The Orphans (Book 3): Strangers (2 page)

Aslin shrugged off Clary’s hand about as quickly as Clary could remove it, neither man had anything smart to say to Andy. Andy limped in looking through the cupboard for his coffee mug. He looked through everything and when he looked down and saw Aslin taking drinks from the cup that he used every morning he snatched it from him tossing the remainders into the sink and wiping it with his dirty shirt. He looked up choking on a laugh, “Don’t want any of your twos germs Clary doesn’t look all that well kempt. You do what you want though I won’t judge I far be it from me to judge the sexuality of two brave soldiers.”

“We aren’t.”

“You aren’t doing anything, get out of my kitchen i got a pound of bacon i’m gonna throw on and teach these city kids what a good looking breakfast can look like. you boys want to talk, you do it after i get my first smoke and cup of coffee of the day.”

The two just stood there in a daze, neither of them used to having to talk to someone so old fashioned and minded. When they didn’t get out of his kitchen he clapped his hands twice shaking them out of it. “I said get the fuck out until i’ve cooked some food and had a smoke. I’m not a morning person god damn it and if i’m going to have more damn people in here than the Walton’s then i’m going to need some space, and you two dipshits are standing in it, now get out now!”

They hustled out of the kitchen and outside where they could catch some cool air. Andy was slamming pans around like the world was coming to an end which wasn’t all that hard to imagine. The pans being thrown about brought people down the steps one after another. Aslin realized that he didn’t know any of the new kids names or anything about them. They watched as the new kids came down the stairs. Aslin slapped Clary on the shoulder pointing into the house. “Hey, hey check out the new kids coming down you see any potential recruits there?”

Clary turned around watching the youths coming into the living room. The teens assembled in the living room looking like they were waiting for someone to give them directions. Alsin was about to ask Clary if they should go and help get the food assembly line moving when Andy came out with a stack of paper plates in his hand yelling for all to be heard. “Everyone getcha some paper plates and some food. We use the fine china here at casa la senior andy’s place.”

The teens who looked nervous were instantly taking a like t Andy and looking at him like they would a grandpa figure. Clary said, “Looks like he likes kids right?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because he was a total prick to the two of us.”

“You have that effect on people Clary.”

Aslin left him on the wrap around deck mouth open and thinking a slew of curse words towards Aslin. Clary watched as the kids he hadn’t gone through hell yesterday with made their way into the living room with plates full of food. He hadn’t paid much attention to the kids yesterday when picking them up off of the street. He noticed one boy that was stocky and shorter than the rest and had almond shaped eyes. Aslin was about to go inside when Clary snapped, “Aslin come here now.”

              Aslin laughed, “No way dude i’m going to get breakfast.”

              Clary who wasn’t joking at all said, “Fucking come here for a minute now I want you to look at something.”

              “What….what is it that you need me to check out?”

              Clary pointed, “Did you see that kid?”

              Aslin looked through the window and seeing the boy that Clary was pointing at. The boy looked up seeing this and looked around verifying that he was the focus of their attention. He ignored them pointing at his food. Aslin said, “Well now I feel like a creep, what is it that i'm supposed to have seen Clary?”

              “He looks like he has down syndrome doesn’t it?”

              “Well yeah, and what of it?”

              “Do you know anything about the disease? Is he going to be extra work, we can’t handle anything like that.”

              “But Patrick is on insulin and you aren’t worried about him.”

              “Patrick is ok, he won’t be any extra work.”

              “But the kid you haven’t even met yet will be?”

              “Look it’s you and me we don’t need to be politically correct, you know what I mean so stop pussy footing around the difficult answer.”

              “Why don’t we just go in there and get the answers that we want instead of making the kid feel all sorts of creepy.”

              They went into the living room and the boy had already forgotten about Clary and Aslin. They walked in staying in the back of the room and listened to the conversation between the boy and a girl who had some similar facial features but not the young face looking more than a little perturbed with the boy. He slammed the food on the coffee table startling everyone. “Mom makes cheerios, biscuits and jam on wednesday’s today is wednesday and he made toast, eggs and bacon.”

              “Joey, you like all that stuff. Just eat it, we aren’t going to be having things like we used to for a while. I know you like your routine, but there isn’t much we are going to be able to do about it. Can’t you just bend your schedule you like all that food. Christ after sleeping in that damn office you’ve got to be hungry, I know that i’m starving.”

              “Well nobody’s keeping you from eating Jenn, if you don’t care about what you eat go ahead.”

Jen said, “So you’re saying you who leaves no plate full is going to waste the food?”

Joey gripped the plate shaking his head. “Well it doesn’t mean I won’t eat it.”

              Andy said, “You don’t want your food hand it over, I still got a whole group of teens that are still going to want to eat whenever they get their lazy asses up.”

              Joey gripped the plate a little tighter and hunched over it.

              Clary came into the room further, “What’s wrong with your food buddy? you don’t like good home cooking?”

              The boy looked up bending his head pointing at himself. “Sorry did you just call me buddy? I’m pretty sure you are a stranger.”

              Jen leaned in whispering and tugging on his football jersey. “Joey do not be rude, he saved our buts yesterday.”

              Joey shrugged her off pointing at his jersey. “Don’t pull on it, it’s mine and i’ll kick your butt if you stretch it out.”

              The boy on the other side gripped his shoulder putting a arm around him, “Hey Joey it’s cool, lets just save the food for later ok. You want to go check out this place for a while and we can get a workout in?”

Clary cleared his throat, “Well my names Clary and we were just looking for some background on everyone. We got a kid named Patrick from yesterday that we met and he’s on insulin, he about went into a damn coma, so we were just hoping that if any of you…..you know required drugs daily that we should get a running list so that we can try and get you what you need before it’s all gone from the looters It’s only a matter of time before they get brave enough to take on the town.”

He watched the kids making sure not to look at Joey until last when he was just staring at him blankly Joey finally couldn’t stand the stares any longer and asked, “What do you keep lookin at me for, are you a creep or something?”

His brother said, “Sorry sometimes.”             

Joey pushed his brother away and said, “Shut up Jordan, don’t make apologies for me, i’m not stupid, mom and the teachers say he you shouldn’t stare. He keeps saring why don’t you yell at him, it’s not always my fault damn it.”

Clary held up his hands in defeat. “He’s right, I just don’t know any kids that have what you do. I just wanted to make sure that he’d be alright without medicine but if we needed to try and stop at a pharmacy when we leave later that we’d be happy to try our best to get him whatever it is that he might need.”

Joey rose to his feet looking panicked. He gripped his brother Jordan’s shoulders looking very worried and shaking him. He said, “Jordan, Jen what are we going to do if I don’t get my medicine? I’m not gonna make it, didn’t you grab it out of the truck when we were running for our lives?”

Clary said, “Hey it’s ok, we can get it, don’t worry just tell me what it is alright.”

Joey looked at the man worry spread deep across his face. Clary looked down at his brother and sister who were looking at the floor shaking their heads. Clary said, “What, what is it, how long does he have?”

Jen looked up pure embarrassment on her face trying not to laugh at the same time. “Oh I don’t know i’d say a good sixty years maybe more if he ever tries to eat healthy.”

Clary took a step back and said, “Wait, what do you mean?”

Joey collapsed back on to the couch smiling from ear to ear his boyish face looking mischievous as ever. “Well it’s called down syndrome, not down disease, because i’m not sick, I don’t have to take drugs. I’m healthy. I’m not different I learn like everyone else does but I learn at my own pace.They say that I am a highly functioning DS case.”

Jordan looked at Clary nodding and added, “Doctors call it Mosaic Downs Syndrome he is high functioning which I think can be questioned sometimes because of how big a pain in the ass he can be. Other than being a hugger, and a little short for his size he is just like us sir. He prefers to be treated that way to.”

Joey stood up and flexed his biceps showing there definitely was something there. “Yeah I might be short, but look at the gun show baby.”

Clary smiled shaking his head and Aslin came behind him patting him on the shoulder. “So do you feel like a complete tool?”

He nodded his head and eyeing Joey’s shirt and Jen’s volleyball tournament shirt that had the weekend priors dates listed across the chest he asked, “So what’s your guy’s story, how did you end up in such a small town?”

She said, “I don’t know it was kind of all a blur how fast everything happened. I think a nightmare kind of sums it up.”

Joey jumped up out of his seat and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We had a long car ride home ahead of us because of Jen’s volleyball tournament we’re always going to those.”

Jen cut in saying, “Uh excuse me, how many football tournaments and special olympics have I gone to for you over the years? You are seriously going to give me crap right now?”

Joey winked at Clary, “Yeah but my tournaments rock! Anyways we had to stop because of a semi wrecking out on the interstate to go home. Well mom wasn’t feeling good so we stayed in the truck with her and dad got out and walked up to see what was going on. I think we drove for about twenty minutes and I saw dad go to sleep. Mom and them were asleep and I was reading The Rolling Stone. I shook his shoulder but it was no use and he crashed into the  building.”

“Wait you say your dad was falling asleep at the wheel?” clary asked.

“Don’t interrupt, it’s rude to interrupt teachers say don’t interrupt, you don’t interrupt Clary. When dad wakes up he bites his arm and bloods coming from his eyes. I don’t know what happened, but he starts tearing into mom’s neck and none of us could do anything to stop him. Once she started screaming for us to run as she was clawing at him to stop we got out of there. I think he would have gotten us to if it hadn’t been for the seat belt being in a locked position and the airbag.”

Aslin said, “What’d you do then? Did your dad make it out of there?”

Jordan cleared his throat choking back the tears. “Yes he did get out but we were far enough away that he never found us. I don’t understand what happened to him, but we found a shop that was empty and Joey strong armed the door open and we went up stairs and hid in a small storage place. We’ve been waiting there for things to cool off but it just seemed to get worse the longer we had to wait there.”

Jen buried her head in Joey’s shoulder and let the tears run. Clary looked at the next set of kids and said, “What about you guys are you from Adel?”

They shook their heads no to and clary asked, “So what happened to you?”

Shaun and the rest came down the steps moving slow from a full day before. He set his rifle down in the corner nodding hsi head to the new kids and to the adults. “I don’t think we need to ask why or how they got here Clary anymore please.”

“What do you mean.”

Shaun said, “Who here lost everyone that they had to trust yesterday? Anyone here not alone, not an orphan at this point?” When none of them raised their hands he continued, “Is there anything else useful that you are going to find out, except probably the saddest list of stories you’ve ever heard?”

Clary thought about it shaking his head and motioned for them to follow him to the kitchen. “Hey there’s food over here, he must have fried up an entire pig this morning.”

Andy hearing that said, “You got a problem with my cooking, i’m more than happy to put you in charge.”

Aslin said, “Oh god please don’t do that Andy, we won’t survive a week if we let let Clary here cook. Even if we had a doctor we still might not make it.”

This brought a few laughs from the crowd of teens and clary said, “Hey don’t encourage him, no good comes from it, I promise, I really do. Come on guys we need to talk, lets get something to eat and head outside, it’s nice out.”

Shaun nodded and the five nodded to the new group as they made their way into the kitchen loaded up on grub thanked Andy and headed to the wrap around deck. Clary let the kids settle on the stoop shoving much needed food into their mouths and said, “So we have a dilemma here and Aslin and I thought we’d run it by you since we aren't really in charge of you at all and we are gonna need to take the truck with us.”