1. The Perks of being a Rich, Spoiled Brat, Chapter 1

“A fox one day spied a beautiful bunch of ripe grapes”

-Aesop

There are certain stories so epic and powerful, so full of wisdom and magic, that they change your life forever. Leaving you a wiser and even stronger person by the end. Stories that will stay with you for a long time, stories that will be remembered forever. This is not one of those stories. It is however still a story full of mystery, adventure, otherworldly creatures and unseen marvel. It is this the story of a normal boy who unwillingly found himself on a wondrous journey. A journey that perhaps left him a wiser and stronger person by the end. It would seem he was a perfectly normal boy, who lived in a perfectly normal house with his perfectly normal parents, leading a perfectly normal life. Much rather than an experiment to see how many times one can say the word “perfectly” without sounding silly, this was more to convey the banality of his life. But you see, this boy felt that something very important was going to happen in his life soon. Something that couldn’t be farther from normal. In addition, his parents were outlandishly wealthy, so normal would perhaps not be the first word that comes to mind. It all started on one beautiful spring afternoon when he sat sulking in the backseat of one of his parent’s cars. The butler was driving him to school.

“My parents don’t understand me. No one does!” I shouted, hoping the old butler would hear me. Even though he was old, he always heard me. Sometimes he just pretended that he didn’t.

“May I say that it is probably your parents who understand you the most, young master? I doubt that there is anyone out there who would understand your situation better,” the butler wearily answered. He was in wisecracking mode again.

“Then why wouldn’t they let me go to the party?” I asked.

“Given your age, I can’t help but say that it would be highly inappropriate.” Those were the butler’s final words on the ride. I slammed the door behind me as I got off the car. He definitely heard that. As I entered the school premises, I immediately met the only other person whose parents also happened to be insanely rich. Her name was Casablanca. Or at least that’s what I thought it was. As it turned out I had just misheard her several times. Mostly due to the fact that she was always eating something while introducing herself. And sometimes just generally while speaking. Mostly in a very casual manner. One could say it was a somewhat unpleasant habit. Her name was in fact Cassandra.

“Hi,” she said, not eating anything this time.

“Good morning,” I replied.

“So are you coming to the party tomorrow?” she then proceeded to ask. I was taken aback by the swiftness this question arose. I didn’t even have time to think of a good excuse. My answer however, was intended to be evenly fast.

“Sure I’m coming!” I said.

“Great.” Her smile seemed very sincere. She was expecting me to show up. There was no time for excuses anymore, I just had to go to that party. There was no way in hell my parents could stop me.

You see, this was already a school for rich kids. But nevertheless the two of them were the ones with the richest parents. This gave our young protagonist the impression that he had to mention it at any time possible. This could be seen for example in his greeting behaviors.

“What’s up commoners!” I smilingly greeted two of my classmates. The two boys looked annoyed.

“Do you have to remind us every day that you are richer than us?” one of them said.

“Yes, I think I do,” I replied, still smiling. It was important to remind them who owned their parents. And their parent’s companies. Basically who was owning their lives. Also the fact that a bodyguard was following me twenty-four hours was helpful. No one dared to talk back to me. No one ever dared.

As you probably have guessed, there was a bit of a dispute that night between the boy and his parents.

“You can’t control me forever!” I shouted.

“There is nothing I can’t control,” my father said in his usual calm way.

“Oh yeah? We’ll see about that.” I wasn’t sure why I said that, but I just wanted to say something. I couldn’t just leave it like this.

“Come on Dad, it’s just one party.” I tried to sound pleading, hoping this would somehow affect his judgment.

“No is my final answer. You are only ten years old.” was his predictable answer however.

“I hate you!” those were probably the nicest words I screamed at them at the time. I don’t remember a lot of the other insults. I think it’s not important to remember them. But they weren’t very nice. When I am honest I don’t actually remember a lot of nice things I said to my parents. This could also be because they never said things like “I love you” or “Well done, son” to me. I only knew that parents tend to say that from movies. Movies had in fact taught me many things. Probably even more than my parents.

Evidently the young master snuck out of his parent’s house the next night and went to said party. Now this wasn’t the kind of party you were probably imagining. Given the fact that the participants were only ten years of age, this wasn’t the type of deranged alcohol-fueled festivity that late adolescents tend to indulge in. That experience would come later. For the time being they had to settle for Spin the Bottle and orange juice. The tough kids even dared to drink some caffeinated beverages. The good news was that no one got hurt and his parents never found out he went there.

“Well, that was fun. We should do this more often,” Cassandra said, seemingly delighted.

“If my parents would let me,” I answered. A quick glance at the bodyguard confirmed that he wouldn’t talk. His expression was as usual emotionless.

“I know right? I had to give up on my dream of riding a pony through our garden while my parents are happily watching me and a Mexican maid is serving us tea. They never bought me a pony and had to settle for a Nicaraguan maid,” Cassandra said.

“Yeah, parents just never let you do stuff. But wait, I think your parents just didn’t want to spend money on all that stuff. The party was free though,” I pointed out, still a bit surprised by Cassandra’s somewhat far-fetched statement.

“It’s all about sacrifices. Why do you think these people sneaked into our country? They had to make sacrifices too, my father always says,” Cassandra explained. The thought of sacrifices really hit me. I never had to make any.

“I never want to make any sacrifices. I always want everything!” I said and everyone laughed. But I was serious. The day I would have to make a sacrifice would be the worst day of my life.

Little did he know that that day would come rather soon. He attended that same fancy school until he turned sixteen. You might think six years is a long time, but compared to the age of the earth, six years is a rather short period of time. Indeed those six years were perhaps the most normal of his life. He was leading a normal teenage life, going to school, thinking about ice cream or masturbation, or whatever it is teenagers think about, spending his parent’s money on useless things and so forth. All the things a normal teenager tends to do. But the day arrived when this unwitting youngster’s normal life turned into the astonishing.