Life Is Changin'

Summer-Nostalgia

"You want to join the Boy Scouts,sweetie?"
The 5 year old nodded while the woman wearing a Scout uniform,blue bandanna around her neck,and attached badges all over her clothes.In her had was a clipboard with several names of young boys wanting to be a helper to Swan Landing.The mind of a young child,so precious yet easily deceived by the brains of the adults.From their view,
parents and teachers knew everything in the universe as well as attentive and playful at most.In reality,they were drunks,unworthy people to trust,and bastards to everyone,at least that was what Marcus told him.Screw it,right?It wouldn't hurt to join this group,be a Scout,and get it over with...who cares?
So to forget all of what his older brother warned,he grabbed the pen out of the Scout's hand,wrote his signature in sloppy handwriting,and thanked the woman.She however did not give the same happy face as the boy did,rather looking up from her clipboard with an eyebrow raised.
"Did I write my name to messy?",he asked politely.
"Oh,no,it's perfectly clear," she answered,"But may I ask,is this your name?"
She turned the clipboard so he could see all the names of soon-to-be Boy Scouts,pointing with her index finger directly at his name:WISH
"Yes,ma'am"
"Are you serious?"
The woman's eyes squinted at him,observed every emotion he was showing on his smooth face,trying to pick out any signs of "genius" but could not find one.By refusing to believe this wasn't a joke,she looked closely at the name again and again,then staring at the boy.No change in expression whatsoever,which stunned the crap out of her.
"W-wow,this is your name?"
"Yeah,is there something wrong with it?Is there a change need to be made?"
"Oh,oh no,no....it's a special name for a boy like yourself.It's very...unusual and different."
He just shrugged,left the woman at peace,and almost stole the pen before giving it back to her rightful hands.She continued to stare at the boy as he walked away until he turned right of the hallway,away from her sight.
"Shit..
...his name's Wish..."
She muttered to herself as she walked into classroom filled with trophies,posters of different kinds of trees,potted flowers by the window,plastic
chairs stacked up nicely,and three filing cabinets.The woman opened the last one labeled B.S. and placed the clipboard inside.She closed it by slamming the cabinet into its spot while still confused.
For the entire after school hour,the teacher sat down on a desk perplexed by the boy's odd name.Nothing like that had ever met with her ever since she moved to Swan Landing to teach at the elementary.Life was to ordinary to introduce the new and unusual.
"His name is Wish...
...I feel bad for the kid...
...his mother probably hates him..."

Little did she know,no adult named the child...

When he was five years old,he signed a paper that accepted him as a Boy Scout.Who would've guessed that Wish would start off with professionals,and yet his name was the only thing holding him by the collar.He was suffering from the shitty experience those bastards at Boy Scouts had given him.On the very first day of training,he had worn his newly washed brown uniform,black pants,and a light blue bandana around his neck.He was adorable looking at the age of 5,a cute little child he was.It was strange his brother didn't notice this for his entire time ever since Wish was a baby.
Of course,on his first time in Boy Scouts,he didn't know what he was about to expect during his time afterschool,
and that lack of knowledge was the last sign of his curious phase.Proud as he was,the only black haired boy in the classroom was smiling.Ugh...how that hurt him so much as he remembered it to this day.He was growing up at the time,thought this was his choose destiny and goal as an independent boy.Like a lamb to the slaughter,the woman holding the clipboard being the farmer,
he stepped forth into the mayhem...or in this case a quiet,awkward nightmare.Inside the small,square-shaped room was desks aligned in five parallel rows and columns.
Sitting on the organized desks,to his amazement,was an army of Boy Scout clones.
Sitting like statues,he admired the glow radiating out of their white skin,all natural born.They were clearly the superior ones,the top of the food chain,and when this newcomer came into their territory,the face expressions turned into frowns.Nobody looked at him with a smile on their face,not even the shyest light one.No boy in there had a sense of compassion towards the stranger,and at the time,little Wishie didn't know any of this.There was no suspicion hovering inside his brain,since the overwhelming excitement was filling his head like an aquarium.The only things he saw from them was their neatly ironed uniform,folded hands or arms,and the baby blue bandanas wrapped around their necks like him.What was there to even expect?
So as the complete stranger of the group,all mouths were closed shut,not once opening up to say a greeting.Wish took the seat in the front row,3rd column,the danger zone for any new student because it was directly facing the teacher.It took nearly five minutes wasted for the adult to arrive,which mind you was the same woman he met yesterday.
"Good morning class,"she said cheerfully.
Suddenly,the dead faces of the boys surrounding Wish formed into gleeful emotions and happiness.They did this so fast with impressive unison as if they were little military soldiers obeying the orders of the commander.
He however was the only one who stood quiet,taking every note of their movement,so he could be just like them someday sooner.
The female teacher was no doubt unprepared and almost everyone in that room could tell.Her face was sweaty,hands were shaking while she carried her blue binder with a bear cartoon on the cover,tight bun on the back of her head,and messy desk waiting just for her.
Wish,thanks to the inheritance of someone unknown to him,quickly felt related to the adult.He immediately felt sorry for the teacher,and did not pause to say,
"Miss,do you ne-"
"Ms.Ying,may I clean your desk for you?"
He swerved around and saw the boy who interrupted him.With a grin on the smartass' face,a hand was raised high up in the air.Then Wish's eyes noticed the fact none of the boys were turned around and looking at the two.The mini pack of soldiers instead stared,eyes aimed at the white board at the front of the classroom.
Wow,what a bunch of creeps,thought Wish as he shut his mouth and watched as the thief stole his one chance in helping somebody.
You know,the kid wasn't a very social person at the elementary,hell he didn't have a friend!All he wanted to do was assist people,solve their problems as they learned how to do it themselves,but he was used to others stealing his credit.
Being tossed into the dirt was no big shock to the boy. There were many reasons he thought were the cause,starting off with the seed planted inside his head that said it was his name.The name was the one to be blamed.It didn't matter his actions,either mean or nice,nor did his appearance made an impact.Nope...it was his stupid name that made him a lonely,mistreated motherfucker...and it took a total of five years to show him that.Well,in this case,it's gonna take less than forty minutes to remind him of who he really was:an unimportant tag along.Oh how life was so angelic to good old Wish.
"Thank you,Freddy,"the teacher said.He smiled back at her,humming to himself as he did the work,organizing her desk very neatly.As much as he hated to say it,the mid named Freddy (he called him Fred),was a better worker at labor than he was.Sure,it was the truth that Wish was a procrastinator,which he wasn't proud of,but he would have never seen a boy at such a very young age to work so fast in about two minutes.He looked away from the digital clock with red flashing numbers and saw that Fred was already finished.
"All done,Ms.Ying,"he said with a thumbs up.The boy was rewarded a star sticker,the ultimate form of treasure and greed when you were a 5 year old kid.
Although they may just look like cute decor,looks can be very deceiving.Once you saw those shiny things given to,I don't know,an enemy...then shit just real.That shit gets pretty fucking real,and that's what the boys figured out.When Fred put placed his sticker right next to his badge,all the boys in that room stood up raising their hand and pleading to help.
They were yelling pleading to Ms.Ying,offering anything they could to her.They weren't scaring the shit out of her,no,just willing to spend their time cleaning and organizing.
Wow,these guys are like janitors,Wish thought while he saw one boy carrying a tower of books covering his face.The textbooks,heavy as they are,were all titled
THE BOOK FOR PREFECTIONISTS by Richard Whitney.
The boy who carried all these copies had black shades and held a blind stick with his right hand.As he waddled into desks trying to find his way around,it took Wish awhile to assume he was blind.Clearly assuming wasn the best bet,cause from the corner of the room he heard Ms.Ying go,
"Vince be careful,you might hurt yourself again."
The blind boy didn't reply nor turned his head.He was a mystery,a freaking clueless case that no detective would be able to solve.He didn't speak the whole the entire time,coughing wasn't his thing,and when someone called Vince over he'd ignore the caller.Maybe he was mean and a show-off like Fred?What if he was nice and friendly,probably a new buddy if Wish played his cards right.Welp,he knew better not to get his hopes way up high,because he learned that the hard way.
Not including Vince and Freddy,their were three unknown strangers working nonstop.There was one watering the potted rainbow flowers by the window,another sliding different books into the correct shelves,and the final one...he was sitting down in his desk,face dug into the books his was reading.The novel was pretty thick for a boy at this age,but Wish could tell by the glasses the kid wasn't gonna let size stop him.He (Wish) hated to be stereotyping at his first day as a Scout,so to cut the silence between him and the reader next to him,his mouth finally spoke some words.
"H-hi,"he said,"My name's-"