The End of Summer

Chapter 17- 'You blew his mind. Amongst other things.'

It’s amazing what drugs can do.

Now I am not supporting them in any way, and I am not saying kids don’t stay in school, shoot up instead, but they do really make a massive difference.

I will give you a fine example.

Jaden had recently taken a bullet to the leg, and he was screaming, sweating and bleeding worse than a woman through childbirth. He had somehow received an extra dosage of bitterness and sarcasm since the bullet entered his body, and he was beyond snappy. As he was allowed to be considering he took a bullet for his friend. Some people say they would, Jaden actually did.

He had taken a few of Mr Coleman’s happy pills to ease the pain, and either Archie or Miss Vines was a fool for leaving the bottle unattended on the floor right by the sofa because when Jaden thought no one was watching, he popped a few more like they were breath mints. No one did notice while he was doing it, but now the aftereffects had started to kick in, everyone had added the pieces together.

“You know, it doesn’t even hurt anymore.” Jaden laughed, his eyes glazed over as he rolled his head from side to side in a fit of laughter “I’m like 50cent, the motherf*cker got shot 9 times and he’s still ‘In da club’.”

He fell into laughter so hard at his own joke that no sound was coming out of his mouth anymore. Miss Vines quickly snatched up the bottle of pills, taking the lid of and having a look inside.

“Well, we’re cutting him off of these then…” She muttered to herself as she glanced over him, the adult in her kicking in because as all us kids were laughing at Jaden, her and Mr Cook looked worried.

I can understand why they were worried, we didn’t really know anything about these pills and who knew how many Jaden had taken. In a way though, I think all of us were relieved to see him no longer in pain. He obviously still was, but he was too high to notice. For once the painkillers had actually killed the pain.

“Go, go, go, go…” Jaden started singing through his laughter, lifting his arms in the air as and moving them to an imaginary beat “Go shawty, it’s your birthday…”

“Can I have one of those?” Gavin asked Miss Vines, pointing at the bottle of pills in her hand.

“No you can’t, that’s the last thing you need, more of an incentive to be an annoying prick.” Frankie answered him, and Gavin flipped her off.

“Oh for holy Jesus lord above, will you just nosh him off already?” Jaden almost bellowed, looking between Frankie and Gavin. I burst out laughing at his words, while the couple Jaden was referring to looked at him wide eyed. I swear Frankie actually went red “I mean seriously, you’ve been like Jay Z and Beyoncé all night. You think we don’t notice, but we notice. We see everything.” Jaden pointed his finger at Frankie and Gavin, narrowing his eyes before whispering “Aluminate.”

I was on my knees by this point holding my stomach whilst tears were pouring out of my face from laughing so hard.

“Don’t encourage the drugged up moron.” Gavin snapped at me, but it just made me laugh harder.

“But he’s just so funny!” I howled, collapsing forward until I had to put one hand on the ground to stop myself from face planting the floor.

“Oh I know all about you, you dirty little vixen.” Suddenly, Jaden’s eyes were on me, and my laughter started to die out pretty fast as I realised I was the next target of his loose drugged up tongue. His finger was wiggling in a circle but this time pointing in my direction “I know ALL about you.”

“Yeah okay Jaden let’s get some rest hey-“

“No, no Jaden, you carry on this is getting interesting.” Gavin cut me off, an evil smirk on his face now as he realised it was my turn to be under the magnifying glass