This choice: Continue reading the "Proceedings ..." • Go Back...Chapter #25The Pet, Part 1 by: Seuzz   "Hey Jan," Michael said, bounding up beside the other student and clapping him on the shoulder.
"John," the boy corrected him. He gave Michael a narrow look.
Michael blinked. "I can never tell the two of you apart," he muttered.
"No one can," John said, relaxing a little. "You could look at my clothes, though." He plucked at his basketball jersey. "I'm the one who goes out for sports," he said loftily.
"If you two are identical, how come--"
"Jan just doesn't go for team activities. We play ball all the time at home, though." He and Michael continued walking along the covered portico in front of the high school, then turned past the band/orchestra room. "I bet he could kick your ass."
"I'd like to see him try," Michael laughed. "You should invite me over. Hey Kathleen."
"Losers." The two boys had to stop--less because they wanted to ogle the head cheerleader than because she had stepped right into their path and was imperiously shaking out her hair and adjusting her skirt before moving on. They turned to watch her go.
Michael nudged John. "You should invite her over to your house sometime."
"She'd kick my ass and then wouldn't show up," John sighed.
"Well, I'd show up if you asked me, though I'd punch you if you tried kissing me, you pussy gay-ass faggot!"
John flinched in surprise, but relaxed again at Michael's friendly grin. "Why are you here so late after school?" he asked cautiously.
"Detention. You know how it is." He swung his arm around and rubbed his shoulder. "Zelezny frowns on vigilante violence, but it's the only way to keep the plebes in line."
"I thought maybe you had football practice."
"Not today. Where you off to now?"
They'd come to the bike racks, and John was unlocking his. "Home. Eventually." He hiked his backpack up further onto his shoulders. "Probably just ride around a bit first."
"Well, I'll see you later," Michael said, and rubbed his nose with the heel of his hand.
John smiled weakly, then mounted his bike and pedaled away. He resisted the urge to glance back.
* * * * *
"Hey boy, I'm happy to see you too!" John exclaimed as he dropped the bike in front of the side gate. "Are you excited to see me? Are you?"
The golden retriever leaped at the fence, barking joyfully. John pushed through the gate and let the dog plant its paws on his shoulders, and he rubbed its ears and neck lovingly. "Did they feed you yet?" The dog barked again. "They didn't? What's wrong with them?" The dog bounded along happily beside him as he crossed to the plastic bin that held the dog food. From it he scooped two cups of feed into the dirty bowl, and Landru--named for the benevolent, omnipresent deity in an old science-fiction show--gobbled it down, seeming to forget its benefactor.
John passed into the house. "I'm home! Mom? Jan?" No one answered, but he wasn't surprised. He passed through the living room and into the back part of the house, to dump his backpack onto one of the beds in the room he shared with his twin brother. He opened the laptop and checked his email. There was one from his dad with the subject line "Do you need $$$?" He quickly deleted it unread, as he did with almost all his father's emails.
"Yo! You home yet?" a voice called faintly from the front of the house.
"I'm back here!"
Running footsteps heralded the arrival of Jan, who bounded into the room and leaped onto his own bed. "You didn't clean up after yourself this morning," he said smugly. "Mom is so going to yell at you."
"I'll tell her it was your fault."
"Oh, she knows whose fault it is," Jan gloated. "I told her." He laughed as John flipped him off.
They were both sixteen, and as Michael had intimated, identical in everything but their wardrobes: sun-bleached hair, rosy cheeks, eyes that twinkled and lips that curled with mischief and happiness. Both were lanky, with big wrists and elbows and hands and knees and feet, and both were thin like bows taut with latent energy ready to spring out. Jan drummed his hands on the bed. "So how was practice?"
"'s okay," John shrugged. "I ran into Michael Stroud afterward."
"Yeah? Your nose isn't caved in."
"He was actually nice to me."
"Pfft. Freak is bipolar. So what are we gonna do? Xbox?"
"I thought I'd take Landru for a run."
"Didn't you get enough running at practice? I wanna shoot guys."
"Where were you?" John asked, and a peevishness leaped into his voice "No one fed him."
"Who, Landru? That's your job. You're the one who wanted a dog."
"And when we got him, you did too. Don't you like Landru?"
"I love Landru. But I wasn't the one stupid enough to say 'Please mom, if we get a dog I'll feed him every day'!" Jan grinned.
"Well, you stay and fire up the Xbox. Get the first few levels cleared," John replied. "I'm taking Landru over to the field. After I take a long shit," he added.
* * * * *
Landru bounded and ran and sniffed and barked and chased after the croquet ball John had brought with him. He started at one point to run into the pond, but a sharp word from the teenager brought him back. After a good thirty minutes John said "Home, boy," and the dog ran off while his master followed at a much slower pace.
His mom was back by the time he arrived. "Set the table," she said from the kitchen as he walked past.
"Hi mom," he replied, stepping back to stand in the door frame.
"Hi honey. Set the table?"
He looked around. "Are we all eating together tonight?"
She looked up from the pot she'd set on the stove. "Don't you want to eat with your mother?" she said with the gravity of a woman who knows she is making her son feel guilty, and hating herself for it, but is unable to stop herself. When John winced, she relented with a sigh. "You boys can eat in your room again. Like always."
"Mom, if you want us to--"
"No, it's alright. I have some work I have to do anyway."
"Where's Jan?"
"I sent him to the store. How's Landru?"
"Exhausted. My brother will forget stuff, you know."
She gave him a look. "You wanna chase after him, hold his hand?"
"It'll piss him off," John grinned.
"Don't use bad words, sweetheart. He's got the list. But here--" She jotted on a slip of paper as the water heated. "You have money?"
"Enough for these things," John replied as he glanced at the list, and dashed out the door.
* * * * *
John was in the middle of his homework when he felt eyeballs on the back of his head. He looked around to find Jan in the doorway, frowning at him. "Are you pissed at me?" his twin asked.
"Don't use bad words," John replied.
"Fuck you," Jan retorted, then glanced worriedly over his shoulder. "Are you pissed at me?"
"Why would I be pissed at you?"
"Because you went to the wrong store and couldn't find me?"
"No, it's not that." John turned back to his homework, pencil poised thoughtfully over the paper. But when he turned back, it was with a seeming change of subject. "We should invite Michael Stroud over for some ball."
Jan's eyes widened. "Are you--" Again, he glanced over his shoulder. "Are you fucking nuts?"
"We can take him, the two of us. He doesn't do hoops. You can even be on his team. I'll still win." He smiled faintly. "Won't that be sweet?"
"He won't take us up on it."
"It was his idea."
"He won't remember. I told you, he's a freak, all mental." Jan waved his hands around his head. "And if you ask him, he'll try punching you but wind up hitting me."
"So we challenge him in front of his friends. He won't back down then."
Jan groans. "I don't want to have to deliver your eulogy, but if that's what you want to do," he conceded glumly. "Anyway, are we okay now?" John nodded happily. "Awesome. Oh, Mom's taking me to church with her. The choir director needs help moving stuff."
"Do I need to come?" John asked. His brother shook his head.
* * * * *
As John returned to his studies, Jan went out to the car. But instead of getting in the passenger side, he climbed behind the wheel. He then smoothly pulled off his baggy t-shirt and expertly slipped on a bra and blouse. As he shook at his hair he simultaneously plucked at his chest, and each time he did so, the fabric as it settled bulged out a little more, until it was draping over soft, maternal breasts. His hair fell lower and lower, covering his eyes and the back of his neck, and changing from a bleached blonde to a ruddy chestnut. His features bled and ran like mascara in the rain. But it was running in reverse, and when it cleared he was neatly and expertly made up. He slipped a few pins into his hair, then slid off his tennis shoes and pulled on the pumps that were in the floorboard. He was already in "mom jeans."
Then, as the spitting image of his and John's mother, he started the car and backed into the street.
* * * * *
To continue investigating the room: "Disposing of Lucy"   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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