Freaks: Year Two

A Special Kind Of Weird

When Ethan had led their two little brothers out the door after checking the list a handful more of times, their father had disappeared from sight. They all knew this was a good thing. He was gone now. Hopefully they would not see him for the rest of the day.

Ethan was nervously tapping the list, shifting from foot to foot as they walked over to the neighbours. "I did everything...I did everything...did I do everything?"

"You did great," Edgar said.

Ethan didn't think that was true because if he had done great, his mother would have let him walk them to school, but once again, he was reminded that his parents thought he wasn't capable of anything.

The three brothers waited outside of their neighbours house and soon Jessica came out of the house and she gave an annoyed look to Edgar. Edgar didn't do or say anything in reply. She came down the steps and asked, "Why are you here?"

"Your mum is walking us," Ethan said.

"Why?"

"Because our mum asked," said Ethan. "Trust me, we don't want it either."

Jessica pouted and her mum came out of the house saying hello to each of the brothers and they all waved in reply. They all started to make their way to school and Jessica promptly ignored them all which once again, was completely fine with them.

Jessica's mum had made small talk with the three of them, but they didn't think she particularly wanted to, it was just a sort of obligation. They were just an obligation, it wasn't like they were wanted. They knew when they were not wanted and they were feeling it right now.

When they had reached the school property, Jessica ran off to her group of friends and Ethan turned to his two little brothers. He wasn't sure if Jasper had given an instruction for this, but he said, "Okay...have a good day, and be good?"

They both nodded. "We will," said Edgar.

Ethan gave a nervous smile. "Okay...great."

Francis and Edgar both started to head to their doors, and Ethan started to go to his own, and Francis said, "He's nervous...I've never seen him this nervous before..."

"It's a lot of...responsibility," Edgar said. "And mum doesn't see he could do it."

"But it is good she got us a sitter," pointed out Francis. "Isn't that what everyone else does?"

Edgar shrugged. "I don't know."

"Francis, Edgar!" a voice exclaimed and they both turned to see Mary running up to them. "How are you doing?"

"Good," they chorused. Even though Edgar didn't know Mary as well as Francis did she always greeted everyone she saw. He thought it was a very nice thing for her to do as it made him feel better that someone was happy to see him. He was sure many of the other students felt the same.

"Is your older brother still sick?"

They both nodded. "Our mum is home with him," Francis added.

The bell rang and they entered the school, Francis and Edgar separating down one of the corridors to go to their classes. While the two younger brothers had pretty good and uneventful days, Ethan on the other hand had a trying day.

He could not stop thinking about his mum's words as the morning went on. It seemed no matter what he did, it just would not matter in her eyes. He didn't mean to be such an embarrassment to her or to even dad, but he wished there was a way he could have fixed it.

He was broken out of his thoughts when a paper was placed in front of him. He stared at it and looked up to see his teacher passing them out and he looked down at it, nervous. He tapped the classmate next to him. "What's this?"