First Day of School (Final)

--- Jon ---

As luck would have it, the incident with Josh and Chester was the only bit of drama he had to put up with through the day. Meaning that when the final bell rang, the only thing he had to deal with was picking up Pix from the theater and hoping she hadn’t caused too much trouble.

(Who am I kidding I’ll be lucky if she hasn’t burned down the theater room…) He sighed.

“Pix!” He called, upon reentering the theater. “School ‘s over, it’s time to head home!”

After a moment without a response, he ran a hand down his face before making his way through the theater and towards the stage. “Come on Pix, just because the club isn’t open yet, doesn’t mean nobody is going to be checking this place out!”

Shaking his head at the little fairy he made his way onto the stage before checking behind the curtains, hoping she wasn’t messing with anything too important.

His eyes immediately jumped as he caught sight of a faint light trail messing about with a fuse box.

“Well, at least I got here before the fire.” He told himself as he started making his way towards the mischievous little fairy. “Pix.”

The fairy froze, her hands on several breakers as she slowly turned to face him.

“What are you doing?”

Pix began to rapidly blur through gestures while making several trilling sounds, something he’d learned to mean she was trying to avoid talking about something by giving him more information than he could readily process.

“Yeah, no.” He stopped her, once he realized he was only catching every other phrase she gave him. “Just…” He looked around the stage, before sighing. “Is there a chance this is going to kill anyone?”

The fact that Pix had to think about it did not fill him with confidence, even when she shook her head, ‘no’.

(Inhale, one, two, three, four. Exhale, one, two, three, four.)

“Right, okay. I’m going to choose to believe you, because I like to be an optimist.” He told her. “That said, if anyone gets hurt by… this.” He gestured to the box. “Then no baked goods for a month.”

Pix gasped, before furiously shaking her head and holding up two fingers.

“Two months? Someone’s feeling confident.” He told her with no small amount of mock surprise, even as Pix shook her head even more furiously.

He gave her a huff of amusement, before shaking his own head and taking his backpack off. “Alright, but school ‘s out and it’s time to start heading home.”

Pix pouted at him for a moment before flying into his backpack and moving around.

“Comfortable?” He asked after a moment, before receiving a tweeting sound as a response. “Alright.”

Nodding, he zipped his backpack shut. This time leaving a small gap for Pix to see through as he walked towards the nearest school exit, where his phone ended up chiming at him with a new message.

Pulling his phone out, he read a text from his ma telling him, to wait out front since she’d be picking him up in a few minutes. (Weird, she usually has me walk home since she’s stuck at the station this time of day.)

Having her pick him up wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It just meant he was going to have to postpone that trip to the park with Pix for a bit. Something he was going to hold off on telling her, given the tantrum he knew she’d throw if he did that.

“Whitaker.” A voice greeted as he walked up to the school curb.

“Berkley.” He nodded back, as he took note of the dark-haired girl reading a book as she sat in a wheelchair.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

The two of them passingly knew each other due to the fact her dad worked with his ma, though beyond that the two of them never really interacted outside of the few police formals his ma had to attend, and in turn forced him to go to since ‘if I can’t avoid work politics, you might as well learn how to deal with them yourself.’

“Your mom running late?” He asked, given how she was one of the first people out of the school most days, and his detour with Pix had taken a bit more time than he thought.

“No, she’s busy with something today.” Sarah admitted. “What’s more my dad is in the middle of an important case, so he won’t be getting me either.”

He couldn’t help but frown at that. “Do you have a ride? I mean, my ma’s picking me up today so if you need we can give you a lift back to your place.”

Sarah gave a smirk and a chuckle. “Funny you should mention that.”

“Why?”

“Well, you see-” Sarah began, before blinking as a familiar black car pulled up in front of them. “Ah, here we are.”

“Good, you two are already together.” His ma nodded, climbing out of the car. “Was worried I’d have to track one of you down.”

(Oh.) He realized they were already giving Sarah a lift. (Guess that explains why ma is picking me up then.)

“Thank you for the ride Ms. Whitaker.” Sarah told his ma as she climbed into the car.

“It’s no problem Sarah, I needed to pick up Jon anyway.” His ma assured her, as he took the other teen’s wheelchair and packed it into the trunk.

“Still, I know this can’t be convenient all things considered.” Sarah pressed as he climbed into the passenger’s seat.

“Like I said, it’s fine.” His ma waved off the teen’s thanks as she started the car. “That said, first day of school, anything interesting happen?”

He thought about it for a moment before shaking his head. “Nothing really worth mentioning.”

“Really?” Sarah asked curiously. “Because your fight with Neilson seems to have been pretty big news as far as the student body is concerned.”

“Fight?” His ma repeated with her own curious glance.

“It wasn’t a fight. People are blowing it out of proportion.” He assured them both with a shake of his head. “Chester was bullying Josh -Chris the bartender’s brother- and I stepped into it. Once I stopped him from hitting Josh, we talked it out and Josh’s friend and I took him to the nurse’s office.”

“I heard Neilson pulled a knife on you?” Sarah continued seemingly fascinated with what happened for some reason.

“What?” He frowned before shaking his head again. “Oh, that. No. He had this bailsong knife and he was more liable to hurt himself than anything else, so I showed him how to actually hold it as well as a couple of tricks I picked up at camp.”

His ma blinked in surprise. “Since when does Edna have knife fighting at her camp?”

“She doesn’t.” (At least not on the standard itinerary anyway.) “But I confiscated a knife from someone and when Quartermaster Rogers saw it, he insisted on teaching me a couple of tricks with it.”

“Anything useful?”

“Not really, it was mostly fancy flips and spins.” He admitted. “Cool to look at but not much else as far as I can tell.”

“Shame,” His ma frowned. “He seems like the kind of person to know how to use a knife.”

“You’d think, but Miss Edna was actually better with them.” He paused remembering a day in the kitchen. “Well, throwing them at least.”

“Really? Always thought she’d be more of a boxer or something.”

“People can surprise you.” He shrugged, before remembering something from a while back. “Then again, if the way she knocked her ex out is any indication, she’s got a mean right hook.”

His ma gave that a snort of amusement, before pulling up to an apartment building. “This is your place, right Sarah?”

“Yes. This is the place.” The female teen nodded, as Jon got out of the car and retrieved her wheelchair.

“You going to be good from here?” His ma asked, as Sarah buckled her wheelchair.

“Despite what my parents may believe, I’m not made of glass.” Sarah pointed out brusquely.

His ma raised her hands in surrender, earning a grimace from the younger female.

“Sorry, it’s a touchy subject.” Sarah apologized. “That said, thank you for the ride home. It was… an interesting experience.”

“No problem?” His ma told her once more, though this time she sounded confused by something.

Sarah nodded, before maneuvering her wheelchair towards her apartment lobby. “Well, I hope you both have a good evening.”

“Uh, right you too.” His ma nodded back, as they watched Sarah enter her apartment building. “Polite kid.”

“Nothing wrong with that.” He reminded his ma, knowing how she tended to prefer bluntness to niceties.

“Never said there was kid.” His ma told him as they climbed back into the car. “Feel like grabbing something for dinner?”

He thought about it for a moment before shaking his head. “Nah, we’ve got stuff at the house I can cook.”

“You sure?” His ma frowned. “You shouldn’t have to cook on your first day at school, and we both know I can’t cook.”

“Eh, it’s fine.” He promised. “Besides there’s this pasta thing I’ve been meaning to try for a couple of days now.”

“If you're sure.” His ma shrugged, as she pulled away from the curb.