Tricks and obligations

[Alex's POV]

Alex groaned as he slammed the snooze button of his old-school alarm clock. Not because the horrible sound had pulled him from his deep slumber, but because his room was too bright.

Something wasn't right. It never was this bright in his room when he needed to get ready for school. Had he forgotten to turn off the overhead light?

Alex cracked an eye open with a lot of difficulty and managed to conclude that the light wasn't on. It simply was that bright in his room because the sun was shining brightly through his closed curtains.

"What time is it?" he wondered as he glanced at the clock and startled.

8:45?!

"I'm late!" he screamed, instantly wide awake. "Crap! Utterly and horribly late for school!"

With flying haste, he jumped out of bed, shot off his pyjama's and grabbed some pants from his closet. He was fully in the process of putting on his pants while hopping to his next piece of clothing when somebody knocked on his bedroom door. He froze, not expecting anyone to be home at this hour.

"Yes?" he asked, curious to see who would answer. The door opened to reveal Mar, dressed in a floor-length pastel-purple bathrobe.

"What's all the ruckus about?" he asked, sleepily raking a hand through his loose mob of bed hair.

"Dad!" Alex exclaimed, unable to hide his surprise. "Why aren't you at work?"

"On a Saturday?" Mar grinned. "Not a chance!"

"Saturday?!" Alex echoed in surprise as he looked up at his paper calendar on the wall. It was still set to the day before; Friday. "Oh, for crying out loud!"

Mar chuckled. "Well, now that we're both awake, I guess I'll go set the table."

"Yeah, I'm gonna get dressed first," Alex said as Mar closed the door.

Alone again in his room, his mind slowly registered that there was no reason to panic and the adrenaline kick that had fuelled his sudden waking up died down.

He allowed his jumped nerves to settle, yawned and shook the last remnants of sleep from his head.

"Why did I set my alarm-clock for a Saturday morning?" he wondered in thought as he tried to remember the reason. It wasn't like him to forget turning it off.

And then it hit him: Jessy had tricked him!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It had been during math class earlier that week. Jessy and Otto had been talking, even though everyone was supposed to do their exercises in silence. And on top of that, Jessy had the habit of talking as if nobody was around.

Alex had tried not to listen in on their conversation, but he'd already finished solving the equations the teacher had assigned them to make and he didn't want Jasper to start nagging again if he finished the extra problems too. (Something about making him look bad?)

He had been doing a good job of acting as if he wasn't listening, until Otto had said in such a quiet voice that he might have missed it if he still had been concentrating on his math problems: "That reminds me. Would you mind going shopping with me too, Jessy? I need a new sweater."

Instead of a simple yes or no, Jessy seemed reluctant to answer. She finally said: "Oh no, Otto. Not again? What happened to the last one we bought?"

If he hadn't been listening in on the conversation already, this definitely would have pricked up his ears.

"Nothing?! It's in the wash. I simply don't have enough of them," Otto tried to defend herself, but didn't seem very convinced herself. "Please, Jessy. You know I won't be able to find anything on my own!"

Alex snorted. Unintentionally. Crap!

He hadn't meant to laugh, but Otto honestly seemed to believe that she wouldn't be able to find any decent clothes by herself. Which was ridiculous. He could feel the corner of his mouth twitch upwards as he replayed the words in his mind. Which in turn made acting as if nothing had happened all the more difficult.

Alex could feel four pairs of eyes burning on him, so he glanced up carefully. Yep, looked like he was busted. Otto, Jessy, Jasper and Lindsey were all staring at him with big disbelieving eyes. However, all for different reasons. Otto thought he was mocking her, Jessy looked like she was brooding on a plan, Jasper looked at him like he had signed his death sentence and Lindsey seemed to suppress some giggles.

"What's so funny," Jessy snarled.

"Nothing, really," Alex waved off her hostility and turned his attention towards Otto. "Sweetheart, if you can't find any clothes to buy, you're not looking hard enough."

Jasper and Jessy gasped dramatically at his words. Lindsey only seemed to have more trouble suppressing her laughter.

"Don't you know eavesdropping is impolite?!" Otto asked, putting up a brave front she clearly wasn't feeling.

"Eavesdropping, yes. But I can't help it if the two of you talk so loudly the whole class was able to follow your conversation," he said. Otto let her gaze glide over the classroom to confirm his statement, turned bright red, whipped her attention back to her books and started staring at them as if she was trying to burn a hole in the pages.

"Suspicion confirmed," Alex thought.

"What do you know about clothes?" Jessy asked unfazed. "I bet your mom still prepares your clothes for you every morning."

Alex gave her a flat look. That one was a blow below the belt. However, she couldn't know that.

"I pick and buy my own clothes, thank you very much," Alex said annoyed. He saw a glint flash in Jessy's eyes, but it was gone as soon as it had appeared.

"Well, then. Why don't you go shopping with Otto?" Jessy said, a victorious smirk playing around her lips. Alex glared back at her. She'd tricked him. No, worse than that: She'd trapped him.

Under normal circumstances Alex would have declined, because in the past two weeks since school had started, it had become very clear that Otto didn't like him. So he'd decided to adhere to the very minimum of polite interactions. It wasn't as bad as ignoring each-other, but going shopping together definitely was a bridge too far.

Yet, he couldn't decline Jessy's offer, because of two reasons. One, he didn't feel like loosing to Jessy's dare. And two, if Otto really did have trouble finding clothes, he didn't mind helping her.

So of course he said: "Fine."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I walked right into her trap, didn't I?" Alex thought as he replayed the incident in his memory and took a seat at the table where his father was already seated.

"Good morning, dad," he said while grabbing a big slice of bread and the strawberry jam.

"Hmm, good morning," Mar mumbled, still looking sleepy while taking a bite of his croissant. "You know, you didn't answer me earlier. Why are you up already?"

"Ha!" Alex laughed humourlessly. "Long story short; I lost a bet, and now I'm going shopping with the one girl who can't stand me."

Mar chuckled amused. "A girl that can't stand you? Impossible!"

"Ha! Ha! Not funny," Alex bit back. "I was doing so well with avoiding her too. And now I have to spend a day of the weekend with her. Today is going to be so awkward!"

"Young man, don't be rude!" Mar scolded. "Nothing has been set in stone, but if you go on your date with that mindset, nothing is going to change."

"Date?!" Alex sputtered in surprise. "Don't make yourself illusions, there's nothing romantic about this date. It's more like an agreement. She needs new clothes, and you need new T-shirts, so I thought I'd combine the two."

"Really?" Mar asked. He didn't sound very convinced, but it didn't seem to matter either because he followed up with the question: "Do you still have my credit card?"

Alex nodded while chewing his bread. Mar hummed in acknowledgement.

"When did you agree to meet?" he continued while checking the kitchen clock.

"Ten."

"Ten?" Mar asked surprised. "That's nearly an hour from now. You never need that much time to get ready."

"I don't want to be late," Alex said with a cheeky grin and saw his dad smile in return.

"That's my boy."