by Rohini Menon
Notion Press
Old No. 38, New No. 6
McNichols Road, Chetpet
Chennai - 600 031
First Published by Notion Press 2018
Copyright © Rohini Menon 2018
All Rights Reserved.
eISBN 978-1-64429-997-5
This book has been published with all efforts taken to make the material error-free after the consent of the author. However, the author and the publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause.
No part of this book may be used, reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Look at me now Brother!
Contents
Acknowledgements
Fight, Fight, Fight! …
Somethings Wrong
Getting Kidnapped
Barbie House
We’re Related?
I’m Adopted!
Seeing a Castle for the First Time
Slow Down! Richard
An Old Nemesis
I Sign the Contract
Getting Around the Town
A New Friend
The Ball
The Beginning
Camping 101
The Deal
“Long Live Your Highness”
Torturous Fun
Confronting the Enemy
She Isn’t Dead
I Win
You Have to Remember
Acknowledgements
I want to thank my Dad who read and re-read my drafts and my Mom who gave her honest opinions and encouraged *cough cough* me to finish the book. Thanks to my friends who kept asking for updates but had to wait in the end (here you go!). Thanks to the internet for helping me find an editor. And obviously to all the readers, THANK YOU so much I hope you enjoy reading Aaron’s story as much as I loved writing it. And to that one person who thought it was going to take me forever to finish this book “HA!”
• CHAPTER 1 •
Fight, Fight, Fight! …
“Fight, fight, fight! …” the crowd screamed.
“Look guys, you know I don’t want to humiliate him in public,” I said, trying to get out of the situation without looking like a complete wimp.
“Oh! I don’t think I’m the one that’s going to be hu-hu-humiliated after this.”
“I’m sorry, but how long have you been here?”
“That’s it!” his fist was inches away from my perfectly shaped nose when—
A whistle…“Okay boys, let’s break it up here,” and it wasn’t coach Henderson; a girl with her hair tied in a messy bun, wearing a graphic tee, jeans and black converses, made her way to the front of the crowd. As a matter of fact, I even happened to know her.
“Okay guys, you have till ten seconds to let go of him,” she demanded. “Otherwise you’re going to get detention right after school. And your time starts now: one…two…three…”
“Yeah, and who are you?” Gus asked, like the idiot he is.
“I’m Zaniyah Valequez and I’m the hall monitor. Six…seven…eight…”
Gus didn’t release my collar until Zaniyah gave him a detention slip and walked away. “Oh please, like I’m actually going to detention,” he said, crumpling the paper, then called after her “Hey, hall monitor.”
Zaniyah turned around and he threw it at her face.
Now see, boys and girls, crumpling the paper was rude but calling her just to hit her…now he’d made a death wish. “Gus, pick up the paper and say sorry,” she said, striding back.
“No way,” he said, snickering.
“Pick up the damn paper and say sorry,” she repeated. He didn’t even budge. She winced then suddenly took his left arm, twisted it, and pulled it behind his back. Everyone gasped, Gus started whimpering. “Now what were you supposed to say?” Zaniyah asked, pulling his arm to the point that it might break.
“Ow… Ow... Sorry, sorry, please let go, sorry…” and she let go. Still holding his arm sheepishly, Gus took the detention slip and left, his goons following him.
“Yeah, who’s humiliated now?” I screamed, which in turn got me a death-glare from Zaniyah.
“Okay, I’ll give you all a detention-free week if we can agree that nothing happened here,” she announced. Everyone cheered then went back to their own business. She turned to me “You know, I should give you detention too.”
“What—why? You have no proof that I’m the one who started it.”
“Oh please, I know you too well. You were trying to impress Miss Larson by showing her your ‘strength’, and that’s why you thought Gus was the perfect bait. Didn’t think twice and started insulting him; am I right or…” she adjusted her shirt at this. Her words were so accurate; but, I wasn’t about to admit that.
“Fine, so something along those lines happened, but there’s only one way to know so much about that situation.” I took in a deep breath and asked, with a serious tone “Zaniyah, are you stalking me?”
She replied with the same tone “No, I just know you way too much.”
I didn’t know whether to feel dejected or happy; maybe it was because Zaniyah had never fallen for me, like all the others had; or maybe it was because she was different from the rest—in a good way, obviously… And don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t have wanted to ruin the friendship we had anyway, mainly because I had never actually had a best friend. Sure, I’d had friends—and still did—but not as close as her.
The final bell rang, and that meant I was free to go out into the world again to experience my new feelings. I met Zaniyah outside with a bright smile plastered on my face. Since my house was only three blocks away, and Zaniyah stayed on the same lane, we usually just walked together to school and back.
“You do know that you have school tomorrow, right?”
My smile fell into a pout. “Why do you love doing that?” I whined.
“Doing what?” her voice rose innocently.
“Oh, you know very well what: ruining my day.”
“Hon, that’s what keeps me going every day,” she said, laughing.
• CHAPTER 2 •
Somethings Wrong
“Wanna get some froyo, I heard there’s a cool shop downtown? … Hello… Hello…” I said, waving my hand in front of her face to get her attention.
“Oh! Yeah, sorry spaced out there for a second,” she said after realising we’d reached her home. Maybe she was thinking about the rose that Kyle put in her locker—not that I was spying or something; I’d just happened to be there at the time is all.
“What were you thinking about?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing important.”
“Well it has to be about something; you know you can tell me anything right.”
“Yeah I kno—” she was interrupted by her mom who was talking about some letter that had arrived. “Look Aaron, I don’t think I can come to school for the next week or…” the words seemed to come out of nowhere.
What did she mean that she couldn’t make it to school? Her finals were next week. If she didn’t make it, she might have to repeat the semester. “Or what, Zaniyah?” I asked, confused.
“Or, I may not come for the rest of the year but do—”
“No,” that’s all I could say…
“What do you mean no? I have to go; something important popped up.”
“Your finals are up next week and how can you leave in between the year; what’s so important that you just have to leave?” I asked, completely ignoring her mom, wh
o was now screaming at top of her lungs for Zaniyah to return to the house.
“Look Aaron, I have to go. I promise I won’t be gone long, and the next time I visit I’m going to take you back with me, along with a perfectly good explanation. Till then, just don’t do anything stupid.” She took a pause and said “Bye, your highness.”
What was with that formality? Sure, she used to say that jokingly but now she just said it with complete seriousness, as if she’d actually meant it. What the hell was going on with that girl? Would I ever see her again and what was with that tone? Something was going to happen, I just knew it.
• CHAPTER 3 •
Getting Kidnapped
“Arghhh!! It’s been seven days, five hours, twenty-three minutes and six seconds since she left; where the hell is she?” I said, looking at my watch while pacing around the living room.
“Aaron, didn’t she say she would be back by next week?”—meet my sweet mom, Victoria Strider… After my dad left us, while mom was still pregnant with me, she always tries to look on the positive side of things. Mom was currently tying her brunette hair into a ponytail and reaching for her purse, heading out the door.
“But mom,” I whined, “she said she’d come back today. Why hasn’t she called me yet?”
“Honey, I’m pretty sure she will come back. Okay, bye. I think I will be late today; there’s dinner in the fridge; just in case, he—”
“Heat it up and go to sleep… I know, you say this every day and yet come back right in time,” she gave me a curious look after I said this, then got into her red Mitsubishi car and drove off.
“Alone at last,” I sighed, slipping onto the couch, then did what most hormonal teenagers do when home alone: I took all food from the fridge, turned on the TV and started flipping through channels. Nothing interesting was on, so I ended up listening to I can show you the world, from Aladdin.
Even after all the chips, popcorn and chocolates, I was still hungry, so I got up and decided to experiment with food still left in the kitchen. After hours of frying and adding spices, lettuce and other ingredients—except mushrooms—I left the blob of food to cool down for five minutes. Nature was calling me…pretty urgently.
When I returned to check on the food, it wasn’t there—no I’m serious. It wasn’t there. My ‘food’ had sprouted legs and run away “IT’S ALIVE, IT’S ALIVE,” I said, doing the evil laugh. Then my shoulders fell; I had been about to eat that disappeared food. Disgusted, I shuffled to the couch.
“I can’t take it anymore, I have to see her.” I grabbed my phone and went outside. My calls repeatedly went into voicemail; it had been like that for the past week. I took a walk down her lane—you know, just to see if she’d come back and decided not to tell me.
I was two houses away from hers when a dark blue van appeared in front. Two men, wearing all black along with black shades, exited. One took out a house key and opened Zaniyah’s front door. What the hell was going on? What had happened to her?
As they say, curiosity killed the cat…but at least it went down with the satisfaction of knowledge. So, I snuck into Zaniyah’s house through the storage door. Good thing that I knew the place like the back of my hand. It was also a good thing that their storage door was broken.
“Hey, don’t forget to take everything,” I said.
One of the bouncers looked anaemic, his skin sallow and yellowed.
“You know, we both were assigned to do this,” the other bouncer said while trying to carry out a really huge teapoy.
The anaemic bouncer just shot him a death-glare and began filliping through an art magazine. I had my phone’s camera pointed at them in video-record mode. That should do nicely as evidence for the cops, who I had called earlier and who were obviously taking their sweet time.
Clearly, the thieves were about to finish up and the cops still hadn’t arrived. I tightened my grip around the antique lamp that Mrs Valequez had told me especially not to touch.
“Hey you forgot something,” I said to get their attention.
The anaemic bouncer flicked the other one’s head ‘Ow!” said the underling.
“You were supposed to take EVERYTHING,” Mr Anaemia turned towards me and started pacing slowly. “Look kid, we know who you are and we don’t want any trouble.”
“Oh really, then why don’t you tell me what happened to Zaniyah and why you’re taking everything that belonged to her and her mom.” Sirens were a creeping sound in the distance. “Now what are you going to do?” I threw the lamp with my full force and knocked the underling’s lights out.
Before I could properly celebrate, Mr Anaemic tackled me to the ground with a really dusty curtain and tied a rope around me. I coughed and spluttered; it felt like someone had emptied a hoover down my throat. My lungs spasmed and I had to breathe carefully through my nose to avoid choking on all the dust.
After that I could only hear the cops bursting through the door, but the sound started becoming fainter and fainter... I was picked from the ground and thrown onto some hard surface. Only when the ground took off did I realize I had been thrown in the trunk of the van.
• CHAPTER 4 •
Barbie House
My Hulk attempt at smashing the boot open proved pointless; though, I managed to shake off the makeshift rope then free myself from the ancient curtain. Now I knew how mummies felt. After a while, I gave into exhaustion and sleep.
“Hey…kid… Wake up,” a hoarse voice scratched at my ear.
“No mom, just give me five more minutes,” I whined.
“Yeah, I wish I got five minutes for a break,” the man said and he pulled a white sheet that I had been using as a blanket.
“Mom, really?” I woke up a little groggy and then my vision cleared. The same two goons stood there, behind them a bright-pink small house. A white roof made the building look like a real-life barbie house.
“Come on kid we gotta show you to the General,” the underling said, waving a hand in front of my face.
“Wait, did you say General?” I asked, getting down and being escorted to the front door (well, more like dragged). He shuddered for some reason and I got a bad feeling about the type of person this General dude might be. My turn to shudder.
We entered what seemed like the living room. The walls stretched far apart so that it felt like walking into a wide lounge. A huge deep-brown couch sat near a decorative bonfire (or so I hoped), and above it was a small television screen.
“General, we brought all the stuff,” the underling bouncer said.
The sound of a skateboard approaching the living room emerged. “Mom isn’t here,” the voice called out and then a girl came into picture. I recognized the girl straight away because she was wearing the same CHB shirt that I had given her for her birthday.
“Zaniyah?” I exclaimed and she finally looked up.
“Aaron?” her eyes and mouth were wide open; she looked as astonished as I was…
“Wha…wher…why?” none of the words I said were complete or made any sense.
“Umm… Wassup?”
• CHAPTER 5 •
We’re Related?
“Wassup? I’ll tell what’s up: the fact that you said you were leaving for…for forever and you were here all this time,” I said while pointing towards the house. I didn’t feel like asking if her mom was the General in charge of these bodyguards.
Zaniyah clenched her teeth “When my mom said she meant take everything, I’m pretty sure she didn’t say,”—oh, she was gonna blow—“THE NEXT DOOR NEIGHBORS SON.”
There it was. Underling trembled and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t sorry for him. “I’m sorry little miss but he was in our way and he even called the police,” he said.
Looking closer, Zaniyah’s eyes had a tint of worry mixed with regret. “No no no no—please tell me you didn’t see the police or talk to them about anything.”
“Obviously
not.”
“Oh! Thank god.”
“We ran away by that time”
“No you—” Zaniyah was interrupted by her trilling mobile phone, which she answered in the corner of the room. She seemed to go into her own private bubble.
“What did you think she was going to say?” I asked but all I got was a glare from him.
“Okay the General is pretty mad at all of us,” Zaniyah said, putting her phone on a red table with black polka dots.
“So what do I do till then?” I asked, which I immediately regretted doing.
“Why don’t you come with me; we have some catching up to do, don’t we?” she said with a scowl, to which I had to agree (otherwise I would have been decapitated right there).
“Sure.”
Her nails dug into my arm as she dragged me into a bedroom. This one had a king-sized bed. Nothing was there on wall, which meant that the room was probably used for guests, if there ever were any.
“What was going on in that nut like brain of yours when attacking, not one, but two huge looking dudes?” she barked at me, closing the door behind her. “In my defence I was actually trying to save your house from robbery” I said while raising my hands in a surrender position, “does your mom know anything about this?” I tried calling my mom when I was in the van but since there was no signal I couldn’t reach her. I took out my phone to call her, but the battery seemed to have died “why can’t you listen to anything I tell you” she started screaming at me
“you have no right to shout at me like that, in case you forgot you lied to me”
“are you sure I lied because the last time I saw you I specifically told you that I might come back and explain everything to you”
“Yeah right, because after seven years of friendship I still wouldn’t be missing my best friend,” I gave the final blow.
Zaniyah let out a sigh “I’m sorry.” She walked towards the bed and sat on its edge.
“Yeah I know I can be a coconut head sometimes,” I said and sat beside her.
“All the time,” she snorted.
