im not my brother

march 15 (cont.)

"You okay?" Wow, he really just asked me that?
"What the heck did you do that for?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. Did you want to get hit by that bike?" I got up and brushed my self off. 'Shoulda worn navy pants today.' I started walking again, not turning around to see if he was following.
"What the heck, Tom?" I didn't turn around. He started to run to catch up with me. "Tommy, come on. What's your problem?" Ugh, stop talking to me.
"You just totally embarrassed me in front of those girls."
"Trust me, it would have been more embarrassing if you were knocked down by the bike."
"Well, now we'll never know." Just then, Jared came running up to me. Perfect timing.
"Hey Tommy."
"Hey."
"You good?"
"Could be better." I looked back to see if Mike was still there. He wasn't.
"Are you going to Alex's party Friday night?
"I don't know. My dad on comes home on Friday so he might not let me go."
"C'mon. I heard Lizzie's gonna be there.", he said with a smirk while raising his eyebrows.
"She probably wouldn't talk to me anyways." I filled him in on what just happened with Mike.
"Ohh. That's rough man."
"Yeah, tell me about it." Jared has three older sisters, so he's felt my embarrassment at one time or another.

We soon arrived at my least favorite place in the world, the doors to Glendale Preparatory Middle School. We walked in and proceeded down the main hall. Since we're in the 8th grade this year, our lockers are conveniently on the first floor. Our lockers are also in alphabetical order. Jared's last name happens to also be Douglas, but with two s's, Douglass. It's another reason why people think we're related. Jared and I have almost all of our classes together and we're in the same homeroom.

The teachers at this school call attendance by last name. On the first day of fourth grade, the day I met Jared, was the first time we ever confused a teacher...and ourselves:
"Alright class, quiet down please. When I call your name, please raise your hand and say 'here'."
I waited for her, Ms. Carlson, to go through all the A-C names before paying much attention.
"Daniels..
  David..
  Decker..
  Donohue..
  Douglas."
"Here." Besides Mike, I had been the only 'Douglas' in the school for the past four years, so when I heard someone else answer, I was so confused. The whole class started giggling. I looked around the room and saw him in the back corner with a confused face. I had never seen him before.
"Uhh, Thomas Douglas?"
"That's me." I said, turning back around.
"Now, Jared Douglass? Is that you?"
"Yes."
"Are you two twins?" I shook my head no.
"I'm new here.", Jared mentioned.
"You just look so alike." The class started giggling again as I turned to look back at him. 'Hm, he does kinda look like me', I thought. We had the same blonde hair and blue eyes. 'Weird.'
"I apologize in advance if I confuse you two.", Ms. Carlson said.
After that class was over, I waited for him before I left the class.
"Hey Jared"
"Hi, uh, Thomas, right?"
"Yea, but call me Tommy. It's kinda funny that we have the same last name."
"Yea. At my old school, I was the only Douglass."
"Same here. Well, except for my older brother."
"I wish I had a brother. I have three sisters.", He said, rolling his eyes. I laughed at that.
"What classes did they put you in?" He showed me his schedule and it turned out we had a few subjects together. "Cool! We get to confuse more teachers."
"Haha." He looked down for a second. "So, does this mean we're friends?"
I shrugged and said,"Yeah sure. We can be brothers, since people think we look alike." He smiled. "So, brothers?", I said holding out my hand. He grabbed it.
"Brothers."

We put our bags away and grabbed our stuff for homeroom. I shut my locker and we left to go meet up with some of our friends.