Growing up is the worst, Barrie decided, pulling on jeans and a sweatshirt. He missed being a little kid, when he could watch cartoons and play all day and didn’t have to get up early for school.
He patted down his curly hair, trying to tame it into submission, and caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. He had chubby cheeks, still f
ull of baby fat and dotted with freckles. His eyes were hazel, a mixture of brown and green; that he liked. But basically, he looked like any ordinary twelve-year-old.
Well, almost twelve-year-old.
“I wish I could stay a kid forever,” he whispered to his reflection.
As he got dressed, he caught a whiff of his closet and scrunched up his nose. Okay, maybe his sister did have a point about the smell. Of course, his mom had told him like a bazillion times to clean it out, but he always seemed to have better things to do, like play video games or skateboard in the park with his friends or read his pile of mystery books.
He could worry about having a clean closet when he got older, couldn’t he?
Barrie slammed the closet door and grabbed his backpack, then bounded downstairs to the kitchen. He was still half asleep, but luckily, he could navigate his house on autopilot. They’d lived there since he was born.
Before he could pour himself cereal or sit down at the table, Dad caught his eye. That pile of bills sat next to him and somehow looked even taller than it had last night.
“Did you finish your homework?” his father asked.
Another terrible thing about growing up. Homework. Every year, it got harder and took longer, too. He was one week away from graduating from elementary school and moving up to sixth grade. The graduation ceremony was next Friday. He’d be attending New London Junior High School in the fall. But first, he’d have a glorious three months of summer break, where he didn’t have to worry about anything other than being a kid and having fun.
“Uh, yeah mostly,” Barrie said, fudging. The truth was…he hadn’t done any of it. He’d just gotten so caught up in his new book. He’d have to try to copy off Michael and John, his best friends. He just hoped they had actually done the homework and not goofed off like him.
“Well, if we find out you didn’t,” Mom chimed in cheerfully, “you’ll get grounded again.” She took a sip from her giant cup of coffee.
Barrie eyed his parents over the breakfast table. They both looked…tired.
Despite them insisting that waking up early was a good thing, they both had dark circles under their eyes and chugged coffee like their lives depended on it. Even now, his mom was downing her fresh cup in a few swallows. Her coffee intake had definitely risen since the layoff and transition to working from home, and the living room had become her de facto office. It was covered in random pieces of paper and draped with power cords for various electronic devices. Everything had changed, and not for the better.
“Just wait for high school,” Rita said in a snarky voice, pouring a bowl of healthy cereal and adding almond milk. “It gets a lot harder. You’ll have even more homework—plus algebra.”
The way his sister pronounced algebra made it sound like a curse word. His eyes darted to her backpack, slumped by the front door. It was overflowing with thick textbooks.
“Uh, I’m not even sure what that is,” Barrie said, bypassing the healthy options and pouring himself a bowl of his favorite sugary cereal with a friendly-looking cartoon pirate gracing the box. “Fractions are bad enough.”
“It’s like fractions times a million,” Rita said, aiming her milk-encrusted spoon at his face. “Trust me, you’ll hate it—”
“Rita, don’t scare your little brother like that.” Dad cut her off, slurping coffee. “Algebra is great fun.”
Rita looked horrified. “Uh, how is algebra fun? Are you losing it? Nobody likes algebra. It’s like a scientific fact. They’ve proven it in actual studies.”
“Right…let’s see…things we couldn’t do without algebra…” Dad mused. “It’s how we got to the moon.”
Barrie shot his father a skeptical look. He knew for a fact that parents lied to kids a lot. Like white lies. Little lies. It was almost like they didn’t want kids to realize the truth about what it was really like to grow up.
“The moon?” Rita said with a snort. “Uh, that’s the best you’ve got? Can algebra get me out of carpool, too?”
“Rita, we discussed this already,” Mom called from across the kitchen, shooting her a chastising look. “We had an agreement, remember?”
But then she brightened and tapped the family wall calendar. “Excited for your birthday next week, Little Guy?”
She pointed to the square for Monday. On it was a crude drawing of balloons and a birthday cake, along with the scrawled words:
The week was packed with other appointments, including his graduation ceremony on Friday, which promised to be excruciatingly boring and feature a cameo by his annoying aunt Wanda and twin cousins, who were both drooling, snotty toddlers.
But then there was also the one thing that he’d been looking forward to for months. His eyes locked on the square for Tuesday, and he felt a rush of excitement jolt through him.
“Yeah, how would you like to celebrate?” Dad chimed in. “I mean, besides going to the Lost Boys concert with your friends on Tuesday night and rocking out.”