Continued from yesterday:
Sara ducked around the corner and contacted the Professor.
“Trouble *again*, Sara?”
“Heap big bad juju,” she said. “And I suspect he’s a mutant like me.”
“Oh?”
“There’s certain physiological anomalies the average eye would miss,” she said. “He’s jumpy as all get-out, poor thing.”
“Tread *very* carefully. I’ll send Logan by, later, with the essentials.”
*
He couldn’t go into the kitchen any more. Not with the smell and the flies. Todd had sealed the windows with foil, tape, and that expanding foam stuff they filled walls with. A week later, after the neighbours complained again, he’d closed the doors to the kitchen and done the same.
He could still smell it in his nightmares. He could feel it creeping out whenever he ran past the sealed door, like a solid thing. It lurked in shadows waiting for him to make that one tiny slip that would land him in jail with Uncle Manny.
He couldn’t cook a lot, but he could fry and he could boil with the help of the little camp stove that used to moulder in the bottom of his closet. He could do enough laundry to keep his teachers from asking questions about his upkeep.
But there was no money to pay the power bill, and Pops’ wallet was still in his pants. And his pants were on his body… which was rotting in the sealed-off kitchen.
The last time he tried to go in there, he had to run and puke.
He couldn’t go back.
The telephone rang. Probably the phone company calling about that unpaid bill.
He answered with, “You my Pops is sick fo’ the tenth time. We ain’t got nothin’ to pay nobody.”
“Hi,” said the voice on the other end. “My name’s Sara. I gave you my card, remember?”
“What the–?” How the hell’d you get this number?“
"It’s taken me this long to look you up in the phone book, I’m afraid. I also have to tell you that I know your parents are not just sick.”
“You, they’re very sick an’ I tole you to slag off.”
“I’ve spent time with the dead, myself, dear.”
Blam. Instant chill down his spine. “Who the hell are you?”
“Someone who genuinely wants to help you,” she said. “If you’ll give me a chance.”
He looked out the window. There was a payphone, an open-air model, with the phone book on top and open to somewhere in the T’s. He could see the wind ruffling the edges, but not leafing through it…
…and the handset was hovering in midair!
Todd blinked. And there she was. Just like that duck/rabbit picture or the maiden/crone one. “How the hell’d you *do* that?”
“You can see me?” Her head moved, looking towards his home. “It’s not often I meet someone who knows how to Look. Believe me, *not* being invisible is the problem. Do you have any idea how demented it looks to skip everywhere at my height– Oops. I’m ranting. You have way bigger problems than me, guaranteed.”
“How the hell are you doing this, lady?”
“Deductive reasoning plus observation plus…” a sigh. “Plus a devout need to help someone. Anyone. Out of a dark place.”
“Why? What’s your angle?”
“Ever see the movie _Pay it Forward_?”
“…yeah?”
“A lot like that.”
He let her in. She didn’t say a thing about how unclean the place was or how bad it smelled. She did see what he did to the doors.
“How long ago?”
“Five weeks.”
“Eek. Crunch time, dear. The record for DUN’s is something like two months. You’re on the cusp of discovery and how really mutant are you?”
“I can spit stuff and make my tongue go long and jump like nuttin’ on Earth.”
“Hm. Definitely got it in one. I think it’s half-past time you bugged out.”
“Why?”
“The first person they tend to blame is the last one on the scene.”
“That’s what I was scared of.”
“So pack some clothes. I’ll remove the newest layers… you go get everything you can’t live without.”
“But–”
“Yes?”
“What’re we gonna do? How do we explain?”
“We’re going to leave the door unlocked and wait for all conclusions to jump themselves.” Sara tidied away the camp stove and bagged the newest levels of trash. “People will believe in the simplest solution… and it’s best for all concerned that you never came home after you ran away from the fight.”
He hurried to do her bidding. That chick had some freaky weird shit going on.
*
Going into the Xavier institute was like riding into Narnia. The lush gardens spoke of this place not being part of the ordinary world. Sara, beside him in the van, seemed to emphasise this by fading in and out of view.
“Lemons,” said Sara out of nowhere.
“What?” said the grumpy driver.
“We’re going to need them. A lot of them. It gets rid of the lingering scent. Something about destroying lipids, as I recall. Oh, and I may have to borrow the big juicer.”
“No improvements,” rumbled Grumpy. “Not even if it ‘needs tweaking’.”
Sara grumped and pouted.
Now the grumpy guy grinned. “Yeah, yeah. I’m no fun.”
There was a young man and woman playing tennis. Neither were using a racket. An African-American summoned small clouds to water some plants. As he and Sara left the car, more people emerged from the mansion.
Todd’s attention was riveted on the girl. Just a little older than him and a vision in shades of red. He almost completely ignored the bald guy in the wheelchair. He definitely forgot about Sara.
*
Charles blinked and gave up on his welcome speech. Well. Now he knew what it felt like to 'go invisible’ as Sara put it. He instantly raised his admiration of her patience and fortitude as a direct result.
Sara waved at her sister ex-lunatic and said, “Since you have his undivided attention, you can show Todd around, Wanda-dear. I’ll move his things and get the lemon juice.”
“Lemons? Why–?” her nose crinkled as the breeze shifted. “Oh.”
“…and I can tell you if you ever need anythin’, yanno…” Todd grinned. “I’m you'r man.”
“I need you to take a bath,” Wanda managed.
Todd shrank. “Sorry. Um. I have a thing about baths an’ that.”
“We can help,” said Charles. “For instance, I know that, amongst other things… you have an allergy to certain soaps. Also, our bathing facilities have pure water available.”
“Um,” said Todd. Nightmarish visions of his past flickered through his head.
“And the best of locks.”
He boggled. “You all got Jedi mind powers or somethin’?”
“Only some of us,” Charles allowed. “I made the institute to be a place of safety for mutants like us. A place where we can be ourselves.”
Todd thought about running. “You won’t wanna keep me here,” he said. “No-one wants to keep me.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Sara. “*I’d* like you to stay rescued. Please?”
He shrugged. “Meh. I’ll try it for a week.”
*
“Good morning, starshine… You lead us along…”
Ugh. Trust the tall psycho to be an aggravatingly cheerful morning person. He thought about dragging himself over there and telling her to can it, but Wolverine had said not to. His reasons included a deep-felt desire to castrate any peeping-toms. Todd hadn’t asked what that meant.
He washed, glad of the pure water and expensive soap, and crushing every last flashback to Unca Manny with the recollection that the sleaze was in prison. And besides, he was locked in.
They got new clothes for him as a matter of course. He owed them big time.
Then he smelled breakfast.
He practically floated downstairs. Bacon. Eggs. Waffles. How he missed them all.
Sara gently pushed his forehead away from the hotplate with a, “Careful, dear, the bacon spits.”
“I’ll spit back better. C'mon, I’m starvin’, yo.”
“Have a muffin. The bacon will be ready soon.”
The muffins were like biting into Heaven.
Wanda arrived with a chorus of angels and the world’s cutest frown. “Are you wrecking diets *again*?”
“I don’t force people to eat, dear.”
“But the smell! It makes people hungry! I already have an ass the size of Utah!”
Todd looked. “Mmm-Mm! Utah never looked *that* nice…”
“Slag off, green boy, it’s too early in the morning.”
Todd deflated, and tried not to flinch when the older students breezed in. Other than the fact that the redhead levitated things and Sara faded in and out of his visual field like the Cheshire cat, the breakfast conversations were as normal as peach cobbler. Toilet seats and toothpaste caps and hair in the sink. Todd quietly ate and boggled at it all.
Logan waited until he was nearly finished eating before throwing a white parcel at him.
“What’s this?” said Todd.
“Your Gi. You get ten minutes to get changed.”
The room cleared with astonishing speed. He took it as an unsubtle himt to run like hell for his room and change as quick as he could.
*
There were rules for everyone. Don’t take Scooter’s tic tacs. Don’t say 'freak’ as a means of describing anyone. Ever. Don’t prank Logan, for he is unsubtle and mind-bogglingly quick to anger. Only Sara could get away with it, because her pranks were practically a work of art.
Other rules included: No messing with the gardens. Don’t use the word 'crazy’. And above all else, be good.
He tried lifting wallets to help the Professor, in the early days. While he appreciated the good thoughts involved… the method left something to be desired, as he put it. The pocket-picking skill was useful against an enemy, the Professor added, but he had to be certain he wouldn’t be making any new ones.
Besides, there were better ways of earning an income. Sara had hundreds.
Weird, tall Sara, who looked at him as if hypnotised, sometimes. Sara the genius who never seemed to sleep, who was in all the AP and Advanced classes. Scary Sara.
He reluctantly joined some of her hobby-jobs, mostly as muscle to lug things from point A to point B. Yet somehow, he was inevitably roped into the work face and he’d yet to spot how she did it. It was an education, sometimes, the way she explained things. Other times, he nodded and smiled as the whole thing went straight over his head.
But she was nothing like Wanda.
Gorgeous Wanda.
Perfect Wanda.
The very image of his perfect dream girl.
The second week at the Institute, he started composing poems to her. Not that he showed anyone. They were awful and he knew it.
He flirted and tried to impress. Constantly. He had motive to do well and damn near broke his heart trying to be best. It wrecked him. Daily. And every morning, he got up and tried again.
*
“Touchdown! Touchdown!”
Sara leaned back against the bleachers. “I’m officially bored. You?”
“With Wanda in the cheerleaders? Unh-unh.”
Then the local footballers came over. “What’s up, ladies? Enjoyin’ the lesbo show?”
“That’s lady, singular,” corrected Sara, “and gentleman,” she gestured at Todd. “And nobody can testify to the cheerleaders’ sexuality except themselves.”
Todd rolled his eyes. “How many times I’m'a have to tell you not to *do* that? It’ll be just like Roanoak street all over again, S.”
“Or the corner of 5th and 22nd,” said Sara. “That one was particularly poetic.”
Everyone remembered that one. It was the death knell of the Froshtie cull. And news everyone still talked about.
“That was you?” said one of the jocks.
“Sara Louise, Kharma Incorporated.” She used some sleight of hand to make her card appear, then offered it to them. “And by the way? Don’t mess with geniuses, for we may one day be your Finals Tutors.”
“Only if you live,” said Dunc, and grabbed Todd right off the bleachers.
*
Sara watched the ambulances and sundry crews mop up the debris. “All those explosions and not one frame of decent footage,” she sighed.
Scott’s fists tightened. His jaw clenched and he came over with the Sullens.
Sara followed his line-of-sight. Oh. Yeah. That. She could pick out Todd bringing the cheerleaders hot beverages. And he always had a cookie for Wanda. Sara sighed. “Yeah. Sucks pretty much bad.”
“Mmh,” said Scott.
“Still. Bright side… not entirely your fault? Dunc’s the one to punch your shades off. There’s no such thing as controlling your blink rate during that kind of thing.”
“Prof thinks so.”
“Want me to argue your case?”
Scott smiled. “Thanks. But… no thanks.”
Sara watched Wanda punch Todd as he tried to embrace her. “Is it just human nature to want what we can’t have?”
Scott shrugged. “Dunno. Let’s get everyone home.”
*
