One Night To Change It All

Chapter 10

Past

Jerome's mother wasn't in her caravan, probably fucking somewhere with some random dude or drinking. The redhead didn't know and didn't care. All that mattered was that he and Bruce could hang around in peace and take the snakes without being annoyed. The dark-haired boy was always excited to hold them whenever Jerome allowed it.

"I wish the knife-thrower wasn't training already," Bruce admitted.

"Yeah! He complained to my mom again because we borrowed his knives. Thankfully enough, she was too drunk to understand what he was saying!"

"I could bring some knives from my house."

"Nah, old pal needs to learn what sharing means! And it's not as if we kept those anyway!"

Now, Jerome had a point, they would never keep any of the knives, nor do any damage. His friend opened the snake cage and Bruce's hand went to grab Dolly, the white boa. He remembered Jerome's explanation about grabbing snakes: You have to let them know you're coming. Don't speak to her, snakes can't hear us talking. Let them be aware of your presence first, so they won't be surprised and scared. A startled snake is dangerous.

Jerome grabbed the cobra, it was one of his favorite: "How are you, Jazz? They can spat venom in your eyes, did you know that?"

"Yes and even if you survive, you'll probably go blind. You say that one still have his venom?" Asked Bruce.

"Nah, I was kidding when I told you that. You never hold him."

Jerome took away Dolly and put Jazz on the boy's laps as well. Bruce was a bit surprised but received the cobra nonetheless. He gently handled the animal and crossed the cobra's eyes. It had a fascinating glance, and it was chilling to think this beast could kill him, make him blind...The snake clung a bit to him, crawling on his arm and strangely enough, Bruce enjoyed that.

"He likes you," whispered Jerome.

The dark-haired boy smiled to his friend and watched the boa crawling on Jerome's shoulders. It was quite fascinating to see the older boy like that, so at ease with beasts who would usually scare people. Bruce allowed the cobra to crawl on his shoulder before taking him off and giving it to Jerome.

"Can you hold him?"

His friend nodded; Bruce took his school notebook and a pencil out of his school bag. Jerome wondered what he was doing when he saw Bruce opening the notebook. Beside his class notes were many small drawings, made with a simple pen. Each one of those represented something grim or creepy, monsters, strange figures and even tombstones. There was some kind of weird Cheshire cat with a huge, twisted smile.

"Cool! Didn't know you could draw."

"A bit. Some of my classmates were creped out by it. Tommy for example."

"He spoke to you again?" Rage started to rise at the idea. To think this little punk could touch his only friend once more! If it was the case, he and Bruce would pay him another visit.

"No, he doesn't dare to!" Bruce replied with a huge smile. "But I saw him glancing at my notebook once and he was even more scared of me!"

Jerome giggled: "Good! You're drawing Jazz?"

"He has a perfect head..." His face darkened a bit. "My teachers also saw it, they even called Alfred and suggested I should talk to a shrink."

Jerome huffed at this: "Seriously?! For a few drawings? You really live in a world of uptight snobs!"

Bruce had a little smile. It wasn't untrue, and he was glad to hear someone say that. "They kept asking why I was doing such things, all the while asking if I wanted to talk about 'what happened' and all. They didn't even have the guts to directly speak of my parents' death!"