The Reinholt Academy Part III

Lorrie and Bristol went to the parade at around 11 am, but I didn't really feel like going. I kind of just laid in my bed for a while with my pea coat draped over my head. I decided maybe Lorrie was right - maybe this square was starting to bore me a little. When I got up and opened my door, I saw this little kid walking down the hall towards my room. It was strange to see such a young person roaming around the halls at Reinholt, but I didn't feel like talking to him. But, to add on to my magnificent luck, he talked to me.

"Uh...Sorry to bother you, but do you know where room 152 is?" he asked me. I kind of turned my torso a little and motioned with a flick of my head down the hall where it was. "...Thank you." He was pulling this suitcase that had wheels and had a backpack on that was too large for him.

"You Logan?" I said.

"Yes?" he said, as if I asked him something completely different. I wish I hadn't said anything though, because I had to talk to him.

"Uh. Where are you from?" I asked him. He turned around to face me squarely and took off his glasses to clean the lenses.

"A little town in Utah. It's predominantly Mormon like Salt Lake City, but I'm not too religious."

"Oh. Well there's a parade in town. There are buses that can take you, or you can walk. I'm going there now."

"A parade? Around here? Oh. I guess I'll come too," he said. It wasn't as though I was begging him to come with me or anything, but he just decided I needed some company. The thought of having a tag-along kid with glasses behind me was a little aggravating, though.

"It's not mandatory for Reinholt students to attend or nothing," I said.

"Anything!"

"What?" I said.

"It's not mandatory for Reinholt students to attend or anything!" he said. Oh man, that got me riled up. I was about to take him and shove him into the utility closet and put a giant indestructible padlock on the damn door. To shorten up the story, I had to stand outside his room while he put his luggage inside and escort the kid to Main Street where the parade was being held. We took a bus to the closest stop and stepped off. I could already see Lorrie and Bristol down the way.

"Okay. Well I'm going to go meet some guys I know down the street," I said. The way he looked at me was almost disgusting. He gave this sad puppy-dog expression, but I wasn't going to change my mind about my decision. I pretty much held his damn hand on the bus ride down - he wasn't going to drag me into crappy company when there could be some girls in the crowd. I took my mobile phone out of my coat pocket and started walking away from him. Logan Boltz, in the five minutes I was in his acquaintance, was quite possibly the most annoying person ever.

"Bristol?" I said into my phone.

"Whaddya want?" he said back to me then laughed. I don't think Bristol could go five damn minutes without laughing or making some irrelevant joke and it got on my nerves sometimes.

"I just got off the bus, are you guys hungry at all? I'm hungry as hell," I said.

"Yeah, I could eat a horse...well that's actually not very appetizing at all, ha ha." I heard him pull his head away and ask Lorrie. "Hey Lorrie, Michael just finished his personal business with himself if you know what I mean. Are you hungry?" I heard him start laughing again. I really wanted to just give him a good punch in the gut, but Jack proved that it was pointless to beat Bristol up. Lorrie said yes and I left to meet them at some random, cafe without a name aside from "Diner". There were so many damn people around that I could hardly make my way down the sidewalk. Everyone was dressed like they were going to climb Everest and that took up even more space. It was barely below 50 degrees and people were saying they were shivering for God's sake. I wish some of them would just wear a muffler that stopped them from talking, it would have saved me a headache or two.

I flipped my collar up on my coat to mask my face. I knew that my brothers were around somewhere. One of them, Sebastian, wasn't so bad. He's been all over the world and I kind of envied him, but I'd never really tell him that to his face. The other one, Dan was a borderline alcoholic. I don't know why he bummed around my parents' house all the time. Frankly, he was an annoyance to my family and also its secret shame. I guess I kind of just fell right in the middle. I can be worldly or whatever, but I can still cut loose if I really want to. It's just that talking to my family can be so pointless at times. We'd talk for 2 hours over dinner but nothing would ever come of it. That's the thing about my family that I didn't miss at all at Reinholt. At least with Lorrie, I could understand we were talking about cars, movies, or something.

By the time I got to the diner, Lorrie and Bristol were sitting at the counter. Bristol, as usual, was wearing gloves and a dressy longish coat on top of his Reinholt jacket and Lorrie sat there looking at the menu in his plain black coat.

"Jesus, Michael, I thought you got hit by a vengeful float driver or something!" Bristol said when I sat down.

"So you finally started to take my advice. Look at him, Vince, he's starting to look more like a human already."

"Yeah yeah. Have you guys ordered yet?"

"I did. Bristol hasn't. He was too busy trying to chat up some girl down the counter."

"I almost had her too, Michael, you shoulda seen it."

"Hm." I couldn't tell if Bristol was serious or not. That's another thing about guys like him. You can never really tell if they're lying to you because they're never serious about anything. After ordering some kind of turkey sandwich, I watched the parade go by out the giant window on the front side of the diner. There was a giant turkey, a pilgrim, a cornucopia, and an Indian. Basically, a pretty typical parade. I remembered hearing my mother talk about making the cornucopia with the Lawsons down the street. I hated them even more than I hated the dean of Reinholt because Mr. Lawson could actually compete with my father in his lavish spending habits.

"Michael?" someone said behind me. By that time, I wasn't facing the window anymore and was trying to concentrate on the turkey sandwich.

"What?" I turned around and saw my mother standing there with Eve, the Lawson's daughter. "Mom?"

"Michael! Dear! Why didn't you tell us that you'd be at the parade? And here I dragged poor old Eve out with me."

"I figured you were too busy trying to get this float together." Eve was just standing there feeling kind of awkward. You can always tell when someone feels out of place because they kind of half smile when you look in their direction. They never really know what's going on, though.

"Oh nonsense! You must tell me about all that's going on at the Reinholt Academy! I'm sure your father would like to know. Eve too, right Eve?"

"Uh? Yeah. How have you been Michael?" The only thing I remember is spouting out a bunch of stuff I hear other guys tell their moms when they visit. Bristol stood up and kind of dragged Lorrie out with him while I tried to entertain my mother and the neighbor's daughter. Eve was kind of spacey, but that didn't necessarily bother me - at least she didn't try to force anything out of me.

"Oh dear, I must be getting back to the route because they're handing out awards soon!" my mother said, standing up. It was interesting to see how fast she stood up from our conversation just to see if her damn cornucopia would win some blue ribbon. "Promise you'll call sometime, Michael?"

"Sure." She and Eve did end up winning though, the judges said that they had the most realistic yams they've ever seen.