Chapter One

800 23 4
                                    

Eddy had not been having a good Wednesday, which was unsurprising. He'd been hoping to catch a break for his first day as an acrobat-in-training. But for the past twelve years, every Wednesday has gone from "ok" to "this is a bit strange" to "what the actual..." you can fill in the blank. Today was no exception.

He woke up to his usual classical music alarm on his phone. He got out of bed, said hi to his older sister Belle, and started making tea. That's when the pot of boiling water decided to disintegrate before his very eyes. Belle was constantly telling him to replace it, but he always thought it could last a few more weeks.

It couldn't. First, the small fissure at the top burst open. Then, in defiance of all laws of physics, a shard somehow landed in the small flame of the stove. The flame leaped up in a column, which only caused the pot to break more. One of the larger pieces shot by his skin by him as it flew in the air, leaving a searing pain in his arm. This is bad this is bad thisisbad Eddy's brain repeated, leaving him in too much shock to turn off the stove.

Of course, now the ancient fire alarm (which never really worked, but the landlord refused to fix it) decided to start blaring. Belle hadn't been fully awake before, but suddenly she burst into the kitchen.

"What is going on here?" she shouted over the noise, furiously waving a pillow in front of the alarm to circulate the air.

"The old pot broke" Eddy shouted back, finally snapping out of it. He frantically turned off the stove and clutched his arm, which had luckily only received a mild burn.

"I can't believe you didn't throw it out already!" she said, glaring at him.

Eddy wondered how she managed to glare, shout, and wave a pillow, all without her glasses, which had been forgotten in the mayhem.

"I was going to," he said, which was true. He had been meaning to replace it. Eventually.

The fire alarm stopped screeching. Both siblings breathed a sigh of relief.

"Well, that certainly... jump-started my day," Belle said, shaking her hair out of its ponytail. Then she saw Eddy's burn and rushed to his side.

"Ohmygosh are you ok?" she asked, taking his arm gently.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," he responded.

"It's Wednesday," he added.

"As a woman of science," she declared, "your "bad-luck theory is absolute nonsense."

"But it's been like this ever since she died..." Eddy trailed off.

Belle shook her head violently. "No. You already know how I feel about that. Please, don't bring it up."

"Fine," Eddy said, "but don't worry about the burn. It's nothing compared to my blisters from static trapeze."

And it was true. Before he got calluses, he would come back to their shared apartment with extremely nasty rips on his hands. Being a pediatrician, Belle saw it as her responsibility to bandage Eddy's hands while lecturing him on the dangers of infection. Eddy learned how to make tape grips pretty quickly, but Belle still worried about him a bit too much for his liking. After all, he was 22 and knew how to take care of himself.

"Alright, alright" Belle conceded, letting him go and walking back to her room to change out of her pj's. "Just be careful, ok?" she said over her shoulder.

"Okay," Eddy said.

Then he saw that one of the pieces of the teapot had embedded itself in the already peeling plaster of the kitchen wall. It was still smoking and was probably going to leave a permanent burn mark.

Dynamics (Twoset Violin Fanfic)Where stories live. Discover now