Status: On hiatus until I get a beta!

Just One Bad Day

Chapter One

I could feel an ant crawling along my right ankle, slowly making its way up under my trousers. I sat there for a moment and let the sensation move around my leg. The ant continued to trek its way up my leg. I sat still and let it go as far as my knee. I was about to reach forward and swat it when it finally turned around, walked in a circle, and marched back down my leg. The creeping feeling then vanished, and the ant had gone back into the forest of grass and dirt. My focus went from the tiny creature to the lake stretching out before me. It was almost a nine kilometre walk around the edge of it. The picture was gorgeous; tall pond ferns grew around the outside, and lilies near the water’s edge, an old wooden jetty stretched out across the water, where an old rowboat barely hung to the post by a thin tattered rope. Just behind the lake was a row of trees stretching around the sides of the lake and making their way back towards the city, and from our point on the hill we could see above the tops of the pine trees to see the mountains in the distance, reaching up towards the sky.

‘Have you ever thought about leaving here, Jack?’ Violet spoke up. I looked over to my best friend, taking her in. She was a small girl, just reaching 5’2’’. She had wavy blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, and a face full of freckles. Her focus was trained on something in the distance, but he had a feeling that she was just very deep in thought, and something was on her mind.
‘Not once. Why would I?’ I asked, raising an eyebrow at her.
‘I don’t know. Do you really like it here?’
‘Not really.’ I admitted, turning my gaze to my lap. I couldn’t help but feel my life, or at least the more memorable moments, flash through my mind.
‘Well do you think you could ever be happy somewhere else? You know, get a fresh start, that kind of thing.’ She had started frowning now. Something was definitely on her mind, and I had to pry.
‘Well leaving would certainly leave my problems behind, but it would also mean leaving you behind, and I couldn’t do that.’ It was true. The first time I had seen the young girl was on her first day in grade one. Her mother had done her hair into piggy tails at her request. When she got to school the other students gave her hell about them, calling her a horse and piggy. Yes, ever so imaginative. But it was enough to reduce her to tears, and when one boy grabbed her hair and tried to use them as reins I couldn’t just stand back and watch. Being a third grade student I was bigger than them all. I pulled him away from the little girl, gave them a nice hard shove and told them to leave her alone or I’d come rag on them. They took off running, and I turned back to Violent. I helped fix up her hair, wiped her eyes, and told her if she ever needed help again to find me. From that day on I had become her protector and her friend.
‘That’s the thing,’ Violet broke my thought, ‘I’m about to finish school. I don’t want to stay in this place. I want to get out; I hate it here. We could do it together, you know. Get out and start somewhere fresh. What do you say?’

I took a moment to think it over, but there really wasn’t much to think about. If Violet left, I would be by her side whether I liked it or not. She was the only good thing about my life and I wouldn’t just let her walk out on me like that. With a sigh, I decided I wouldn’t try and stop her.
‘And where would we go?’ If she was bringing this up I had no doubt she had thought it all through.
‘There’s this place, it’s about seven hours from here. My aunt used to live there in the day and she loved it. It’s called Gotham City. Beautiful sky scrapers, little parks with ponds that freeze over in the winter, it’s beautiful.’ The name Gotham City seemed vaguely familiar, and the words seemed to make the hair on the back of my neck stick up. I couldn’t put my finger on why though. After a few moments trying to pin point the feeling I gave up and shrugged it off.

‘I really think it would be a good place to go though. I mean there are plenty of jobs out there so I could get a job as a waitress or something just to pay rent to begin with, then I could put my degree to some good use. And hey, the crime rate isn’t the greatest. I guess you’ll be able to keep yourself occupied while I’m gone.’ I broke into a hysterical cackle. I couldn’t understand how we were best friends; myself the pick-pocketing son of a drug addicted prostitute and an alcoholic, and Violet the daughter of a well known lawyer and renowned physician. But here we were, years on and as close as ever. If Violet chose to leave town, we both knew I would follow her wherever she went.
‘Alright, you’ve still got months to go in school. We’ll work something out in that time, but for now, what do you want for your birthday?’