Priceless / l.h. (Hiatus)

chapter two

September, 2004

"And how was your day, Luke?" My dad asked, interrupting Ben who had been talking for the last ten minutes.

"It was so good! I share a locker with Calum and we also found out that our sports teams might not suck this year! Our team is with the big kids!" I exclaimed excitedly.

"They're not the big kids, Luke. You don't call them that," Jack said. "You are a big kid now, so they're just the 'other kids'."

I looked at Jack and nodded and then took another bite of my supper.

"We also got a new student," I added after swallowing my bite.

"Oh did you? What's their name?" My mom asked.

"Brooklyn Fay," I said and then took another bite.

"Oh, the Fay's, I know who they are, they just moved here," My dad nodded after swallowing a bite. "They live on the left side of town."

I heard my brothers mumble "ou's" and I looked at them confused. I looked back at my dad.

"What's at the left side of town?" I asked.

"Nothing important son, just know it's dangerous and should be avoided," My dad said after finishing his supper.

I was still confused. How was it dangerous? Brooklyn looked like the least dangerous person of all. And she was so quiet too. Maybe it was just the town that's dangerous. I don't know, I have too many questions to ask.

So, after supper, I asked them. I walked down our long staircase to our basement that lead to our game room where Jack and Ben were playing a game involving guns. I wasn't allowed to play video games yet, my mom thought it would ruin me.

I took a seat on our sectional in front of Jack and he nodded at me.

"What's up, little bro?" He asked me.

"I want to know what's at the left side of town," I said.

"Are you sure you're ready for that, Luke? You're still so young," Ben laughed, making Jack laugh too.

I sat up straight trying to make myself look older and nodded. "I'm ready."

"Well," Jack said, leaning back and pausing their game. "On the left side of town, they are completely different than us."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Jack's right, they're the low-class people, Luke. They don't have money, they have small houses, no pools, no basements, no nothing. Just a couple of bedrooms," Ben explained.

I listened intently.

"They're not friendly people, Luke, I would stay away," Jack finished.

"But why?" I asked, still confused.

"That's all we're saying, Luke, go do your homework," Ben said, pressing play on their game.

"But I don't have homework," I pouted.

"Just go do something, we're busy," Jack said.

I sighed and got up. I still didn't understand what made them so bad.

***

It takes two weeks to get into a normal routine at school. Today my teacher had finally decided to move on from introductions and start off with our new everyday schedule.

"We'll start everyday with math," She said, earning groans from the class. "We'll start with a mad minute. You will be given a paper with one hundred simple multiplying questions and given a minute to answer it. I know it may sound scary, but trust me, before the end of the year you all will be able to complete it in under a minute."

Luckily, I was pretty good at math so it didn't bother me too much. My teacher started handing out the mad minutes and a boy raised his hand.

"Why is it called a mad minute?" He asked.

"It's called a mad minute because it's going to make us go mad!" Another boy yelled.

The class roared out in laughter. My teacher laughed a little too.

"Settle down, kids," (shout out to SDK) my teacher said, "it's going to be fun because I make our mad minutes into a competition."

This got my class's attention.

"You will be racing. You are going to my grouped with table groups. When everyone's done, raise your hands and you'll get a sticker on this board," My teacher pointed at a board where the tables were labeled. "Every month the table with the most stickers gets a prize."

Mrs. Gaskin finished handing out the papers and walked to the front of the classroom. "Okay everyone get ready." She said. We all got out pencils ready. "And go!" She shouted.

I was racing through these questions. I thought I'd even be the first one done! I was halfway through when I hurt a pencil drop and the motion of a hand shoot up. I was shocked at how fast someone finished and looked up. Calum looked up too, also curious. It was Brooklyn.

"Wow," Calum said. "I'm not even done the third row!"

Brooklyn just shyly smiled and bit at her cheek. I continued on with my mad minute. Because of our sudden stop we came in second.

"It's okay, guys. Next time we'll beat them!" I said with a smile.

Calum and Brooklyn nodded.

"Okay class, very good," Mrs. Gaskin said and then continued on with the day.

We started off the year with learning long division. After math, we did geography. After geography was snack and recess, then it was science, music, followed by lunch, gym, art, recess and english to finish off the day. A lot to take in for one day.

I really enjoyed school, though and I'd never trade my years there for anything.

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