Difficult Days Part One
Even at ten years old Shawn knew he was different.
It didn’t take a genius to notice, and Shawn was certainly good at noticing things --observing, his dad would be quick to say, correcting him as usual.
His dad did that a lot, correcting, insisting there was a right way to do things; there was a right way to play hide and seek, there was a right way to camp, to relax, and more often than not it was the opposite of what Shawn was doing.
While other kids learned how to play baseball and spent their loose change at the arcade, Shawn was instead learning how to navigate through the woods without a compass, escape from the trunk of a car, and how to spot a squeaky floorboard from four paces.
While his classmates were at the beach, searching for jellyfish in the low tide pools, Shawn would memorize the layout of restaurants and describe the last three patrons to walk through the door in the time it took him and his dad to get their drink orders.
‘You can’t skate through life Shawn,’ his dad would tell him, breathing the words out sharply, ‘you have skills others don’t and you need to use them the right way, I don’t get why you can’t see that’.
It was exhausting.
Why was the right way only his dad’s way? It had never been very clearly explained to Shawn, other than how great of a cop he could be -maybe even a detective. But why couldn't he use his observation skills the way he wanted to? This grownup stuff was years away! It wasn’t like it was something he could turn off, so what was the big deal?
Like Mr. Cooper’s homework spot checks.
None of the other kids had managed to figure out his system, the pattern to the days when their teacher would ask for their math homework.
Tommy Decker insisted it was completely random, that the man asked for it on a whim -just to torture them all.
Mandy Holloway on the other hand, whose sister had Mr. Cooper for math the previous year, argued that it was based on the moon cycle and every second new moon the pattern would change - you just have to track it Tommy.
But somehow Shawn always, always, seemed to know without fail the day that Mr. Cooper would ask them all to pass their work to the front of each row.
It wasn’t Shawn’s fault that Mr. Cooper was incredibly obvious, so why shouldn't he take advantage of it? Besides, it was almost mind boggling how the other kids in his class couldn’t see the many, many, tells their teacher had.
First, there were the heavy purple bags under Mr. Cooper's eyes that would tend to show up a few days before the homework check.
Mr. Cooper would also become noticeably agitated over the smallest of incidents in the classroom, whether a student was running late or even opened their book bags a little too loudly - it didn’t matter, detention was in their future.
That coupled with the noticeable creases in Mr. Cooper’s shirts, unironed, and lacking the normal meticulous care --probably on the outs with his wife based on the intermittent wearing of his large gold wedding band.
Finally, and honestly how no one else in his class seemed to see this one, if Mr. Cooper brought in a gas station paper coffee cup as he walked into the classroom -instead of his usual metal thermos from home, that was the nail in the coffin. The final sign that Mr. Cooper would be demanding their homework the very next day.
It was so, so obvious, at least to Shawn.
But then, so too was Shawns ability to avoid the seemingly random spot checks.
“How do you always know?” Tommy whispers to Shawn near the end of the school year, his voice quiet to avoid Mr. Cooper’s notice as the man wanders up and down the rows of desks.
“Know what?” Shawn says, his voice equally soft as he turns towards Tommy, whose face twists into a sneer at the question.
Tommy scoffs with narrowed blue eyes, “Duh, Cooper’s homework checks, you’ve never not handed it in - what are you some kind of nerd?”
Shawn blinks, the way Tommy spits out the word, nerd, can’t bode well for him. He remembers just the previous year, how Tommy and a few of the other boys in their grade had given Gus a hard time, even going so far to give his best friend a swirly. Shawn shivers at the memory and shakes his head rapidly, he opens his mouth to argue when suddenly a shadow appears over his desk.
He manages to quickly turn back to his paper, away from Tommy’s glare, and writes down an answer to question seven from their textbook. It’s not the right answer, he knows that already, but it’s enough to throw Mr. Cooper off his scent.
Their teacher shifts away from Shawn, seemingly satisfied, and looks at Tommy who isn’t quite fast enough.
“Eyes on your own paper Thomas, I don’t want to have to tell you again,” Mr. Cooper says sternly, but his voice is tired at the edges. Whatever fight the Coopers had must have been a real doozy this time. Shawn tries not to think about his own parents' fights and the silence that would drift through the house for days afterwards. Did Mrs. Cooper shut down the way Shawn's mom so often did? Maybe Mr. Cooper yelled, like Shawn's dad. It seemed likely given the number of detentions the man had assigned their class this year.
Mr.Cooper waits for another beat between their desks until Tommy finally shifts in his chair and lowers his face to his desk, the tips of his ears quickly flushing pink beneath curly blond hair.
“Yes Mr. Cooper,” Tommy mumbles into his desk.
Their teacher nods and leaves, making his way over to a pair of girls on the far side of the room hiding a magazine under the desk - or trying to.
“You did that on purpose,” Tommy hisses, shooting a withering glare at Shawn, “you knew he was there-”
“What am I psychic?” Shawn huffs with a roll of his eyes, “how was I supposed to know he was there, huh?”
Tommy turns away again, glaring at the paper on his desk. Shawn watches as Tommy catches the eye of Marcus Boon across the classroom.
Shawn stifles a low groan as the other boy's eyes flick between him and Tommy; Marcus levels him with a sneer to rival Tommy’s own and lifts a finger to his throat before dragging it across in one smooth motion.
Well, shit.
So much for making it through at least one school year without getting into a fight.
***
“You should’a just told him,” Gus breathes out, his chest heaving as he and Shawn scramble over the fence of the Spencer front yard. Both boys make a beeline for the porch, Gus keeps watch while Shawn stops first at the small garden to grab the spare hide-a-key out from the fake rock beside his mom’s hydrangeas.
Shawn is lucky that Gus had been with him on the way home from school, not that it had stopped Tommy Decker and Marcus Boon from making good on their threat from math class, chasing Shawn down the road to the boardwalk.
Shawn winces as his fingers grip the key, his hands hurt from where he had managed to stop himself from falling face first into the gravel after being shoved by Marcus.
Thankfully Gus had managed to distract the pair of boys long enough for them to make a run for it.
“Tommy’s an asshole, they both are, why should I tell them anything,” Shawn mutters, wincing as his split lip opens again, the smell of copper invades his nose, making him nauseous.
He gets the key in the door and opens it, bringing in the fake rock with him. He’ll have to explain to his dad that he ‘lost’ his house key again, knowing that Tommy and Marcus had taken it from him and thrown it into the trees off the side of the road. One more thing for his dad to lecture him over.
Shawn can feel Gus staring as he brings the hide-a-key with him into the kitchen, but says nothing as the pair make their way through the quiet house.
He places the rock on the counter with the spare key beside it. Gus opens the pantry door and takes a pair of Wagon Wheels out of the already open box, the cellophane crinkles as Gus tosses one to Shawn.
“All I'm saying is you might get beat up less,” Gus says before taking a large bite of the chocolate snack cake, he wipes the mess of crumbs from his cheeks onto the floor and shoots Shawn a grin at the mess.
“And I'm saying, they don't need much of an excuse,” Shawn counters, matching Gus’ grin as he watches the collection of crumbs grow on the kitchen tile floor.
Shawn chews on his lip, playing with the thin cellophane around his snack cake, “It’s…it's weird, right?”
Gus blinks, his lips quirk into a half frown as he takes another pensive bite of his cake before finally shrugging.
“Well, who cares? I think we're cool so if that's weird, then we're weird together”.
Shawn lets a groan out and shakes his hands so hard his own snack cake goes flying onto the counter with a soft thunk.
“No!” He breathes out sharply, “I mean, it's weird being able to know things about people without trying, I don’t want to know them, I don't want to be in this situation, it’s weird and it sucks and dad thinks its so great but--”
Shawn stops speaking as the last of Gus’ chocolate cake is suddenly smushed into the side of his face. Crumbs and icing litter the tile around them, some has smeared from Gus's shoes in his haste to dart out of the line of fire. The previously spotless kitchen is now completely filthy in just a matter of seconds.
Shawn slowly looks at Gus, who has the widest grin on his face, and breathes out a startled laugh.
“Dad is going to kill you,” he says, wiping cake and icing from his cheek.
“He's not my dad,” Gus snorts as he tries to dodge Shawn's swipe of cake hands.
He might as well be, Shawn thinks to himself as he reaches for more cake crumbs from the floor and manages to smear them onto Gus’ face.
At least one upside to Shawn’s memory is he’ll be able to hold onto this, their laughter in the afternoon sun, the smell of chocolate, for a really really long time.
Wrestling in the kitchen with his best friend, previous hurts forgotten for now and with chocolate smeared all over their clothes, their faces, and the floor, Shawn had never felt less like an only child.
Tag List: @adaed5 @drakkywolf
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