Chapter Text
I’d heard my alarm so many times that I could honestly sleep through it. And I would have, if my brother wouldn’t have started shrieking.
I hear him fumbling with the alarm now, spouting Greek curses. I’m sure he stayed up late doing dumb shit with girls while he’d lived with Elleon.
“Butch. Shut it.” I mutter, my eyes still closed.
Right. I should probably start over.
So, I’m currently sandwiched between my two idiot brothers. We’re supposed to be triplets, but sometimes I feel like I’m the oldest.
The blanket hog on the right is Butch, the retard who woke me up. How is he already asleep again??
On the left is my brother Boomer, aka the personification of the ‘dumb blonde’ stereotype. What he lacks in intelligence he makes up for with his extreme talent in ballet.
He actually used to be our sister’s dancing partner before she retired. Right, our sister…Boomer and Butch are supposed to be living with her.
I say “supposed to” because she kicked them out for whatever reason. So now they’ve decided to stay here with ME.
Why would they do that? This isn’t even my house. It belongs to my fiancée and her two sisters. One of them is actually dating Boomer. Butch is really close to the other, but I don’t really see any romance between them.
This is going to sound a little strange, but I haven’t really seen Butch get handsy with girls since we were teenagers.
Sometimes he tells me he’d rather be single like our sister; I think he purposely ignores the fact that she’s single because she’s a lezzie.
There goes the phone ringing off the hook again…
“…Hello?” I sigh, knowing damn well it’s my agent.
“Brick,” Mrs. Believe says urgently. “I’m sorry to tell you this on such short notice, but you’re meant to visit a school today.”
You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” I deadpan.
“Yes, I’m sorry, there must have been a scheduling error. These children were apparently meant to meet A.A. Wilkins…” She drones on.
Right. So Boomer’s a ballet dancer and Butch is a hobo. But what did little Brick Butterfly grow up to be?
I’m an author. I’m also a former…well, I’m not sure if former is the right word. I grew up as a super villain.
Everyone fears Brick, the leader of the notorious villain group. But everyone adores the books A.A. Wilkins write.
What do I write about, you ask? I’d rather commit suicide than reveal that. Not even my family knows about my books.
They can never know my pseudonym.
Stop, that’s not important right now.
“Is it Pokey Oaks Elementary?” I ask as I tug my shirt over my head.
“Yes,” Mrs. Believe answers immediately. “It’s a 3rd grade classroom, I believe?Maybe 4th. The room number is 103–uh.”
“‘Uh,’ what?” I roll my eyes.
“The line, it’s—!”
“…Robin?”
“Καρότα!” Is the answer I receive.
My older sister, Endellion Butterfly.
“Elleon? What the hell?”
“That bitch was taking up my time, I had to take over,” Elleon makes that tsk tsk noise. “Also, a school meet ‘n’ greet? What the hell?”
“Yeah, my thoughts exactly.” I answer before brushing my teeth.
I slather Boomer’s makeup on my face to hide my freckles—don’t take this out of context, he’s not a queer I think. No, It’s just for stage. He’s not.
When I go out to do shit like this (which is very rare) I obviously can’t just show up as myself. I put on a disguise.
Once I arrive at Pokey Oaks Elementary, I walk through the doors. I hate schools. I never went to school growing up.
Because I hated them.
When I knock on the door, I can already hear those stupid kids losing their shit. The old lady teacher opens the door and smiles at me.
“Welcome, Mr. Wilkins! I’m Ms. Keane.” She beams.
“Yeah.” Is all I can say in response. Seriously, Brick?
“Settle down class! We have Mr. A.A. Wilkins visiting us today!”
“Nice to meet you all!” I give everyone one of those fake smiles like Boomer does during a performance.
“Are there any questions for Mr. Wilkins?” Ms. Keane asks the class.
“Um, is it hard being a writer?” Asks one girl.
“Well, it can be challenging trying to find the right words sometimes!”
I hate these fucking meet ‘n’ greets.
“ARE YOU GAY?!” Some kid with a mohawk shouts.
Most of the class loses their minds, while some ask ‘what’s gay?’.
“No.” I respond instantly.
Dumb kids .
I won’t be revealing the next question because it concerns my book series, and I’d rather die than reveal my secret.
“Do you have any kids?” Asks a girl in the back.
What I notice immediately is her startling red hair accented by a pink ribbon.
“Do you have any kids?” She asks.
I don’t think redheads should wear pink. Greens and blues suit us better. Red is fine, I suppose.
“No,” I let Brick take over. “By the way, sick hair.”
“Uh, thank you mister!” She smiles up at me.
Dumb kids.
“Right.” I say.
They ask a lot more questions about my books. I cannot record these answers (refer to the above statements regarding this topic). Then the bell rings and I leave.
In my car I tear off my ridiculous disguise and start driving to the grocery store.
As I’m driving, I get this random thought.
‘Those two kids kinda looked like her.’
Nah, that’s just a dumb coincidence. They’re just gingers. Not every ginger child in pink is secretly related to Blossom Powerpuff.
Once I arrive at the store, I walk inside. The cashiers know not to mess with me, so I’ll be bagging my groceries and leaving.
Again.
“Boomer was complaining about needing cereal, but which one…?” I mutter to myself as I stare up at the endless array of cereal boxes.
I think he likes fruity pebbles…wait a minute. Rainbow cereal…but he’s dating Brat? Unless that was a cry for help…
As I stand there thinking, suddenly I hear a young child’s voice.
“Mommy, mommy! Can we get Cocoa Puffs?”
I look over to see a little boy with red hair, and next to him is the same girl from earlier. They’re both wearing the same color.
Can somebody please tell these kid’s mother to dress them in some nice turquoise and not this disgustingly sugary pink?!
I don’t have anything against pink. It’s a shade of red, after all. And I love red.
It’s just that…pink looks bad on redheads. I was dying to say something to Blossom all those years ago but I held back because it seemed like such a non-issue.
STOP WEARING PINK! Red is usually fine. I look good in red. Most gingers I’ve seen wearing red look good in red.
I snatch the fruity pebbles off the shelf and put away all my suspicions about Boomer and thoughts about gingers.
“Look mommy, that guy has hair like us!” The boy shouts behind me.
Kill me.
“It’s rude to point, Bryan.” The mother chastises. I recognize her voice immediately.
Nope, not today. But my shitty luck decides to fuck me over once again, because she goes, “Brick?”
I turn around slowly, like I’ve been caught by the police. I’ll always prefer the police over my ex-wife.
‘Not every ginger child in pink is secretly related to Blossom Powerpuff.’ Yeah, right.