They Were Dolphins, Chapter 6 part I

He kept trying to move his arm even though it was caught in a sling. His elbow hurt from keeping it bent. He was glad to get out of the van when they got home. Mia helped him walk up the steps and even helped him climb into his bunk bed. She waved goodbye and left. His mother came in later with a foul-smelling poultice for his shoulder.

He felt much better laying down. He blew spit bubbles to pass the time and began to think of Mia. A familiar sensation occurred in his private area. He fiddled with his penis with his good arm to try to make it stop. He masturbated for a while until he ejaculated nothing but puffs of air. The boy didn’t know this was the first of close to two thousand pointless and disappointing orgasms in his life.

He fell asleep and had nightmares of vampires riding bicycles and white cars running over small animals. He woke up sweating and restless several times during night.

*****

Do dolphins really have clavicles?

Sure they do, look it up.

This is a sad story, Dad.

I know.

Chapter 6

The next day, the Korean boyfriend drove him to school. As they drove past the trivium, the Korean told the boy that the sun was ninety three million miles from earth on average. The boy didn’t know how far that was and asked. The Korean explained that it takes light eight and a half minutes to travel that far, and light is the fastest thing there is in the universe. The boy pretended to be impressed even though he was suspicious. Dolphins were faster, the boy was sure.

The Korean admitted that he was impressed with the boy’s surviving a car accident. He thought that this was how a real man was made: by bumps, bruises, and broken bones. The Korean congratulated the boy no less than three times.

The boy got out of the car near the school and met several students who fawned over his sling. He had to explain what had happened several times to everyone who came up to him. After a few retellings, the whole story had become very epic and his fellow students, even the older ones, were suitably awed by the boys adventures.

He met Robert in the breezeway and told the story of the bike and car. Robert was amazed. Robert had news of his own: he had been transferred to another classroom because of the incident with Mia. The boy expressed his disappointment, but Robert did have two good things to share. The first was that he wanted the boy to have his lucky rabbit’s foot. Robert had a second rabbit’s foot at home and he wanted the boy to have one since the day they had held onto it tightly together. The boy dolphin accepted it and snapped it to his shorts.

The second bit of news was revealed when Robert produced a pair of bark vampire blades from his pocket. His eyebrows raised above his wire-rimmed glasses and the boy cried out in amazement. Robert had taken the blades to a special place to perform an even more secret and special incantation on them. This made the blades even more suitable for killing vampires.

The boy took a blade and put it in his pocket. The first bell rang and they separated, promising to meet up at recess. In the classroom, the children’s regular teacher was back. She seemed to be in a good mood and didn’t mention her apparent breakdown nor her absence. She did notice the boy’s sling and asked how he was. He told the story again for the class and everyone was sympathetic and cordial.

During class the boy had a lot of difficulty writing with his hand, so he switched to his off-hand. This made his bad handwriting even worse, so he slowed down to a snail’s pace. The children were supposed to copy twenty spelling words onto line sheets of paper. The boy’s disability caused him to only finish about five or six words in the allotted time.

At recess, news of the boy’s adventure had spread and he was the equivalent of a war hero. He was a compassionate and humble leader and pretended to be embarrassed by all the attention.

After school, the Korean boyfriend and his mom were in the parking lot to pick him up. He was disappointed because he enjoyed the freedom of wandering the streets unsupervised. His mood was made even worse when he could sense tension inside the car between the adults.

During the car ride, his mother continued her tirade against the Korean. She complained that he didn’t have a job to provide for her school expenses, money to fix her car, and the kids’ hospital bills (the boy’s face flushed). She continued pointing out deficiencies, even jabbing with the fact that this car was borrowed. The car actually belonged to the Korean’s mother. Apparently, the Korean also lived in a flat with his parents. The Korean never spoke through the tirade, but the boy could see his wiry moustache quivering.