Flightless Grounding (Gay)

Sixth Flight

"Hey?" I asked.

"Hm?" Shane looked over at me, reading my expression.

"You should hang out with me at school, Monday."

"Oh really? And why is that?" His tone was joking and he smirked before suddenly looking over at the door.

My eyes followed the path to the door, seeing Miranda awkwardly linger in the doorway.

"You can come in, 'ya know," I wasn't going for sarcastic, but that's just how it came out.

She didn't seem to notice and shoved the door wide open. We both cringed at the sound of something behind the door breaking. Just what my room needed. Miranda leaned down but I waved off her efforts.

"It's all good, I'll take care of it later."

Miranda nodded but her eyes weren't on me. She was giving a secret smile to Shane. I felt left out of the loop at whatever inside joke was being passed. It must have not been too funny because Shane looked away from her. His face had reddened a bit though. Strange.

"So," there was no way to dance around the subject, "can I go in your attic?"

If either of them had been drinkinng something, which thankfully neither of them had, I'm sure they'd have spewed it out. "What?" Shane finally asked, a confused look on his face.

"You see my old man - dad," I corrected, trying to sound less distant, "left some of his things in there. I'm sure of it."

"Are you positive? I mean, others lived there before us." Miranda added.

"I'm not absolutely sure," I tried my best to keep my voice hopeful, but now the likelihood of the situation didn't seem as good as it used to. "It's worth a try though?" It came out more a question than a statement.

Shane grinned. "Sounds like an adventure."

"Yeah," Miranda grinned back. I couldn't help it, their grins were infectious. I joined them, grinning goofily.

"Only one problem," Shane interrupted with a serious face, "what attic?"

"I saw it." I declared.

Miranda rolled her eyes. "Men and their inaction. What the hell are we waiting for?"

I thought up a comeback but forgot it. Damn wondering thoughts. The only interesting thing right now to me was that attic. I've never really been in an attic, either.

Shane jumped up from the bed and walked to the door, opening it. I followed and Miranda carefully hopped across the floor, avoiding any hazardous materials. Like my gear from football practice. I didn't blame her. I wouldn't even wish those on my enemies.

I grabbed my set of house keys before closing my door. Then I looked back, noticing what should have been last night's dinner. It sat in an undistinguishable soggy mess inside the food court bag. Picking it up by the tips of the handles, I tossed it into the kitchen garbage, locked the door, and joined both Miranda and Shane outside.

Miranda unlocked the bottom lock of the front door with her set of keys and pushed it open. Contrary to my preconsumption that their mom was gone, because Miranda used her keys instead of knocking, their mom was home, busily moving about the kitchen.

"Hey boys, Miranda," she inclined her head towards us, her full attention still on icing a rather large cake. It was kinda creepy. I'd heard the saying of parents 'having eyes in the back of their heads', but hadn't really experienced it first-hand. Lierra was like an overgrown teenager. She hardly noticed when I was up to something; if she did, though I highly doubt it, she hardly ever makes it apparent.

"So? Where is it." She used a hushed tone but her words were a blantant demand - not a question.

I looked around, quickly spotting it. It was in the wall above the stairs, covered by the shadows that the house naturally produced. I pointed to it.

Miranda and Shane's eyes directed themselves toward the area and they both had a moment of insight. "We can use the ladder in the closet," Shane explained, already making his way there. He pulled the ladder out and stared at both Miranda and I.

"Are you two going to help, or just stand there looking stupid?"

"Oh," we said in unison, pulling the ladder up the stairs.

"You know, I don't have to take this kind of abuse." I complained.

Miranda smirked, holding back a laugh.

Miranda glanced at the height, then turned to look at me. "You first," she declared.

"Fine," I muttered, trying to hide my excitement.

I climbed the ladder until I was on the fourth to last step and pushed on the white panel. It wouldn't relent. I pushed harder. And harder. It still wouldn't budge.

"Would you hurry up?" Shane sounded mildly annoyed. Him and Miranda were both looking up at me with the same impatience.

"Go help him," Miranda said, turning to face her brother.

Shane climbed the ladder and looked towards me. "We both push on three, okay?"

"'Kay."

"One. Two. Three!" We counted together.

We both pushed and the sealed panel moved up. I pushed it over to the side and climbed in.

It wasn't so dusty that my shoe made any prints or that I coughed but there were a few cobb webs in the more empty spaces. In the middle lay a desk with schematics of planes drawn on various tracing papers, scrap papers and piles upon piles of books.

"Hey! Look over here!" I looked over to see Miranda digging into an old box. She pulled out a large book, which didn't hold my interest until Shane called me over.

"It's a journal," he said, handing it to me.

Miranda pushed the box over to me and started loading everything into it. Shane started helping and I followed suit.

After we were done, the attic was empty, save for the large empty desk in the middle. We carefully lowered the box down the ladder and got it down the stairs.

"Where've you three been," Shane and Miranda's mom said, suddenly appearing before us. Shane mumbled something while I tried my best to not make a guilty face.

She looked up, seeing the uncovered entrance to the attic and made a face. "What in the world? I had no idea that was there. Good job of finding that."

"I'm gonna' go," I trailed off before heaving the box off the floor.

"Me too." Shane said quickly. He took the other end of the box and helped support it. We walked back to my front door and set the box down.

"You should come over."

"Yeah," Shane's voice trailed off slightly. "Uh, I've got homework. I'll catch you later."

I thought about giving him a handshake-chest bump, but when he looked at my hand with a confused expression, I settled on just a hug. The hug was made awkward by our near identical heights. He turned his neck slightly, hugging me back.

He kinda' smelled good. I mean whatever he had on smelled nice.

I momentarily froze.

What in the hell brought that thought about?