SOCIETY DIDN'T SAVE THE KIDS

PART III

PART III | HANSEL FASTO

Hansel's arrival in after-school club, was perhaps the most curious or tragic, depending on how you looked at it. The eleven year old had found himself in the club for no reason other than the fact he was fat.

It was fitting, if you thought about him in the context of his name. Hansel, like the fairy-tale about the witch who fattened him up so she could eat him. It was as if his parents had known. His parents, who - one obsessed with slimness, the other with athleticism - could not stand to look at their son ever since summer had come and went, and for the first time Hansel had grown wider instead of taller. A tragic side effect, of his coming puberty.

It was this newfound shame Mr. and Mrs. Flores had of even being seen with their son - which left his elder sister, who attended secondary school, to pick him up - amounting to a half an hour wait period due to different closing times. It also meant that Hansel had little more choice other than the classroom he stood in now; otherwise referred to as after-school club.

Before he'd even approached the pale white, bald teacher, the man said; 'Sit wherever,' Never once lifting his eyes from the book in his clasp.

Hansel nodded, more to himself than anyone else, before he surveyed the room for somewhere to sit. All the seats were empty except two, filled by two girls at opposite ends of the class, both of them in year 6 along with him. Hansel, more familiar with Nina as they were in the same class, seated himself in the chair next to her.

In a weak attempt at friendliness, he whispered across to Nina, a small; 'Hi.'

She scratched deeper into the side table she'd already mutilated with the ruler in her fist, before she said, 'Bye, Fatso.'

'Ignore her,' Dolly said from across the class, turning to face Hansel who was taken aback by notion the school's resident princess had even bothered to speak to him. 'Nobody likes her, so she likes nobody.'

Nina cheeks flushed red. 'Shut up, Dolly! At least I don't sit there and stare at pictures of my dead mum for hours!'

Hansel interrupted, his voice so defeated it was as if he were ready to give up on life; 'Well it least neither of you are here because you're fat.'

'That's stupid,' Dolly said.

'Yeah,' Nina agreed.

'You just called me Fatso, Nina.'

'Yeah but I didn't mean it. It's just a thing people say. The way people call me Nutty.'

'It's not the same,' Hansel said in a small voice.

'Sure it is. And besides you can cure your fatness - just take diet pills. My mum she never takes hers anymore because she got skinny, so they're just there in a cabinet, doing nothing. I can get you some if you want. At a price, though.'

'Don't listen to her,' Dolly said. 'You shouldn't take drugs from strangers - you could die.'

'Shut up, Dolly,' Nina snapped, before she turned her attention back to Hansel, 'Am I a stranger, Fatso?'

'No,' Hansel replied, in a low voice.

'Good. Then you can't die if I give you the pills. Do you want them?'

'Yeah,'

'Good. Now all I need from you in exchange is your mum's happy pills.'

'My mum's what?'

'Don't pretend. We all heard about how Mrs. Flores stopped eating and lost her mind over the summer. Everyone was talking about it. My dad even put down his bottle of whiskey for second to hear some of the gossip -'

'Nina!' Dolly snapped, this one of the few times she addressed the girl by her given name.

Nina about to snap back, saw the broken look on Hansel's face so said nothing.

'I'll get you the happy pills,' Hansel said in a low voice, as the teacher a few metres away from them pretended not to hear.

'Okay and I'll get you the diet pills,' Nina said, an almost smile on her face.

'Why do you even need happy pills?' Dolly asked Nina, at last, her voice no longer filled with judgement but instead concern.

'Because... I don't want to be Nutty Nina anymore.'

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Final chapter next week 😊