Christian, Brotherhood of Life part 1

         

Christian and the Brotherhood of Life
Chapter One

Summertime was Christian Masters’ least favorite time of the year. The days were long and hot and he just couldn’t stand the way the felt on his skin. Everyone had always told him that he got his looks from some great-great-grandfather on his mother’s side and that he should be proud of his Irish bloodline, but stuff like that had very little meaning to a fourteen-year-old boy.  All he knew was that he was the only redhead in his family and that it set him apart from everyone else, especially at times like this.
         It was the hottest season of the year. It was the hottest part of the day. And here he was sitting by the edge of the city pool out in the broad daylight with nothing on but a pair of obnoxiously orange swim trunks. If it were up to him, he would much rather have spent the day somewhere shadier, quieter, and away from so many people. Back in his room by himself would be the ideal place to be, but the sad fact was that it wasn’t up to him, and so he sat, miserable and frustrated.
         It was his little sister, Jasmine Masters’, tenth birthday. As far as Christian was concerned, she was simply the most rottenestly spoiled little sister that had ever been spoiled in the entire history of spoiled little sisters, and had been for the entire decade of her life. Everything seemed to be handed to her on a jewel incrusted, gold rimmed silver spoon. When she said jump, people’s feet were off the ground before they even bothered asking how high. When she wanted a toy from the store, it was out of the package and being played with before they even reached the checkout line. And when she had gone to her parents and demanded to have a pool party for her birthday, it was exactly what she had gotten.
          So there he was, sitting on the edge of the hot cement around the large in-ground pool, stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Aside from Christian, there were only two other groups of people there. On the one hand, there was his younger sister and her friends, all obnoxious little girls between the ages of ten and twelve, splashing and squealing in the pool like the bunch of boy crazy, giddy little idiots they were. Then, on the other hand, there were all the mothers, sitting around the shaded tables dotting the area around the public swimming hole, busy laughing and gossiping amongst themselves like a bunch of old hens. So it was young or old, annoying or boring. Either way, joining either group wouldn’t be a very pleasant experience for the young boy.
         Christian had finally decided it would just be better for him to sit by himself for the whole duration of the party and pray that it would end sooner rather than later.
         Everyone was having such a good time though, and he was starting to think that they wouldn’t be leaving until the pool finally closed late into the evening. Even then, there would always be the possibility of his sister demanding to stay longer, and if that happened, he knew his mother would go out of her way to do whatever it took to make her happy. All hope seemed lost to him at this point. It wasn’t a question of if he was going to end up sunburnt by the end up the day, but how sunburnt he was going to be.
         Even now, Christian could feel the light bearing down on him. His skin felt like it was crawling around on his body like a snake looking for a cool place to hide. It was a dreadfully unpleasant experience that he had just sort of grown accustomed to over all the years.
         The only thing close to a tan he had ever experienced was how the freckles covering his body would get just a little bit darker. He had heard people joking before that it was like he actually got a hundred little mini-tans at once, but Christian didn’t find very much humor in it at all. He had never had a very pleasant time with the whole out-of-doors thing. Christian couldn’t wrap his head around how so many people seemed perfectly content to indulge themselves in such a horribly torturous experience as spending a day outside and then saying they enjoyed it. He certainly never did.
         Christian had begged his mother not to drag him along, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. She simply told him he wasn’t old enough to stay home by himself, and that he shouldn’t make such a scene on his sister’s special day. Christian didn’t think he had made a scene. He simply didn’t want to spend his day watching all the people around him have a good time when he knew he wouldn’t be able to. Nothing ever seemed to go his way though.
         He sighed as he peered into the pool water with his dark green eyes. The freckle dotted face looking back up at him seemed just as awkward and out of place as he did. Starring at his own reflection only made Christian feel even more miserable about his situation, so he kicked at the water with his feet in a feeble attempt to relieve some of his pent up frustration.
         “Hey, watch what you’re doing!”
         Christian looked up to see his sister Jasmine standing in waist deep water with her two of her friends standing at either side of her, a tall, slender blonde and a dumpy, curly haired brunette. The two that always seemed to be with her. Jasmine’s two minions, Christian often though. They were all three staring him down with the angriest of looks they could muster as gleaming streams of pool water ran down their faces. He bunched his brow up as tight as he could and frowned right back at them. “What,” he grunted.
         “What do you mean ‘what’,” Jasmine barked. She and her two cohorts were fuming so hard that Christian thought the water around them would start boiling any second.
         “What did I do,” Christian said wryly.
         “You splashed us, you big jerk,” the tallest of the three girls explained. Christian was fairly certain that her name was Arianna.  She had turned twelve not too long ago which made her the oldest of the three. It also made her the closest to Christian as far as age went than anyone else there. Arianna was also Christian’s least favorite annoying little girl to have to deal with, next to his own sister, of course.
         Her mother had taken some major medical company to court over something several years ago. Whatever it had been over, he had never really bothered to learn about it. All he knew was that the whole thing had been settled before it even went to court and because of that their family came into possession of a large sum of money almost overnight. So, not only was Arianna as spoiled as Jasmine, but she actually had the dough to back her spoiledness up.
         Jasmine’s other friend, the little round one, had to chime in her two cents too. “Why’re you even here, anyway,” she asked in a raspy voice, sound as if she had a mouth full of crackers. Christian imagined she very well might have.
         Christian knew exactly who she was. Her name was Anna-Belle. Christian had always thought that it sounded like something a farmer might name a pet cow, which he suddenly found to be both ironic and amusing because of all the bathing suits she could have worn, she just happen to be in a one piece black-and-white cow print one. That might have been the in-style thing to wear a few years ago, but it was pretty played out by now, and really did her very little justice, if any at all.
         Christian had to choke back a laugh as she tried to look imposing by crossing her arms, only to end up putting her hands on her hips because she couldn’t manage to wrap her arms together. Her little display made it hard for Christian to take them seriously at all.
         He didn’t see what the big deal was anyway. They were in a swimming pool after all, so shouldn’t they just expect to get splashed every now and then? Then again, if it had have been anyone else, they probably wouldn’t have said anything. But since it had been him instead of anyone else, they just had to have something to say.
         Before Christian could explain to them that he hadn’t even wanted to be there in the first place, Jasmine snidely remarked, “Nobody wants you here anyway. You’re just a big, weird looking party-pooper.”
         “Yea,” Ann-Belle coarsely added. The girl deffinantly need a cough drop or something. “It’s a pool party, and you’re not even it the pool. That’s just plain weird.”
         “Oh yea? Well, the only reason you’re even in the pool is because someone thought you were a baby whale and rolled you in!” The words fell off Christian’s lips before his brain even had time to register them. It was a small wonder how quick he could become flippant when on the defensive, but it was a bad habit which had landed him in hot water more time than he cared to remember.
         Only after the last world rolled off his tongue did he realize what he said, and by then it was too late. Anna-Belle’s bottom lip had already started quivering. There weren’t very many things the rotund little girl could do, but making herself cry was a skill Anne-Belle had perfected a long time ago.
         She turned herself around in the pool and began to wade towards the other side where all the majority of the parents happened to be. Christian knew where she was headed and he knew exactly what she was about to do. At least it seemed like it was going to take her a few minutes before she would make it over to them to tattle on him.
         “You’re ganna get it now, Chris,” Arianna scolded him harshly.
         “Oh, why don’t you be quiet,” he snapped back out of aggravation. “I wouldn’t get in that water anyway. Everyone knows that Jasmine pees in the pool. I’m surprised that the water hasn’t started changing color yet!”
         The two remaining girls looked shocked that Christian would say something like that to them but at that point he didn’t really care anymore. He knew that he was already going to be in a heap of trouble, since Anna-Belle was already on her way to tell her mother what he had said to her, so he might as well many any last remarks he could while he had the chance.
         His sister let out a terrible sounding shriek and then she and Arianna spun around in the water and began to follow Anna-Belle across the pool. Christian just growled as he watched the three of them. He was so frustrated about everything at the moment that he could feel it knotting up his gut.
         Before too long, he could hear his name being called from the opposite side of the pool by his mother’s shrill voice. It was a sound that made every muscle in his scrawny body go taught. Christian sighed as he slowly pulled his legs out of the water and forced himself to stand up.
         Even though he intentionally drug his feet as slowly as he could, he found that he made it to the other side of the pool much sooner than he had hoped to. Jasmine, Arianna and Anna-Belle were standing there surrounded by half-a-dozen grown women who were busily murmuring to each other. Christian was reminded of a herd of elephants protecting their young from a hungry lion, only the roles were reversed. This time, the lion was the prey, and the wrinkly old elephants were out for its blood.
         Anna-Belle’s eyes and cheeks were all red from crying. She had had plenty of time to get herself all worked up before ratting him out to the grownups. Christian knew they were all talking about him as they each exchanged comments to and fro amongst themselves too quietly for him to make out. Out of them all, the only one who spoke loud enough for him to hear was the last one he wanted to hear anything from. His mother, Sheryl Masters.
         Sheryl was a goodly sized woman. She was tall, not too overweight, but obviously carried a little bit more meat on her bones than she really needed. Her hair was yellowish blonde with natural dark highlights, and she had a very tired looking face. She usually wore a pair of prescription glasses, without which she was pretty much blind as a bat, but since she was at the pool she had decided to go without. The way she had to squint her dark eyes to see only made the age lines on her face that much more apparent.          
         The way she was peering down at him made it seem like she thought she had laser vision. Had she have, he knew he’d be little more than a pile of ashes by now. Christian thought he was shrinking as he began noticing how many of the other women were looking at him in much the same manner. He wondered if this was what it felt like when criminals stood before a judge and jury. Only, they had the luxury of a fair trial. For Christian, there would be no such justice. There would only be a sentencing.
         “Just where to you think you get off talking to these girls like that, young man,” Sheryl asked.
         “I was just…”
         “I don’t want to hear a word out of you,” his mother shouted furiously. Christian knew it had been a rhetorical question, but he might as well give explaining his side of things a shot. Oh well. “You just march right out to the car and sit there until it’s time to leave. And don’t even think about cranking it up, I don’t want you wasting anything of my gas!”
         Christian looked down at his feet and mumbled as he pawed at the hot cement below with his toes.
         “What did you say?”
         “I said…“ Christian stopped and took a deep breath. His mouth always seemed to work faster than his brain could keep up with it, but this time he was actually paying attention to what he was saying, and caught himself not a moment too soon. Instead of repeating what he had muttered only a moment ago, he decided it would be in his best interest just to cough up a convincing, “yes ma’am” and head out to the parking lot like he had been told.