The Black Sheep

• Keleyna Nocom, Grade 10, Catholic Regional College
• Short Story
• 2015

Excellence Award in the 'The Write Track 2015' competition

He’s never been one for the truth.
The first lie sprouts out of his mouth with too much ease that it makes him consider acting.
His mother’s eyes narrows at him and he meets it with a blank expression, he does not fidget, he does not shuffle, and he will never back down. His family’s prized antique lays shattered behind him and his hands are filled with too many scratches and blood to prove him innocent.
There is a standoff for a moment before his mother eventually gives up, exasperated, and tells him to wash his hands while she sweeps up all the broken pieces.
He does so and follows her orders, the blood colouring the water all the way to the drain.
The second lie does not do him any good.
His bully kicks him to the ground and he lands with an unnerving thud but he’s quick on his feet afterwards and even quicker with his anger.
He throws back a punch.
Of course though, a nine year old’s fist would never do any harm to a thirteen year old’s strength. And especially not his.
The bully grabs his arm easily, raving on about how he’s going to throw him back on the ground and spit on him but never gets the chance to because little children get scared so very easily and a teacher is called to the scene not long after.
The principal scolds both of them harshly and calls their parents.
The bully starts to cry crocodile tears the moment his parents arrive and immediately, the bully’s parents pounce on his own- hurling insults and false accusations.
His mother looks sceptically to him from the corner of her eyes as if accusing him of provoking him. He shakes his head right on beat to make it look like the truth- not too early and not too late. His father wraps his arm around him instinctively and starts fighting back like always- he’s a family man who refuses to believe that his son could lie.
In the end, both of them get a three week suspension and that’s the end of that.
The third lie is when his ‘little games’ went too far.
The third lie is when he denies who he is for the sake of living as someone else.
He packs up his bags silently with the intent of leaving and never coming back. He is barely ten and still naïve to the world with his head stuck in the romantic idealization of running away and living a life of chaos where rules are nullified.
(If he lived for three more years, he’d call himself stupid.)
It’s now three a.m. and he starts his plan, he finishes writing the goodbye note and jumps out of his first-floor window with only a backpack for his ‘new life’.
The wind brushes past his face, chilling him down to his spine- and the only thing that guides him are the flickering streetlights.
He runs to the dark.