The Boy Down The Street ✓

i.

Rain drummed gently on the metal roof of the small blue house at the end of our street.

I had never seen anyone come out of that house and neither had anyone else. There were some rumours going about the house and it's inhabitants, but I don't find many of them believable.

Chances are that the person/persons who live there either work from home, or at night. Heck, maybe they don't even work and don't want to leave their home for anything.

I glanced towards the gloomy blue house once more before gripping my umbrella tighter and continuing my trip toward the town library.

The town I lived in was small and mostly filled with the elderly who wanted a peaceful place to live in and spend their retirement days. What little younger people who lived here mostly worked for the hospital, police station, the postal office, or the few shops that were scattered around the town centre.

The children and teenagers who still had to go to school would mostly either go to the school in the town over or complete their schooling online.

I was one of the people who went to the town over. But Nick, school sucks arse. Why in the holy hell would you want to go to a public school if you had the choice of staying home? Yeah well I don't. It's not like I don't like school but driving for over half an hour just to get there isn't really ideal and my parents really wanted me to go to an actual school and have 'friends'.

I'm saying 'friends' because with how popular I happened to be, I didn't really have any real friends.

I finally arrived at the town library about fifteen minutes later and the rain didn't seem to be stopping. I stepped inside and shook out the water from my umbrella before making my way to the librarian's desk. I greeted Greta, the cleaning lady and sat down in front of the computer. It was surprisingly quiet - I'm talking about the amount of people in the library - and since I really didn't feel like reading or playing solitaire on the old computer, so I resorted to quietly sitting at my desk, staring off into space while fiddling with my sweater.

I was brought out of my trance when I heard someone clear their throat. I shook my head and raised my gaze to see a slightly annoyed looking middle aged woman wearing a pantsuit. Behind her is a boy that was supporting himself on crutches. The boy looked about my age but I was surprised that I didn't immediately recognise either of the people in front of me.

"Excuse me?" The woman spoke in an authoritive manner that gave little old me shivers. "Erm, yes?" I asked cautiously. The boy behind the woman shifted and let out a small hiss, making the woman's eyes fill with concern as she spun around to see if he was okay.

When the boy seemed to be alright, the woman turned back to me and spoke, "could you tell us where the fantasy books are? We couldn't find them." I let go of my sweater to point up the stairs, "they're, um, over there. Up those stairs." Both of the strangers looked towards the stairs, shrugged and slowly made their way there.

Later, the pair came back downstairs. The lady had a small pile of different books in her arms and the boy wore a small smile on his face as ge trailed behind her. The lady scanned the books at the machine and left with the boy.

I was left wondering who those two were.

Oh well.