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Chapter One

Speedy.

I always wanted to be called Speedy. There was a famous comic book series of a superhero when I was young. It featured Señor Speedy Steve. He would save the day in every comic by running in at the speed of light, fighting bad guys, saving the damsel in distress. But no one ever thought that the name fit me. Actually, no one would ever even listen to me.

You see, ever since I was much younger, I’ve struggled with stuttering. No one really listens to me, and sometimes, stuttering frustrates me to no end. I don’t stutter all the time, but more than I would ever care to. Usually when I’m stressed or at an emotional high, that’s when I stutter. So, as a result, no one ever called me Speedy.

It was high school, and I was a freshman. The day was particularly hard for me because some students were teasing me about my stuttering. It’s not like I could help it if I wanted to. It didn’t help that I had recently moved to the city over the summer and knew nobody. I think that it was during the first week, and I remember that it was a Friday. The day before, I had spoken during class for the first time, inevitably revealing my embarrassing self-problem.

“Hey, B-b-bryan the st-stutter,” was only one of the insults hurled at me. Usually the teachers tried to stop the other students from teasing me, but when the teachers weren’t around, some of the insults cut pretty deep. Not only were students making fun of me, but teachers called on me a lot that day, only increasing my embarrassment, denying me the right to keep my insecurities to myself.

When I got home, my dad wasn’t off of work yet. He and my mom had recently divorced, causing the move to the city. But my cat was there, waiting at the door when I unlocked and opened it.

“Hey, Fancy.” For some reason, when I talk to Fancy, I don’t stutter. I guess that she’s kind of a security cat for me.

The new house was tiny, smaller than I would have imagined. There was only one bathroom, and my bedroom was about half the size that it had been at my mom’s place. I thought that the location was dumb, because it was right next to a supermarket. Who wants to live next to a supermarket? My dad said that later, I would probably come to be happy about it, but I think he was trying to convince himself that living next to a supermarket was good.

I plopped down on the couch, boxes everywhere, labeled neatly. We were still unpacking boxes, although my bedroom was just about unpacked. Fancy came, jumped up on the couch, and settled in my lap.

“Fancy, today was awful,” I confessed, while petting her, hearing her purr in compliance. “I’ve been going to this school for only a week, and feel like I have no friends! Worse yet, kids have been teasing me about my st-st-stupid st-st-st-stuttering!” I sighed at myself in frustration, petting Fancy as she purred along at me.

In frustration from my bad day, I went and took a shower to calm down a bit. Usually, I would have showered right before bed or even in the morning, but feeling the cool water helped me to calm down and recuperate. Then, I went out into the living room to start working on my homework. High school was very different from middle school when it came to expectations and work-load. I mean, yeah, I had homework in middle school too, but not nearly as much. At least, the homework didn’t seem as pointless in middle school as it was starting to seem in high school. Teaching myself from the book, figuring new concepts on my own; wasn’t that the job of the teachers? I had a reading assignment due on Monday, so I worked on reading that. It was an assignment to begin reading part of Homer’s Odyssey. I had already started reading it in some down time during school, and it wasn’t too bad.

I fell asleep on the couch while reading, and was jolted awake when the home phone began ringing. It was already 7:00! Stumbling out of my sleeping stupor, I trudged over to the house phone. The caller ID was unavailable. Normally, I wouldn’t bother picking up the phone when there was no caller ID, but my dad was late getting home, so I thought it might be him.

“H-h-hello?” I asked.

“Bryan? Is that really you?” It sounded like my dad, but his voice was hoarse and tired.

“Y-yeah, who else w-w-would it be? A-are you okay? When are you g-g-getting home? I’m hungry.”

“I’m fine; I ran into an old friend at the park.” He didn’t sound fine. He sounded rushed, like he was in danger.

“A-a-are you sh-sh-sure? You d-don’t—” He unusually cut me off.

“Yes, please listen closely, son. My friend says that he would like to see you. Could you please come to the park, the one closest to my job? You know which one?”

“The one th-that we w-w-went to when we f-first got here?”

“Yes, please hurry.” And he hung up.