Funny Boy

Chapter One: Pluvia Skyes
Slowly, lazily, my cloudy grey eyes blinked open to be met with the plain white of my ceiling. I grumbled some incoherent words and slammed a fist down hard on the off button on my alarm clock, silencing its frequent beeps. I laid back down and stared once again at the ceiling, trying to gather at least half of a brain to figure out why I was so freakin’ tired. I eventually gave up and shrugged it off, pulling the covers off of my scrawny body and making my way off of my monstrously sized bed. The clothes that I’d set out for myself the night before were in the exact place that I’d left them; on the ground by my feet. Even though I put them there every single day, I always managed to trip over them. Grumbling again, I scooped them up and stumbled my way across the hall to the bathroom, still rubbing sleep from my eyes.
While the shower water ran, I took time to look at myself in the mirror. Stormy gray eyes unable to pull away the veil of sleep, silver hair cut into a bob just past my pierced earlobes and dyed red at the tips. My skin was usually a pasty white, but after the camping trip I’d managed to fit into my “busy” schedule last week, I’d left with slightly tanner skin. It was still nowhere close to the attractive shade that most people had and I still had a bit of sunburn-y red sticking to my cheeks. A XXL t-shirt hung from my broad shoulders and a white pair of heart blotted boxers barely dangling from my hips. I sighed at how bland my features were. Sure, grey hair wasn’t something you saw every day, but add on grey eyes and perfectly pale skin and you get a good fifteen years of people inquiring the same questions of albinism. Why must people prod into my own messed up genes? Even if I was albino, I wouldn’t want to tell them. Especially considering it was mostly strangers who asked.
I stripped myself of the too-large clothes and slipped into the mildly scalding water.
I don’t know what it is about washing away all of the grease from my hair and the dirty grime from my skin that made me feel like I can actually start a brand new day completely clean and fresh. Once the dirty-dirt-dirt was completely wiped off the surface of my skin, I turned the facet to cold and shivered under the freezing rain, my eyes finally opening wide over the heavy black bags beneath them. I let out a yelp and hopped out of the tub, wrestling with the shower curtain until I finally got out and could dry off properly with a towel. I slid my carefully set out new clothes on. A heavy grey tank top that blended with my other blah features. A pair of skinny jeans hugged my legs tightly. My friends always had said that my legs looked incredible in anything tight fitting due to my record on the track and field team. I didn’t see the appeal of legs, but that’s probably also because I didn’t understand how people could have a foot fetish. . . Feet are just gross!
At that thought, I looked down at my own. They usually stuck out of my pants all day, simply to give myself the feeling of not wearing restricting clothes while still wearing them. It also had something to do with the fact that everyone around would practically faint when I took my shoes off. Hey, I was a stressed gal and the more stressful your life becomes, the sweatier your feet happen to become. That fact alone caused the odors to be unbearable, so barefooted I was. I padded over to the kitchen, whisking away a fresh cup of coffee and added a touch of my personal favorite-French vanilla-creamer.
When I approached the closest thing I had to a living room, I found Miley passed out on the comfily poufy couch. Miley was my big sister and a damn awesome one at that. After our parents died and our grandparents handed me over to her custody, she decided to “become the best big sister ever”. That decision had resulted in many a nights of pizza-ice cream-movie combos.
The “closest thing to a living room” was in fact the downstairs portion of our shared little downtown home. It was really just a bunch of comfy brown leather chairs and couches all shoved into a semi-circle and faced a small flat screen TV in the corner. They were the highlight of the hipster café my sister ran. Some weirdos who claimed that they were “different.” I had to admit though, some of the style choices they made I could get behind. Especially those tattoos or piercings. I shook the sleepy head awake. She woke up similarly to how I had; smacking the offending object startling her awake and staring up at the ceiling for a while, grumbling something that made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
“Wakey-wakey, scones and muffins!” I sang, trotting behind the large glass counter near the front of the store. Every single one of the shelves inside of it was adorned with some deliciously gooey treat that were impossible to ignore the scent of. The café was what kept us going, and Miley like to keep on reminding me that she wouldn’t be able to keep the shop afloat without my help. And every time she did, I reminded her I did it mostly for the stolen cookies and donuts I took during my breaks. I smiled and swiped a large frosting covered Apple Turn-over, one of my favorite pastries, and a jelly filled donut for Miley. I grabbed a napkin for her as well and headed back for the living room area where she was still seated, struggling to keep herself from toppling over again. “Thanks.” She growled, taking the donut gratefully despite her tone. I snapped on the TV and plopped down next to her, taking a bite out of my own delicious pastry while channel surfing, looking for something good.
“So, how’d your date go last night?” I asked, trying to strike up a conversation whilst a cartoon played on the TV, unfortunately the only thing of interest left on.
“Too tired, not enough caffeine in this system. Tell ya about it later, sista.” She said as she jumped up and strolled to the kitchen. The obvious diversion meant only one thing; it hadn’t gone very well.
'Oops.' I thought to myself, feeling a little guilty about bringing it up.
I spent the rest of the morning before opening searching for my stupid glasses and trying to retrieve some sort of an awake feeling.

Later, after the shop had officially opened, I found, unsurprisingly, that it was almost a full day before anything eventful seemed to happen. Well, I was happy but also discouraged. School would be starting up again in just a day, meaning I got to help sis with the café’s influx of customers more often but it also meant that more of my classmates could come wandering in the front door. It was fine though since usually the people who did stroll in didn’t recognize me or even know of my existence outside of “that one orphan girl in the back of the class.”
Everybody in the room agreed that they hated titles, labels. The jock. The populars. The emos. The hipsters. That didn’t mean they were spared from them. Mostly, if you hated labels it was because you’d been called an undesirable label. Like “the geeks.” Oh, sure, you hate labels now while you’re called that, but what if you were to suddenly start being called a “popular?” You wouldn’t mind so much anymore, would you? Yep, neither would I. . . You know, if I didn’t know that being popular meant basically giving up everything else in your life. So if being called “that one orphan girl in the back of the class” meant still getting to spend time with Miley and not have any annoying friends to maintain, than shoot, let me just change my name quick.
Besides, all of the kids there who “hated” labels were kind of hypocrites since they used them just as much as everyone else. It’s actually kind of human nature, a way to keep tabs on everyone, a way to keep things organized and easy. Not like they can help it anyways. People are judgmental, no matter what they say goes on in their head. They will immediately judge you on your clothes and your hair and your face and rank you on how friendly you are and treat you based on all of that, just the way you look and act when you first meet them. Don’t ask me how I know, just fess up, we all do it. Like I said, human nature.
Miley was struggling with a large tray of cookies and zucchini bread, so I lightened her load. “Wow, what’s the occasion?” I asked, taking the bread and setting it down on a random empty shelf, but not before taking a big long whiff. You have not lived until you’ve at least smelled zucchini bread. The recipe Miley used was one that my grandma had passed on to her long before our parents had died. Now all of the recipes she uses are locked up in a safe in her room-which she never seems to be sleeping in. She can name off each of the ingredients by heart as well as the directions and other stuff. She says that she’ll teach me one day to do the same so the little café can keep afloat. I can’t say I’m entirely too enthusiastic about that.
I’m not saying I don’t love the place, because honestly I do. It has character, an old-timey cozy feel to it. It’s a steady income and it keeps us alive, no doubt. I wouldn’t be able to attend school if it weren’t for this place, which means I wouldn’t be living with Miley and only God knows what would’ve happened a couple years ago if I’d never come here. So in a way, Miley kind of owes her life to this place, in a weird mixed up way. So yeah, I love this place.
But. . .
The floorboards creak horrendously, the ceiling upstairs leaks sometimes due to the cracks, the bathtub sounds like it’s going to go tits-up every time you try to take a bath in it, the windows don’t open without a crowbar and there’s so much bird poop on the roof I’m surprised Miley hasn’t sent me up there to shovel it off for punishment. So, no. It’s not the most conventional place to have a café, but it’s what Miley fell in love with and it’s the place I’m stuck with for however long she plans to keep ups here, so it’ll have to do.
“Oh, nothing special. Just thought since I finally uncovered that frozen zucchini we put in the freezer last year that I’d make a batch so it didn’t go bad.” She finally responded after sliding almost every single cookie into the empty compartment. “Hey, don’t tell the customers, but the cookies have some zucchini too. Tryin’ out a new recipe and thought I’d see how they react before they cost extra and have a sign saying “new!”” she said the last part excitedly, waving her hands in the air. I think I know where my bad habit of doing that came from. We talked with our hands, making signals and hand gestures to exaggerate what we were saying. Miley said that it makes us noticed more, demand attention and properly tell them our story. But for me, I feel like we were just so desperate for people to pay attention that we use our hands to get that attention.
“There’s still some more goodies cooking, so listen for the timer, ‘kay?” I nodded in agreement. “Oh, and you get to choose the music today.” She said, grinning as she backed away to the front counter nearer to the back of the store and next to the staircase that led to our official apartment. We called it the front counter because that’s where we actually served the coffee and since our shop was called the Skyline Café-literally coffee in French-we decided that that would be the “front.” I grinned back at her and grabbed the iPod off of the little shelf in the wall we’d made for it. It was directly plugged into the speakers around the shop so whenever we played music, it would play all around. Positively perfect for sister dance parties on days off.
I scrolled until I found the Owl City playlist. I smiled as The Bird and the Worm started playing, soothing my already edgy nerves. I mouthed along to the words until I heard the bell of the front door being opened. I jumped and spun around, rushing forward to assist them. My heart fell through to my stomach before it lurched up to smack my brain. I cursed it and tried to tell it to keep still; this wasn’t the time for jumping jacks. Or maybe it was because there he was, the single most popular, gorgeous and taken boy in school, Nathen Phillip. Yes, I’ll admit it, seeing him in my sister’s shop did almost give me a heart attack. I’d been . . . Admiring him from afar for a long time. Yes, admiring. Not crushing.
Shut up.
“Uh, h-hi! Welcome to the Skyline Café, how m-may I help you?” I stammered, trying to talk around the lump in my throat and the overbearing noise of my heart in my ears. He smiled a little bit after I gave my clumsy greeting and chuckled. He shoved his hands in his pockets and shifted his gaze from me to the wide collection of sweets.
“Wow, that’s a lot of food.” He murmured. I bit the inside of my lip as I watched him, already preparing a little bag and napkin to pick up whatever he chose. “Uh, I’ll have two of those yummy looking cookies there, um. . .” he trailed off. I leaned down and snatched two of the cookies, my heart dripping jealousy as I figured that they were for him and his girlfriend. When he trailed off I assumed he was trying to pick out what to get next, but when I stood up fully I was met with a hard stare, trailing from my eyes to my left breast where my nametag was set. “Pluvia?” he finished, raising an eyebrow at me. I bit down on my tongue hard to keep the blush from revealing itself on my face. Ugh, just how he’d said it. . .
“Cool.” He said. I wasn’t sure if it was to me or to himself so I put on a fake bright smile and asked, “Will that be all?” His eyes shot back up to mine. Wow, those blue crystals were much, much brighter and more blinding up close. “Hm? Oh, uh, just uh, gimme a slice of that zucchini bread please.” Did he stammer that much last year? I thought as I shoveled the requested zucchini bread into the bag. I handed it to him and said that he could pay up at the front desk, pointing to my sister. He nodded and I swear I saw him give me a side glance. Even though it was probably just my imagination I nearly melted on the spot.
Before I totally beat the crap out of myself.
'What the hell is wrong with you?! He has a girlfriend, idiot! Just stop! No, don’t look at that cute butt! You have a job to do, do it dammit!' I kept mentally screaming at myself until I could drag myself into the downstairs kitchen to retrieve the sweets from the beeping oven. Oh gosh I had it bad. But what else was I supposed to do but stare at him? Even if you hadn’t met him before and gotten to know his dreamily brilliant personality, you couldn’t help but be attracted to that beautiful face of his.
He didn’t make fun of my name. He’d called it “cool.” Oh, my giddy little teenage heart ran a marathon just thinking about it. I was startled when I came back in from the kitchen, arms full of trays of steaming hot food, I felt the door thwack something . . . or, judging from the “Uurgh . . .” coming from the other side of it, someone. I flushed and quickly set down the trays, spinning around to see whom I’d harmed.
And there he sat, legs straight out in front of him, one arm supporting his body and the other rubbing a heavily bleeding spot on his head.
Daniel Moores.