If all children are a blessing, Tyler was definitely in disguise. Although all ten year old boys are flawed creatures still becoming their best selves, Tyler seemed to in so many ways becoming an actively ruder and cockier little jerk with each passing day. The youngest of four, he was both overindulged and ignored in that delicate balance that somehow led simultaneously to an inflated sense of importance and cripplingly low self esteem. Still in elementary school, most days he more closely resembled a selfish frat boy than a considerate Boy Scout.

The sun streamed gently into the window through the opaque voile curtains, illuminating Tyler’s designer decorated room. It was Saturday morning, when one might find a ten year old boy bouncing out of bed to gorge on sugary cereal in front of cartoons, to play ball in the backyard or annihilate aliens in some video game apocalyptic hell scape. As the rays creeped across the pillowcase penetrating his eyelids, Tyler sat up excited to take these activities and turn them into some form of trouble. But then he remembered it was Saturday the 18th and he threw his head back on the pillow in disgust.

Saturday the 18th was the day he had overheard his mother call “the schedule from hell” while on the phone with Aunt Susan. Kaitlyn and Kayleigh, his 17-year old twin sisters, had the finals in their doubles tennis tournament at 9am an hour away in Greenesville, his brother Tanner’s baseball team which his father coached was playing out of town in back to back games and his mother had three real estate open houses across town. Eavesdropping on the conversation earlier this week, Tyler had been surprised his mother had even mentioned to Aunt Susan the problem of who was going to take care of him, but his stomach sunk when he heard her say, “Thank goodness Mrs. Franklin down the street has agreed to let Tyler stay at her house for the day.”

The entire neighborhood considered Mrs. Franklin to be a source of kindness and generosity, the neighbor with the large garden who pretended not to notice when children picked her flowers for their crowns and never minded seeing a small boy with a pretend eyepatch using her oak tree as a pirate ship. Tyler, however, did not see any use for the neighbor 60 years his senior. Her house only had one tv, and it didn’t even have Bluetooth compatibility. Her couches were from Cost Co, he knew because he recognized it from the mailer he flipped through on her coffee table because she didn’t have comic books. All of her snacks were generic store brands, and her drinks were all diet and tasted like how Tyler imagined the old water that gathered at the bottom of the school drinking fountain that took too long to drain would taste like. Forget the aliens, that was Tyler’s true idea of a hell scape.

And yet, there he was on the front porch, Mrs. Franklin opening the door wide for him, his mother waving and honking from her car as she drove off. Tyler avoided her gaze as he brushed past her welcoming arms as if making eye contact would commit him to having to be pleasant to her.