Chapter #8Go downstairs. by: grav   “James! Breakfast!” His mom shouted from downstairs and the boy in question nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Coming, mom!” He shouted back and quickly got dressed in his black school uniform. After some deliberation, he quickly shoved the notebook and pen into his bag as well and ran downstairs. There he was met with his mother cooking at the stove and his sister already eating her own breakfast. That in itself was not that unusual. What was different was that Sara was wearing a school uniform like he was and that his mom was dressed in a yukata with an apron.
“Hey, James, what you staring at?” Sara called out to him.
“Nothing,” he quickly answered and sat down. Right after he sat down his mother put down a bowl of rice with a fried egg on top in front of him. He was about to ask why she was giving him that for breakfast when he remembered what he had written with the pen. Right, Japanese culture is the dominant one. Satisfied with himself, he sat down, gave the mandatory “thank you for the food” and started eating. He was halfway through his food when he noticed Sara looking at him, “what?”
“You are hiding something,” his sister responded. “You always frown the same way when you have a secret.” She made an expression like she was thinking about something really hard.
“No, I don’t,” he quickly denied.
“You do, you totally do,” Sara fired back.
“Both of you stop it.” Their mother intervened in a manner that offered no rebuke, “Sara, get ready for school. James, finish your food.”
“Yes, mom,” the two children chorused, even if both of them knew that the last word in this conversation had not been said yet.
On the way to school James occasionally paused to take in the local architecture and how it had changed from how he remembered it. While all of the houses still were in their proper place, many had been tweaked slightly and some had straight up been replaced by old-fashioned Japanese homes build from wood, sliding doors and all.
It gave him a sense of being a visitor seeing all this for the first time, even though he vividly remembered growing up here at the same time and all this should be familiar to him. So caught up in his thoughts was James that he did not even notice a girl approaching him before she slapped him on the shoulder. With a startled cry he jumped back and turned around to face his childhood friend Kat Hopkins, who was nearly bend double in laughter.
“You should have seen your face!” She laughs as she wipes away a tear from her brown eyes. James could only scowl in reply while taking in her new appearance. Kat was normally an athletic girl who disliked wearing skirts, but it seemed even she had been forced to comply with the school’s dress code, even if she wore a pair of shorts underneath as if in one last act of defiance against the system.
“It wasn’t that funny,” James grumbled as he resumed walking to school.
“Not for you it wasn’t,” Kat smiles as she jogs slightly to catch up to her friend, her dark brown hair bobbing up and down in its ponytail as she runs. “But for me it was hilarious. What had you so distracted anyway? You looked like you were seeing this street for the first time.”
“Just deep in thoughts,” he shrugged. Normally he would have shared the truth about the pen with his friend but he was feeling spiteful today.
“About todays science test I hope,” the girl suggested, which caused James to stop in alarm.
“What science test? Oh no, I completely forgot.” This was bad, science was his absolute worst subject and the teacher always seemed to have it out for him. If he failed another test then his parents would never let him live it down.
So busy was he panicking that it took until he again heard Kat’s laughter that he realised he had been fooled. “Oh, ha ha.”
“You are so easy to fool today,” she laughed.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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