Chapter seven - totally biologically possible

Rose’s point of view

I'm so sorry. (Shit is really rEALLY HAPPENING.)

In other news, my dog had his fur cut and the woman at the dog place cut way too much off and he looks so stupid now x'D

I feel bad for him but it's so funny, oh my god.

Anyways. Read on, mah skittels. READ ON.


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I was a medical experiment.

I felt disgusting. I felt like more of a freak than I’d ever felt before. Some sick person had tried to change my DNA, tried to change my blood when I was just a baby. What mindset would you have to be in to try and mutate a baby?

It bounced around my head for the rest of the evening, for the rest of the night, and all the way to school.

My first lesson was physics, but I didn’t feel like sitting around in the changing rooms. My mind was too full, and I knew I would end up getting uncomfortably overwhelmed by it all if I was on my own with nothing else to focus on. I decided to wander around the school for a little while until nine o’clock came around.

I only managed to make it about ten metres down the hallway before someone stopped me.

“Rose!” Mrs Whitworth called.

Mrs Whitworth was my math teacher. This could only be bad news. “Yes?” I replied dryly, turning around.

“Ah, I’m glad I found you. We have a new student joining to the school today, and I think you’d be perfect to show him around.”

“What?” I said, staring at her blankly. I was, almost definitely, the least confident, least interesting kid in the school. “Sorry, why would I be perfect?”

Mrs Whitworth looked awkward for a moment. “You have quite a few things in common,” she said carefully.

I raised an eyebrow.

She shook her head, dismissing what she’d just said. “Well, you’re the least boisterous child I know, and I think that’ll be nice for him. He seems quite shy. Oh! And I think your parents know each other.”

I frowned. Dad and papa weren’t very good friends with anyone but Mikey, Ray and Bob, and all of papa’s work friends were childless single men. “Okay,” I said slowly. “When am I going to be showing him around?”

“How about now? You don’t have anything important to do, do you?”

“No, I can give him a quick tour before lessons start.”

“Lovely,” Mrs Whitworth said. She motioned for me to follow her and started walking briskly down the corridor. “His name is Julian; he’s in year nine,” she recited. “His family just moved here from America, so he might be a little… sensitive over certain topics.”

“Right,” I said, almost struggling to keep up with Mrs Whitworth’s pace. She was a tall woman with very long legs and sharp features– rather my opposite. I was slight and small, and hardly bony or pointy.

We came to the school office, and I glanced around, wondering about the whereabouts of this kid. He didn’t seem to be around.

I could here muffled voices from inside the office, and soon the secretary opened the door and emerged with who I assumed was Julian. He was quite small too, only a little taller than me, with dark brown eyes and thick black hair that looked straightened.

He looked up at me and grinned. I smiled back. Mrs Whitworth tapped me on the shoulder. “Show him around and take him to his lessons,” she instructed. “He’s on your timetable.”

I nodded, and Mrs Whitworth hummed in satisfaction and marched away, obviously to attend to some extremely important maths business.

“I’m Julian,” the boy said, ducking his head. He had freckles on his nose. “You’re–” he hesitated, “Rose, right?”

I nodded. “Did the secretary tell you?”

Julian smiled knowingly and shook his head. “Just a lucky guess,” he said mischievously.

“Wow, um,” I said confusedly. “Okay?”

He laughed. “I’m sorry, I’m weird like that.”

I shook my head, starting to smile. “It’s fine. I tend to weird people out too.”

----

I showed Julian the classrooms; the dull, dreary playground; the ugly tree; the decrepit climbing frame. The highlight of the tour was its ending. Or maybe the ugly tree.

But despite the fact that most of what we talked about was relating to the tree, I could tell that Julian was a cool kid. I gathered that he had a good music taste from the badges on his bag, he had hair I was ridiculously jealous of, and most of all, he didn’t question me being grey. He didn’t even flinch when he looked at me. I decided that this was a good thing.

We talked for most of the day, ignoring all of the tasks we were set in maths and science. Julian was fun to talk to, but he was a strange kid. He was blatantly cryptic sometimes, but he could also be hilarious. More than three times in one day the teachers had to give us detention warnings for laughing so loud.

Near the end of the day, it occurred to me to ask where Julian lived – we’d both come from America so maybe we would be housed in the same area – but he just smiled mischievously and shook his head. “All in good time.”

By the time school was over, I’d forgotten about what he said. When he started to follow me home, I was expecting him to turn around as soon as we got off the main path, but he kept following me.

“Do you live around here or something?” I asked.

He shook his head and smiled.

“Then why are you following me?”

“My parents told me to.”

I frowned and stopped walking. “That’s a little creepy.”

"Nah, it's fine. They're friends with your parents."

I raised an eyebrow. "My parents don't really have friends."

"My dad made it sound like the four of them used to be pretty close," Julian said with a shrug.

"Huh," I said, cautiously starting to walk again. "Maybe they knew each other when I was a baby."

Julian walked with me. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was all before I was born."

I nodded. "You're thirteen, right?"

"Fourteen. By like a week. You're sixteen, I'm guessing?"

"Yup. It's not as sweet as it sounds, though, I've got to say. Exams and shit. Jobs. Talking to people. Ew. No."

Julian laughed. "I know, right? My dad keeps pressuring me to pick a career. Dude. I'm fourteen."

I rolled my eyes. "Parents."

"Yeah... Dad wants me to be a guitarist or something, but to be honest, I kind of wanna get a proper job."

I snorted. "You're the opposite of every teenager in the world," I laughed.

"I get that a lot," he said, an amused smile on his face. "I'll take it as a compliment."

I shook my head, smiling. "You're weird, you know."

"Aren't we all, Rose?"

I grinned. "The best of us, at least."

----

Julian followed me all the way home. He even followed me inside saying that he wanted to say hi to my parents.

I was scared. And I was ashamed that I was scared. There was nothing wrong with having two dads. And Julian seemed open minded. But I was still scared.

Despite my fears though, he acted completely normal, introducing himself to dad and papa as a new friend from school. He didn't mention anything about them allegedly knowing his parents. Well, he didn't until papa pointed out that he looked a lot like one of his old friends from America.

Dad agreed. "He's got the freckles."

"And he's got the hair," papa commented.

"Jesus, he's even got Patrick's height."

Julian grinned at my parents. "Yup."

Papa's mouth nearly hit the floor. "Pete and Patrick are here?"

"Frank, I think you're missing the point," dad cried, confused and apparently quite freaked out. "Pete and Patrick have a child who looks like a real life composite of the two of them."

Papa frowned deeply, staring at Julian. "Jesus fucking Christ," he said, an expression of complete and utter disbelief on his face.

“Wait,” I mumbled. “Pete and Patrick…”

Julian started to smile.

“Your dads are in Fall Out Boy?” I squealed.

Julian laughed. “Yeah.”

“Excuse me, but–” dad stuttered, “Julian, how– how are you– that’s not biologically possible…”

“Oh, it sure is.”

“How?”

“Dad kinda copied you guys, breaking into a government building again. They nicked a load of their chemical samples. It was kind of a dumb idea on my dad’s part to drink one of the formulas, but no one died, so it’s all okay. Uh, basically, it resulted in me.”

Dad choked on his own breath. Papa stared at Julian in shock. I’m pretty sure my eyes were so wide they looked like they were going to pop out my skull.

“Patrick got pregnant,” papa stated.

Julian nodded shyly.

“Holy crap.”

I stared at Julian. “Holy fucking crap.”


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I'm sorry. Oh, god.

I'm crying laughing. I'm so sorry.


xoxo