the beginning of this break we would have.

"Open your backpack, Ivarsen," he orders, but there is humor in his voice.

I reach down and unzip it, and even try to cover most of it with the PE uniform that is lying around in there anyway, but he quickly sees what shouldn't be there and pulls it up.

"You little fucking prick!" - he exclaims, laughing. – "I don't even want to know what you intended to do with it."

He picks up the huge tube of glue and I try to cover it up, but he also sees the bottle of kerosene I brought and puts them both on top of the dashboard.

He shakes his head and scratches his hair at the same time and then watches me.

"You have something else there, don't you?" - he narrows his eyes in my direction.

I sigh and take out of my pocket the pack of matches, placing them beside the kerosene.

"Jesus!"

I cross my arms and wait in silence. My mother had already lectured me yesterday, after Mads told me about what happened and how I pushed a girl. I could only thank that she didn't know that I didn't do it just once.

However, my father says nothing more and just watches me, looking reflective.

"Go to class, Ivarsen," is all he says after a while.

I close my backpack and put my hand on the door hook, but stop to ask.

"How did you know?"

He lets out a heavy sigh.

"Because you are my son."

I suppress a smile and jump out of the car, but before I close the door, I hear him beg:

"For God's sake, be good."

He then starts the car and drives off.

As I turn and start walking toward the entrance, I pick up his lighter, which I managed to hide this morning and which I kept in my back pocket.

Professor Wilson wanted me, Mads and Nini to redo the test after hours, which would earn us not just one, as was agreed, but two days of detention.

If she wanted to be unfair and do things her way just to show that she was in charge, then soon she would have not only three tests, but twenty-five to correct again.

When I enter the room, Mads is standing beside Nini's chair, handing her the pen he bought for her as an apology.

She is wearing her full uniform with all the buttons closed, but she is wearing a black pair of boots and writing something with the pen she has just earned that causes Mads to give a half smile as well as a nod and then leave.

I had heard a few girls talking about Nini over time, but like all stories in Thunder Bay, there was more malicious gossip and fanciful stories than the reality itself, and belonging to a family that was the talk of the town, I had never stopped to look twice at the lonely girl with the colorful glasses and brown hair.