'The Lost Boys is a story about the supernatural, about love, music and friendship. When Joey Gray first meets this strange mysterious boy who never leaves the cemetery, she never imagined her life would be turned upside down. Together they will hav...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The rest of the week passed in a blur.
Mom was at work first thing in the mornings, and left us by ourselves all day long. Sometimes she called to check up on things. She had Tristan's admission and paperwork situation almost resolved now but there were still a few tricky things to work on, so she ended up arriving back pretty late most nights.
For Tristan, the week was kind of a massive, super-fast, twenty-first-century training program. For a kid from the fifties, he had a lot to learn to get up to date.
I spent every day trying to explain how stuff worked in the modern world. He picked up on things pretty fast. Amazingly fast. He was incredibly smart.
He thought everything was very modern and "swell". On that point, I had to advise him to never, ever, say that word again. I remembered he had used it before and it definitely had to go. I presented him the current "awesome", "cool" and "wicked". He'd pick up on more teen slang later.
I thoroughly instructed him about computers and let him play for a while on my laptop. He was flabbergasted by Google Earth! He could not believe mankind was able to come up with an invention that made it possible to travel anywhere on the planet without leaving the house. That and the internet kept him distracted for days.
And then I introduced him to my iPod. He fell instantly and completely in love with modern music. I could see it in his eyes, all the awe, reverence and excitement. So I downloaded a bunch of songs from different periods of time, and let Tristan keep it for the time being. From that day on, whenever Tristan was too quiet, you could look for him and he'd be sitting with music blasting on high though his earphones, happiness flashing inside his eyes like battery charges.
Then I taught him about cell phones, texting, ringtones, GPS, the cell gadgets. I knew it was a lot to take in, and that he was only absorbing a little of all the information I was giving him, but as I said, he was a fast learner. He'd have plenty of time to fill in the gaps later.
One day I took him to the nearby mall.
He still tried to comb his hair way too formal for my taste, so I messed it all up before we stepped foot outside the house, despite his frowning, disapproving scowl. We walked aimlessly round the mall for a while, so he could get a feel for the place and the people around. His eyes showed a mix of excitement, caution and flickering attention. The first thing he noticed was some girls sauntering past us, wearing jeans and loose sweaters, same look as mine.
"Now I understand why you're always dressed like a boy, Joey," he said. "Look, there's some girls here dressed just like you! Is it a modern uniform for girls these days?" he asked curiously.
I looked at him in surprise. "Uh, no. It's not a uniform. But not all girls dress this way," I mumbled, embarrassed.
