Ups and Downs - Chapter 3 (Part 2)

Recap:

Ash started to teach Azure to play guitar. At the recital West sang The Reason by Hoobastank, and Fern responded by singing a mix of Mean by Taylor Swift, Mr. Know It All by Kelly Clarkson, and Whataya Want from Me by Adam Lambert.

****************************************************

Chapter 3 (Continued). Fall Recital

(Still) October 24:

(Fern's POV)

As we walked back to class, I felt a tiny twinge of regret. Quickly brushing it off, I glanced up from my feet to see West looking back at me. He snapped his head around when he noticed that I saw him.

I wondered how he felt about my song. I didn't really mean to make him upset, more to just let him know that I wasn't gonna forgive him for hurting me all those years. A certain memory came to mind.

(2 and a half years ago)

"Hey Plant!" I sighed. West was coming.
"Hey Direction!" I called back.
It was the last day of third grade. As a celebration, we all got to eat ice cream outside on the playground. I had just gotten my chocolate cone from the freezer.

West came into view at the bottom of the slide I was sitting on, sneering.
"Go away West," Jade said from beside me. She didn't have the green streak in her hair yet.
"No," he said simply. Birch was slightly behind him, seeming unsure. Whenever West bullied me, Birch didn't join in, just stood by and watched. Clover was in the normal third grade class, not advanced placement. None of us knew her at that time.

"What do you want?" I asked, knowing that by the time that this was over, something would go wrong.
"Nothing." And he walked away, Birch following.

"What are they gonna do?" Jade asked. It was soon after that I found out.
"Wanna go sit on the swings?" I asked.
"Sure." She replied

We stood up. Just then, pounding footsteps came from behind me. I quickly turned around to find Birch chasing West. They were coming straight towards us. I tried to move out-of-the-way, but just as West started to pass me, he tripped, grabbing my arm. The half-eaten ice cream cone flew out of my hand and onto the slide. It slid down, leaving a trail of chocolate behind, before slowly coming to a stop at the bottom.

I stared at it, open-mouthed.
"Oops," said West unconvincingly. He was still holding onto my arm. I quickly pulled away, glaring.
"What's your problem West?" Jade asked.
"I tripped." He replied, looking at her as if she was stupid.
"Like I'm gonna believe that." She said.
"Well, that's your problem, not mine." He smiled. And with that, he started running from Birch again.

"You want my ice cream?" Jade asked, holding out her vanilla cone. I looked at the globby, dripping mess.
"No thanks."

(End of memory)

I got angry all over again. Any regret I felt about my song evaporated immediately. He totally deserved it.

Scuffing feet beside me made me glance up. It was Birch.
"What's up with the song choice?"
"Are you like West's messenger or something?" I asked, not answering his question. I knew Birch wouldn't ask that question alone judging by his reluctance to help West bully me.

"Sure. Now answer the question. I tried telling him myself, but he won't hear it. He wants to know from you," Birch said.
"Um, okay? I don't accept his apology. Now go," I answered. What did West want to hear from me? Was he really that stupid to not realize what the song was about?

"You have a good voice by the way," Birch complimented me.
"Thanks." Finally he left.

And came back five seconds later.
"He wants to know why." I snorted impatiently.
"I think you know."
"Right," he replied, leaving once again. You'd better not come back, I thought.

He didn't. Thank god. I probably would've stormed up to West and yelled at him.

But as we neared the classroom, I heard someone beside me again.
"I swear, if this is another stupid question fro-" I started to yell. It was Jade. Luckily other people were talking loudly and Mrs. Polar didn't hear me.
"Sorry that I bothered you." Jade said, looking at me strangely.
"Sorry Jade. I thought you were Birch," I explained.
"That's okay, I guess."

Later that day we were going to meet our little buddies for the first time. They were in Ms. Barley's class, my brothers.

In the middle of math they arrived, all huddled together. I waved to Blaze, but I don't think he saw me.

"All right class, we'll continue this later," Mrs. Polar said.

They started to say which 6th grader had, which kindergartener. I had a girl named Dawn. She seemed sort of shy. Her brown hair went just past her shoulders and had a big white bow in it. She had dark brown eyes and puffy cheeks. Overall, super adorable.

"West, you have Blaze." Big surprise. West beckoned to Blaze and he went over to his desk.

Ms. Barley handed out a double-sided sheet. On one side you had to draw a picture of yourself on one half of the paper and your buddy had to draw themselves on the other. On the other side were a bunch of questions.

"Let's start with this side," I said to Dawn, pointing to the drawing side. I failed at drawing, but at least liked trying.
"Okay." She replied, barely audible over the loud chatter of everyone else.

Dawn finished before me, and hers was actually really good. I finally lifted my pencil and looked at my drawing. And started to laugh. It was so bad!
"What do you think?" I asked Dawn.
"It's good," she said quietly.
"Why thank you, but I don't think so."

Flipping the paper over to the questions, I read the first one out loud.
"How old are you?" There were two boxes for each person's answer.
"I'm 11." I said.
"I'm 5." I wrote both answers on the sheet.

Behind Jade's desk, which was across from me, I saw West ask Blaze,
"Any siblings?"
"Yeah, Fern," he replied, gesturing to me. West looked up and met my gaze. I turned away.

"Do you have any brothers or sisters?"
"No," Dawn said.
"Haha, well I have two brothers and a sister. In fact, my youngest brother, Blaze, is in your class." Dawn smiled. Then she noticed my Rubik's Cube. It was the 5x5 that Ash and I had fought over while cleaning out the garage. I won.
"Can you solve that?" She asked.
"Yeah, I can."
"Woah!" She exclaimed, amazed. Yep, it was an interesting day.

****************************************************

(Blaze's POV)

Why did I have to go to school today? It was super boring. Except for recess! My best friend Ridge and I usually played in the sand box. There were big pickup trucks and buckets.

Ridge was mean sometimes, though. We always had to play what he wanted. If I didn't want to play, he would yell at me.

Fern ran to the bus stop without me. She did that a lot. Just as I got there, the bus came. We got on, and I went to sit on one of the middle seats.

A few minutes later the bus was at Ridge's bus stop. He got on first, coming to sit beside me. I saw the boy behind him, a sixth grader, throw something to Fern. Sixth graders were weird.

"Hi Ridge!" I exclaimed cheerfully.
"Hi," he said, arms crossed.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"My brother wouldn't let me play on his iPod," Ridge grumbled.
"Ash doesn't let me either." I told him.
"Humph."

We were both quiet for the rest of the ride. When we got to school, I ran off the bus and to the playground. In the morning before the bell rang, you were allowed to play or go in the gym. I always went to the playground.

I got to the sandbox very quickly, but had to wait for Ridge, who was walking grouchy there. He finally arrived, and started telling me what we were going to play.

A while later I heard a voice talking to us.
"Can I play?" The person asked timidly. I looked up. To my surprise, it was Dawn.
"Yeah, you c-" I started to say. But Ridge interrupted.
"No! You're a girl."
"So?" She asked, crossing her arms.
"So you're gross!"
"How do you know?"
"All girls are," Ridge said, rolling his eyes.
"No they're not!" Dawn exclaimed, looking sad.
"Ridge, let her play," I said, speaking for the first time. He turned to me, sneering.
"Why should I? You're sticking up for a girl!"

Just then, the bell rang. Dawn gave me a slight smile before running away. I glared at Ridge.
"What?" He asked sourly. I shook my head and stood up, going to the classroom.

Later that day we went to see our big buddies. I got a guy named West. When he waved to me, I recognized him as the guy on the bus earlier.

"How ya doing Blaze?" He asked.
"Pretty good." I replied.
West was mostly tall, with flat brown hair that slightly covered one of his matching colored eyes. He wore a black t-shirt and jeans.
"You're good at drawing?" He asked, looking at the paper.
"Not really."
"Yeah, me neither." He laughed.
We both drew ourselves and flipped the sheet over.

"Let's go from bottom to top, okay?" West asked.
"Sure." I said uncertainly. He read the last question on the paper aloud.
"Who's your best friend?"
"Ridge. But we had a fight today," I said sadly.
"Ridge? That's my brother!" West exclaimed.
"Cool!"

We continued on with the questions and finished early.
"So. What do you want to do?" West asked. I shrugged. "Here. I'll ask you some more questions."
"Okay."
"How old are Ash and Amber?" He started.
"Ash is 13 and Amber just turned 15. What about Fern?" I wondered.
"I already know her age." He said.
"Oh yeah! What did you give to her this morning on the bus?" I asked. He glanced over at her.
"A note."
"What did it say?"
"Well, I sang her a song in music today." He said.
"Why?"
"To apologize to her about how I hurt her."
"When did you hurt Fern? Do you not like her?" I asked. West opened his mouth, about to reply, when his teacher yelled out,
"Okay everyone, time to start cleaning up. When you're done, Kindergarteners, line up by the door."

I looked around. Nothing was there to clean up.
"Bye Blaze!" West said.
"Bye!" I called back, being the first one in line. Then suddenly I wasn't first. Ridge had cut in front of me.
"Hey!" I said.
"Ridge!" I heard West call. Ridge went over to him, crossing his arms grumpily. I couldn't hear what they said, but Ridge seemed to get mad.

He came back, going to the end of the line. We went back to the classroom and had lunch. After lunch we went to recess. And at recess, Ridge apologized to me.

"I'm sorry, Blaze, for being mean this morning and for cutting in front of you." He said, still seeming slightly upset. I just looked at him in surprise. Ridge never apologized before!
"It's okay," I finally said.
"Humph." And we started playing with the sand and trucks. What he wanted to play, of course.

****************************************************

Comment Replies:

TeeHee - Yeah, it was. It took me forever to finally find a song that matched what I wanted him to sing. I'm so sorry that I posted this late, Blaze's POV is hard for me to write. Thank you so much!

Shruti - Thank you... so much...! Why did you... put so many dots...? Haha, but yeah, thank you!