Field Trip

”Gerard’s partner will be Frank Iero and Ray’s par-”

“Wait, what? Why? My little brother is in this class. Why am I not being paired up with him?”

“Because I know that the two of you together would be nothing but trouble.”
Gerard scowls and grunts and crosses his arms.
“Which is why I’m pairing Mikey up with Ray Toro.” The teacher folds up her piece of paper and puts it in her backpack.
“Alright. Now, listen up! You will now get to walk around the museum on your own. Do not get lost, do not lose your partner and do not touch anything!” Frank puts his hands in his pockets.
“We will all meet back here in 2 hours. Do any of you have any questions?” Nobody raises their hand.
“Okay. Now find your partner and go on.” Frank looks over at Gerard who still has his arms crossed.
Frank bites his lower lip and walks over to him.
Gerard glances down.

“Hi Gerard!” Frank says in his little voice and smiles at him. Gerard doesn’t smile back, and Frank’s smile quickly falters.

“It’s pronounced Gerard. With a J-sound.” His voice is firm.

“But I can’t say that.” Frank looks down at his shoes. They’re new. No one has noticed.

“Whatever. Just come on.” Gerard turns around and walks away. Frank quickly runs after him. When he catches up, he grabs Gerard’s dangling hand.
“What are you doing?” he asks – sounding outraged – and pulls his hand out of Frank’s light grasp. Frank looks up at him. Gerard’s face is wrinkled – looking mad.

“We’re supposed to not lose each other.” Gerard rolls his eyes.

“That means we’re supposed to look out for each other, not hold hands.” He put his hands in his jacket pockets and walks away again. Frank just stands there for a second or two.
How can he look out for me if he keeps walking away from me?
Frank grabs onto the straps of his dog-backpack and follows him. Frank loves his backpack. It’s plush and the dog – which he named Pooch – looks like it’s sticking its head out of the front pocket. Frank loves that backpack.
Frank quickly catches up.

“Do you promise to look out for me?” Gerard glances down at Frank through the corner of his eye, before he looks up at the white ceiling and sighs deeply.

“Whatever.”

-----

Frank is bored. At the moment Gerard is staring at a black painting, which Frank does not only find boring, but also slightly sad to look at. Gerard, on the other hand, seems very occupied by it.
Frank turns around and looks around the room. Through a doorway, he sees something colorful. He turns back to see that Gerard’s still staring at the black painting, so he decides to go check out the room.
He walks over to the doorway and peeks into the room. Frank’s big, brown eyes light up.
The whole room is filled with colors – yellow, red, blue, white, green, orange, purple. Frank can’t help but smile.
He wipes his smile off of his face, before he turns back to check if Gerard’s still there. He is.
Frank walks into the room. His eyes flicker around – trying to look at each and every colorful painting at once. His jaw is dropped as his small feet carry him further into the room. He walks straight ahead towards the biggest painting. It’s got every color anyone could ever imagine. It has no prominent resemblance to anything, but it still makes Frank’s imagination go crazy. He sees everything in that painting. He sees green meadows, blue lakes, tall trees, brown birds, a yellow sun, a blue moon, a white bird, a red squirrel, orange flowers, black hair, brown-greenish eyes, pink lips, off-white skin, brown eyelashes.
Frank blinks rapidly and tears his eyes away from the big painting. His head spins and his eyes hurt.
He stands still with his eyes closed for a full minute, at least, before he opens them and turns around. He walks back out of the room – his eyes glued to the floor as he leaves.
When he’s out of the room and far off into the previous one, he finally looks up. He looks around and quickly finds the black painting from before – the one that Gerard liked.
But Gerard isn’t there.
Frank quickly snaps his head around – and around. He looks all over the room – at every single face – but Gerard isn’t there. He’s gone.
Frank is alone.
He stands still – looking around the room one more time. He’s desperate. He needs to find Gerard. He’ll get lost without him.
He’s lost.
Frank looks down at his shoes. They’ve already gotten dirty.
He pouts visibly and quietly walks over to a black bench. He carefully pulls himself up on the – seemingly – high bench and buries his butt in hard material.
He folds his small hands in his small lap and stares at them. He picks at his dirty nails.
I shouldn’t have left.
A silent tear rolls down Frank’s cheek and lands on his red jumper.
And there he sits – a lonely little kid, his backpack hanging low, his head hanging low and his heart hanging even lower.
He’s been left. He’s been forgotten. He’s been abandoned by the one person in his life that actually promised to look after him.
Frank sniffles once.
He slowly lifts his head and his eyes. He follows the white floor, white panel and white wall and let his eyes rest on the black painting in front of him.
He stares.
Now that he actually looks at it – focuses on it – he sees brown, red and dark-blue streaks carefully running along with the brushstrokes of the black paint. He follows the lines and finds each curve captivating and fascinating – even soothing.
His tears stop flowing and his fear and loneliness slowly melts away.
He bites his flushed, red lower lip and quickly wipes his small, red nose with his red sleeve.
And he stares.
Suddenly someone sits down next to him, and Frank almost jumps off the bench in shock and horror. Though when he looks up, he realizes that he never wants to leave that bench.

“You left me.” Gerard’s smiling and gentle face turns into a frowning and wondering one at Frank’s question.

“I was just on the other side of that wall,” Gerard answers and points at the white wall in front of them. Frank looks up, and again the black painting captures his attention.
It’s like he can’t stop staring at it – it won’t leave his eyes alone. Every inch of the painting is begging to be seen by his huge, child-like eyes.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Frank’s eyes don’t tear away from the painting as his head simply nods to answer Gerard’s quiet question.
They sit there for a long time – for all the time they’ve got left. Tons of people walk by them – wondering looks on their faces as they pass the two very young boys staring at such a dark, somber painting. Some looks are even evil – judging. How can two young boys like that even be allowed to look at such a gloomy painting?
But the boys stay, and they stare, and they let their eyes rest on the one painting in the museum that seems to fully understand them and fully make them relax.
A picture of those two boys may say a thousand words, but the painting they’re staring at says so much more.