This is the first part of five. I will be posting each new section in this thread, and I will edit the title with updated dates. Thank you for reading!
A/N: This MC is a semi-retarded teenager. Any help with making him seem like one would be much appreciated.
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026: Round
The ball started it all.
I was just bouncing it. Really, that’s all I was doing. No magic tricks. No optical illusions. Just bouncing the ball. There’s nothing wrong in doing that, is there?
The ball was scarlet. I’d picked it up from the rain gutter and wiped off the mud that clung to it. It was a bouncy ball: the kind that you chuck at the ground and have contests to see who can shoot it up into the air the highest. I always won. Jessica was stupid and tossed it like a girl. She didn’t know how to do it right.
It was raining outside, but I didn’t care. I was wearing my windbreaker with my hood up. Jessica was pansying around, shivering and cold. She was glaring at me, but I tried to ignore her.
“Beat this!” I cried and chucked the rubber ball on the ground. A grin slid across my face as I watched the scarlet ball soar into the cloudy sky. “Did you see that, Jessie?”
“Mmhm,” she says. She didn’t see it though. I was watching her eyes the whole time. They were staring at her feet, and her feet were dipping into a muddy puddle. Girls were stupid that way.
The ball came back down and I chased it into the street. Jessica eyed me warily as I returned with a goofy smile on my face.
“Can we go in? Please?” she begged.
I threw the ball at the ground again, and it bounced into the air. This time I didn’t throw it with enough force, so the ball didn’t go very high. I caught it and threw it again.
“Eddy, please? Can we go inside? It’s so cold out here!” I pretended not to hear her. I threw the ball into the driveway of my house again, and it bounced back quickly. I jumped up into the air to catch it—
It slipped through my fingers and went into the street. I chased it like a dog would fetch a bone, except not on my hands and knees, because then I would look dumb. The ball kept bouncing and bouncing until it ended up in someone’s yard. And, even then, it kept bouncing and bouncing and bouncing.
“Eddy! Eddy, look out! Eddy!” Jessica shrieked, and I turned around. There was a car heading down the road. I froze like a deer in headlights. The car wasn’t slowing down.
“EDDY!” Jessica roared and bounded into the street. I was still frozen. The car wasn’t, though.
“EDDY, MOVE!”
I quickly jumped to one side, and the car missed me by not even an inch. I felt the side view mirrors brush my skin, and I flinched, hopping backwards. I tripped on my leg, and tumbled to the ground in a big, twisted mess.
“Eddy! Oh, my—” Jessica cried as she flung herself over me. “Are you okay? Where did you get hurt?”
“Why are you crying?” I asked, scrunching up my face. “All I wanted to do was get my ball.” Jessica wiped her face and moaned.
“I’m supposed to be baby-sitting you! Edward Phillips, you are a twelve year old boy! Act like one!” She slapped my cheek, and I became frozen again. Pain echoed throughout my jaw, and my smile quickly faded into a disappointed frown. "Don't ever do that again! You hear?"
“I’m sorry, Jessica. All I wanted was my ball…” Jessica sighed and got off me.
“I know. I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have slapped you.”
“Can I go get my ball?”
“Yeah,” Jessica said, and pulled me up onto my feet. “Come on. Where did you see it last?” I pointed over to a neighbor’s yard, and said I had seen it last there. We quietly walked over to the green yard, hand in hand.
“Where is it?” Jessica asked, and I shrugged.
“I don’t know. Maybe it fell into one of the window wells?" I pointed my finger to one, and we walked over there. I was suddenly puzzled, and Jessica pulled her hand away from mine. We walked a bit closer to the window well and looked down. There was glass shattered everywhere, but that wasn’t what made me gasp.
We were looking into another world. It was just beyond the window. I could see my scarlet bouncy ball on the other side. It was sitting nicely in a tree’s shade and blades of grass.
“What in the world…?” Jessica whispered. We bent down to gaze into the shattered window.
Like I said, the ball started it all.
