For Experimental Purposes Only

Chapter 3 (Jason)

"You have a very nice carriage!" Isa waved and shouted.

Mrs. Bax drove the van away. Stop! Come back. I don't wanna be here.

I clutched my messenger bag tighter and looked down. The grass was brown instead of green. The house was in a field surrounded by trees. I could hear bullfrogs which mean that there's probably a pond nearby.

I wondered if David Holland has a basement. I part of me hoped he doesn't.

There was a window in a slanted part of the roof. He has an attic. The house is small. Not enough room for four bedrooms. Someone might have to sleep up there.

We went inside, a messy road of pebbles paving the way to the door.

The door was a crimson color. The same as the door at Mom and Dad's house.

"Here we are," David exclaimed.

Sorry, Mr. Holland, but I really don't want to be here.

The house was small with a sad excuse for carpeting. A couch could be seen from the doorway. It was scrappy and patterned like something a grandma would have.

"Ugh," a desperate gagging sound escaped Vee's lips.

"Wow!" Isa inhaled. I think she took in some energy along with that oxygen and nitrogen because the next thing you know she's bouncing off the walls pointing at everything. Explanation and then the name of said object.

"Wow! Look at this couch!"

"Oh my goodness! You have a TV! And it's so tiny! Does it get the Disney Channel?"

"Oooooh. King-Holland, your ceiling is so bumpy!"

"Look! The toaster has four slots!"

In five minutes I knew where everything in the tiny house was... except for our rooms.

Isa was on that too.

"Can we see our rooms please?"

Mr. Holland led us to a staircase in the very back of the house. It wasn't hard to tell that it leads to the attic.

Everyone went up the staircase. As usual, they didn't look behind them to see if I was coming. Wait, I'm here too.

There are too many things I want to say. But for some unknown reason, I just can never find the courage. Maybe if I did then I wouldn't be so invisible all the time. Maybe then I would have friends or some goal besides just waking up tomorrow. Maybe I would have been able to shout for help sooner.

No. I'm lying. Because part of having a voice is having someone to listen. And no one does.

So I keep my thoughts in my head and my opinions the same as everyone else's. The things I should say pounding in the back of my head like bold text in a normal document.

We were in the attic. The window looking out at the skid marks Mrs. Bax's van created.

There was a bed. Two small for me and probably for Vee too.

A mattress. It was just sitting there. There was a blue sheet and a black comforter. It was the ugliest thing I have seen in a while.

And then there was a couch. It wasn't pretty, but I could tell that it was a pullout. It would be big enough,and it looked better than anything else that was being offered.

"Can I have the bed?" Isa squealed, already jumping on it.

"Sure," was the unenthusiastic response from Mr. Holland.

Vee and I made eye contact for a split second. She looked like she was checking for some competition. She found none.

"I call the pullout," Vee confidently stated.

"Okay then," another lame response from David Holland. "Jason, you cool with the mattress?"

No.

"Sure."

And the next thing I knew, I was tossing my bag next to a disgusting mattress. I sighed and put on headphones. Sitting cross-legged blindly clicking a square on my phone.

I never paid attention to what music was playing. I never did. I just needed something to drown out the sound of... everything. In this case, it was a certain gothic teen messing with a couch.

The foster home gives you a phone if you're in high school. I just used it to play music and read news stories that I didn't care about or understand.

I didn't know how long I was like that. I was reading something about apples causing some diseases spelled with twelve letters in California. Someone took my headphones. I looked up and saw Vee staring me in the face. She looked confused.

"Hey, dumbo, our fake dad is gonna show us where we can throw some rocks at geese by the pond..."

"No, we're just gonna look at the geese," Isa whined

"You wanna come?"

Sure, why not.

"No, thanks," I said.

The girls left. Mr. Holland lingered behind and stared at me for a second. I don't think he noticed he was doing so. I went back to reading and listening to music.

After an hour they came back from the pond. Isa was soaked and Vee was laughing. Mr. Holland asked if I wanted dinner.

Yes, I'm starving.

"I'm not hungry."

After another hour my phone died. It was dark outside. The only light was the one hanging from the ceiling like something out of a horror film. There was a weak glow coming from the window. I plugged my phone into a portable charger and just stared ahead.

I tried not to think about how much this felt like my basement at Mom and Dad's. I tried not to think about the giant cooler filled with Mom's empty beer cans. Or the ugly pottery that Dad would smash against my head until I was unconscious or we had one less piece of pottery. Or when how the police were about to leave with my parents in handcuffs until I screamed that I was locked in the basement.

I ended up thinking about it.

It got dark and dinner was over. All three of them came back upstairs. Isa was done calling Mr. Holland "King Holland" and instead was calling him "Papa". It hurt to hear that. Mr. Holland looked uncomfortable.

"Okay, time for bed," Mr. Holland said. "Does anyone need anything?"

I shook my head. Vee mumbled, "no".

But Isa just sat up taller in her bed, "Papa, can you tell me a story?"

"A story?" Mr. Holland skeptically asked.

"Yeah!" Isa said bouncing up and down making the bed squeak.

After confirming that the young child would not sleep without a story at least seven times, Mr. Holland started telling a story.

"Once upon a time there was a little princess named Isa."

"That's my name!"

"Yup. So this princess lived in the very tippy-top of a castle. She was very very very sleepy, and everyone else felt the same. So, a magical wizard put a spell on her and she fell asleep and had the most wonderful dreams in the entire world. The end."

Not the best story. But a story.