Continued from yesterday:
The little girl spasmed violently on the screen, something that could be interpreted - in a charitable light - as “help me” escaped her lips in an ugly garble. She toppled, helpless to stop herself, headfirst into the tile.
The crack was clearly audible.
And it was also obvious that Mrs Adrien was well within flinch-reach.
The woman could have easily caught her daughter.
She didn’t do a damn thing.
“Why do you keep watching that, Roxy[1]?” said Danoz. “The statute of limitations is over. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
“If it was up to me, I’d give that woman a whole new religious experience[2],” she growled. “How can human beings *do* things like this? That’s her *daughter*. Her only child… and she betrayed her.”
+
“My daughter…” Jaquelline sobbed. “My only little baby… she betrayed meeeee…”
The assembled chorus of mother and sisters broke out in sympathetic cooing and hallmark plattitudes that, put together, resembled nothing so much as a henhouse crossed with the tide. The clucking rose and fell in volume and tone, washing her over with healing attention.
Love.
How she needed it, now.
Sam was incommunicado, and had been for a subjective age. He’d surely call if he was coming home. In the meantime, Jaquelline had the spotlight of her family.
“That girl’s been nothing but trouble,” announced Mom. “I keep telling you that you should have taken her in for surgery as soon as you could. If she’d have stayed pretty, then there would have been nothing to worry about.”
A wash of agreement. “She was nothing but trouble, period,” agreed Jaquelline. “Upsetting my nerves, ruining my chances of giving Sam an heir… and those *things* she insisted on doing. It’s all too much for a mother to bear!” With a well-timed burst of tears, Jaquelline had all the hugs and sympathy that she could need.
Together, they started in on Sara’s accumulated crimes.
+
Bayville was on the horizon.
If he squinted, he could see the familliar shape of the city on the edge of perception… so long as he was on the rise of a hill.
Almost home.
He felt like he could fly there, right now. But, alas, it was a case of ‘so close, and yet so far’. He still had most of the day to actually *get* there.
But soon… *soon*, he could comfort his poor, lonely, abandoned baby.
+
Todd had joined her in the morning run. Well, *he* was running. She was jogging in 4/4 time.
“Sun is shinin’ in the sky… There ain’t a cloud in sight,” she sang. “It’s stopped rainin’… ev'rybody’s in a play, And don’t you know… It’s a beautiful new day hey,hey…”
“That does it,” said Jean, panting behind them. “I’m'a catch her up and *strangle* her…”
“What'cha complainin’ fo’?” panted Todd. “We slept onna couch, yo.”
“I know! And I couldn’t sleep for waiting for her to wake me up!”
Sara was still in Bliss Land. Her heart was flying and she’d decided that there was never any good reason to spoil a fantastic mood. “Runnin’ down the avenue… See how the sun shines brightly… in the city. On the streets where once was pity… Mister blue - sky is living here today hey, hey!”
Todd joined her at the chorus.
Life was currently wonderful.
It was very nice to live in the Now[3]… so long as Now was nice.
[1] Remember this dangling plotline?
[2] I loved that episode of _Dead Like Me_
[3] ElfQuest side-fling.
~~
One of the great things about being a teacher was the right to confiscate. It hadn’t taken Manny long to hear about Sara’s breakdown or the fact that several people had videos of it. Sara Adrien had a thing going with Todd. The boy would’ve done either of two things- run from the scene, or stuck around and watched her freak. But if it were the former, Manny would have a better sense of who she was. Her weaknesses, her friends…
He knew Todd wouldn’t risk his neck if he captured Sara. But then, women were weak. If he snared someone else close to her, she’d have no trouble ratting out her boyfriend. Manny was counting on it.
He dumped his attache case on the table and pulled out a couple phones. The first one only had Sara’s shirt tearing. It spent the rest of the scene trying to zoom in on her breast. Non-helpful. Manny put it back in the case. The second was a little more promising - showed the scene with Graydon. Manny chuckled. Now that was both sick AND funny.
So, Todd had a thing for girls who looked like boys? Hmm. Sadly, the video cut off after somebody ran to her. The somebody in question happened to block the camera as he/she ran and the owner of the cell phone turned tail and retreated with the rest of the student body.
But one other pxter had captured something more, from a different angle. A boy held on to her, screamed for help. Manny recognized the boy’s face. An out-of-focus body eclipsed the camera for a second and he saw Kenny holding on to Sara’s shoulders. She eventually burst into tears. Kenny was comforting her, rocking her gently. Awww. Kenny had a *crush*. And from the way Sara was holding on to him, obviously they were close friends. Close enough friends that Kenny would stand back if he thought Sara was happy with Todd. And he’d wait, probably for years. Pity.
Manny smirked and paused the screen with Kenny holding on to Sara. He wasn’t mistaken. There was devotion there. Uncertainty. He was holding on to this girl - who’d just laid out Graydon and others - as if she would break. Anyone else with an ounce of sense would go far away and watch from a healthy distance - like Todd had obviously been. Manny was a little disappointed the camera hadn’t captured the boy, but not surprised.
And not *too* disappointed. He did, after all, have his target now.
+
Even Logan had just about had it with the cheerfulness. Excercises weren’t supposed to be *cheerful*. Now Sara had the *elf* singing too. Something vaguely Canadian, no less.[1]
“Ohhh, History is made by stupid people! Clever people wouldn’t even tryyyy! If you wanna place in the history books, then do something dumb before you diiiiie!”
“Tallyhoooo!” Todd sang.
“Tallyhoooo!” Sara echoed.
“Our king and country’s honor we will saaave! Tallyho! Tallyho! We’re marching into hist'ry and the graaave!”
“*Someone* is like, marching into their graves,” growled Kitty.
Three more laps and they were done for the day. Logan tugged Todd aside while Sara went for water. “Treefrog, you up for helping me with Eileen today?” he asked. Todd felt a sudden squirm in his gut. Logan probably wanted to have a *talk*.
“Uhhh…"
Logan sighed. "Yah don’t have ta talk right now if you don’t want to. Work it out first. Think about things."
Todd looked down. "I don’t *want* to think about things. That’s the problem, yo."
"Yeah. It *is* a problem.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “But you’re gonna be thinking about it anyway, aren’t ya? Might as well be while yer busy.”
Instead of sitting alone in the dark. Yeah. Todd could see the sense in that. And Logan didn’t need to say he wouldn’t pressure Todd to talk. He didn’t have to.
Todd nodded. “Kay. I’ll work with you after school today."
Logan looked surprised. "After school? Thought you were taking the day off."
"Ain’t no way I’m letting Sara go to school alone.” He shook his head firmly. “Hiding ain’t the answer."
"Allright. But that goes for askin’ for help too, Treefrog."
The boy flushed. "Yeah. I already been told. Seeya after school?"
Logan nodded and the boy rejoined Sara for his own turn at the water-fountain. He sighed again. And he’d thought it was hard to get the *Elf* to open up about things.
[1] Arrogant Worms - History is Made By Stupid People. Hysterical song. XD Y'all should try it.
~
"So… what’s up?” said Kurt.
“What do you mean, what’s up?” Sara blinked at the blue mutant in her doorway. This sort of thing always had to happen when she was applying eyeliner. She went back to pulling faces and manipulating the pencil.
“I *mean*, there was all sorts of nastiness, yesterday; and this morning, you’re little miss happy feet,” his reflection lashed its tail. Agitated. “What’s with the good mood?”
“Maybe I’m coming down with a reverse virus[1],” she shrugged. More faces and lipstick. “I can’t explain it. I just feel so… *fantastic*. Something brilliant’s going to happen. I can feel it.” She pressed her lips together and blotted. Lovely. Or at least, her hologram looked almost lovely. A little bling wouldn’t hurt.
“Not that I mind the good mood,” he said. “I was just wondering.”
“Just stop me if I break out in show tunes.”
“Done and done.”
+
“…Curtain up! Light the lights,” Sara opened her locker. No rat, but someone had broken in and left a posy. “We got nothing to hit but the heights! I can tell, wait and see…”
“*Whoah*.”
“There’s the–” Sara realised what she was doing and stopped, looking to find the stunned fellow. She grinned even wider. “Freddy! How’s the new job treating you?”
He blushed. “Aw. Y'know. Can’t complain.”
“Not until the second week, anyway.”
“What happened to you? You’re all… fancified.”
She shrugged. “I dunno. I just feel… marvy. Guten morgan Herr Haufmann. Coment ca va?”
“Zat was French,” he grumped.
“Hoe bent u?[2]”
Freddy snorted behind his hand. Possibly because of the combination of 'hoe’ and 'bent’ in the same sentence.
“I refuse to comment,” he growled, and struggled upstream against the mob.
“Isn’t his quote-unquote accent a gas?” Sara chirped. “I’m going to hum the theme from _Hogan’s Heroes_ under my breath when he isn’t looking, today. See if he gets worse.”
“Sara…” Freddy chided. “You really shouldn’t experiment on people.”
She closed her locker, giving Freddy the posy. “Here. Surprise someone.” She shouldered her backpack. “Honestly, Freddy, my dear… some people truly deserve to be experimented on. Aside from a few forged documents, Herr Haufmann doesn’t exist. That means that, whoever he really is, he’s up to something.” She shrugged. “If I can’t be a wrench in his works, I can at least be a fly in his ointment, no?”
[1] Of course Sara watches _Red Dwarf_, so she knows about things like the “luck virus” and so forth.
[2] Apparently, most Germans can understand Dutch, and vice versa. Sara just asked him how he was.
~~
Freddy had History first period and on the way there he carefully stuffed the posy in his overall pocket. He didn’t want to crumple anything from Sara, in case she wanted it back. He stopped two doors down from his classroom and looked at his shoes. There were wet books and a puddle on the floor and a girl was muttering angrily to herself as she looked around for scattered belongings. She too was dripping.
“Uh, hey,” He said and carefully peeled a dog-eared Economy text off the ground. “What happened?”
“Brainless soriety-wannabe brats, that’s what happened,” the girl said, teeth chattering. She looked cold, wet, and angry. “Shoved me in the frickin’ shower and put my bag in another shower so everything’s soaked, then I was late to class cause I tried to dry off and I was still wet so I slipped…” Her voice was sounding strangled. Harley wiped at her face angrily, took the book from Fred and stuffed it in a still-sopping backpack. “Today sucks!” she choked out, shoulders slumping. Fred stood there and fished around in his pockets for a hanky. Or something.
“Hey, don’t feel bad, okay?” He murmured, coming up with nothing. “It’s just high-school. Lotsa bad things happen to nice people in highschool.” Fred’s voice was sympathetic and endearingly befuddled as he thought of a way to cheer the girl up. He knew what it was like being big. He’d heard from Sara about extent of pressure on girls to be skinny and slim. It was awfully sad. Especially since most big girls couldn’t pound their tormentors into the mat like Fred could.
“I’m not even human by their standards!” Harley spat, wiping at her face again. “Not unless I miraculously drop a hundred pounds or something. Then I’ll graduate to classroom geek.” Her voice broke but she caught herself before sobbing and swallowed. “Sorry, I… I’m just having a bad day.” She was still sniffling a little and her voice sounded slightly watery when she spoke. But her chin was up. Fred had to admire that more than anything.
“I know how it is. It’s okay. People say I’m a good listener. So maybe if your day doesn’t get better, you can talk to me. Or somethin’."
Harley glanced at him, blinking through her dripping hair. "Um. Thanks. Look, I’m late. Oh heck with it, I have to dry off - I can’t go to class like this anyway. Maybe I’ll see you at lunch?"
"Sure. Uh… here.” Fred took out the posy which already looked a bit wilted. Harley was again looking shell-shocked, so he stuck it in her hair for her.
She touched it, suddenly blushing, and then beamed. “Thanks. S-See you later."
Fred was late to class, but if the teacher said anything about it, he was smiling too hard to care.
+
The trouble with substitute teachers was that you didn’t ever know what class they’d be taking over at short notice. Todd hadn’t figured Manny to be an English major - not with his off-German accent especially, so he’d started on to English Literature first period. Pietro was in his face before he reached the corridor.
"SoToddyyoubeengoneawhile. When you coming back to the boarding house? Just wanted to know so I can have all your CDs back in place."
"The fuck you been touchin my CDs for?” Todd growled pointlessly. Pietro touched other people’s belongings because he could. “Thought you didn’t wear slime, Tro,” he added, looking pointedly at Pietro’s designer shirt.
“Don’t even think about it, Toady!” Pietro spat, though he was now a foot farther away than he had been last second and staring at Todd warily.
“We had a deal, yo. You stay out of my room and I stay out of yours. Did it slip your mind?” Todd snapped.
“And what are you gonna do about it if it di– Hi, Mr. Haufmann.” Pietro straightened innocently while looking over Todd’s shoulder. Todd froze, blood leaving his face. A hand fell on his shoulder and his stomach dropped. How much had Manny heard? Had he heard Pietro calling him by his name?
“I do hope you boys aren’t fighting in zee halls,” Mr. Haufmann glared. “That would be a detention, I zink.”
“Not at all, sir.” Pietro breezed, then gave Todd an odd look, noting his expression. He’d gone stiff as a board.
“Well, then off to class with you two.” Mr. Haufmann said cheerily, whacking Todd on the back. He nearly fell over. He wish he hadn’t - Manny steadied him. “What class do you have next?”
“Art,” Todd managed to croak.
“Oh well. I’ll catch you later, dear boy.” Mr. Haufmann smirked, which sent Todd’s stomach to churning ice, and walked off. Todd glanced at the book in his hand. It was the same English Literature textbook currently in his backpack. Fuck. Never too late to skip first period. Shit, if Manny had called roll in there while Todd was seated…
Pietro was waving his hand in front of Todd’s face. “Hellooooo?”
“Fuck off, P.” He looked like he meant it though he sounded shaken. Pietro shrugged and sped off. Todd hurried on to the cafeteria, nauseaous and trembling. Maybe he should take Kurt and Sara’s advice. Tell someone. He didn’t know how much longer he could live like this.
~