Continued from yesterday…
Todd left off tracing the scars to doodle the memory of Sara’s face. He was no Picasso, but he could make a passable portrait if he felt inclined. The hair went so… if Sara let it grow out a little more, it might be wavy.
Then the nose and eyes. Sara’s eyebrows were more or less responsible for making her look like a boy. Everything else, from her cheekbones to her lips was either delicate or strong. The mixture was different from the average cheerleader, but different in a *good*, almost refreshing way.
Sara was beautiful. Nobody realized it with all the painted faces, big hair, and exploding bosoms (whether genuine or stuffed) parading around the halls. Todd tilted his head to examine his handiwork. It was hard to criticize, for the subject rather than the skill.
She’d *talked* to him too. Without laughing or making puking noises once his back was turned. Without the false sweetness Trish pulled on him once to get him to steal soda for her. On top of that, she was a mutant. The goody goods hadn’t seen her, Todd noted with some hint of pride. Summers and Grey, the everloving Scout Leaders, had only preached Xavier’s folderoy to the obvious and the well-endowed.
They’d continue to look over Sara. Todd was sure of it. If they didn't find value in a frog-boy with legs that could kick holes in walls and car doors, they wouldn’t even bother with a girl who could turn into wallpaper. None of them were outcast enough to see her. And even if they were, Todd wasn’t going to allow them to pretend they did.
*He’d* been burned that way once. He had scorch marks on the inside of a thigh and along his left hip to prove it.
He’d talk with her at lunch. There would be no recruiting. Recruiting was done with. Over. The only thing he wanted to do was talk to her and help her understand who she was and how to stay alive. The Brotherhood's sole function now was staying alive. And lately, foraging the wood for berries and squirrels. Another mouth to feed let alone another *girl* was not gonna go over well with the guys.
The only thing he *didn’t* want was to lose her. For some reason, the thought of her staring at him like Rogue did now hurt him desperately.
(Todd knew *why* Rogue looked at them like that. She loved Scott. Scott disliked the Brotherhood. Rogue therefore wanted to be fully cleansed and hated the Brotherhood for sullying her in Scott’s crimson vision. It was sort of pathetic really…)
Todd was broken out of his reverie by a spitball smacking into the back of his neck. He closed his eyes, irritated, peeled off the wet projectile and tossed it over his shoulder. The snickering paused, replaced by invisible daggers. He must’ve had a hit. _Good,_ He smirked. _Maybe that’ll teach ‘em._
*Thhhppp* [splat, splat, splat, splat]
_Fuuuuck._
~
Lunchtime. Sara had partially resolved to subsist on aging twinkies and some of those rat bars she’d purchased at a survivalist’s shop. It was better than running the daily gambit of attempting to avoid Jock's legs as she went through the cafeteria.
Freddy, however, had other ideas.
“C'mon, Sara… let me get your lunch for ya. Nobody messes with *me*.”
She sighed. In a way, she was glad he wanted to be helpful, in another, she sort of regretted that his world view included being tougher and meaner than everyone as a means of getting what he wanted.
She fished out her wallet and gave him a small bundle of twenties. "Here. Lay on a small feast. I’m expecting company.“
"Janine again?” Freddy made a face. He didn’t like Janine.
“No… a mister Tolenski.”
“What? *Todd*?”
“You know him,” Sara smiled. “Excellent. Lunch for three, then. Do you need more money?”
Fred counted them. “*Sara*…” he whispered. “This is over a hundred *bucks*…”
“And this is the fourth time you’ve worn those gravy stains,” she said, traces of Boston emerging as she pointed out the smears on his overalls. “I can always tell when you’re down on your budget cycle, Frederic… You can’t afford washing powder.”
“It don’t feel right, takin’ your money. I know how your Mom can get.”
“Frederic, dear, I *do* run quite a number of scams to make up the gap. I probably won’t even notice the difference.” She made tiny little shoo-ing motions. “Go on. Keep the change.”
A team of wild stallions couldn’t have moved him, ordinarily; but her thin, flicking fingers had power over him. Freddy walked away to the cafeteria line, fist closed solidly over the money she’d given him.
Sara hid the wallet it came from under the feminine hygene things. Most teenagers were squeamish to the extreme about any kind of feminine hygene. So therefore a packet of maxi pads was bound to stop even the bravest of schoolbag thieves.
Well, except that mysterious person who’d abducted her bag one day and scattered the whole of its contents over the entirety of the campus. That was a doubly unpleasant afternoon. Mostly because she spent it in the company of her schoolgirl crush, Mr Hinkley - who now believed she was a very emotionally disturbed young gay or transsexual male.
Life sucked.
Sara spotted Todd and smiled a little.
Okay. Maybe it didn’t suck *too* badly.
+
Todd found her before she saw him.
In times past, that sort of pose dictated 'victim here’. Hell, there would have been a time when he’d sneak up on her and try to raid her for cash. Not that he’d done that kind of thing. At least, not to her. His pickpocket brain classified her as Wallet-Not-In-Pants, and therefore not an easy mark.
_Yo, quit thinkin’ of her as a potential victim. Yo’ just gonna give her survival tips. That’s it. How to be a mutie in ten easy lessons._
Then she saw him and smiled.
Todd’s heart leaped into his throat and did a rhumba.
_Maybe a hundred easy lessons,_ he thought. _She *is* in Remedial Ed. And hey - who knows? Maybe she wants me…_ That last thought, though, was extremely tenuous. Nobody wanted to spend time with a toad.
But then… she hadn’t exactly wanted to *avoid* him, either.
And her face lit right up when she smiled at him.
+
This is Sara as she really appears. She’s tall, standing at 5'11" in her socks, and still hasn’t finished growing. Everything about her is stretched out, as if she was photographed in cinemascope and then squeezed to fit into a television. Her knees, elbows, hands and feet have yet to be grown into. Her skin is pale. Her hair is not.
Imagine the sort of hairstyle worn by the children of economical parents. That is Sara’s hair in the shade of brown. It rather resembles a solid shape designed to fit snugly over the ears and brow, and just stopping short of the neck.
Her body shape is deceptively thin. And, alas for her aspirations towards looking like a girl, she still wears a training bra.
With the loose T-shirts and stiff jeans, it’s small wonder that she gets mistaken for a male.
+
Todd floated over to her on cloud nine. “Hey,” he said.
Sara blushed. Todd thought it gave her face life. “Hello. Do you mind that I bought lunch? Freddy’s getting it. I gather you know him.”
His gaze instantly zoomed over to the behemoth in the queue. He was gathering three trays and -what?- collecting *change*.
“Yeah, me an’ Fred are ole pals,” he said, possibly on automatic. “Are you an him - er…”
“Fred and I are study-buddies. We help each other with the Remedial Ed. work. He’s my sounding board. I’m his explainer.”
_And this means exactly what in the social standings?_ “Um. So… yo' not lookin’ fo’ a boyfriend?”
Her eyebrow raised. “Mr Tolenski, I thought you were here to discuss Mutants 101…” Odd, now there was more than a trace of Boston in her words. “Or was your intent to deceive?”
“No, no. Honest, we can get to that… I was just. Youknow. Wonderin’.”
“My appologies,” Boston was gone again as she flicked out a chair. "Please. Sit. Tell me what I need to know.“
Todd sat, affecting a comfortable slouch to disguise his froggy way of perching. "First off, yo’ gotta play wise, y'know? Yo’ can’t let nobody know yo’ a mutant.”
Sara’s fascinated smile fell to a worried frown. “Not even my *Dad*?”
In Todd’s experience, fathers were the last people to drag into it. "Yo, parents get funny, y'know? It’ll just make it weird. Or fatal.“
Wide eyes. "Fatal?”
“Some people, they jus’ want ordinary kids, yo.” And the less said about that, the better. Momma and her murder-suicide stunt could just stay his dirty little secret. “Better to let 'em believe they got one.”
“Can I stay normal-for-me?” she asked. “Because acting like one of *them*–” she pointed out the chest-stuffing, makeup-covered cheerleaders, “–is completely against my style. Besides, I’ll only ever be popular as a joke.”
Todd winced. That was the second time she’d belittled herself in as many meetings. “Yeah, normal for you is fine. I just meant play it casual. You got yo'self a big secret, a'ight? Yo’ better off workin’ out what'cha can do an’ how useful it is on yo’ own. But workin’ out how to pass is mo’ important.”
“Like wearing those bracers so that people don’t look at the webs on your hands?” she suggested.
_Day-umn…_ “Yo’ *good*…” he grinned.
Freddy arrived with the food, and placed a tray in front of each of them. He was, as always, generous with the portions. He laid a twenty, a five, and some miscellaneous change in the middle.
“Frederic, I told you to keep the change…”
“But I don’t *feel* right taking your money,” he complained.
Todd squeaked. Twenty-five dollars and *change*… That could buy a whole lot of Rice-a-roni.
“I can *spare* it,” Sara insisted. “Freddy, *please*… I don’t like hearing that you resorted to violence to pay for your essentials. Think of it - as protection money for the entire campus.”
Todd’s fingers twitched to take it.
Fred hung his head. “Actually, that kinda makes me feel worse.”
_What are ya, *nuts*?_ Todd mentally screamed at his teammate. _Takeit! She wants yo’ to!_
Sara laid a companionable hand on his arm. Next to Fred, she looked frail and easily breakable. “Freddy… I know you’re proud, dear. But I *know* you can use the money. Please?”
Shamed though he was to admit it, Todd started thinking about ways he could separate the girl from any other money she could spare.
Fred hung his head, not taking the cash.
Sara sighed and shook her head, not taking the cash, either. “Okay. So lesson one is 'blend’. Are we free to discuss lesson two?”
~
Todd had to force himself to look away from the money. Sara’s face was much more attractive than Jefferson’s, fortunately. “Okay, so number two then. You gotta learn control over yo’ powers. You *don’t* want anymore near accidents like we had in the office. Otherwise, it’s gonna be hell tryin’ to explain.”
Sara bit into an apple. “Okay,” she said, after chewing and swallowing. “So where and how do I learn this control?”
“Practice where people can’t see you. And research chameleons, yo, 'cause that’s the critter who’s got the most relevance to your gifts." Todd tried not to think about what his research on toads had brought up. Shedding skin[1]… ewwww. And the soap toxins, as if Uncle Manny[2] wasn’t bad enough to scare him away from the shower. He was fairly hopeful that chameleon-study wasn’t going to make Sara yak. "I know a couple of books you could use. Maybe we could meet in the library after school.”
“Just keep me away from Terry Pratchett and the fantasy section, and we might actually get something done.”
“Huh?”
“Um. I’m a bookworm. A fantasy bookworm.”
“S'cool. I don’t go into reading much. Lately haven’t had time for it.” Todd shrugged. His eyes dropped again to the money and flicked away from it, landing instead on Sara’s scars. He stiffened in surprised embarrassment.
Sara blushed and smoothed her sleeves down to cover them.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to stare,” the frog-boy mumbled. “But… is that what Freddy meant when he mentioned how your mom 'can get’? 'Cause if it is, you might wanna consider… I dunno. We don’t got much food but you’ve got money so that’s not a problem for you, and we got some empty rooms at the boarding house, and it’d at least be a place to *stay* if you got into trouble.”
Come live with me, pleeeease? Todd had to physically restrain himself from adding that; he bit the tip of his tongue. Now it was Todd’s turn to blush and duck as he felt both Fred and Sara staring at him.
“What do you think I meant?” Fred asked, genuinely puzzled.
“Did your mom or someone give you those?” Todd asked, getting right to the point.
Sara stared. He seemed genuinely concerned whether she was being abused. Nobody had even *noticed* except for Janine, who’d spread the rumour that she was a cutter. Janine later expressed that she’d done Sara a favour; wasn’t everyone nicer now that they thought she might kill herself? The rumour had flopped of course, people were more ready to believe Adrian Essel owned about forty cats rather than a cutter's angst. The scars didn’t look *that* deep anyway.
“These aren’t from any *person*,” she explained. “They’re from Vlad.”
“The Impaler?” Todd joked, unable to resist.
“The school harp. A regular bloodsucker.”
“Heh. Good to know.” Tolensky actually sounded like he was *breathing* easier. Sara shook her head. It was only imagination. Nobody could care for her that much.
[1] Toads are known to shed their skin like snakes - when they are young, every two weeks. Older toads shed once a month (which might explain the monthly shower Todd takes - to soothe the itching.) Not only that, but according to textbooks I’ve read, toads *eat* their shed skin to regain lost nutrients. Yak, indeed. I don’t think that fact went over very well with Todd.
[2] InterNutter created Uncle Manny. He was a sexual predator who attacked young Todd in the bathtub when Todd was living in the tenements. Soap is poisonous to amphibians because their skin is so porous that the soap is absorbed into the bloodstream. The chemical toxins and lye kills them. Todd is also mammal, so I don’t think this would affect him the same way - it would just make him sick for a while. Couldn’t have helped his hygiene morale to *read* about it though.
~