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A Shermer Christmas Carol
Chapter Fifteen
By Chris Fulmer
Brian lay sideways over the side of his bed. It had not been a very pleasant
ride home. All the things his mother had called him along the way--"criminal,"
"loser," "failure"--had seared into the very heart of his soul. He knew deep down he'd
never be able to get back whatever love she or his father had had for him now, so he
was still as much bent on ending his life as he was when he'd talked to Buck--only he
didn't know how. As he'd been grounded to his room for roughly the next month, he
wouldn't be able to go downstairs and drink any poisons. On top of that, there was nothing in
his room that he could hang himself with, and the fall out his window wasn't high
enough to be fatal. He felt totally lost.
From downstairs came the sound of the front door slamming open. Brian could
guess it was his father coming home. A fresh wave of misery and terror swept
over him. If his mother was harsh to him when these things happened, his father was ten
times worse and had in fact come close to hitting him in rage last time. He braced
himself for the end.
"You have a visitor," his mother announced sternly.
"Huh?" Brian jerked upward. His eyes widened as Chandra entered the room,
looking deeply concerned. "What are you doing here?" he asked her.
"Someone threw the fire alarm, and I just had to know if you'd be all right,'
Chandra explained as the door was slammed hard behind her.
"Huh?" Brian was quite confused. That just didn't make sense, for a person
to just walk out of school and come over to another's house. "Aren't you worried
about getting detention?"
"There are more important things in life," Chandra sat down on the bed next
to him. Brian slumped back down over the side. "I think you're just wasting
your time, because I'm beyond help," he told her. There was no response. He didn't care
to ask why not; he didn't care about anything.
How long they sat there silent neither could be sure, but after a good deal
of time, Brian suddenly heard Chandra burst into tears herself.
"Why are you crying now?" he asked, jerking back upright.
"You don't like me!" she sobbed. "Just say it, you don't like me!"
"I didn't say I didn't like you!" he protested, "I..."
"I know how it works; you think I'm a freak and you decide not to talk to
me!" she cried. "Well I know I'm not normal, and..."
"It's not you, it's me!" Brian broke down into tears himself. "I'm all
wrong!"
Chandra looked up at him and tried to say something, but only silence came
out of her mouth. Brian jumped to his feet. "I can't go on with this stupid and
pointless existence!" he moaned. "I don't care how, I've got to end it now!" In a
flash he grabbed several awards off the wall, smashed their frames, and picked up the larger
frames of glass. He raised them in the air.
"STOP!" Chandra jumped up and grabbed his hand before he could slash himself.
"Why do you want to do this to yourself!?"
"You wouldn't understand!" Brian shoved her arm aside. "You don't know what
it's like to be me!"
"I know a few things about not being happy with myself," Chandra told him.
"What's eating at you?"
"If you must know, I just threw my life away last night and this morning!"
Brian said, turning toward the window and slumping against it.
"The academic competition?" Chandra asked. He nodded. "Second place isn't
bad."
"You people can't get it; I've been waiting my whole life for this, and now
I'll never get it!" Brian banged his head off the windowsill in frustration. "And
now my honors card is shot, as well as any hope of valedictorian, National Honor
Society, and all the awards they offer!"
"Why do you torture yourself about all this?" Chandra asked him with concern.
"They're only awards."
"THEY'RE MY LIFE!!!!!" Brian shrieked at her so loudly that she jumped
backwards in fright. He collapsed into tears again. "You see, when you
decide you're going to be the best in your class gradewise, you have to keep it up at all
times regardless of the cost on yourself. If you can't, you're nothing but a loser. And
that's all I am," he slid down to the floor, "an utter and complete loser with no future!"
"You're not a loser," Chandra walked over and sat down next to him.
"Yes I am!" Brian buried his face in his hands. "Nothing you can say will
make me think otherwise!"
Chandra sighed and looked skyward, "Please God, give me something I can say
to comfort him!" she whispered.
"You think God's going to help this at all?" Brian asked, having overheard her.
"He's certainly not helped me at all so far. In fact, I think he's out to get me!"
"God wouldn't bring this on you if you didn't do anything to anger him,"
Chandra told him. "And he's always willing to help someone in pain."
"Nothing can help me now," Brian sighed in despair. "I've just got to die,
that's the only solution."
"Oh come on, do you really think that will solve anything?"
"Look, if there was any other option, I'd take it, but there isn't!" Brian
snapped. "Everybody hates me: my teammates, my instructor, my school, my family, and
myself! I'm a disgrace to the world!"
"You really think there's no other option?" Chandra was almost in tears
herself. "Believe me, Brian, I think about ending my own life every now and then, too,
but there's always one good reason there that makes me stop. And you know what that is?
It's the knowledge that I've been given one of God's greatest gifts with this life, and
that no matter how bleak things look, there's always light at the end of the tunnel."
She leaned in close to him; so close, in fact, that she rested her head against his side and
began unconsciously rubbing it up and down.
"What are you doing!?" Brian yelled in shock, jumping up in the air.
"I'm sorry, I just didn't...I mean I haven't...it's just...!" Chandra
stammered.
"Why do you do these things?" Brian asked with mild irritation. "I mean,
what you did just now, all the rocking and hand waving you do in class, the..."
"Don't yell at me! I can't help it!" Chandra broke down in tears. "I don't
want to do it, I want to be normal, but it wasn't meant to be!" She jumped up. "I'll
leave you in peace!"
"No, please don't leave!" Brian waved for her to stay. "I'm sorry, I didn't
mean to hurt your feelings."
"Well you did!" Chandra sat back down on the bed.
"I'm sorry. If it's any comfort, whatever problems you might have are
nothing compared to what I go through. I live a miserable life," Brian sighed,
sitting down on the other side of the bed. "Every minute of my life, I'm under enormous pressure
to get every paper and exam right. Nothing less is acceptable to anyone. That's why I
can't go on with life anymore; I can't live without the respect that comes from being the
best."
"I can understand all that, Brian. And I can see why you'd think you'd have
to kill yourself," Chandra told him. "But I can tell you right now, the world would
be a much worse place without you."
"You really think, so?"
"I really know so," Chandra squirmed in closer to him. "I believe that
there's a positive light with every dark moment, and if you just wait a little bit
longer, I think you'll see that light."
"But where do I look for this light?" Brian asked, not totally believing
this.
"It'll come to you somehow. Just keep watching," Chandra put a hand on his
shoulder. Brian started to jerk himself away, but changed his mind and let
her keep it there. "God will show you the way."
She starting rocking in place after saying this, humming an abstract tune
under her breath. Brian was quite confused. All the evidence he'd been given so far
said that he'd screwed up in a large way over the last 24 hours, and yet here was Chandra, a
person he didn't know at all and who he was sure didn't know what he was going through,
telling him that everything would be fine. Who was he to believe?
"...and then I climbed into the barn for the night, and when I woke up, I
hitched a ride to the city, and that when I met you guys," Kevin explained to his new
friends as they entered the grounds of the Wichita train station.
"So you got on the wrong plane in Denver and ended up here," Danny asked him,
overwhelmed by the scope of Kevin's story.
"I didn't get on it, my parents dragged me on it," Kevin corrected him.
"It's not the first time I've gotten lost on the wrong plane. I'll go into that a bit
later on."
He looked around the station. "So where do we go to find out where the
trains leave from?" he asked.
"I think they post the schedules over there," Kayla pointed to a large list
posted in front of the telegraph office about fifty feet to their right. This was the
first words she'd spoken since they'd left the alley, and Kevin had been wondering if something
was bothering her deep down. He sauntered over to the list. Scanning it, he saw
with disappointment that there was nothing going to Chicago, but a train was
leaving for St. Louis in about five minutes that would suffice. "How about a train to St.
Louis?" he called back to the rest of the group. They gave him thumbs-up. "Okay, it's
over on Track 9, wherever that is," he said.
Kayla pointed over to the track furthest from where they were currently
standing. Kevin could see several railroad employees feverishly loading objects into a
rail car near the end of the train. "Okay, when those guys leave, we'll make a break for
it," he announced.
"Now do you really think we'll be able to get all the way to St. Louis
without getting caught?" asked Skylar. He had seemed rather unhappy about the plan to
go to Chicago from the outset, Kevin thought, and he certainly wasn't looking any
happier now. But that was the least of Kevin's concerns. He was watching the railroad
workers finish loading up the car and start to walk away. He waited until they were all
gone, then waved his arms and shouted, "Now!"
The four of them took off running for the car, which fortunately hadn't been
closed up yet. They dove into it headfirst before anybody could notice them.
"Is it just me, or is it really cold in here?" Danny asked, shivering. Kevin
looked around and saw nothing but rows and rows of refrigerators with milk cartons
inside them.
"Perfect!" he groaned, "we had to choose the refrigerator car!"
"Well, let's..." Skylar began, but Kevin made the "Shhhh!" sign to him as the
sound of the railroad workers coming back. "Okay, let's close it up and get
this train rolling!" one of them yelled. The car's door was slammed shut. Moments
later, the train's whistle sounded and the train began rolling down the tracks. Kevin
breathed a large sigh of relief. He had been a bit worried that they wouldn't be able to
leave Wichita without getting caught.
He leaned against one of the refrigerators of milk and shivered against the
cold of the car. "So, are you all from Wichita?" he asked his friends.
"We are, he's not," Danny pointed to Skylar, who was sitting on a crate in
the middle of the car with his arms folded, looking more sour than ever. "He just
popped up about, I'd say, two months ago. We'd never seen him before."
"Something tells me I've seen him before," Kevin said. He gave Skylar a
closer look. "Have you ever been on television or in the movies?" he asked him.
Skylar merely turned away and said nothing.
"So what the matter with him?" Kevin asked Danny.
"He never says anything about where he came from," Danny told him. "He
always closes up when we bring it up."
"Oh," Kevin said. "I know a few people like that back at home." He decided
to change the subject. "So, how long have the rest of you been living in that
alley?" he asked, hoping this question wasn't too personal.
"Close to six years now," Kayla said, looking quite sad.
"That long?" Kevin was surprised.
"That long," Kayla nodded. "I never really knew my family; they all died
when I was three. I've been living on the streets ever since." She held up the
large teddy bear that she'd brought along with her. "This is all I have to remember them by.
They used to put this in my crib to keep me happy. That's the only memories of home I
have." She sniffed slightly. "I wouldn't mind one, though."
"Well, don't you worry, I'll make sure you find a good home when we get to
Chicago," Kevin assured her.
"Promise?" Kayla brightened up.
"It's a promise," Kevin smiled. He gave her hand a strong shake. "I always
keep my word." He turned to Danny. "What about you?"
"It's been about ten months now," Danny said, growing rather nostalgic and
distant. "I went to an orphanage first, but it they treated me wrong, so I
ran away and took up life on the streets."
"So what happened to your family?" Kevin asked.
"I'd rather not go into it right now Kevin," Danny told him.
"Sure?"
"Sure."
"Okay," Kevin leaned back against the nearest crate. "Are you up to telling
me what your life was like before, uh,...things changed?"
Danny paused for the longest moment before answering, "We were just your
average American family. I had four brothers and three sisters. The house
was mobbed during holidays. I remember all of us fighting for food at dinners."
"I know exactly what that's like," Kevin commented.
"I was just an average student in school, but I had a good amount of
friends," Danny continued. "I remember all the kids on the block..."
"We get the idea," Skylar called from atop his crate, "we don't need your
family history."
"Excuse me, but I was listening to what he was saying!" Kevin snapped up at
him. Skylar merely snorted and rolled over on his side, ready to go to sleep.
Kevin sighed and pulled out Goblet of Fire.
"Oh you're into Harry Potter!" Kayla exclaimed, glancing at the book.
"Yes I am," Kevin told her. "Are you?"
"Well, I snuck into the local theater when they showed the film and got
hooked on it," Kayla explained to him. "I've been waiting to read the books ever
since."
"Well in that case, let me start you from the beginning," Kevin pulled out
Sorcerer's Stone and handed it to her. "Enjoy."
"Thanks," Kayla smiled at him.
"So Kevin, you were saying that this isn't the first time you got left on
your own?" Danny asked him.
"Oh yeah," Kevin said. "It all began two years ago. My family was planning
on going to Paris for Christmas to visit my Uncle Rob. My Uncle Frank's family
had come over to go with us, so..."
On to Chapter 16
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