CHAPTER 1
The Tuesday morning sunlight woke Caleb Scottler out of his deep sleep. ‘Time to face another day.’ He thought, cringing. As he crept out of bed, the creaking of the floor boards startled him, since he was still half asleep.
Caleb tip-toed to the washroom, careful not to wake up the rest of his family.
He always went to school 1 hour early so that as soon as the bell rang, he would bee-line straight to his trigonometry class with Mrs. Benmore to possibly get away from the teasing.
As he walked downstairs he saw his dad slouched on the couch hung-over, with a bottle a Jack Daniel’s about to fall out of his hand. Caleb went over and gently unclasped the bottle from between his fingers and set it on the coffee table in front of him.
Caleb’s father was an alcoholic who “worked”, his older brother was a struggling university student, who currently resided in the U.S in New Jersey at Princeton, and his mom was a workaholic who barely realized they existed.
The late-September breeze and ruffling of the leaves was the only thing heard in this small town in Melbourne, Australia. Caleb lived in a town called Ashwick Valley in the outskirts of Melbourne. It was a small town where everybody knew everybody, and where news and gossip spread like a forest fire. The town only had 1 hospital and fire station, and about 3 police divisions. There were 5 local elementary schools and 3 high schools. Caleb went to Ashwick High where he dreaded to go every day.
Caleb’s brother, Kyle, was an average kind of kid here in Melbourne. Average grades, average height, even average in their family. Not everyone knew him, but everyone did know him. Kyle was always talking about something at dinner or during a movie or in the most inappropriate moments. He was the “would you please just shut-up” kid. However, he had a warm heart and loved his family dearly. He was ecstatic when he found out he got into one of the best universities in the U.S.A. It was the talk of the town when everyone found out that the eldest Scottler boy was living to go overseas. Mum and Dad weren’t as happy when Kyle said he wanted to go to Princeton. They claimed it was “too far away from home”. He begged and pleaded and did the ‘one out of a million speech’. He got approved and left on the next flight out.
Without wasting time, Caleb grabbed an apple and his school bag and headed out the door.
