Finding Fun, with a Troubled Mind

Hobbies. Chores with a different name, that’s all they were to Cedric after he’d accidentally broken his X-box! The copious amount of pizza grease and nachos grinding on the console and the control buttons would, of course, have his mother shouting every other night that he should join his friends outside and have fun…

But Cedric knew that all his friends would be online, the playground would be empty and he was not a loner despite what the school bully kept telling him! His mother was shouting something throughout the house… wait, what’s that? Great, so now he’s banned from playing on his X-Box, and his parents are not going to get it fixed until he does something else with his time.

What was there? He’d given up nose picking when he was six… too poor to start smoking or underage drinking… He shifted his position on the bed and glanced at the homework his teacher had actually printed out to ‘save paper’, yeah, it made as much sense to him as it did to anyone that heard him talk about it. 

Cedric let out a deep sigh of frustration as he realised he would have to actually read this utter waste of-… well it certainly explained why his mother had been shouting for days on end.

His homework stated that his entire class had six weeks to experience new activities and write about a new hobby they had taken up. He had just two weeks left… But why? Why would his teacher punish the whole class like this? Surely they had no right telling kids how to spend their free time! So what if every pupil in the teacher’s class had spent their summer getting to high levels and unlocking various achievements in the same game? He supposed he could do something… outside… if he really had to… he didn’t really feel like it… he glanced back at his homework hoping that it would start doing itself.

After twenty minutes or so of doing nothing, he decided to see what he could see on his way to picking up some pizza for tea, he normally had it delivered. In his pocket he had that stupid homework assignment he had to waste his time doing. At least he was walking.

Looking around at the Autumn colours and seeing the odd person out and about, one or two families doing different things. One father had a fishing rod, the children, carrying buckets and spades were heading to the beach.

Building sand castles used to be a pastime of his, the look on his bully’s face when he cut his foot stamping on Cedric’s sand sculpture. Some drunks had smashed at least one glass bottle against the wall and, not being old enough to know better Cedric had collected some of the broken glass and stored it inside a sand igloo he had made. 

He thought that might have been enough to stop his bully picking on him but he’d just got a bunch of mates together to beat him up while he recovered from hospital. He also noticed how the school football teamed become happier and more productive without their abusive captain and the coach had refused to take him back once he’d recovered. Cedric received another beating over this and lost interest in the love of the sport. Anything to be away from harmful situations.

As a counter measure he had taken up Karate, progressed to purple belt so that if could take on his bully one on one if forced into a fight, but bullies never fight fair if confronted. All of his mates would be there… true, karate had given him confidence and muscle memory but he had let knowledge get to his head, struck first and had the footwork nailed to last long enough against all of them for the teacher to intervene and give them all detention. She had also said that fighting would get the next person kicked out of school. Nowadays the bullies were doing all they could to force him to be the one to strike first and get expelled, so, reluctantly Cedric had quit Karate.

He discovered fighting was quite like dance and gymnastics moving your body in time to music, falling in exactly the right way to return to your feet quickly, bowing gracefully, elegantly, rotating the feet and perfecting the stance… His partner wasn’t as good at explaining in a way he could understand… he had all the moves down but she got impatient when he didn’t know the right order and dropped him as a client. He had never really liked dancing that much he just couldn’t help but notice the size of his dancer’s…

But he would never see her again and thinking about it made him feel creepy.

Music followed closely with dance, keeping a rhythm on the drums, he’d even had a go at playing his father’s violin but after sounding no better than a cat sliding down on chalkboard on its claws gave it up quickly/ Feeling ashamed he handed the violin back to his dad a look of disgust upon his face… maybe he was acting?

Acting, now that was another story, things had gone well for him there, he’d appeared in all the school plays until the age of twelve. Cinderella being the last one he attended, the whole school had caught him wearing lipstick, makeup and a dress, he’d played the role of one of the ugly sisters, the whole school had laughed at him and he’d let the stage during the final performance to cry backstage… maybe they were not actually laughing at him but with him but he’d been feeling too stressed that night to care. He was never going to take up acting again! There he had met a girl he wished he had spoken to but Lester owned her now and there was no way he’d let anyone get near his girl.

“Hey Cedric!”

He looked up properly for the first time since leaving his house and looked at his surroundings his feet had been carrying him to the pizza shack automatically but he was still a street or two from reaching it. Cedric caught sight of the speaker and froze, his blood pressure and heart rate had definitely increased

“Carla? I um-”

“What are you doing out here? How are you getting on with your school assignment?”

“Not bad.” he lied “Still haven’t found an activity I can turn into a hobby yet but since my X-box broke and my parents won’t have it fixed it’ll be missing all those games nights.”

“Moe always gets me to watch him play those games, I can’t understand how you can immerse yourself in them for hours and kill each other over and over again just to let him win.”

“That’s another thing if he catches me talking to you-” right on cue Moe emerged from a side street and blocked his view of her

“Hey! I thought I told you what would happen if I caught you talking to my girl!” Carla slunk away quietly hiding in the shadows

“Carla was just saying hello, I was on my way to the pizza shack, I never intended to go out of my way to talk to someone you don’t own-”

“I own her! She’s my girlfriend! I have a knuckle sandwich with your name on it!”

“She owns herself, you’re going to have to learn to deal with it! Now, you can either leave me alone and be with Carla or you can walk home with a bloody nose, I’m not in the mood to be bullied, the choice is yours!”

Moe advanced on him his fist raised, a vicious right hook parried by Cedric who now had a grip on his wrist, in one swift movement Moe was bent double but before he could attempt harm he was laying on the floor Cedric standing over him his arms folded waiting for him to pick himself up. Moe struck at Cedric’s shins but he had anticipated and took a step backwards readying himself in the on-guard position. 

Moe kicked himself up onto his feet and faced Cedric ready to kill him. But Cedric remained calm smiling yet not letting his knowledge go to his head, using only for defence, never for attack. It was time to humiliate his bully as he successfully dodged another punch and grappled Moe into a headlock he was down again frustrated and exhausted.

“Moe Lester, when will you learn? Just go home” he said reasonably.

“We’ll beat you up for this, starting tomorrow, you won’t breathe right for a week!”

Cedric shook his head “I don’t think so, do you know what the people of your community would do if I said your name quickly over and over? In fact if you treat everyone this way they probably all call you ‘molester’ behind your back.”

The colour drained from Moe’s face and he walked away without another word passing Carla without looking at her. She stepped out of the shadows to greet Cedric once more.

“You were so brave, and true, he does not own me, I am my own woman, in fact I won’t be watching him play games all night forcing you lot to let him win. You should go back to Karate, you seemed to know what you were doing back there.”

“Truthfully I learned to defend myself but quit after I nearly got expelled from school.”

“I remember that day; But you’re older now, you can control your temper better, and know enough not to show off or challenge others to fights. I saw you smiling and remain calm.” 

“That’s true, I can write about that in my homework assignment.” said Cedric happily making a note on his phone. As he put his phone away he shuddered and looked back at Carla. She removed her hand from his shoulder and took half a step back.

Cedric raised a hand just in time to parry the baseball bat Moe had thrown at him in one last ditch attempt to win; the bat rebounded landing between Moe’s feet as he ran back towards the house, he tripped, fell and disappeared holding his nose.

“First blood.” Said Cedric calmly “What a loser!” 

“I bet he couldn’t take the fact ‘his girl’ might have been interested in someone else all along.” she laughed nervously. 

“Do I know this person?” Asked Cedric 

“I think you do now.” She kissed him on the cheek “But I’ll give you time to consider. My friends have noticed you feel the same way about me for ages.”

Cedric didn’t speak but embracing Moe’s ‘not girlfriend’ in front of his house seemed the perfect form of revenge especially so soon after learning she never felt that way about him.

“I’m not going to let him push me around any more and that goes for the game too, whether you choose to watch or not he’ll be losing. Dang, I still need to get that fixed.”

“I can help you there, my brother will show you how to fix it yourself, he’s dealing with these all the time.”

“Really? That would be great, and it’d give me the excuse to meet your brother. I’ll grab my console, real quick.”

“We’ll meet at the Pizza shack!” she called after him.

Cedric ran home faster than he had in any football drill and was back slightly out of breath only ten minutes later. Carla had already ordered two large pizzas when he returned to her side carrying a large box.

“Wow, I don’t think I could manage a whole pizza by myself, usually I end up having half the day after… um what did you get me?” he asked catching the putrid smell of broccoli. 

“One hot pizza for us to share and the vegetable one for my brother.” Cedric smirked as only a sister would punish her brother with spoiling a decent meal.

But Ivan didn’t seem put out by Carla’s choice of pizza in fact he hugged her and shook hands with Cedric “So we finally meet Cedric.”

This surprised him so much that he instantly felt at home being in their presence.

“Glad you finally got rid of that Moe guy, he was never right for you.”

“Thanks Dad, but it was Cedric here that helped me.” She explained what had happened while she had been gone.

“Oh, so you’ve got a computer you’d like me to look at?” Said Ivan holding his hands out for the box. Cedric handed it to him.

Carla introduced Cedric to her parents, their welcoming expressions reflected in their daughter’s happiness,

“Cedric, your Xbox is fine… it needs cleaning… but come have a look at this” Ivan held up the power cable, something had gnawed at it and one of the wires was poking out. Without another word Ivan threw the cable in the bin and rummaged through a draw pulling out a new cable of the same type.

Cedric’s phone rang, he saw that his mother was trying to reach him he smiled and rejected the call. He text back:

Busy learning mechanics

I’d give you the technical 

jargon but I’d rather just 

see you later. Sorting my 

own tea.

“You know, I could teach you this stuff if you’re interested?” said Ivan handing him a plate with his half of the pizza. 

“That would be great, I’d be able to sort out any issues of my own before they cost too much to fix.” Carla sat beside him and began to eat. After dinner the family insisted that Cedric could stay and join his friends for games night. 

“Do you think Moe will be online?” Asked Carla

“Yup, there he is.” Said Cedric

Moe was definitely in a bad mood, he seemed to have picked the side of the renegade and was killing off the other players more brutally than he ever had before.

“Don’t let him win guys!” Said Cedric through the video screen.

“Dude, where are you playing from? That’s not your usual nest” 

Whether his friend was talking about his position on the map or in reality he didn’t know or care, he was actually having fun for once.

“Don’t give away your position Cedric, help your team!”

“Wait, is that Carla?” Said the voice.

“He’s behind you!” She called which wasn’t the answer they’d expected.

Cedric scored a kill shot at Moe’s character.

“Whoa, dude, you just killed Moe’s character!”

“Can’t let him win, it’s a game, we have to play fair.” but that was the last thing Cedric said before Moe went offline and the connection to the game dropped. “Well, I think things can be twice as fun without our host.”

Scattered laughter from the others online.

“Why don’t you be the host Cedric.”

“Next week, I’d rather spend time with Carla and her family, see you at school Monday.” Cedric signed out and chatted happily with Carla as she helped him complete his assignment, he knew he would have to actually experience the technical jobs to write about them but he was looking forward to it. Carla had also offered to introduce him to horse riding once they had a sunny day.

“I’ll drive you home.” said Carla’s mum an hour or two later, “You’re welcome to come round any time, just let us know in advance.” Cedric thanked her and said goodbye to the others, feeling more at peace with himself than he could ever remember.