Under the Influence

Chapter Eleven: Charlie, It's Cold Outside

   The thing that woke me up on Friday morning was not the shrill ring of my digital alarm clock that shrieked out precisely five high-pitched beeps before proceeding to blare out the music playing on whatever station I had set it on. Instead, I was awoken by the cold hardwood floor that I landed on with a thud. Even though I was tangled up in my blanket when I fell off my bed, it didn’t seem to soften the impact when I landed straight on my side.

   I groaned and untangled my arms from the blanket so I could rub the sleep out of my eyes. My eyelids drooped down heavily, and I contemplated staying here and going back to sleep because my bed had suddenly seemed so far away.

   But then my alarm clock just had to bleep loudly enough to wake the dead, also managing to startle the living daylights out of me. I plugged an ear with one hand and covered the other with my shoulder, all while trying to blindly reach up and smack the ‘off’ button on my alarm clock. The only thing I ended up hitting was my hand on the hard surface of the nightstand.

   Finally, the noisy ringing ceased and was replaced by some trashy mainstream pop song. I didn’t know which one was worse.

   I forced myself to get up and turn the radio off with the simple push of a button. The chilly floor was starting to freeze my feet so I fetched a pair of socks from the bottom drawer of my chest of drawers and slipped them on.

   Just as I was sitting on my bed with an unclothed foot dangling off the edge and a sock halfway up the other, Scott barged in my room with a huge grin on his face. “Mornin’,” he greeted cheerfully.

   “What do you want?” I grumbled. “I have to get ready for school.”

   “Actually, you don’t.” I didn’t know why he was smiling so widely. It was too early in the morning for this. Usually I was a morning person, but today I was just too tired.

   “Huh?”

   “I need to get to the comic book store. See you later.”

   “Hey, wait!” I shouted before he had a chance to leave my room. “What do you mean I don’t have to get ready for school?” This was way too complicated for my sleepy brain. Now was not the time for riddles.

   “Didn’t you look outside?”

   I stared at him blankly.

   “It’s snowing, Charlie! It’s the first snowfall of the year. There’s no school, it’s been cancelled.” After Scott relayed the good news on to me, he exited the room with one final grin. As he descended down the stairs, I heard him yell, “Have fun on your snow day!”

   A few minutes later, I heard the front door slam shut, and Scott was gone. And only then did I process what he actually said—it was a snow day today and there was no school. This was the first snow day ever in my eighteen years of living, and it was only the end of November. What a special day; I should mark my calendar.

   My initial idea was to go back to sleep and figure out how to spend the rest of my day later. That didn’t work out, though, because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t fall back to sleep. So I yawned and stretched lazily, ambling downstairs as I dragged my feet the whole way there.

   As I was fixing myself a bowl of cereal, the front door burst open and someone walked in. First I thought it was my brother, and I paid him no attention, returning my primary focus back to the bowl of Frosted Flakes. But when the intruder started to speak, it definitely wasn’t Scott’s voice that I was hearing.

   “You know, you really should lock your front door,” said Hunter as he strolled inside the kitchen and leaned against one of the counters. “Anyone could just walk inside.” Scott must’ve forgotten to lock the door after he left earlier today.