Tap tap tap tap tap.
An eye willed itself open. "Tu-fugggun-erlaaai..." The eye closed again.
Tap tap tap tap tap.
"Whaaa ya wan' ?" he said a little louder, voice making its croaky way into consciousness. The arms followed, prying himself from the pillow. Next were the legs, swinging from under the blankets and onto the cold wood floor. He sat there for a minute, an obscene moose call issuing from the black hole which, up until recently, he had identified as his mouth.
Tap tap tap tap tap.
"Arr'right, arr'right, I'm comin'..." He shuffled across the room to the door and yanked on it. He only got as far as the three inches of chain would let him open the door. Prying his eyes open, he gaped blankly out at the skinny boy standing in the hall opposte him. They blinked at each other for a full minute.
"Well? What do you want?" he said, changing the gears in his voicebox without the clutch. The skinny boy gave a start. Though he was less than happy about being woken up, it surprised him just how much harsher it came out than he had intended.
"Uh... I'm... is this... I need... could you... uh... is this room 707?" It took him a few tries, but the skinny boy managed to get his question out. As he did so, his bag slipped off his shoulder and practically dragged him down with it. It landed with a resounding thunk on the floor. The one behind the door winced slightly. He got out of bed for this?
"What's the numbers on the door say?" he said and shut the door. The skinny boy swayed slightly. The big brass numbers on the door definitely said '707'. He didn't even need to push his glasses up to read them. They had slipped down his nose when his life had fallen off his shoulder. He looked around, slightly bewildered. There wasn't anyone else in the hallway - it was still pretty early. He raised his hand to knock once more, but recoiled it at the sound of the chain being undone on the other side of the door. Tentatively, he twisted the knob; the door opened. He pushed it in slowly, looking around the tiny dorm, not sure what to expect. The boy who had answered the door was sitting on the edge of his bed, apparantly having intense negotiations with his feet as to whether or not they were going to get back under the blankets. The skinny boy watched him, head tilted to the side quizically. A nagging at his shoulder reminded him that he was slowly being submerged into the wood by the weight of his bag.
He looked over at the other bed in the room. It was a bare mattress, bearing an unpleasant-colored stain. He set the bag down on the footlocker at the end of the bed and stood there, unsure of what to do. So he closed the door. It swung much faster than he had anticipated, and it shut with a loud crack before he could stop it. The negotiations with the twisted blankets ceased.
"I'm sorry...?" said the skinny boy, "I'm just going to... you know... unpack... and stuff. I'll-I'll be quiet; I know it's kinda... early."
The dark-haired boy looked at him. I give up... I give up. Okay, ya pretty boy, I'm awake now. What the hell do you want? His thoughts ran along this course as he replanted his feet on the floor. He was awake now, which meant that the espresso IV kicked in somewhere in the back of his head, and his brain revved up to 1000 rpms. On a sudden whim, he decided to see how fast his new roommate would pick up on things. Despite the glasses and awkward stance usually reserved for the painfully intelligent, he didn't seem very bright.
"That isn't what you think it is, kid. It ain't piss. It's - Whatcher name?"
"It isn't? What?"
"I said, whatcher name, kid?"
"Oh. Michael."
"Michael?! Mlechhh... We'll need to fix that. It's duck sauce, Michael. Mike. Mikey. Hmm, Mikey... yeah. You like it?"
"Duck sauce? Not really."
"No, ya moron-"
"Mikey's fine. Actually, kids at my old school used to call me that. It's fine."
"Nice to meet ya, Mikey. I'm Gerard. Guess I don't have to ask if you're new."
Mikey's shoulders relaxed, and he breathed a little easier as he recovered from the initial shock of Gerard's rapidfire and nearly schizophrenic way of addressing him. As he spoke, he loosened up a little bit, although he wasn't sure if Gerard really liked him. He looked older, by a few years, but this wing housed only freshman, as far as he knew.
"No, I guess you don't. I just got in last night. Transfered from Heightstown."
"And now you're here at good ol' Pencey Prep." Gerard said through a sideways smile.
Mikey looked up at the window - all of the windows he had passed in the building had leading near the top that spelled out "The Pennsfield Preparatory Academy" with the school crest. It was backwards, so that it could be read from the outside. He mused for a minute about whether it was intentional that it was repeated on every window- so that no one would forget the name of the school, perhaps?
"Errr... yeah. Here I am. So... do they call you Gerry or something?"
"No." The smile dropped from Gerard's face. Mikey's eyes widened sligtly and he tensed up again. "No, they do not call me 'Gerry-or-something'. Not Gerry, not Gee, not Gee-Man, not any of that s**t. My name is Gerard. Ya got it?"
Mikey nodded slightly. After another awkward moment or two, he began unpacking his school things. Duck sauce, my a**... he thought as he dropped a pile of blue and grey uniforms onto the mattress with particular distaste. He shot a glance over his shoulder at his new roommate, who was working furiously at something on the back of his neck, and not paying much attention to him. Mikey sighed. It was going to be a long year.
