Chapter 4

                       Nicolas

     It was September in Vermont.  Nicolas, now in the ninth grade had just come home on the school bus.  The whether had changed to a bit brisk and the trees were turning red, yellow, orange and gold as they do in New England in the Fall.  Leaves were on the ground.
      Tall, thin, blond Nicolas got off the bus wearing eyeglasses which he had worn since kindergarten, with his new jacket and backpack slung over his shoulders.  
     Rusty ran out to greet him.  He was no longer having pseudo seizures, so he was pretty sure his mother would be at work and that Daniel was in New Hampshire staying with some friends who were forming a progressive rock band.  This meant Nicolas was alone today.
     It seemed like he just did not fit in.  He felt different.   He hoped he would not get picked on like last year in eighth grade.  He was taking advanced classes in Mathematics and Science.  He did not like the idea of dressing out for Physical Education and he was afraid no one would choose him for their teem in sports like basketball, even though he practiced all the time at home.  A couple of the more popular guys had called him a geek and a nerd last year.  He hoped that since he had grown so much over the summer, he would be more popular this year.  It had started last year in eighth grade when he always had the answers in class.  Some girls had giggled at him and called him computer-head, which he thought was a lame comment.
     He missed Daniel, popular Daniel.  Daniel was the one with retinitis pigmentosa, only Danny did not have to wear glasses like Nick because he claimed they did not help.  Nick knew Danny could not see at night and that he had been singled out by a special vision teacher in school his whole life which made him feel different.  Still it seemed like Danny could fit in no matter what and the girls always liked him, maybe because he played guitar.  
     Daniel and Nicolas had different fathers.  Their mother, who had been dumped by Daniel's father, married Nicolas's father when Daniel was a very small baby, only a few months old, but unfortunately neither father had stayed in their lives, part of the friction from what he had overheard between Mom and his grandparents in Framingham, who he and Daniel had thought were pretty nice, although he had not seen them since he was about ten.
     Grandpa had taught him to play chess and taken he and Daniel hunting once.  He recalled they were formal, had a big house and had cocktails in the afternoon, a drink called a martini with an olive in these tall fancy glasses or sometimes scotch on the rocks.  He and Daniel had gotten into the liquor late one night when it had been left unlocked.  Bitter stuff it was.  It had been Danny's idea, who had been fourteen then.
     They had tried to hide the evidence but they were hungover.  Nicolas had vowed never to drink again.  He remembered how the smell of breakfast cooking made him sick that day.  In fact he had thrown up.
     He wished he had one friend, one friend to shoot hoops with.  They had a basketball hoop beside the house.  Sure, he could play with Rusty, throw him a tennis ball or a toy, but he wanted a real friend, a human being, not a girl friend, another boy, teenage boy to pal around with, actually he decided a girl who was just a friend would do.  Maybe he would like a girlfriend.  This led to fantasies about a girl at school with long brown hair and huge brown eyes and an olive complexion, named Susan.
     Nicolas went inside and made himself a sandwich.  The land phone was ringing.  He was going to let the answering machine answer, feeling lonely he answered it.  
     "Hi Mom.  School was OK.  No, I did not make any friends.  No, Mom, I don't have homework."
     "I won't be home til late.  I left a list of things for you to do.  Don't stay up too late and you know the number here and my cell.  Don't forget to feed Rusty."  
     "I won't Mom.  I know.  I'll do all that.  Yes, I know to call 911."  He was getting impatient now, because he wanted to eat his sandwich and have a glass of milk.  
     "There's microwave meals in the fridge and lots of canned stuff and macaroni and cheese in the cupboard for supper," she told him.
     "OK, love you," he told her.
     "I love you too Nick."
     Back to his alone time, he sat down to eat at the breakfast table, then washed, dried and put away his dishes, then went upstairs to his room, now that he was no longer in the guest room, to play his video games and surf the internet. 
     When Rusty followed him upstairs and kept looking at him with his tail wagging, he changed his mind, went down and fed Rusty, then took the dog outside.  The screen door swung in and out and they never locked the house, one nice thing about living in the country, although both Nicolas and Daniel always wished there were at least a store less than two miles away which was the exact distance to the nearest convenience store, which they had walked or biked to many times.  It was also the nearest place to get gas.
     The dog ran around chasing the ball Nicolas threw for him, and when he got tired out, Nicolas went to get the basketball and threw hoops until the sun was so far down he could no longer see.  It was then that he went inside to spend the evening in solitude knowing he would be long asleep by the time his mother came home from her work as a bar tender at the 'Water Well'.  
     Nicolas was actually looking forward to Thanksgiving.  They were going to be going to Framingham to visit his grandparents, and although Charlie, his mother's friend had offered to drive, his mother had decided that now that she was working at the bar and cleaning houses on the side, she had enough money to fix the truck, so taking the Greyhound was out.  He felt it was something to look forward to.
     He hoped that school would improve, but somehow doubted it would.  He thought he would just put his mind to his studies now that he was a high school student and maybe he would be some professional some day like a doctor.  That was it.  Danny could be the rock star and Nick could be the serious doctor or lawyer perhaps.  Of course he knew that Danny was very serious about his music and very talented.  He did not feel competitive with his brother exactly, just wished he was more like dark haired Daniel in some ways, that he had as many friends, that he took to guitar, that he was popular with the girls.  He had talked to Charlie about these feelings which he did not feel comfortable talking to his mother about.  That is when Charlie used to be around a lot, but for some reason they rarely saw Charlie anymore.  It seemed Mom had gotten tired of pushing Charlie and his advances away because she did not feel that way about him, so Charlie stopped wanting to be close to her anymore, and subsequently Nicolas felt guilty for feeling that this was a loss to him personally, because he felt he had lost a confidant.