My Story -- Brothers, Friends and Lovers

Chapter 12 -- Nothing But Frustrations

(Tuesday, Breakfast and Lunch)

By Sasquatch

Copyright 2005 by Sasquatch

See the Introduction for important information regarding copyright and access restrictions

The alarm went off and I rolled over to turn it off. That was strange, I could hear the shower running, astonished I thought, "George was up before me! That can't be possible." I looked at the alarm clock thinking that I had not set it wrong last night. But it was showing the normal time that I got up. Just about then the shower stopped and the bathroom door opened and George stuck his head in and exclaimed, "Hey sleeping beauty, I'm done in the bathroom," With a big grin.

"I'll get you for that remark" I growled as I threw the covers back sitting up to get out of bed.

"Sure, sure" he laughed as he headed for his bedroom.

I sat on the bed for a moment thinking. "We hadn't joked like this for quite a while," and I realized that I'd missed it. He seemed to be more like he use to be maybe our talk had helped. I was sure that we hadn't talked about his real problem, but at least now he knew that he could talk to me.

I went through my usual morning routine, only the 2 S's, I didn't need to shave today. Got dressed, cleaned up my room, grabbed what I needed for the day and headed for the kitchen.

Mom was there, fixing French Toast when I walked in. I was surprised as I thought she had told us that she would be gone for a couple of days. "Hi Mom" as I kissed her on the cheek "though you were suppose to go to a site today."

"I was." she replied, "They called late yesterday afternoon to cancel. The coordinators mother had to go to the hospital for an emergency operation and she went to be with her."

She put a plate of French Toast in front of George and me, with bacon and hash browns, everything else we needed was already on the table. She went back to the stove to make sure it was off, came back with a cup of coffee and sat down.

George and I were busy eating and she started talking, "Last night when we were meeting about the rules, Kate came up with a good idea. We all think that it is important to be able to get hold of each other in an emergency. She'd seen some kind of ad on TV for cell phones with a friends and family plan where you can talk with everyone on the plan without being charged any minutes any where in the US."

As she paused, George chimed in "Yea, its called Cricket, Mom." George was always up to date on the latest gadgets especially if it had anything to do with electronics.

"That's right, Cricket. Kate and I are going to get everyone cell phones this afternoon so that we will have a reliable way of getting hold of each other in an emergency."

"Err Mon, we're not allowed to have cell phones in classes", I told her.

Before she could answer, George jumped in, "Not a problem. All of the new cell phones have a silent feature. They also all have voice messaging. If we set them to silent and you call us in class we will feel the phone vibrate and then we can check for a message between classes, so it won't be a problem." Leave it to George to know all about this kind of stuff.

"Good, then its settled" she said, taking our empty plates to the sink. Just then the kitchen phone rang and Mom answered it. She turned and looked our way "Wally and the boys are on their way, get you things and go out and meet them."

George and I grabbed our stuff and headed out the front door.

When we got in the car Harry asked excitedly "Did your Mom tell you about the cell phones?"

"Yep" George replied and proceeded to tell us about all of the feature and things that we could do with them all the way to school.

While we didn't have to rush, there wasn't time for Bill and I to talk, so we just headed for out homerooms. Homeroom had been extended again, but only about 5 minutes as there were a lot of extra announcements. They had found a substitute for one of the teachers and about 5 of the students were asked to stay and go over changes in their schedule, I wasn't one of them. So I headed off to class.

I was about half way to the class room when I realized I was heading for my old class room and had to double back to get to the one I was suppose to be in. I got there just as the bell sounded. The rest of the morning went pretty normally and I didn't go to the wrong room again.

About a half a mile from the school there is a huge outlet mall. The school allowed Juniors and Seniors to sign out a pass to go to the mall if their parents signed a permission slip. Providing or course, there were no other problems, like getting back late for class. Since I had three free periods in a row I figured that would be the best way to kill time, since I couldn't see Bill.

The mall had a shuttle that traveled around their large parking lot for their customers to ride. The mall had agreed to extend the shuttle route between 10:30 AM and 1:30 PM on school days to pick up and drop off students at the school. There were a lot of business that attracted teenagers and they figured the kids would bring their parents shopping there.

Mom and Dad had signed a permission slip for me at the beginning of the year, so I headed for the office to get my pass. The shuttle driver will not suppose to let you on the shuttle if you don't have the pass and if the picture on it didn't match your face.

A couple of Seniors had signed out passes and given them to their younger brothers to use. The driver let them on the shuttle and radioed security at the mall. When the shuttle got there they were waiting for them. They were taken to see the principal and all four were suspended for three days and the two seniors lost their passes for the rest of the year.

I got my pass and headed for the shuttle, it was just pulling in when I walked out the door. There were about a half a dozen other students going to the mall too. I didn't know them so I sat by myself. I figured I'd catch something to eat at the food court and then go to the arcade as I had heard that they had some new awesome games.

The first stop of the shuttle is the food court, so I got off there. I looked around at all of the possibilities and decided to have Chinese.

As I turned around with my tray to go to a table I saw a guy standing up waving at me to come over to his table. I thought I had seen him somewhere before, but couldn't quite place his face.

I walked over to his table and put my tray down. He had his hand out so I shook it and said "Hi my name is Dave."

He said, "Yea I know, mine is Jeb."

Suddenly It all came back, this was Jeb Saunders, his family had moved here at the start of his senior year. He had been on the varsity wrestling squad, when I was on JV.

The rest of it came back too. He was the first openly Gay student in the High School, and he had been suspended right in the middle of wrestling season. I was sitting there with a surprised look on my face.

"If you're embarrassed to be seen with me you can go to another table. But I really need to talk with you about something very important." Jeb told me.

"No Jeb, I'm not embarrassed to be seen with you. I had forgotten what happed that year and when I remembered I was surprised that I had forgotten."

"Yea, I did create quite a ruckus didn't I. This place is going to get real busy in about 15 minutes and there will be to many nosy people trying to listen to what we're saying. Let's eat and then go outside where there will be fewer people to listen in. Ok, Dave."

"Sure" I answered, "I'm ok with that."

We started to eat and I was wondering what it was so important that he needed to talk to me privately, well I would find out soon enough. As I was eating I was remembering what happened that year.

If you like this story and want to read more let me know -- questions and constructive criticism will be acknowledged whenever possible and time permits -- flames will be ignored. Send your comments to sasquatchnas@qwest.net.