A Strange Sound
The next day Keenan meets me right by the school entrance, he's wearing some khaki pants and a checkered sweater. He stands casually leaning on to the side of a tall tree with his bag slung over his shoulder. I see by the browning of the leaves and the chilly atmosphere that fall isn't too far away now, I better take advantage of whatever of the warm temperature that's left.
"Hey," Keenan greets me smiling and for the first time I notice how tall Keenan really is. Either that or I'm just super short; well whatever the reason is he has to bend over just to talk to me. We remain outside chatting for a few minutes before the bell rings signalling the the start of the first period.
Keenan accompanies me to my class and bids me goodbye before heading to his class in the opposite direction.
At break I find Keenan standing by my locker distractedly looking at the stickers I stuck on on the first week of school. From afar he looks calm and almost at ease, I see his thin lips twitch into a slight smile as he continues to gaze at my version of art.
"Don't stare for too long, they might suck you in," I say teasingly. Keenan lets out a low chuckle and asks to have lunch with me at the school's cafeteria.
"Well sure but I usually have lunch with Giselle and a bunch of her friends." Keenan shoots a shocked look my way and raises his eyebrows questioningly.
"What?" I ask. "You're friends with Giselle Taylor?" He asks almost in disbelief.
"Well yeah, Principal Rydell wanted to help me get accustomed to the school a bit more so he assigned Giselle to be sort of like my school guide." I explain. Keenan nods then goes silent for a bit, I sneak a look at him from the corner of my eye and he seems to be baffled yet slightly intrigued.
"What's the matter?" I ask him but I can already guess what he's going to say next.
"Well...it's nothing really. I'm just a little amazed because Giselle isn't the easiest person to talk to around here. She's...different." I bite my lower lip at the statement and I let it mull over inside my mind. He does have a point but she's not that bad once you get to know her, she can be kind of sweet sometimes. Well 'sweet' may not be the appropriate word in this case but it's almost accurate.
"Giselle has a strong character but that's what makes her so cool to be with." I say smiling, I look over and I can see that Keenan is not so convinced so I try a different approach.
"We can sit at your table today then we'll try having lunch with her tomorrow. Sound good?" Keenan looks relieved by this and silently agrees to the idea but I can still see the doubt swimming in his eyes. When we finish grabbing our trays we meander through the sea of students and I try to look out for Keenan's friends. I don't know what type of person Keenan is yet so maybe I'll get an inside look through his friends, after all, birds that flock together right? We move around for a bit before landing on a table with about three guys sitting and two of them seem to be having a heated discussion over something.
"...no! How could you possibly say that?!" I hear one of them shout, Keenan pauses behind me and just stares at the two guys arguing. I look back and I see him roll his eyes with a dull expression on his face, he shakes his head when he notices me looking at him and then slightly smiles. We continue standing there silently listening to the argument unravel, I try to understand what's going on amongst them but I'm too lost in the conversation to pick anything up.
"Please don't start this again, I need to study for the test we have next period," one of the other guys whine but no one seems to notice him. From the looks of it Keenan's friends seem quite interesting already, this is a good sign. Keenan looking fed up by the argument places his tray on the table and says "Hi" a little too loudly and this puts a halt to the argument at hand. The two boys stare at Keenan looking surprised yet pleased to see him, a round of greetings erupt from the table.
"Where have you been man? You purposely left me here with these two arguing over nothing." One guy says jokingly.
"I had to talk to a friend...sort of. I'd like to introduce you guys to an old friend of mine," Keenan says smiling.
"Brooklyn, this is Isaac Adams, Lance Chandra and Matthew Espinoza. Guys, this is Brooklyn." Keenan says. I mutter a small 'Hi' and wave at the guys sitting. I barely get so much as an answer back, instead I get a hard stare from Isaac. The atmosphere becomes a little awkward so I just look down at my black boots. Keenan isn't slow to notice the weird tension between the boys and I.
"What's the matter?" Keenan asks, this question mostly directed at the boy glaring hardly at me. "Isaac, what the heck? Stop doing that," Keenan says almost sounding annoyed.
"Is this the reason why you abandoned us last night? You knew we had a project due today! That class is very important to us and you know it!" I wince a little at Isaac's harsh tone, he seems to do most of the shouting amongst them. One of the guys sigh and rolls his eyes at Isaac's obvious overreaction, "Oh gosh, seriously? Keenan, it's fine. We managed to finish the project in time and we've already handed it over. Isaac is just being melodramatic...as usual." Lance says staring at Isaac, Isaac scoffs then looks away from us. Lance ignores him then stands up, "Hi Brooklyn, it's very nice to meet you. Keenan hasn't shut up about ever since you walked in through those doors. I'm glad he finally got up the courage to talk to you." At this Keenan punches Lance in the arm but Lance only laughs at this. "Ouch, calm down." Lance says chuckling.
"Sit down, please." Keenan says to me. Lunch went on smoothly after that even though I got a few dirty looks from Isaac I still felt comfortable with the four. Matthew didn't say much to me but he seemed very engrossed in his Biology textbook, I'm guessing he aced the test after all the reading he did.
***
"Gosh, Ms Bishop can really go on for hours can't she?" Keenan says to me.
"Well you know, English isn't always just about English." I reply. "You sound almost delighted," Keenan says incredulously. I roll my eyes at his tone of voice, Ms Bishop's class is one of the only classes I enjoy. Something about her voice calms me and just for once amidst all the chaos I can feel at peace. It's home time and the heat is almost unbearable, children are scattered all around the school premises as they try to find their parents. Parents are equally doing the same as they try to gather them up to take them home. From a distance I see a young, blonde girl hugging her mother tightly. I can tell from the tears that this must be her first day and from the looks of it it wasn't the best first day.
"Hey, would you like to go out for some coffee?" Keenan asks me. I laugh at his suggestion of coffee under this weather. "Seriously? It's like a hundred degrees today, coffee doesn't sound inviting at all!" I tease laughing.
"Geez fine, ice cream then. You know what I mean, would you like to go out or not?" Keenan asks. "Yeah sure," I reply. "Alright, I know a really great place not too far from here. Your mom doesn't mind you staying out after school right?"
"Nah, quite the opposite actually. She'd be happy knowing that I'm hanging out with someone for once." I reply. The walk from our school to the ice cream shop is not too long and I'm happy to see that Keenan's nervous demeanour has completely disappeared. As we approach the ice cream shop Keenan runs ahead of me to hold the door open for me and bows as I walk through.
"What a gentleman you are, thank you." I say giggling. Keenan follows me and the door closes with a ding resonating from the bell. Keenan picks a red booth by the window for us to sit by, I throw my backpack on to the end of the booth and I sit across from Keenan. Keenan does the same and waits for the waiter to show up with our menus. The place is small yet intriguing, pink and blue colours radiate off the walls as well as a few decorations with colours to match. I allow my eyes to scan my surroundings and I take in all I can see, I look at Keenan and he seems to be doing the same. He's been here before I'm sure but I won't question him. As I look around and let my eyes wander I notice that I recognise a few faces, probably I've seen them at school before. I continue scanning until my ears pick up on an oh so familiar laugh in the distance, my heart drops as the laughter goes on. I look ahead and I immediately see who I think it is, my eyes land on the beautiful, blonde bombshell sitting from across the room. I stare right at her and the more I stare the dryer my mouth gets and the faster my heart beats. Jacqueline notices my staring and from that she winks at me with a smug look on her face. I look down as soon as she winks and I begin fiddling with the charms attached to my bracelet. Why is she even here? I think to myself.
"What's the matter?" Keenan asks me.
"Oh uhm...nothing," I quickly reply hoping that he doesn't pick up on my sudden change of behaviour. Keenan looks back and at that he sees Jacqueline tossing her glossy, blonde hair over her shoulder. Keenan lowers his eyes to look me right in the face and as I look up I see that he's already connected the dots. Keenan looks at her and then back again at me, his face then contorts into a scowl replacing the smile he was wearing before.
"Ignore her, Brooklyn." Keenan says reaching over to grab my arm, "We're here to stave off the heat with some ice cold cream, don't let her stop you from enjoying yourself." I smile at his use of words. "Alright but quick question. Who calls ice cream ice cold cream?" I ask giggling, Keenan laughs at me then waives for the waiter.
The afternoon was spent with exchanged giggles as well as harmless teasing. After that Keenan walked me home and promised me we'd hang out over the weekend. My mom tried to get him to stay over for some snacks but Keenan knew better than to accept or else he'd have left at midnight.
***
"So, how'd it go?" My mother asks me curiosity evident in her voice. It's quite late and my mother and I are sitting in the living room watching a reality show.
"It was okay, we just had some ice cream then we left." I say rather too briefly for my mother's liking. I look over and I see her with a bored expression on her face, my mother is usually the type to meddle in my business no matter how small the business is.
"Brooklyn..." my mother says. I shrug my shoulders in response to her quite condescending tone. "Mom, nothing happened at all. We talked for a bit and that's it." My mother doesn't seem satisfied with the answer but she ignores it then proceeds to comment on the remainder of the show. After a while we decide that it's late so we kiss each other goodnight and both head to our rooms.
As I lie in bed I think about the day I've had and how different it was from my usual day-to-day to activities. Keenan is actually really funny and I laughed at almost half of his jokes, something about him just makes me smile inside. He always looks so shy when he's walking alone but when he's with me it's like he completely opens up and begins to ignore the world around him. I can see why we were best friends before, it's almost hard to imagine that we spent so much time apart. Lying here in the dark with all these thoughts running through my head makes it so hard to fall asleep especially with the piano playing in the background. I guess I should just switch off my phone, must be some type of alarm going off. I reach over and check my phone but there's no alarm going off, that's weird. My phone's blank home screen stares at me, all I can see is the time...it's 2 a.m. I long press my phone's button to switch it off. A light flashes briefly on the screen and after a few seconds the light disappears. The piano sound seems to have ceased, that's good. I snuggle back into my soft, cotton sheets and I close my eyes trying to imagine what Keenan's promised to show me around town tomorrow. I let my imagination take me away in hopes that it'll exhaust me but the melodic sounds of the piano keep me awake. But what could that be? I sit up now slightly frustrated at the weird piano sound keeping me awake. I stretch my arm to the side to switch on my bedside table lamp, the light immediately illuminates the whole room. My eyes scan the room in hopes to find out where the sound is coming from but I fail to find the source of the noise. I kick the blankets away from me and I slip on my slippers, maybe I'll just follow the sound. I open my bedroom door allowing myself to peep into the dark hallway, I creep slowly so I don't miss the location of where the sound is coming from. As I continue walking I realise that the further away I get from my room the lower the sound gets. So that could only mean that it's coming from my room, as the realisation dawns on me I run back into my room and shut the door. I lean back on to my door and I hold my breath as silently as I can so I can hear where the sound is coming from. Moving at a snail's pace I approach my bed, and it seems as if the sound is coming from behind it. I quickly switch on the lights and I run back to my bed, I decide that it's best to move it. Maybe Simon's mp3 player fell behind it when we were moving stuff. The bed is quite heavy and difficult to push out of the way but I manage after a few minutes of struggling. I successfully push the bed but I am let down to see that there is no mp3 player or some type of music-playing device behind the bed. Instead, to my surprise, there's a small door right at the bottom of the wall and the sound seems to be coming from behind it. I bend over putting my ear close to the door, the sound is much louder as I'm bent over it. I look down and I see a tiny, brown doorknob sticking out of the small door. I pull at the doorknob but the door doesn't even budge. I try again this time pulling harder hoping I won't break the doorknob but it's almost as if the harder I pull the tighter the door gets. After a few more attempts I decide that it's best to stop, maybe I'm sleep deprived and I'm imagining things. As I sit by the door wiping my brow I listen to the soothing sounds of the paino playing, the tune is almost melancholy but in a positive yet dangerous way. The tune of the piano enraptures me and it's almost as if I can understand the story behind the sad melody and it's like the notes have transformed into words. The song creates a peace within me that is so capturing that it begins to act as a lullaby to me, causing me to feel drowsy and tired. The song is so beautiful it baffles my mind and I can no longer think straight, I close my eyes surrendering myself to the music. And just as the song seems to fade away from my consciousness I hear something, a name perhaps. I knock out, the name echoing inside my mind loudly but also as low as a whisper...
"Brooklyn..."