New Kid

Mom and Dad didn't ask us how we felt about it. We didn't get to vote on it, because we're just kids. So here we are now, in the middle of nowhere, away from our friends, in a new unfamiliar place. There is this knot in the pit of my stomach that just won't go away, like I swallowed a rock. That rock, it just lives there in my tummy, all day, and all night. I sense its hardness inside me when I go to bed, and when I wake up, it is still there, cold and unfriendly. I imagine the rock, looking like a little angry face emoji, pouting and complaining, saying naughty words to me. He decided to make my body his home, permanently. All I want to do is play video games, I just don't want to think about anything, don’t want to FEEL anything.

Mom says I am an “introvert." It took me years to find a best friend, and just as soon as I did, my parents decided to force me to leave him. My friend, Trey, was like me, he didn’t have a lot of friends. He was shy and withdrawn. Together, we were a good pair. We ate lunch side-by-side and we chatted surreptitiously on the playground, making up our own private games. We shared our secrets and made all sorts of crazy plans of what we would do together, some day. I felt this joy bubble up inside me whenever we were together. Now, suddenly, he was gone from my life and it hurt. The adults were always talking about being fair, but this was NOT fair. Why do I have to start all over again? Mommy says her job is going to really help our family out and that we had to take this opportunity, but I don’t care. I just don’t care.

My sister has disappeared into her room. I haven’t seen her for days. We used to play together when we were younger, but not since she became what my mom calls a “tween.” I hear her music blaring in there, and her laughing at something on YouTube. Her laughter somehow doesn’t sound real, like she is trying too hard to laugh, just to hear herself laugh, to hopefully be convinced by the sounds that she is ACTUALLY happy. It hurt my feelings that she ignored me now, like I was some kind of ghost boy. "Ghost boy, ghost boy, wandering the halls…,” I sang in my head.

"James, James, ... JAMES!", my dad crescendos. I hear it coming from far off, like a train bearing down on me. I stare blankly back at the figure towering over me. "It's time to put devices away.. why don't you go outside for a while and play?" I grunt and moan, splaying myself on the floor in protest, “No thanks.” I had been playing my games for hours now. ”It's not really a question," he says firmly. I hobble my way reluctantly to the door, feeling an urge to argue but also knowing its pointlessness. I stuff the anger back down inside, down to that hard spot in my tummy. I imagined the little angry rock in my tummy smily smugly at me and cackling.

Outside, it is blazingly hot, the sun is attacking me, trying to HURT me. I hear shouting behind me inside the house. A familiar feeling of dread creeps up my spine: my parents have found something new to fight about. My mom always is trying to tell my dad how he should do things, and my dad is always yelling at her to stop telling him what to do. They do this on repeat, like some machine that can’t be stopped. I walk quickly away from my house to mute the angry sounds and stand on an empty street. The lawns are pristinely mowed and edged, and not a soul is in sight. A small dog yips incessantly at me through the neighbor's fence, confidently shouting in "Dog" that I do NOT belong here. I creep cautiously closer and slowly poke a finger through a crack in the fence. Will he bite it? The diminutive animal licks at my fingertip with a wet tongue and nervously wiggles about. "Does anyone live in your house puppy?" I ask, observing all the tightly drawn blinds behind numerous window panes. The house felt foreboding and strange in some way. I sure hadn't seen anyone stir there, let alone any other kids. Why do I feel like I'm exploring another planet, like I'm marooned in space?  “Are you a space doggie?” I ask. The dog yipped at me as if in response.

Apparently there ARE children here, school starts tomorrow. In my mind's eye, I see myself dropped off at an empty school, with empty halls echoing back my footsteps. Somehow, I cannot imagine other kids being there, no matter how hard I try to force myself to visualize this. We went to the store last night to get all the supplies needed; markers, notebooks, pencils... everything was picked over and strewn about as if a tornado had come through and gobbled it up, leaving a trail of office supply wreckage in its wake; I imaged people looking like vultures, circling over and swooping in to greedily grab the supplies. I began to run in wide arcs around the yard and then in tighter and tighter circles within circles within circles within circles... the world began to spin out of control. I flopped down hard on my back in the yard, sweating and panting. I looked up to see a face, spinning in my vertigo, above me. A pair of blue eyes framed by some shaggy brown hair. A tee-shirt “Eat, Play, Sleep, Repeat.” 

“What are you DOING?!,” he asked. I laughed, feeling embarrassed at my absurdity. “Oh, just stuff,” I responded. “Stuff? Looks like crazy stuff!” he said back. And then he pantomimed me, running in his own wild circles while hooting and hollering and leaping about until he collapsed in a panting heap next to me. “How was that?,” he asked me. “Not bad, 4 out of 5 stars!” I said. “Are you the new kid in the neighborhood?” he asked. “Yep, that’s me, the new kid!”