Big City Villain | BOOK ONE

Chapter Five: Self Proclaimed Best Friend Charlie.

"Time to wake up, Coal! We'll be late if you don't get a move on. And your brother has already left for school, so hurry up!" Charlie yelled, his voice was too loud and the bright morning light streaming through my open curtains was enough to make me cringe.

"I'm calling in sick," I grumbled, burying my head back under my pillow, hoping that it would go away. And by 'it' I mean Charlie, in case you didn't catch on. Why is he such an optimist? Why does he have to be a morning person?

"Are you having one of your episodes again?" Charlie asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

I peeked out from my pillow and saw the dark brown haired, average height, fairly in-shape, deeply tanned kid I call my best friend standing in the middle of my room, backpack on his shoulders and a bright smile that came on the second he saw me peeking out. "Stop smiling," I grumbled. "You're not supposed to be happy it's Monday. You're supposed to be frustrated and protesting this whole nonsense of school on Monday. And no, I'm not having an episode."

He rolled his brown eyes but didn't drop the smile, unfortunately. "So I was listening to the police scanner last night."

"I thought your mom grounded you from using that thing indefinitely?" I asked, sitting up and running my fingers through my bed hair as I stretched my whole body out slowly.

Charlie stuttered and made a show of not making it a big deal. "Well, mom grounded me from using that particular police scanner, she said nothing about the new scanner I got."

I shook my head and said with a yawn, "You can find a loophole in anything."

"It's one of my rare talents," he said sounding mock-humble. "Anyway, off subject. Like I was saying, last night when I was listening to the scanner, guess who made a reappearance?"

"Sherlock Holmes."

"No, and quit making jokes." Charlie slipped his backpack off his shoulders and rummaged through it quickly. He pulled out a black notebook, one that I immediately rolled my eyes at when I recognized it. "Now at exactly 1:03 AM-"

"What were you doing up at one in the morning?" I asked, frowning at him.

Charlie peeked at me over the top of his notebook with a scowl. "None of your business. As I was saying, at exactly 1:03 AM-"

I grabbed my pillow and threw it at him. "But I want to know what you were doing up!"

He grabbed my pillow and smacked me across my head. "Shut up, dude, I'm trying to talk here. Now super villain Headphones was a few blocks away from this exact spot, saving some girl from a home invader. Anti Gravity responded almost at the same time that the Police did."

"So?" I asked, getting out of bed, but tripping on my black boots and doing a face plant on his backpack. "Ouch!" I screamed, being overly dramatic as usual. I rolled myself off his backpack and groaned. "What do you got in there? Spikes or something? Your police scanner you're hiding from your mom?"

"I wasn't exactly planning on anyone doing a face plant into it!" Charlie said, laughing his curly-haired head off. He picked his backpack up and slipped it on, he shook his head at me. "Watch where you're going, doofus."

"Watch where you put your backpack," I grumbled.

"Someone's grouchy," Charlie said, smirking at my pain.