Short Story: Untitled
General YA Fiction
Prompt:
A teenage boy already going through growing pains gets a school assignment to write about his family history. He’s adopted. And the only parents he’s ever known?
They’re spies.
Joshua read the first line of the homework assignment and groaned. It was swallowed by the general chorus of complaints, some deep and rasping, some rising in a childish whine. Mrs. O’Neal ignored them, as she likely had ignored her students for the last two decades.
“Times New Roman, twelve-point, double space. Four pages,” she recited. It was her mantra. Joshua wondered if she had a tattoo of the phrase, she repeated it so often. If she hadn’t already made such arrangements, he would pay to have it engraved on her tombstone.
“Due Monday, beginning of class. And don’t even think about changing the file name, switching operating systems, etc., etc.” She swept a wry look over her students. “Just do it right the first time. It won’t kill you. Enjoy your lunch!”
It was their prerogative to grumble, so they did. Even though they knew Mrs. O’Neal was the nicest of the English teachers. She sent them out with the bell, laughing at their feigned distress.
Joshua dragged behind the rest, still gripping the instruction sheet.
Narrative Essay: Tell your family history. Where did your parents meet? Where is your family from? Why is this important to you?
He stuffed it in his backpack and settled the straps. The warm fall sun met him outside. His parents had rented a tiny house just across from the school and open lunch meant he could escape there for fifty-three minutes every day.
“Afternoon, Joshua!” his mother trilled out the open window. He raised a half-hearted hand in hello. “Lunch is waiting, dearest!”
He winced as he went up the steps, still jarred by their new house. Their front yard was perfectly landscaped. A decorative flag hung by the front door, proclaiming “Summer Fun!” with a smiling watermelon underneath. He shuddered.
“Hey, mom,” he greeted, hoping he sounded a little enthusiastic. Inside was as bad as the out, like Pinterest had vomited Modern Country Chic all over the living room. His mom swept out of the kitchen and hugged him. He squeezed her back, reassured by her familiar smell, her arms around him. It made the discordant surroundings more tolerable.
He settled at the table and stared at the ridiculous lunch she placed before him. How she had found the time to bake a pie, make bread, homemade jam, and grind her own peanut butter, he would never know.
“How was school?” she asked, pouring him some milk. Probably organic, local, and thick as a milkshake from a cow named Deidre or Hazel or something like that.
“Fine.”
She peppered him with questions, which he tried to be patient about. She sat next to him and smiled. He didn’t like when she wore so much make-up. It was too perfect, somehow, too precise.
Her manicured nails – cream with a tiny strawberry on the pinkie – tapped the tablecloth.
Dad call late, she signaled, urging him vocally to try the new pie recipe.
Trouble? he tapped back.
Unclear. Prepared?
In locker.
Watch for signal.
He nodded and drained his milk. She ruffled his hair, her smile faltering a little. She held him close again.
“I love you, Josh,” she said, voice a little husky. “I love you so much.”
“You, too, mom.”
She jumped up and flitted away, talking about her book club meeting. He finished leisurely. The warning bell floated across the road.
“Got to go, mom. ‘Bye.”
“See you after school!” she called from the kitchen.
Josh shoved through a knot of gamer girls to reach his locker. He sorted through his books, preparing for the afternoon. His English homework fell to the ground.
He read the prompt again and sighed. He used to have fun creating ridiculous back-stories for his family, for their life. Now, it was only tedious. And reminded him of the life he would never have. He shoved it into a book.
In the bottom of his locker was a small, zipped bag. Heavy for its size and padlocked. He settled it in his backpack, praying he would not have to use it.
The last three classes dragged. His phone, checked surreptitiously under his desk, showed various alerts of his mother’s Instagram activity. Nothing suspicious there, innocuous pictures of her bread and pie. Josh loved it! read one caption. #delish, another. He shoved the phone into his pocket and bent over his math.
The final bell rang. He tried to walk nonchalantly with the rest, but he couldn’t stop his head from craning to peer at his driveway. His father’s car was there. He picked up speed, scanning the house. Upstairs windows were open, mailbox closed, porchlight off. No warning.
“Josh!” his father called as he threw open the door. Josh dropped his bag and crossed to his father. He hugged him tight, all the worry of the afternoon catching up to him.
“Hey, son, what’s up?” Josh shook his head, throat tight. His father held him a long moment, then pushed him back to smile at him. “Everything alright.”
It was a statement, not a question, a reassurance. Josh nodded agreement. “Yeah, everything’s good.”
Josh chased his peas around his plate at dinner. He knew his parents were exchanging glances over his head, but he didn’t care.
“Got homework today,” he said, breaking into their rattling description of their days.
“Oh?”
“Family story essay.”
“You love those!” his mom exclaimed.
“Yeah,” Josh drawled. “Love’m.”
More glances. “What’s wrong, son?” Josh bristled at his father’s hearty tone. How they decided on Perfect Modern Middle-American Family as their new cover…well, he certainly hadn’t been part of that vote.
“Nothing.” At least it gave him the chance to be as surly as he wanted. His father’s stare could be steely even as he smiled benevolently.
“Attitude, Josh,” he warned.
“Not hungry.” Josh shoved his plate away.
His room was upstairs overlooking the street. He bypassed the stairs and went down to the basement. The basement door was thick and heavy. He threw the catch behind him and flopped down on the couch.
It was cold and dim down here. And it had escaped the mason-jar remodel upstairs, which was a bonus. Instead, several laptops sat on a folding table. Various cases sat against the wall by the water-heater. A camera blinked mournfully at him from a dark corner. He buried his head in a pillow and closed his eyes.
His father joined him later, long enough that Josh started to feel a little chilled.
The lock fell into place, a solid ‘thunk’ of reinforced steel.
“What’s up?” his father asked, his voice back to normal, quiet and even.
“Nothing.”
He settled on the couch next to Josh. Grimacing, he straightened and removed his pistol from his back holster. Checking the chamber was clear, he set it aside.
“Kids at school bothering you?”
“No.”
“Girl you like?”
“No.”
“Well?”
“Just, stuff.”
“Like our family history?”
Josh scowled. “I’m running out of ideas.”
His father smiled. “And here I thought you were the brains of this outfit?”
Josh threw the pillow at him. “That’s mom, remember?” They sat in silence for a while, listening to the hum of the laptops and the clank of the water heater. “Mom said there was trouble?”
His father shrugged. “A little.” He rubbed his shoulder, wincing. “Needed a little…motivation.”
Josh grimaced, hoping the poor fool wasn’t too badly hurt. “We need to leave?”
“No, no. All taken care of.”
Josh looked at his father’ smile, his warm brown eyes, the way he locked his hands behind his head. He thought of the worry line creasing the perfect contouring of his mother’s forehead, the relief she showed in the way she touched her husband, the purr in her voice.
“Josh?”
Josh dragged an impatient hand across his eyes. “Nothing.”
He was still swallowed in a hug. He gripped his father’s shirt, breathing deep to fight back the tears.
“Everything is going to be okay,” his father’s voice rumbled next to his ear. “I will protect you. I promise.”
Josh nodded. “I’m fine. Stupid hormones.”
Why couldn’t teenagers be put in a coma for a few years and wake up in their adult bodies? It would save everyone a lot of grief, he thought. When his mother threatened to tie him up in a closet for the next five years, he had half-agreed with her. But that had been two aliases ago, when she was a ‘raging drunk’ and his father ‘incarcerated.’ That had been almost better than Perfect Pinterest Mom and Mr. Corporate America Dad.
His father released him and held him at arms-length. “I am proud of you, Josh.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Go do your homework.”
Josh groaned. “Dad, its Friday.”
“Procrastination –”
“Is the thief of time,” Josh finished wearily. “Yes, I know.”
His dad laughed. “I had something more lewd, but let’s go with that one.”
Josh grudgingly laughed. But he did spread his homework on the kitchen table. His mother dropped a kiss on his head.
“What will you write about?”
Josh shrugged. “Everyone can tell I’m adopted, so that’s easy.”
Though they all had brown hair and eyes, the features were wrong, his build too different to be blood. Josh was already dreading the chorus of ‘aaaaawwww’ waiting him as he read aloud on Monday.
“Circus performers?”
“Nah.”
“Met in Paris?”
“Did you?”
“No, Beirut. Both sets of twins?”
“I got this, mom.”
She nudged a plate of muffins at him and let him be. He stared at his laptop for a half hour, until the screen saver went to black.
His parents were watching television. How they could stand it, he didn’t know. They had researched the most popular of everything for this alias and religiously watched The Zombie Chronicles or Agents of the Justice Club or whatever was on during primetime.
He turned to watch them. His father lounged back on the couch, decorative pillow under his head. Eyes closed and mouth open, he likely was sound asleep, exhausted from whatever mission he had just finished. His mother curled up next to him, her head on his father’s shoulder. Her shoulder moved in a sigh and she smeared her make-up to cuddle closer.
What could he write? He hated this assignment, because it did not do them justice. He could never tell how amazing his parents were, how they loved each other, how they loved him. How they worried when the other missed a check-in. How tight Dad held Mom before she left on assignment. The ache in his heart when they both stared longingly at him from a helicopter window as it lifted from a helipad.
He shouldn’t complain about the burlap and freezer-meals. At least they were home with him.
What could he write? Nothing could honor them but the dangerous truth.
He smiled to himself.
“Joshua?”
He stood, making a show of reluctance. He actually loved public-speaking. His father already was making contacts for a career in international politics.
Joshua smoothed his paper and read.
“My parents are spies.”
That was the only truth in the essay. Names, locations, dates, everything else was falsified. It had been easy; he’d been creating aliases since he was six.
His class was rolling with laughter by the end and Mrs. O’Neal looked exasperated. He was not surprised when she held him back.
“Family history?” she demanded.
Josh had his defense prepared. “You never specified the essay should be non-fiction, ma’am.”
She wanted to smile, he could tell. “Very well.” She took the paper and set in on a stack of its fellows. “Go on.”
A few guys were waiting outside. “Nice,” one said. “Hey, you’re in Heckleson’s P.E., right?”
“Yeah,” Josh said cautiously.
“You got a awesome serve.” They herded him down to the cafeteria.
He felt daring and a little sick. “I – I go home for lunch. Across the street. What to come?”
“Sure! Meet your mom.” They chortled.
Josh hurriedly sent her a text as they made the trip. Her response was to throw open the front door and proclaim: “I made cookies!”
He blushed, but led them all inside. They took in the magazine-worthy living room with identical looks of horror. But they willingly ate the offered treats.
His mother pulled him aside. “Friends?” she asked in an excited whisper.
“Kinda.”
She squeezed him tight. He felt guilty, so handed her a copy of his essay. “Wrote that for my assignment.”
She scanned it, surprise, consternation, then amusement on her face. He laughed with her.
“Very accurate,” she quipped. She pushed him to the table. “Eat. You have to get back for math.”
Josh sat with the other guys, weaving yet another false story for them as they teased him about his parents. They ate and joked, not knowing his father was in the basement, loading 9mm hollowpoints, or that his mother was humming a song she had learned in Russia when she spent a year undercover as a hotel manager and drug runner.
Josh smiled and smeared organic butter on his home-made bread.
My first book, Archer 887, was a 2022 Indies Today Awards Contest Finalist, and is on sale now through online book retailers. Pick up a copy, leave a review, and let me know what you think!
If you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing. I post original short stories, book reviews, and writing advice, as well as my process as I edit my newest novel. I will be querying it for traditional publication; subscribe to follow along as I work through that whole process!
Paid subscribers receive access to my complete, full-length fantasy novel, The Lost Hero, the first in my fantasy series. Once it is through final design production, you can get a free copy, either eBook or print!
Follow me on socials (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest) and never miss a post!
I also write about my work as an RN on my Substack: This Is My Nurse Face. Crazy stories, advice, and vents about inpatient nursing. Blood, guts, snort laughing: all the best things.
Thanks for reading!
