Scouting for Myself

Fiction by Katie Egan –

“Scout, sweetie, time to get up! It’s the first day of school!” called my mom up the stairs. Ugh. Why? Why do I have to go to school?

Who thought school was a good idea? Who said to themselves, “What is the best way to torture myself and others, even though other people did absolutely nothing wrong to me? Oh, I know. Let’s make school a thing. Let’s make anti-social people have to socialize. Yeah! Let’s do that.”

I, unfortunately, peeled myself off of my galaxy bed sheets and out from under my comforter. Why do kindergarteners have a nap time, but teenagers don’t? Little children are full of energy and never utilize their nap time. For me, during the duration of nap time, I would read books. How I regret that now! For a whole school year, I had fifteen minutes of nap time everyday that I never utilized. What was I thinking?!

After contemplating why I never took a freaking nap during freaking naptime, I drowsily made my way to my dresser. I pulled out some blue jeans and a black and white striped t-shirt. I walked over to my bed and reached under the bed for my black and white Vans ™ . I then proceeded to the bathroom to comb my curly ginger locks. Of course, the gosh dang comb got stuck in the curls. Ugh! This is why no one likes curly hair!

“Audrey! Can you help me?” I called to my fellow ginger-haired sister.

“What do you need help with this time?” she asked, still inside her room.

“Um, I may have gotten the comb stuck in my hair,” I replied awkwardly.

“Scout, we all have curly hair in this family. How are you the only one who gets a comb stuck in his hair?” she asked. I genuinely couldn’t answer that question. Audrey swiftly walked out of her room and entered the bathroom, which we shared. “Goddamn you,” she stated as she began to tug at the comb in my hair.

“OW!” I yelped as she aggressively pulled out the comb from its entanglement.

Meanwhile, Audrey stood there smiling evilly, “It’s not my damn fault that you got your comb stuck in your hair.”

“Audrey, we have almost the same exact hair.”

“Yes, but I never get my brush stuck in mine,” she retorted. I could hear her faintly say,  “You’re welcome” as she went back down the hallway and into her bedroom again.

She was so annoying, but I didn’t have time to argue with her. I opened the bathroom door and ran down the spiral staircase.

While I wasn’t exactly of the richest sorts, I still did come from a family of decent wealth. My father was an author, hence why my name is Scout and why I have a certain affiliation with books, and my mother was a doctor. Therefore, our amount of annual income was a pretty good number, but my parents put their money entirely into their work, donation, and only our necessities. So, pretty needless to say that I am not one of those wealthy bitches who brag about all of the money they are bathing in.

I walked through the entry way and into the pristine kitchen with top of the line kitchenware…Okay, maybe not 100% of our money went to pure necessities, but my father loves to cook. He comes from Italian descent, so needless to say he has a fascination with food.

“Hey, sport, good to see you finally decided to join us!” my dad exclaimed as I walked towards him and the food that he sprawled across the marble countertop. He had waffles topped with whip cream and strawberries, French toast that was drizzled with raspberry sauce, and scrambled eggs. Scrambled eggs were my mother’s favorite. At least once a week,

“I wish I didn’t have to get up,” I stated while rubbing my eyes.

“Well, I wish I didn’t have to see my patients dear, but I still have to go,” stated my mother rather quickly upon hearing what I had to say, “Scout, would you be willing to take your sisters to school as well?”

“Why?”

“Because-” started my sister Taylor, entering from the living room that was just off of the kitchen, “-we really just don’t want to go on the bus. No offense to him, but bus driver Pete is creepy as hell.”

“He must be really creepy if he creeps you out, being that you bathe in creepiness with that snaggle-tooth and all,” I stated jokingly; Taylor didn’t like that joke.

“Mom? Dad? Aren’t you going to say something about how rude Scout just was?” she asked.

My mother turned to my dad and asked, “Richard, what do you think?”

My father glanced between Taylor and I for a couple seconds before saying, “-I thought that was goddamn hilarious.”

“Dad!” exclaimed my sister in disbelief.

“Maybe I could write that line into my next book. I don’t know where the hell I would put that, but I’ll find somewhere to appropriately place it. Nice one son-” said my father as he gave me a fist bump that I wasn’t ready for, so I accidentally went for a handshake, “-Well, one of these days you’ll come out of your awkward phase.” I hoped this was true, but I highly doubted that would ever happen.

“Oh!-”

exclaimed my mother as she looked at the clock, “-It’s 6:45. You better start heading to school.” I picked up my Harry Potter Hufflepuff backpack, that I bought at Hot Topic ™, and I watched as my sisters did the same, except they didn’t have backpacks as cool as mine. I went to the entryway and removed my car keys from the hooks hung directly to the left of the front door. I jogged back to the kitchen and told my sisters, “Hey! If you want to avoid creepy Pete, then let’s get going.”

Just as I went to make my way towards the door, my mother called, “Scout? Could you come here sweetie?” Oh no.

I turned back towards my mother; my sisters snickered at me as they made their way to the door. “Yeah, mom?” I asked.

“I know you aren’t exactly the most confident of sorts, but you will blossom. You will turn into a beautiful peacock who just wants to show off his feathers.”

“Honey-” interjected my dad “-if our son were a peacock, scientists would come and take him away and experiment on him.”

“Oh, Richard, must you take everything so literally?”

“I’m a realistic fiction author. I have to take things literally,” answered my father, getting a smile out of my mother and me.

My mother turned back to me, “Sweetie, just try and associate with others. Maybe you will build enough confidence to where you aren’t so awkward, but so that you aren’t an animal in the zoo.”

“Okay, Mom.”

“Oh, and would you please wear these-” she said holding out a dark green hoodie and a grey beanie, “-I heard it’s going to be a little chilly out, and I don’t want you to catch a cold.”

“Fine, Mom.”

“Good choice to not argue with someone who has to do an open heart surgery today,” she said in a chipper voice.

“Bye!” I said as I put on the grey beanie and ran towards the door.

“Bye son! Let me know if you meet any cute girls!” said my father teasing. I paused for a moment.

If only he knew that I’m not interested in girls.

My sisters had burst through the doors of Bradshaw Academy before I was even out of the car. The school’s title sounds very posh, but the interior of the school was not as luxurious as it sounded. The drinking fountains hardly ever worked, and when they did the water was warm. Also, the classrooms were no bigger than a small guest room. To be honest, I kind of liked how small the rooms were. It meant I didn’t have to associate with so many people every single class. Well, when I say “associate,” my way of “associating” is cowering in the far corner and hoping that no one makes any eye contact with me. Well, hopefully, this year would the year that I actually made eye contact with someone other than my friend, Ziggy.

Ziggy is just her nickname. Her real name is Zigana Williams. Ziggy is stuck in her emo phase, and she has been for four years now. At this point, I’m starting to think it’s not a phase. However, she is completely aware that she is emo and she takes great pride in it. She always says, and I quote, “My skin is just as dark my soul.” She is just so angsty. Every morning, Ziggy draws a cracked heart on her cheek with eyeliner; she is THAT kind of emo. She also puts all of this black eye shadow around her eyes. To be fair, the black makes her chocolate brown eyes pop. She wears a black velvet choker almost everyday. If she’s not wearing that damn choker, then she must be ill. Her hair is usually in a side-braid because she doesn’t want her long hair getting all over the place when she is painting. For such an angsty woman, she loves to paint beautiful things, such as butterflies settled on tulips.

I finally decided that I would have to get out of my white, volkswagen beetle, from 1963, and face the hell that was school. Luckily, it was only the first day so I wouldn’t really have homework. I would only have to get parent signatures for the courses I was taking. Whoopity-doo! The same papers that I had signed every single year. Maybe I could have one good day of the school year. Of course, that was not going to happen.