I held out my iPad nervously. "Am I doing this right?" I giggled.
"You really have never done this before? Yes, you got it," Castor said, laughing. I looked at my screen and saw a smaller version of him. Apparently, my first Facetime ever had been successful.
"What's up? Ready to check math?" I asked, pulling out the math homework. He pulled out his homework and nodded. Both of us sighed and began to go over it. Miserable problem after miserable problem...ugh, math. For the majority of the problems, we got different answers, which added even more time to our homework check. But when we were done, we were very happy that we'd finally gotten all the same answers. Whether they were correct or not was a completely different matter.
"I'm sorry I'm so bad at math," he said, once we had finished up.
I smiled. "You aren't bad at math. Don't worry about anything."
"Pearl, who are you talking to?" an angry voice boomed from upstairs.
My cheeks turned pink. "Castor, mom. He's a friend of mine."
"Hi, Castor," Bailey called out, annoyed. She was flipping through a magazine nearby on the floor, eating from a bag of chips. I glared at her, and she stuck her tongue out in return.
My mom simply sighed and said, "This is the third time you've talked with him this week. Just because the first two were regular phone calls doesn't make it better. Now come on, dinner is ready. Quit flirting with your boyfriend and come upstairs to eat with your family. You know, the ones you have lived with for fourteen years? Remember us?"
I groaned. "Mom he's not my...oh, never mind. Castor, I have to go." I was facing my screen now, where Castor sat happily, oblivious that anything was wrong on my end. He waved goodbye, smiled, then tapped the screen to hang up.
I clutched my iPad to my chest, fell back onto my couch, and grinned. Castor and I were already becoming good friends, even though we had been strangers only a few weeks ago. I had no idea that there was so much more to Castor than what I saw at school.
For example, he was a Boy Scout and loved to help other people. At one point in my life, I had been a Girl Scout. But that ended abruptly when I stopped getting along with the girls on my troop. None of them actually cared about helping people. They just cared about the snacks and sucking up to the leaders.
Just like me, he wasn't a fan of sports. Instead, he enjoyed musical theater. Once, he suggested I joined the musical in the spring, and I laughed. I was way too shy to do anything like that. He'd also asked recently if I wanted to do the school talent show with him---I would play piano, and he would sing---but we missed the deadline.
Castor and I also had very similar views on the way our families treated us. He had a brother back at home, and even though his brother was older than him, he always got what he wanted. Bailey always got what she wanted at my house, because she was a seventh grade drama queen that could whine her way to victory any day. As for me and Castor, we were kind of the odd ones out. We were kind of overlooked in our families. But at the same time, we were expected to be perfect children and take care of everything ourselves. As I said to him, it's like sometimes parents care way too much and are over possessive, but other times they are dismissive and don't seem to care at all. It was complicated...but since we felt the same way, it wasn't complex at all to us. It was nice to have someone with the same thoughts as you do.
I guess you could say the two of us clicked instantly. It was incredible. We stayed up till one o'clock every night during the weekend texting. Castor was quickly becoming one of the closest friends I'd ever had. I completely forgot about any of the silly feelings I'd felt towards him at the begging of the year as we discussed all of our problems late at night. We also talked at school now, which made me happy.
Which is why it was no surprise that we were chatting in art the next day when Mr. Kollins called us all to quiet down and listen. He claimed to have exciting news to share with the class.
"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen!" His voice cut clean through the room, but not in a harsh way. Everyone became silent as he began to speak.
"We have been presented with the opportunity," he began, "to have some of our very own artwork presented in a museum! It's only for a day of course; it's for an anniversary celebration, but there is a chance that some of the pieces you have done this year will end up there. The show is tomorrow, hope that you all can make it!"
The room erupted into nervous whispers. Who from this classroom would get their work on display? I wasn't sure.
Mr. Kollins began passing out old artwork. I was thrilled to see that, on the back of my self portrait and optical illusion, there was a note saying to turn them back into him for the museum.
I was going to be...in a museum?! I wasn't expecting this to happen, that's for sure. I was decent at art, but not really museum worthy.
At the end of class, I ran up to Castor. Mr. Kollins had made us return to our assigned seats, so Castor was across the room. We both looked at each other's excited faces and knew that both of our artworks had been selected. We hi fived with a satisfying smack, then headed down to math class.
~~~~~~~~~~
"You're going to the art show today, right?"
It was after school the next day, and Castor and I were waiting for our parents to pick us up.
"Yeah, of course!" I said, smiling.
Just then, my phone buzzed. My mom was calling. I stared at the phone, debating whether to pick up or not, then realized I probably should answer. She was the one letting me go to the museum, after all.
"Hey mom," I said, rolling my eyes. Castor put a hand over his mouth to try to keep from laughing.
"Hey, Pearl," she said. "I know I said I would take you to the art museum today, but I've had a little change in plans..."
"What?" I shrieked. "You promised I could go!"
She sighed. "Don't worry, you still get to go. But I have to go...your father's great aunt Eve is in the hospital, and I have to go over to Savannah's house. Just for the afternoon. Your father will take you to the museum tonight, but remember, he's extremely impatient. He won't want to stay long."
Savannah was one of the nicest people I knew, and one of the few family members that actually liked me. She was thirty years old, and had just gotten married over the summer. Savannah lived with Eve, who was over ninety years old. Eve was a nice enough lady; a little bit forgetful every now and then, but she had a kind heart. I didn't know her well, but she always had parties every year at her house. I hoped she would be okay.
I still wished my mom was taking me to the museum, even though I understood the circumstances. If my dad was taking me, he might get hot tempered and yell at me. Or Castor, for that matter. My dad didn't even have a cell phone, so I couldn't contact him to tell him where I was going in the museum. There was no telling what would happen.
Castor had already left by the time I got off the phone with my mom. I looked outside and saw that it was snowing. I spotted my dad's car across the parking lot and shoved the door open. It was windy and cold outside, so I ran as fast as I could.
"Your late," he said crossly, once I had entered the car.
I shivered. "I'm sorry, dad, but I couldn't see your car, and since you don't have a phone to call me..."
