Welcome to Panda Group

Chapter 4
The Second Sleepover

Chapter Description: Brett invites Austin and Zach over for a sleepover

Brett had mixed feelings about the news that he’d be joining the special ed classroom. Everyone - his parents, his teachers, his guidance counselors - seemed sure it was the right thing for him, and they kept assuring him he’d be happier there and wouldn’t have to worry about his school work. Admittedly, his school work had gone from bad to atrocious. On his last history test, he had just stared at the mass of words, barely able to understand the questions, let alone answer them, and had ended up just filling the pages with doodles.

But that didn’t mean he was actually like Zach or the other kids in that class. He’d tried explaining that, and everyone had agreed, and assured him that they understood, and that joining the class didn’t mean he was like Zach, and then went right ahead planning for him to join it. Brett wasn’t quite mollified, but everyone just seemed to be moving ahead with the plans to move him there, and Brett felt helpless to stop it from happening.

To soften the blow, on the Saturday before he was going to start in his new class, Brett’s parents let him invite his closest friends - which meant Zach and Austin - over for a sleepover. Brett whined about how that didn’t make it any better, but he was still excited for them to come over.

Austin arrived first. He was the friend who’d really stuck by him later, but he always seemed to have a funny attitude when they played together, a little like a babysitter, like he was indulging Brett rather than really playing with him. Today was no different. Brett had suggested they make the pillows in the den into a fort, and Austin was helping, sort of, but didn’t seem at all excited about it the way Brett was.

It was a relief when Zach showed up. Zach dropped his backpack, sleeping bag, and of course Mr. Panda in a corner of the room and then Brett showed him their progress building a fort. Unlike Austin, Zach dived in with enthusiasm, helping stack pillows and blankets to create an enclosed area beneath, and then making up stories about how they were hiding from pirates.

Zach’s enthusiasm was infectious. Before long, Brett was getting really into it, and even Austin seemed to be starting to enjoy it. The fort wasn’t especially stable, and kept falling down on them. At first they tried fixing it, but before long, having the fort fall down on purpose seemed more fun than keeping it up, and the activity quickly devolved first into pushing pillows into each other on purpose, and then to hitting each other with the pillows, and then to free for all wrestling.

Zach was the first to declare they were wrestling and strip down to his underwear, tossing his shirt, pants, and socks aside with reckless abandon, leaving him in just blue underwear decorated with an assortment of animals. Brett followed soon after, stripping to his plain white briefs, and a few minutes later even Austin followed suit, undressing down to his own tighty whities and continuing to wrestle.

Eventually, when they were a pile of limbs rolling around together on top of the pillows, Brett’s mother came in. Under her supervision they reluctantly put the pillows back into place, making room for her to bring in a pizza box. The three of them sat cross-legged on the floor in their underwear, eating their pizza, talking, and giggling.

After dinner they set up their sleeping bags. Brett’s mother bundled them upstairs to the bathroom, and they brushed their teeth together. Brett felt proud that he was the only one she didn’t have to remind to brush longer. He got his favorite stuffed animal off his bed to bring downstairs, and one for Austin, too, who hadn’t brought one of his own.

Back in the den, Brett’s mother approached him with something held, hidden, behind her back. “We were going to give this to you tomorrow so you could wear it for your first day in your new class, but we realized you might want it tonight.” From behind her back, she pulled out a package of colorful underwear like the kind Zach wore.

“Cool!” Brett exclaimed. He remembered being worried about people thinking he was too much like Zach, but he couldn’t remember why any more. Zach was very cool, and his best friend, and right now Brett felt nothing but excitement about joining his friend’s class. Brett pulled off his boring white underwear on the spot, took the package from his mother, ripped it open, grabbed a pair out, and pulled it on, then looked down to see what he was wearing: pastel blue underwear decorated with balls and other sports-themed shapes.

Zach and Austin both agreed that his new underwear was, indeed, very cool.

The three of them sat on their sleeping bags clutching their stuffed animals as Brett’s mother started a movie for them. After that they got in their sleeping bags and chatted until they got too tired to talk any more.