Jon's Scar

Chapter 2: The Scar

Chapter 2: The Scar

        The next morning, Tuesday, Dave got up at his usual early 6:00 am. “The early bird catches the worm,” he used to tease his Dad who likes to sleep in as late as he can before going to work. At 6:15 he was doing his early jog as he was accustomed to. He knew what he wanted to achieve, so he set off in the direction of Jon's house, about 1.5 miles away. It was 6:30 when he climbed onto the porch leading to the door to Jon's upstairs bedroom. He had seen the sturdy trellis the day before, and after the basketball practice, he already formulated the plan to get Jon out of bed to join him on his run. He knocked on the door and felt the doorknob. The door was not locked, and this just confirmed to him that his plan was meant to be. He went inside, and pulled the blanket off Jon, saying: “Rise and shine!”

        Jon was fully dressed in a t-shirt and pajama bottoms. He looked disbelievingly at the impostor in his room. Then he asked: “What time is it and what are you doing in my room?” “Get up, we are going for a jog.” Dave said resolutely. Knowing that this guy would not give up, and not wanting the situation to escalate into a potential scuffle that could wake up his Aunt, Jon accepted his fate, grabbed his running shorts and a fresh t-shirt from the drawers in the closet and said: “I need to pee,” before he disappeared into the bathroom across the hall.

         He came out dressed in his running clothes and proceeded to put on socks and running shoes. Within 5 minutes, they were out the front door, jogging back in the direction of Dave's house. The pace was fast, Dave being confident in his fitness and ability to outrun Jon, but Jon was keeping up, so Dave stepped up the pace. When they reached Dave's house, he stopped briefly at the front door and said between taking breaths: “Now you know.....where I live.” He immediately turned around and started running back to Jon's house, keeping up his pace. But, Jon was not falling behind. In fact, it looked like Jon was not as out of breath as he was. Nevertheless, Dave pushed on and about a block before Jon's house, Dave said: “Sprint to your house!” Jon took the challenge, and immediately started sprinting, outracing Dave. Dave pushed himself hard and caught up, only to loose in the end by about two feet.

        Both boys were standing on the front lawn panting. Dave struggled saying: “Where did you learn to run like that?”

“Oh, I have been running since.....” then Jon fell silent.

         Dave looked at Jon. He had a blank stare on his face, shook his head, turned and headed for the front door. “See you at school!” Dave called after him.

         Dave, his Mom and Dad passed Jon as he was walking to school about half a block away from school. Their routine was for Dave's Mom to drop him off at school, and his Dad at work, as they only had one car. The Chevy was old, but it still did the job.

         Dave caught up with Jon when he sat down beside him at the desk in the back of the class. Jon indicated that they had to drop their assignment at Pickard's desk, and Dave stepped up to Pickard's desk, dropping their assignment on top of the pile of assignments. Mister Pickard gave him a smile and said: “You just drop it off as you come into class Dave, thanks.” Dave gave him a smile and returned to his desk. As the class settled in Mr Pickard scanned all the answers to the yesterday's assignment. He stepped forward and announced: “As usual, none of you had the assignment right, except, and this is a first, Dave and Jon.” There was a bit of a rumor going through the class. “Now, we all know our resident genius, has all the answers right, but we also know, that he never can explain how he got to those answers, so this is a first.” He looked in Dave and Jon's direction and addressed Dave: “Is this your doing young man?” He asked.

 “No Sir, it was Jon”

 Jon was shaking his head vigorously “No”.

 “Apparently Jonathan here thinks it is not the case, Mr. Gibson, that is your name, right?”