Don't You Want to Play?

Chapter 6

6: Kaleb

Post-Homecoming week was bad. I had to hide in the bathroom for the majority of the lunch period for fear of Abi ripping my throat out. In addition to that, we constantly moved tables, leaving Abi to storm out of the room while Drew ducked behind the nearest trash can.

And then there was Kaleb.

He'd taken up the odd habit of locking himself in his room and speaking softly. Strange, yes, but he'd had a hard life and I thought nothing of it. Besides, he could go on playing games and stop bothering me every night, which had become a bad habit of his as well.

I had to lock my door and windows so he couldn't get in. I would usually find him curled up, sound asleep in the hallway in the morning. I would drag him back into his room and leave him on the floor, because I was questionably the weakest person in my school. I'd set a pillow underneath his head and throw a blanket over him, making it look like he'd slept on the floor.

Pretty soon, Mom caught on and asked him about it. Kaleb always said he fell asleep in his bed, not on the floor or in the hallway. I shrugged it off, figuring he just didn't want Mom to worry. It was fair, because I didn't want Mom to yell at me for locking him out of my room. Something told me that wouldn't go over so well.

The second half of the second week into October was just as stressful, with tons of homework to do while babysitting the twins and Kaleb. Abi had calmed down a bit, but we were still scared as heck to talk to her, and didn't do much more than exchange awkward small talk in the halls between classes.

I sat down next to Drew, who personally disliked Abel. I sat in between the two, keeping the fire at bay. I guess Drew was jealous or something, considering he wasn't very artistic at all.

"Don't you have a girlfriend Abel? She was just here yesterday wasn't she?" he asked, munching on a french fry.

I quickly kicked the side of his leg under the table. Why would he bring that up? I didn't want two people angry at us.

Abel shot him an annoyed look, but remained calm nonetheless. He was a sweet kid really. He swished his hair out of his face and frowned. "She's in Canada remember? She's visiting her family up there before heading over to France for a week. Don't you pay attention to us when we speak?"

"She's Canadian?"

Another kick.

"No, she's French."

"But she's in-"

"Drew!" I hissed, nudging his side. By nudging I mean, jabbing him with my elbow.

He reluctantly gave up and continued eating his food. I sighed and played around with my mashed potatoes. What was I going to do with him?

That afternoon, I caught Kaleb sneaking around in my room, trying to steal a picture book from its shelf. I liked keeping some of my childhood princess books around, just because they were great memories. I would also, of course, read them to my own children when the time came. So I wasn't exactly happy to find him trying to tear the pages out too.

"Kaleb!" I yelled, making a dive for the book.

He looked at me and dropped it, then scrambled to his feet and fled into his room. I picked up the book to make sure it hadn't been damaged. It was opened to the story of Cinderella, with the classic Disney cartoons to accompany the fairytale.

Seeing as nothing was torn out, I set the book back on the shelf where it had been. I stood up, going to confront Kaleb about the incident.

"Kaleb!" I growled, knocking on his door. I tried to open it, but he'd locked the door. I stood on my tip toes, searching for the key, when I heard a soft click.