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Connor was selling lemonade. The Lunch Club, as they called themselves, entertained themselves by playing where they always played. It was selling for 50 cents per cup. Just down the street, on the other side at the corner, a new kid they’ve never seen before is selling lemonade for ten cents, and he’s getting all the business. Connor eventually packs up and goes back into his house, and Schlatt waits a few minutes before taking another piece of paper out that has a sloppy ‘$1’ on it and slapping it over the previous ten cents. The LC is shocked. Connor got played. By some new kid that no one even knew the name of.
He got a few more customers before Connor came back out and saw what had happened. He sat on his porch, scowling at the new boy, until his customers cleared and the kid saw him. He smiled awkwardly. After a little bit of rivalry, the kid beckoned Connor over.
“Hello. What’s your name?” the boy asked.
“Connor,” he pouted. He was still mad.
“I’m Schlatt. Want to join my company? I call it Schlatt & Co., but I don’t actually have a Co.. That stands for company, by the way. But it would be cool if you joined, because your name is Connor, and that starts with Co, too!” the new boy’s face lit up as he spoke about his business. Connor thought about it, then grinned and sat down next to Schlatt.
“So why did you sell me out of business?”
“Mm. Yeah. I’m kinda new around here… my dad said to beat all the competition, but my sister said to make friends. I don’t really want to, but I guess you seem okay. Sorry, am I talking too much? People tell me I talk too much. I’ll stop.”
“No, it’s okay,” Connor reassured him. Some more people came up to the lemonade stand, and they split the profit from those people, and all the people after that. Eventually, Schlatt ran out of lemonade, and had to go home.
“Thanks again for joining my company,” the boy said with a smile. “Bye.”
“Hey, do you wanna meet my other friends?” Connor asked, seeing them walking and playing with skateboards and scooters down the street in the neighborhood park, dubbed the blacktop. It wasn’t really much of a park, just a blacktop surrounded by tall trees that a few people contributed to to make it a good play area for kids. It was a pretty chill neighborhood, so most kids were allowed to roam over there.
“Um. I dunno. I’ve gotta get home soon… maybe in a few days? You live in that house, right?” Schlatt asked, pointing to the house Connor had come out of. Connor nodded.
“Yup!”
“Okay. I’ll come back to this street in a few days. See you then,” he smiled, and left.
Three days later, no one had seen Schlatt. The Lunch Club, as a certain group of rambunctious kids liked to call themselves, saw him with Connor that first time, but nothing since. They told the boy that they’d keep an eye out for him.
There was a knock on Connor’s door, and a yell through as his friends called him out to play.
“Connoooooooor! Come out and playyyy! We’re going to the blacktop! We think that new kid is there!” Charlie shouted through the door. Connor simply looked at his mother, who nodded without a word, knowing the drill. This happened almost everyday, where his friends would call him out to play on the blacktop with them, so he didn’t really even need to say anything if she heard the call. He dashed outside, grabbing his scooter and joining his friends. They scootered to the blacktop, and sure enough, Schlatt had set up his little lemonade stand on the asphalt. He smiled when he saw Connor, waving. They all came over.
“Hey, new guy! How long have you lived in the neighborhood?” Ted asked, always being the first to try and drill new kids and potential enemies with questions. Schlatt leaned away from him a little before answering.
“T-two months…”
“So why are we only just now learning of your presence?”
“My dad didn’t want me going out much.”
“Oh. But you’re out here now.”
“I snuck out,” he said with a mischievous wink.
“And you sell lemonade?”
“Yup! Want some?”
“No. You got any grapes?” Ted asked, in reference to some video that he’d seen a week ago and shown the others. They all chuckled at Ted’s question, but Schlatt just smirked and pulled out a bag of grapes.
“I was sure I wasn’t the only one who enjoyed that video.” Ted’s eyes widened, and Connor knew that Ted was considering Schlatt’s acceptance into the group. He looked at the group, who all nodded at his unasked question.
“Well, it’s unanimous! Welcome to our group! We’re called the Lunch Club.”
“Wait, what? I just sell lemonade, man. I don’t even know your names…”
“You are so right. I’m Ted.” Everyone went around, introducing themselves.
“People call me Schlatt,” he smiled awkwardly once everyone was done. They invited him to come and play, but he respectfully declined and continued selling lemonade.
Later in the afternoon, he gives them all some lemonade, because they were thirsty, and some of the Lunch Club’s rival friend groups come up to Schlatt’s lemonade stand once the boys leave to continue playing. Connor looked over to see the interaction. The other boys did, too.
“You look new, kid. What’s your name?” one boy asked.
“S-Schlatt. What’s yours?”
“Christopher. I want some lemonade.”
“Oh! Okay. One dollar, please,” he smiled. The other kid scowled.
“You gave them free lemonade!” he complained, gesturing to the Lunch Club.
“Okay? You aren’t them.” Schlatt shrugged. Christopher growled, and pushed the little stand, which was really only a box, over, spilling lemonade all over Schlatt, who sat, frozen.
“You’re nothing!” the bully jeered before joining his laughing friends. Schlatt slowly got up, turning his box back over and putting the now-empty plastic pitcher in the box, stuffing all his supplies into the box again before taking it and beginning to walk away. Ted scowled and ran after him.
“Hey, arentcha gonna fight back?” he asked, bewildered. Schlatt looked at him over his shoulder and let out a long sigh.
“I gotta get home, Ted. Thanks for today, I had fun,” he said sadly, walking back down the street. Ted scowled, running back after Christopher, who saw Ted incoming and ran away.
It was a week until Schlatt was seen selling lemonade again, and he had a bit of a bruise under his left eye, but he was happily selling his lemonade. The boys came up and talked to him for a bit, asking if Christopher did that, gesturing to the bruise, and he shook his head no.
“Oh. Huh. How’d you get it, then?” Travis asked. Schlatt averted his eyes for a second.
“I fell. Hit my face. Stupid, huh?” He laughs.
“A bit,” Travis smiled. The others chuckled along.
“Say, Schlatt, sorry about Christopher last week. He’s a jerk,” Cooper said. Schlatt’s smile faded.
“It’s fine. That’s tame. I’m used to jerks,” Schlatt muttered.
“Do you wanna stand up to the jerks?” Ted asked. Schlatt’s head whipped up at him.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’m big and scary, I’ll teach you!”
“Uhh… okay. Sure.”
“Now?”
“Um. Maybe in a bit. Gotta sell some lemonade. I’m saving up for a bike, then I can bike instead of walk here,” he said, smiling again.
“You know how to ride a bike? I thought you were like, five!” Charlie laughed.
“I’m six. And no… not yet… but I’m gonna learn!” He defended.
“Cool. Have your parents taught you how to swim yet?” The lemonade boy paled.
“No. I mean, my sister tried, but it didn’t go well. Anyway, you guys go have fun. I’ll be here.” The Lunch Club left to go play, but Connor stayed this time.
“Still wanna be a part of my company?” Schlatt asked.
“Yeah!” He sat down. “I have an extra bike. It’s got a basket and everything, but it squeaks a lot. I can ask my mom if you can have that one!” Connor offered.
“Really? You don’t have to, you know.”
“Well, we aren’t doing anything with it. I’ll ask her.”
“Thanks.” They sold a few more lemonades before Connor went back to go play with the other boys. Schlatt looked around, seeing Christopher and his little gang of bullies hanging out by the treeline. He rolled his eyes.
They did nothing for several minutes, and just when they were about to start walking over to him, there was a tap on his lemonade stand. He tended to the customer, and when he looked back, the group was closer. He put his earnings securely in one of his trusty timbs, just in case. They kept getting closer. Soon they were right near him. Christopher grabbed the back of his shirt and he dragged him away from his little lemonade stand. Schlatt jerked away from him, but a few of Christopher’s other friends pushed him back on the ground. His arm fell into a little spot of mud, and he grimaced.
Christopher rummaged through the little stand, getting some lemonade from one of the pre-made cups, drinking it in front of him. Schlatt glared, but noticed that Christopher didn’t seem to care how long it had been out.
Eventually Ted and Noah came up and chased them off, with the rest of the group trailing behind them. Connor helped Schlatt up, and he thanked them.
“You wanna learn how to fight now?” Ted asked.
“Okay.” Ted spent the next few hours teaching Schlatt how to punch, where to punch, and how to avoid punches. To Ted’s surprise, Schlatt already knew a good bit of what he told him. He just didn’t want to use it. When Ted asked why, Schlatt chewed on the inside of his cheek.
“I dunno. It just seems like fighting back makes everything worse.”
Connor’s mother had of course noticed the boy who sold lemonade. He had even come over a few times, when it was her turn to feed the kids. She and the other parents of this little friend group all took turns feeding them whenever they played together, so that was common. She was surprised when the new boy showed up though. The Lunch Club, as the group loved to call themselves, were very selective about who they let join their troupe. She watched as this little boy appeared out of nowhere on the day that her son had decided to sell lemonade, proceed to sell him out of business, then invite him to join him. And then the boy disappeared. No one knew where he lived, or who his parents were, all they knew was that the Lunch Club had adopted this little boy, and he was one of them now.
Connor’s mother noticed that this strange boy did not attempt to stand up for himself, which was very worrying, but it seemed to not bother him. That part worried her more, that it didn’t.
Then there were the days that he would either show up with some random bruise, or not show up at all.
She asked Connor to see if his parents wouldn’t mind him staying over a night. She knew that Connor would enjoy his company quite a lot, so it might work.
Connor asked one day, and Schlatt said that no, his dad wouldn’t mind. She noticed that he hadn’t gone home to ask. That night, the boy came over and she finally learned his name. Schlatt. A rather uncommon name, but maybe it was his surname.
The next day, the kids went back out to play, but Schlatt asked to borrow her phone. She of course lent it to him, stepping into another room while the boy spoke on the phone.
“Hello, Puffy,” he said. “No, I’m fine. Not at dad’s, I spent the night over at Connor’s house.” ‘Puffy’ had a few things to say to him, before he spoke again. “Sure. I’m in a neighborhood off of that one road by the ice cream place we always pass going in and out of town. I know it’s a bit out there, Puffy, but I have friends here now.” The conversation went on like this for a little bit longer, until he bade goodbye to ‘Puffy’.
“Who was that?” Connor’s mother asked him as he handed back the phone.
“My sister, Puffy.”
“Oh! Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask, Connor mentioned that you were saving up for a bicycle. We have an extra one, if you’d like it. Connor doesn’t use it anymore.”
“Oh, really? Um. I mean, what if you need it again?”
“Honey, we haven’t needed it for years. You can have it.”
“Oh. well… thank you.”
“Of course. Run along and play, now.”
Schlatt had a bike. He had his own bike! This was amazing! If only he knew how to ride it. It was okay, it had training wheels, he could teach himself. He parked the bike in a bike rack he found near the park, but sitting under some nearby trees, were Christopher and his little gang. They noticed him, and saw his bike, beginning to laugh.
“You have training wheels? What a loser. Don’t you know how to ride a bike?”
“No. Don’t you know how to shut the fuck up?” Schlatt retorted, using one of the words he’d heard his dad yell at the funny telemarketers on the tv. Christopher and his friends reeled.
“That’s a bad word! I’m gonna tell your mom!”
“Do it, see if I care.”
“Might care after this, punk. Gettim, boys!” Christopher pointed at him, and his friends began chasing. They caught up, once, long enough to shove him to the hard ground and kick him, but he got up quickly and ran again. They all chased him around the blacktop, until he found a tree with low enough branches to climb up. He pulled ahead of his pursuers, grabbing the tree branch and hauling himself up. One of them grabbed his foot. He kicked them away, and climbed higher and higher up in the tree. Once he heard them stop trying to come up after him, he stopped climbing and looked down.
Big mistake. His head spun with how high up he was, and his body froze. He gripped his branch tight, starting to panic. He couldn’t get down.
Christopher and his friends jeered at him from below, but looked over at something and ran off immediately. The Lunch Club was here!
“Schlatt? Come down, they’re gone!” Ted yelled.
“I can’t, I’m stuck!” he called back down, voice trembling. He heard Ted tell Connor to go get his mom.
“Stay there, we’ll be right back!” They disappeared from his sight, except for Noah, who stayed behind.
“Schlatt, there’s a branch real close to you, try and put your foot there!” He said.
“I can’t!”
“Yes you can, just trust yourself!” Shaking, Schlatt reached a leg down. It touched the branch, and he let his other foot follow. He wrapped his arms around the trunk as he crouched down on that branch. Noah led him to another, and then another. Just when Schlatt was starting to get the hang of it, he put his weight on the wrong branch. It creaked under him, and his eyes went wide as he froze again. The branch snapped and fell, taking him with it. He flailed, putting his arms out to try and stop himself, before-
There was a thud, and a cold numbing in his right arm. He stared up at the sky, unable to even think for a second. Everything was blurry, and there was a ringing in his ears. Noah’s face appeared in his vision just as it began to focus. He looked worried.
“Schlatt? Are you okay?” he asked frantically.
“What? Yeah, I’m fine. What happened?”
“You fell out of the tree!”
“Oh.” His arm felt numb.
“Did you hit your head or anything?”
“I dunno.” He tried to sit up. Noah stopped him with a hand.
“Don’t sit up. I saw this in a movie, if you hit your head it could make it worse,” he said. Schlatt listened. Noah watched a lot of action movies, he must know. The other boy looked up, and shouted at their friends. They all ran up, Connor’s mother with them. She looked him over.
“Do you think you hit your head? It might hurt a little bit if you did.”
“No, I don’t think so…”
“Does anything hurt? Feel off?”
“Um. I can’t feel my arm?” She looked at his arm and tutted, a concerned expression on her face.
“I’m going to take you home, okay?” In his distorted mind, he nodded, forgetting the consequences. He got up and followed her, Connor being nudged forward by the rest of the group to go with them and make sure he’s okay. The other five stayed behind, watching them leave.
“Okay, Schlatt. I need to know where you live. Do you know your address?” She asked. He rattled it off. She typed it in, then frowned, confused. “This is twenty minutes away, dear. Are you sure this is correct?” He looked at the street view.
“Yeah. That’s it.”
“Sweetie, how long do you walk to get here?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have a watch.” He held his arm close to his body, the numbness beginning to give way to a strange soreness, a dull ache. Around twenty minutes later, they arrived at Schlatt’s house, and Connor’s mother walked him up to the door. His father opened it, scowling.
His father was a large man. He towered over just about everyone Schlatt had ever seen him interact with. He claimed to be rather close to being seven feet tall. Schlatt believed him. His father was a tall, hulking man, especially as opposed to him. He was a small boy for his age, he knew. People tended to mistake him for being younger than he was, but he was six. People said that he had a lack of nutrients in his body, whatever that meant. He was barely pushing three and a half feet, and if he was any taller, it wasn’t by much.
But in that moment, the fog in his mind from the shock cleared all too quickly and let him see what he knew was going to happen as soon as Connor and his mom left.
“What’s this?” His father said, his voice gruff and gravelly from years of smoking and drinking.
“U-um. Are you this boy’s father?” Connor’s mother asked, fighting back a grimace from how smoky the house smelled. Schlatt’s father nodded to her question, pulling him over to stand with him. “He fell out of a tree. His arm might be broken, so you might want to check that out,” she suggested. His dad’s hand, which rested on the top of his head, went rather firm in the grip on his head.
“Sure. Where did you find him?”
“Oh, he’s friends with my son. Connor here,” she pulled her own slightly behind her, the gesture going unseen by the hulking man, “and his other friends were with him. They went and got me.”
“I see. Thank you. I’ll deal with him accordingly… fix his arm and whatnot.” Schlatt really didn’t like the way his dad said that.
After Connor and his mom left, Schlatt was dragged into the main room by his arm. He was tossed to the floor like a ragdoll as his father began yelling at him.
“You went outside? I told you not to go outside!”
“But you said I had to start making a business early if I wanted to be like you, so I sold some lemonade!” Schlatt defended, getting up so he could better make a defense. His father hated it when he stayed down, said it made him look even more pitiful.
“A lemonade stand isn’t a business, boy!” He slapped him, Schlatt recoiling from the blow. “You don't make friends, boy! You think you deserve them? You are nothing . Nothing but a weak little boy. Those ain’t your friends! Who’d want you? They pity you. You are nothing .” Schlatt’s hurt arm was grabbed, and yanked into the air, Schlatt crying out.
“Dad, please-”
“You little shit-stain! You are just a whiny little bitch who can’t get it through his thick skull to follow simple orders! Don’t. Leave. The house.” With every word in the last sentence, Schlatt’s father punctuated his words with a hard jab to Schlatt’s head with a finger. “Now, because you can’t follow simple directions, I have to take you to get you fixed. God, you can’t just be any less of a burden, can you?”
“I'm sorry..”
It was over a week until Schlatt was seen on the blacktop again. He’d managed to compromise with his father to still go out of the house, still sell his lemonade, as long as he got seventy-five percent of whatever Schlatt earned.
Schlatt didn’t entirely like the ratio there, but if he still got to see his friends, it would be alright.
He still had to walk or bike over there, but that was alright. He’d gotten a lot better at biking, teaching himself the ways.
It had always been a bit of an inconvenience, depending on how much he drank, how hot it was, to go to the bathroom, that much hadn’t changed. He usually had a little cup, as disgusting as it sounded, that he would go in if he couldn’t go to an actual bathroom. He’d pour it out whenever he had a good moment to get away from the stand.
Christopher and his gang still gave him shit, but he found a few clever ways to keep his money safe. They still stole lemonade, though.
One day, they came by. The lunch club was off playing. Ted looked over and made eye contact with Schlatt at one point, nodding encouragingly at him. He’d been helping him stand up for himself lately, teaching him to fight back. Schlatt smiled back, then turned back to face Christopher and his group.
“I want some lemonade,” the boy said, looming over Schlatt.
“Well you usually take it anyway…”
“That’s right. Wimp.” Christopher reached for one of the pre-made cups of lemonade, then changed his mind and reached for a cup on the other side of the stand, closer to Schlatt. Schlatt’s eyes widened when he remembered what that cup was, and tried to stop Christopher.
“Wait, not that one!” he said, trying to warn him. He’d not had a good opportunity to pour it out in the bush yet, after going to the bathroom in the cup a little bit ago.
“What, this one yours?” Christopher asked, rather meanly. Then Schlatt stopped. Why should he try and warn him? He was a such a bully to him! Maybe this would teach him.
“Yeah, that one’s mine…”
“Too bad, wimp! Mine now!” Schlatt watched as Christopher drank it, not even realizing the taste of what it was until he looked at Schlatt’s face, a rather evil grin growing on it. “Wait, is this-?” Schlatt couldn’t help the cackle as Christopher’s eyes bulged before he gagged, spitting up the urine. Schlatt cackled and cackled, even as Christopher recovered and whipped around to him.
“I’m gonna kill you!” the boy shouted.
“I don’t care! You just drank pee!” Schlatt laughed. “Piss boy! Little piss drinker!” Christopher punched Schlatt in the gut, and Schlatt just laughed harder, clutching his stomach.
“You little punk! No one’s gonna remember your name when we’re done with you!”
“Maybe not, but no one’s gonna be able to forget yours, Christopher. Pisstopher!” Schlatt laughed at the sheer rage on Pisstopher’s face at the name. The bully raised his fist to hit Schlatt again, but the Lunch Club appeared behind him.
“What’s so funny Schlatt?” Noah asked.
“Yeah, let us in on the joke, man!” Cooper grinned.
“Pisstopher just drank pee!” Schlatt exclaimed, giggling. The guys burst into laughter, and Pisstopher went red with embarrassment and rage. He huffed, and started storming away, presumably to complain to his mom. “We’ll be seeing you, Pisstopher!”
The guys were so proud of him, laughing with him whenever they remembered what had happened.
As it turned out, Pisstopher’s mother was not happy that Schlatt had tricked her son into drinking urine. In his defense, Pisstopher had done that all by himself. But nevertheless, she demanded to talk to his mother. So he gave her his sister, Puffy’s number.
A few moments of an angry mom yelling at the phone about what Schlatt had done later, he was handed the phone.
“Schlatt, little bro.”
“Hi Puffy.”
“You can’t keep telling people I’m your mom.”
“Well like hell I’m giving her dad’s number!”
“Yeah, we probably need to do something about that. Anyway, do you know how hard it is to keep a straight face talking to someone after someone tells you that your little brother has just tricked another kid into drinking piss ?”
“I thought it was pretty funny…”
“Oh, it was hilarious. But give a gal some warning next time!”
“Okay. sorry. I gotta hang up. Pisstopher’s mom is giving me the stink eye.”
“ PISSTOPHER- ” He heard his sister wheeze, before he hung up and handed the phone back to Pisstopher’s mom.
“I’m sorry.”
“You’d better be.”
Connor’s mom thought it was rather funny as well. The guys were all rather proud of him for standing up for himself, even if all of Ted’s training went unused.
Connor’s mom ended up calling Puffy to pick him up that day instead of sending him back to his dad’s house. When Puffy arrived, she ruffled his hair and looked him over.
“You need to eat more, bud,” she said.
“Not my fault but okay.”
“I know. Good news, though, I’m finally at a good point where you can live with me!”
“Really?” he asked, lighting up. She had been free of living at home for nearly two years, since she turned eighteen. She’d had a few qualms about leaving her four-year-old brother with their abusive father, but in the end it was what she’d needed to do. But now she could take him with her.
He’d never figured out why their parents waited almost fourteen years before having him, but that was how it was.
Puffy brought him to her apartment, much closer to his friend’s neighborhood, he noticed, and then called their father, telling him that once they got Schlatt’s things, he would be living with her.
“Fine,” their dad said, “take him. He’s a pain in the ass anyway.”
And like that, Schlatt was free. They had ice cream from Puffy’s freezer to celebrate.
He went to the blacktop every day, no longer feeling the pressure to start a ‘business’ just yet, and was able to just be a kid. He played with his friends and just laughed and called his former bully ‘Pisstopher’ whenever he came around to bother him.
He’d been right. No one would forget Christopher’s name, but for all the worst reasons.
Schlatt had fun with his friends, content to milk this whole ‘being a kid’ schtick until he grew out of it.