Spork hated their room. They hated a lot of things, in a variety of abstract ways that they didn’t always have the words to express, but their hatred for their room was an old gripe, and so they were able to put their finger right on the point of it.
That being, there were no points. There were no sharp edges, no rough or spiky textures, no mess that was allowed to stay for more than a few hours. The bed was plush, and soft, and they sank deeply into it whenever they laid on it. They would’ve preferred to sleep on the floor, truth be told, but they were afraid that their parents might think they had fallen and reinstall the safety railings.
They would do a great many things to avoid the return of the safety railings, so they slept in the bed. Most of the time. When they couldn’t convince their parents to let them sleep over at Mari’s, at least, which meant it happened about thrice as much as they wanted it to. But in times like these, when it was just them and Mari? They were on the floor, picking at threads in the carpet while they listened to a Warrior Cats audiobook through their headphones.
There was just something about the casual descriptions of blood and violence that made them all warm and tingly inside, and the cute cats on the cover were enough to throw their parents off the scent. They’d even gotten Mari into the books, eventually, by using big words like “political intrigue.” See, they’re learning.
Mari’s voice filters over that of the narrator, and they pause the book, tugging the headphones down around their neck so that they can hear her without their brain jumbling the two threads. Even so, they turn a frown in her direction, unsure if they heard her right. “I’m what?”
Because it sounds like she said that they’re failing, but Spork has never failed at anything. Well, they didn’t do so hot on their latest vocabulary test, or their math quiz, or the science worksheet last week, but those don’t count. Their parents don’t know about those, can’t know about those, and if their parents don’t know then they can just pretend it never happened, right? It’s gotten them this far.
They frown at her, then reach for their headphones again. Their hands linger on the cups, perfectly-trimmed fingernails tapping against the smooth plastic without committing to lifting them. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I can’t be failing, my parents would’ve pulled me into private tutoring if I was,” they inform her. They aren't sure what to call the sticky, twisting feeling crawling through their stomach, but they don’t like it one bit.
