I'm pretty sure I don't know something that everyone else seems to know. My life is pretty messed up if that's the case, since for one, Mom quit trying to homeschool me four years ago, two, I don't properly know my Dad, and three, my pet snake is a coward. Let me explain. Mom ‘homeschooled me' which technically was me in a lounge chair listening to ‘educational' audiobooks about physics and that kind of jazz. To be honest, they weren't all that great, but considering it was the only other thing on my schedule other than chores all afternoon. My Mom wasn't a professional at teaching someone like me, a middle school girl that would rather have to clean ten litter boxes than listen to a long explanation about chemicals and gravity. So she clarified to me at dinner four years ago that school was expensive, the first reason why she never admitted me to any nearby schools, and overrated. It didn't bother me anyway, since this talk was inevitable.
It's not that Mom can't afford for me to go to school; Dad brings home five hundred dollars a week or so and I usually snatch a quarter of it and slide it under my door in my bedroom at five o'clock, which I slip into a jar I hide under my bed. I'm saving up so I can pay for myself to go to school to lessen Mom's worries and (hopefully) the amount of chores I get to do every day. Mom works at In-N-Out, but she uses the dollars to buy food and pay for our apartment. Basil likes to watch me wake up at five in the morning, how I slump out of bed, crumple the money into my palm and store it in a glass jar, but I mostly think he's just waiting for me to get up and feed him. Like he will even let me. Mom just thinks I won't get any better at learning from going to school, but I'm not sure I agree with her, it's like how she thought snakes were easier to take care of than a dog but they're not.
Personally, I don't know what Dad's profession is. Maybe he's a more decent middle-grade teacher than Mom is, but I doubt it, since he's always on the road and comes back around midnight. Mom always says he has work, and then bites down on her lip like she has a sudden memory that seems to annoy her. Sometimes I like to fantasize what kind of job he has that keeps him on the job for twelve hours each day. Chemical scientist? Even though I didn't know him that well, ‘brainiac' wasn't a word to describe him. He's tall and large for his age, and he rarely speaks to me, but he makes me breakfast every morning before he leaves to work which gives me hope he's not cold hearted. Crab fisherman? This was my primary guess for a while since they have to be out on the water for periods of time, but a couple months ago my mom told me about how my dad has seasickness and hates how you have to stick an alive worm on a hook to fish.
To put it in seven words, ‘Basil is a milk snake gone wrong'. He is pretty much half chicken if you count how many times he's cowardly hid in the shadows while I try to feed him his usual diet, mice and crickets, since he's a juvenile. Maybe I should've chosen a dog as a pet, but Mom thought a snake would be easier to take care of. I take out a large plastic bowl of water before bed every night and set the heating right for Basil to bask in and spray mist on his terrarium every single day. Think that's easy? Harrumph, after all I do for him, the coward won't let me touch him, even though he's supposed to be generally docile.
Specifically this morning, when I was dragged out of bed by a voice known as mom at six o'clock in the morning, Basil had wrapped his scaly lower body around one of the longer artificial foliage. I attempted to feed him, but it was a hopeless case; the small snake avoiding my eyes. Right then, my phone started buzzing from inside my pillow case. I almost leapt in surprise, and once I came back to my senses, I slid my phone out of the sheets and silenced it. I knew I wasn't supposed to have my phone in my bed, but at night I found researching lulling. I placed the phone to my left ear.
"Hello?" I snapped.
"Apparently there's going to be a pro wrestling match in the gymnasium at the local middle school!" an excited voice rang from the phone and I had turned the volume down to keep from piercing my eardrums.
"A ‘goodmorning and a sorry I called you at six in the morning' would've been nice," I grumbled, but I felt myself grinning at the familiar voice of my neighbor Cali. She goes to school unlike me, so of course she knew if wrestlers were coming to her school.
"Were you sleeping?" Cali asked.
"Well...no...," I mutter. Cali seems to always know when I wake up so she calls at the exact time I get out of bed.
"Me neither. I'm too excited, and I really suggest you come," she gushes.
"It's not my school though," I say pointedly.
"It would've been, if not your mom had given up on sending you to school," Cali remarks, "And anywho, you're going anyway."
"And why is that?" I ask evenly.
"Because I'm already outside your apartment," Cali says like I should've known this already. I frown.
"Shouldn't I ask my mom first?"
"It's not like you're going that far," she adds. "Your apartment is one block away from the school." I ponder this, and shrug finally. Must be more exciting than sitting inside listening to educational audiobooks slumped over on the couch.
"Fine, fine," I give in and I can almost hear Cali's audible cheer. "I'll be outside in a minute." I slide on a black sweater and thick grey socks and after a couple more attempts of feeding Basil, I tell my mom I'm going on a walk and meet Cali outside the door. Cali is right: It's not too long of a walk to the middle school and we head to the gymnasium which is already packed with students and parents who were nice enough to wake up early to bring their children to school. We found two empty plastic chairs near the ring that had been set up earlier because the bleachers were packed. While we waited, I continued fantasizing my dad's profession, stuff like firefighters or long haul truck drivers. Hmm, it was fun imagining my dad spraying gushing water out of a hose onto a flaming building.
Sometimes I wished I knew my dad more. He was always out and about, which made me more curious about what he did for a living, and I always told myself, whatever job he has, it must be pretty cool, something cool like a wrestler like this first match was going to be. A tall woman, probably the principal, entered the stage, making a speech about school funds and boring adult stuff like that.
"It's starting!" Cali squealed with pure excitement.
My phone started ringing again. I picked up quickly.
"Genesis, where are you?" my mom's voice spoke. The woman announcer left the stage, and suddenly music blasted from the speakers.
"The...uh, the neighborhood?" I lied, less confidently.
"Right," my mom said, her tone revealing she was clearly unconvinced. "Where's that music coming from?"
"Okay, I'm at the middle school," I said, distractedly watching a buff man jump into the ring sending a chorus of thunderous applause.
"Doing what?"
"Hanging with Cali," I replied, and then a different toon plays on the speakers, most of the audience recognizing the new wrestler's theme song and cheering. The new wrestler slowly walks away from a curtain of darkness, and mom's questioning becomes inaudible as the lights shone down on the man. I recognized him instantly, making my heart stop. Could it be...? My dad wasn't a fireman, driver or scientist. The wrestler slid onto the ring and he scanned his eyes across the gymnasium.
To my pure amazement, he was my dad.