Work Text
Summer ’09
By the end of the first week of summer, Alexander has completed his folder of math, grammar, and spelling refresher coursework, despite his mother’s insistence that he ought to leave it for later, once the knowledge has had a little time to drift lazily out of his unexercised brain. He’s read one of the three assigned books, and is contemplating its accompanying book report.By the end of the first week of summer, he’s annoyed his big brother so much that James walks him down to their mother’s store late Friday morning and deposits him behind the counter with his book and his notebook, and then disappears in the shelves to follow the clinking sounds of bottles in boxes being shuffled around in the back.There’s a pause, and some muffled voices, and he catches his own name followed by his mother’s exasperated, “Oh, honestly, James.”So, feet swinging idly back and forth where he’s perched on the stool, he calls out, “I don’t mind, I’ll hang out here today.”Which precipitates quick footsteps coming back up to the front of the store, and then mom is staring at him in fond exasperation, hands resting on her hips. “I’m not worried about you minding, I’m worried about you deciding the canned food aisle needs rearranging and getting the police called on me for child labor practices.”“Oh.” He glances down the rows of shelves and gnaws on his lip, and reassures her, “I wouldn’t do that.” And then: “The cereal could use alphabetizing though.”She sighs, and smacks James lightly in the back of the head. “Go on, then. Home by five.”James kisses her cheek and dashes out the door. Ostensibly to run home and change and meet up with some friends to play football at the park, but Alexander is pretty sure, based upon four days home observing his big brother, that there’s a secret girlfriend factor at play.No thirteen year old guy spends that much time shut up in his room on the phone with friends.Mom circles around behind the long counter and scoots his stool away from the register; he scrabbles for his notebook and drags it along after him, and then resumes staring at James and the Giant Peach with his tongue sticking out between his teeth.“Are you boys getting along?” Alexander shrugs. “If we need to work something else out for the summer…”“James thinks I’m annoying and I think James is boring.”She sighs again. “And just what did you do to annoy him so?”Without looking up from his book, he succinctly informs her, “I brought him a huge worm from the garden and asked if he had a giant peach he could sail to New York.” There’s a muffled sound that might be an effort not to laugh. “He threw it out the window and kicked me out of his room.” Pause. “This is a dumb book.”“It’s fantasy, darling.”“It’s nightmare,” he protests, and then makes a face when she laughs and presses a kiss to the top of his head before slipping away again to finish stocking the sodas in the back. There’s a steady stream of customers in and out of the place until lunchtime. No one pays Alexander any mind while he scribbles his thoughts about his book, save one neighbor who smiles tiredly at him and asks whether they carry band-aids. He thinks about her teenage son and his friends, a couple years older than James, always trying to do stupid tricks on their skateboards, and wonders if the boxes on hand will be big enough, but points her to the furthest aisle anyway.They split mom’s lunch of a banana, grapes, and tuna salad on crackers, and then he’s back at work, only pausing long enough to ask, “Does asinine have one ‘s’ or two?” and then sulking during the entirety of his mother’s ensuing fit of laughter and eventually just choosing a new word altogether.The bell on the shop door jingles around three, and Alexander glances up to see a gangly boy step in, maybe two or three years older than him, already smiling brightly when his eyes land on mom. “Hi, Miss Faucette.”“Twice in one week, Neddy, what’s gone wrong now?”He comes up and folds his arms on top of the counter and tells her, “Well, the truck restocked yesterday and all the new garlic is bad, and dad is gonna freak out.”“Oh dear.” She steps around him, hands on his shoulders as she sidles past, and then vanishes into the back of the shop, leaving Neddy at the counter.He rests his chin on his hands, and Alexander can feel curious eyes sizing him up.They land on his book. “I read that last summer. Good book.”“No, it’s not.”A few seconds of silence ensue, broken only by the steady scratch of his pencil.“Hey, I know you.”“No, you don’t.”Neddy inches closer his way down the counter. “Didn’t you do the petition thing at school so we could get longer recess?” Alexander pauses at that and glances sidelong over at his intruder. “You talked at that assembly back before Christmas.” He grins. “You had to stand on a table.”He sniffs. “I’m very short for my height.”Neddy laughs, but then his mother reappears and interrupts anything he might have had to say by way of response. “I have bad news and I have good news.”“Uh oh.”“I’m out of bulbs. But I do have -” She holds up a jar of pre-minced garlic and shrugs.“You’re amazing, Miss Faucette.” He takes the jar from her hand and a bill from his pocket and hovers and stares some more at Alexander while she counts out his change. “Well, I thought it was cool.”“The book?”“Your speech.” His mother glances sideways at him, bemused. “I mean, everyone wants more recess so they can play or whatever, but you made it all, like… about science.”“Because it is about science,” he retorts, but then mom is handing money back and Neddy is shoving it in his pockets again.He plucks up the jar and heads for the door, in a hurry again now that he’s found his dad’s elusive garlic. “Thanks!” he yells before the door swings shut again behind him, bell jingling once more and then they’re alone again.Alexander finds himself staring off after the older boy. “Classmate?” mom asks, and he shakes his head; assumes he must be a grade ahead, if he read the same book the summer before. “He’s a nice boy. His dad runs that seafood place off the boardwalk that only tourists can actually afford.”He smiles coyly up at her and points out, “His dad took him to work today.”She taps his nose. “Because his parents just split up and are still working out the kinks, if you must know.”“Oh.”“Next time I see Tom, I’ll ask about arranging a playdate.”“Mom,” he whines. “I’m not a baby. I don’t need you to schedule friends for me.”“If you wouldn’t call all of your classmates stupid,” she corrects drily, “maybe I wouldn’t have to, no.”“But they are -!”“Humor me, darling,” she sighs. “You’ve got ten long years left of school with all these same students, it wouldn’t kill you to have one or two you can actually tolerate.” He scowls. “Might not hurt to knock your ego down a peg or two, either.” He scowls harder, and she laughs. Pulls him in a one-armed hug around his shoulders and squeezes tight. “My brilliant boy,” she murmurs, placing a kiss on his temple. “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you to be so serious.”And with a much put-upon sigh, he wriggles out of her grip and says, “Fine, I’ll be friends with Neddy.”“Just like that?” He shrugs. “Think maybe you should ask him first?”“Oh.” Which sounds like an excellent opportunity to do the forbidden, and explore the streets of Christiansted on his own. “Can I go down to -?”“Absolutely not.” He throws up his hands in frustration, and she reiterates with a poorly-suppressed smile, “I’ll talk to his dad. Now,” she perches on the edge of the counter, facing him, and nods at his notebook full of careful print. “Read me what you’ve got so far.”