Life Sucks
"No no no," Glen yells at the screen as his body spontaneously drops the blanket that covers it.
<<Game Over>>
"Darn it!" The clock marks past three in the morning. In a few hours his first day of high school will begin, however he doesn't seem interested about that fact. Holding on to his childhood's favorite game he decides to reject his first year as a teenager.
Sipping the last part from his drink, he let's the control from the video-game's console fall between his knees and falls asleep over the sofa.
"I'm hungry!" A pillow hits him in the face.
Their mother must have leaved early again, leaving him and his little sister alone for the rest of the day.
"Just sleep. It will go away," Glen covers himself with a fictitious blanket while kicking the real one its way up to his arms' reach.
"I'll be late! I don't want to be late! I don't want to be another Glen-failure!" she insists. He opens his eyes wide, remembering that day would be Nikki's first day of primary school.
"Just... go grab some milk from the fridge for starters," his tone turns darker, trying to act like he is mad. Mom has left Nikki alone on her first day of primary school, just like she had done it to him.
His first instinct is to try not to throw up. Eating junk food and sipping carbonated drinks until falling asleep took away his appetite. What could he prepare for his sister? The fridge is always empty, he wastes his own allowance on junk food and Nikki is still too young to worry about her own food.
Standing up from the sofa, he walks towards the kitchen. Nikki is serving milk on the kitchen top, sporadically hitting her glass. Yesterday's disaster is still present on the granite surface. Glen sighs and grabbing a damp cloth starts cleaning it.
"Don't you look at me! The cut from the box is wrong!"
Had her sister seriously brought out his bad temper instead of her mother's character? He stops to think about it for a little, only to realize Nikki has spent more time with him on her life than with anybody else. Once finished cleaning, he prepares a suspiciously yellow bread with peanut butter. Then he sits in front of his sister, contemplating her as she devours the meal like there is no tomorrow.
A four-feet-tall disaster, hands and cheeks covered on peanut butter. She is anxious for finishing her meal soon, she's really excited about the idea of entering primary school. Surely he remembers those days too.
A wounds opens up on Glen's heart at which he grabs his chest. He goes to the kitchen and takes the dump cloth again. Grabbing her chin, he cleans the sticky peanut butter from his sister's face. Her resistance is restless.
"Leave me! It annoys me!" Not a single time she brings up mother as a threat nor she questions why isn't she here helping her out instead of his brother. Such things don't exist inside her mind. Glen only grabs his chest, trying not to think about it again.
The bus awaits at the usual hour. Glen triple-checks Nikki's backpack before letting her cross the entrance door. He just quickly grabs the first clothes he finds on site and puts it over his pajama. Taking his dusty backpack from deep inside the closet just hopes for its content to be exactly the same as the last day of last year's school day. Nikki knows how to take care of herself. He made the superhuman effort to make sure about that.
Fortunately, Nikki just pushes her cheek against the window throughout the journey, looking with bright eyes the new adventure that awaits her. Anything that weren't watching her brother playing video games and ignoring all the drawings that she shows him. Glen checks the map that mom sent him days earlier. He already studied all possible routes and feels confident about having chose a relatively safe one.
"Leaving her at school should be trivial. The same as with the nursery," he thinks to himself.
"Excuse me, how old are you?" the new teacher asks to Glen as she receives his sister. Nikki instantly makes the place her own, running through the entrance towards the long and colorful playground.
"Just take care of Nikki. I don't wanna come rushing from school for her and missing more lectures," he answers rudely, putting both of his hands inside his jacket's pockets, heading back to the bus stop. The teacher just stares at him, both confused and concerned. Both sentences sounded so wrong on such a young boy.
Checking his wrist clock Glen realizes that he'll be late for school. Last year the director warned him that from high school onwards they could suspend him if he kept skipping the morning's lectures.
"Life sucks," he mutters despite himself, running across the edge of the street to avoid the pedestrians. His school was only a few blocks from there, but not close enough to both drop Nikki school and be at time for his.
