My Best Friend's Brother

Shame

Aria sat at the lunch table watching as Stevie and Malcolm played catch, Stevie was narrating himself but Malcolm was growing a bit impatient.

“Would you just throw the ball?” Stevie did as told but despite his appearance he had one hell of an arm. “Ow!”

“Want me to. . . kiss it?” Stevie teased, Malcolm rolled his eyes and threw the ball. He had thrown it too high and it went right over Stevie; it rolled to Kevin, a jerk who won’t leave Malcolm alone.

“Oh, man, Kevin.” Malcolm walked over and held up his glove. “A little help.”

“Did you lose your ball-ey baby?” Kevin asked in a baby voice.

“Can I have my ball back, Kevin?”

“‘Can I have my ball back, Kevin?’” The boy mocked Malcolm until Malcolm said something in a different language. Aria wasn’t really sure what he had said but she was sure that he had insulted Kevin. “You stink! Your new name is Stinky.”

“Whatever. Just give me my ball back.”

“You want it? Go get it.” Kevin threw the ball and walked off, Malcolm sighed as he turned back to his friends.

“I hate that guy.”

The next day Aria sat at the lunch table chatting casually with Stevie as they waited for Malcolm to get his lunch. Soon Malcolm plopped down, obviously annoyed, Aria noticed that he didn’t have pizza but instead goulash. Gross.

“What. . . is that?” Stevie asked.

“I don’t know. All I can identify are little pieces of carrots and. . . I don’t know, I think they’re Skittles.”

“Hey, look at the goulash boy.” Kevin teased as he walked over to the three, Aria rolled her eyes annoyed already by the mere presence of the boy.

“Get away from me, Kevin.” Malcolm snapped.

“Ooh, ‘Get away from me, Kevin.’ He’s so sad that he doesn’t have pizza and I do.”

“I said get away.”

“Chill. . . man. I got. . . your back.” Stevie said as he took off his glasses.

“What are you looking at Kenar-butt?”

“Light. . . some shadows.”

“I’m looking at a little boy with nothing better to do than annoy us.” Aria spoke up causing the three to look at her, “Do you seriously have nothing better to do? We obviously don’t want to talk to you because you're a jerk so go bother someone else.”

“Shut up, nobody asked you.” Kevin snapped.

“Kevin, I’m warning you. Get out of my face.” Malcolm warned not liking how he spoke to his best friends.

“Oh, Malcolm doesn’t like me eating so close to his face with pizza I have and he doesn’t.” Kevin ended up spitting on Malcolm causing him to become furious and shove the boy. Malcolm was hitting the boy before he grabbed the slice of pizza that Kevin had dropped off the ground and held it up.

“You want pizza? I’ll give you pizza.” He shoved it in Kevin’s face before swinging again, kids started to form a crowd around them chanting ‘fight’. Aria knew this wasn’t going to end well and she was right, Kevin ended up being seven; it was shocking to say the least.

After school the Wilkerson boys and Aria were walking home while Reese read the papers that he was all too familiar with.

'Inappropriate. . . vicious.’ Oh, wait. . . ‘thug’. Dude, I have never gotten ‘thug’ before. That’s like the Oscar.” He laughed.