A/N: Okay, sorry for the month-and-a-half long gap between chapters, but I was busy with NaNoWriMo in November, which lasts the whole month. If nobody reads this chapter, then I'll understand. But in the case that anyone does, give me a good critique. I need it. NaNo isn't about editting, it's about word count, so I haven't been slammed into the ground by a critique for awhile. @_@
In any case, I've decided to stick with the first-person style, so you'll be seeing the world from the eyes of several different characters. I hope that you enjoy it, and if you don't, then tell me why!
Main thread: topic13668.html
Chapter 12: Afternoon Bells
Jacky:
When one has learned about the inner workings of my mind, you realize that I can live on the bare minimum of necessities. If I were to be given an empty room, some rags for clothing, a shabby blanket, and a pillow, I’d say something along the lines of, “Hey! This’s spiffy!” People like me are the ones who can adapt to damn near any kind of life situation. At the same time, however, we’re also the ones who just don’t give a damn either way.
People like me are some of the best kind of people in the world. Seriously. We’re understanding, play by the rules, can take a little discomfort for the sake of compromise, and overall just go with the flow. We talk things out and are just too lazy to fight or wage war and what have you. “Make love, not war,” is pretty much our slogan, but good luck to all of those mainstream Americans to understand. For me, I didn't care whether I lived in the gutters of the city or a brand-new mansion of my own design.
“Jacky?” Amelia said, poking me with a pencil.
“Hm?”
“You’re spacing.” She playfully waved her hand in front of my face.
I batted her hand away and said, “Quit it,” before grabbing my pencil to add some random, illegible notes to the sparse piece of paper on my desk. It wasn’t long before the period ended, along with the lecture on electro physics and it’s relationship with the teacher’s butt… Well, that’s the lecture that I heard, anyway. Amelia and I were going to lunch when we met Sean and Richard in the cafeteria. As usual, we went through our usual lunch line and got our usual food and got to our usual table. Despite such a routine few minutes, I managed to start an interesting conversation.
I said, “So, Amelia, what’s it like to make out with Craig?” See? Very interesting.
She nearly choked on her sandwich before sputtering, “I-I didn’t make out with him!”
“Your reaction says otherwise, my friend.”
“It really does,” Richard and Sean said at the same time.
Her face was so flushed that she looked like a red water balloon. Teasing her had become my forte over the past year or so, and it just got more entertaining the more I did it.
“What about you and Sean?” She said in a sad effort to change the subject.
“What about us?” Sean asked with an amused smile.
“Did you guys have fun making out?”
I was sitting next to Sean, so I just looked him up and down. I really liked it when he let his hair down. He looked much better that way than he did when he had it in a ponytail, which he had to do as per school rules, sadly. I looked into his pretty, green eyes, we smiled at each other, and held hands.
“Why, yes, we did have fun,” I said with a haughty laugh, which I had refined and perfected in drama class.
Amelia slumped into her seat, clearly defeated by our openness about our new couple status. She said, “So that’s what yesterday was about, huh? Sean asked you out?”
“Yep! Before I left his house yesterday, he asked to go out with me.”
“Saw it coming,” Richard said blankly from the other side of Sean.
But in all seriousness, I’d liked Sean for a few months before he asked me out. Since I was never exactly one to ask someone out, I thought that he would have just laughed at my and thought that it was just a joke. The day he invited me to go over to his place, I had resolved to tell him, but I never got the chance while I was there. To my surprise, he asked me when I was halfway down my driveway to my Vespa. Quite romantic, in my opinion, giving me a choice like that.
Time passed, and after the rest of the day was finished, topped off with the routine boredom of my Calculus class, I met Amelia as I usually did near where I parked my Vespa.
“I’ll be doing some stuff this afternoon, so I’ll drop you off at me house,” I said as I handed a helmet to me friend.
“You’ll be gone again, huh?” She said casually. “Well, have fun with whatever you’re gonna be doing.”
“Heh. I’ll try.”
So I motored us on over to my house, blaring the soundtrack of “Wicked” on an MP3 player that I built into the Vespa. It was never as loud as I wanted it to be, but it was passable. At home, I went inside, got a small styrofoam box, and stuffed it into my Vespa’s tiny little trunk. Once I left her, I felt a hint of regret. Perhaps it was like the feeling a mother gets when she leaves her kid at daycare? I sure hope not.
As I sped down the various streets, I headed in the direction of the city. I went past a few shops on the outer rim of downtown and straight into the center of the city where the tallest and least-used skyscrapers were. It was also where most of the gangs hung out and where the worst of the poverty was.
Once I turned a corner and onto another street, someone called over to me, “Hey! Over here!” with a slight Mexican accent. I turned my head to see Junior, a friend of mine, standing on the top steps of a stoop that led up to a run-down boarding house. I screeched to a halt and took my helmet off with a flip of my short hair.
“’Sup, Junior?” I said as I led my Vespa over to him by the handlebars. He was a pretty short guy, even shorter than Amelia, come to think of it. He had a shaven head, and always wore the same black hoodie every time I saw him.
“The hell you been doin’? Everybody’s here already!”
“Yeah, sorry, I had to take a friend home,” I said as I began to haul the Vespa up the steps of the stoop.
He gave me an understanding nod, and helped me with the vehicle. He glanced over at me once we were inside and said, “Hey, you’re not at school, so you can take that shit off now.”
It took me a moment to get what he meant, and said, “Yeah, thanks for reminding me.” taking a hand off of the Vespa, I wiped off the makeup on my left cheek. I then peeled away a thin square-shaped bandage. On my true skin was a tattoo of a black star.
Like the gentleman he was, Junior held the door open for me so that I could enter unhindered. By the time I was inside, my hair was effectively soaked by the rain. I shook my head to spray some of the water on Junior, since he never really minded those kinds of random antics. The inside of the boarding house had stained hardwood flooring. Most of the staircase had rotted away, and the hallways were dark enough to be part of a haunted house.
“So, where is everyone?” I asked, parking my Vespa off to the side and taking the styrofoam box out of the trunk.
“In the kitchen.”
“Alright, let’s go.”
We headed down another dark hallway till we got to the back where the kitchen was. Even before we got to the door, I was able to hear a few familiar voices of my friends on the other side.
“Hey, all!” I yelled happily as I opened the door.
Several “hey”s and other greetings of the like were shouted out as I made my entrance and held the box above my head. A bunch of my guy friends were sitting atop the ratty counters and table, which were all lit up by a lone light bulb that hung from the ceiling, either talking with each other or cuddling with their girlfriends. Most of them had brought a little food, as well, to add to the banquet. A lot of the guys wore trench coats that looked a bit like Craig’s, and all of them were about as poor. The girls wee in about the same condition as they were financially. There was no particular age group for the people there, either. Some of them were in their seventies, while a couple were barely nine years old.
“Okay, what’s on the menu this week, people?” I said, and popped open my box. “I’ve got a crap load of leftover spaghetti from my place!”
“I’ve got a Danish!” Someone from the depths of the kitchen called out.
“Kick ass!” I remarked loudly and full of enthusiasm.
“I saved about half of a loaf of bread,” one of the younger kids said quietly as he handed it to me.
“Sweet! What else?”
“I brought a nearly-full bottle of wine!” One of the older women yelled. Her addition was followed by a roar of approval by everyone there.
“Who’d you steal that one from, Jessie?”
“Some guy at one of those ‘nice’ restaurants.”
“Good job! Okay, what else to we have besides bread and booze?”
All of use together brought up what we had and put it on the countertops. Aside from what I brought, there were biscuits, mugs for drinking purposes, some chipped dishes that were gotten via dumpster diving, some cheese n’ crackers, a salt shaker, some ketchup, a cheeseburger from Jack-in-the-Box, and some other stuff. It was quite the feast by their standards. I was always given the job of arranging how the food was given out to the ten to twenty people that always came there every Tuesday. So I did, and we all sat down at the long wooden table on top of whatever was convenient enough to sit down on.
We put our hands together for grace, and I said aloud, “Dear God, you know that we’re here, so I’ll spare you the rest. Dig in, people!”
“Amen!”
Craig:
It was Wednesday, I think, when I decided to wait outside the fences of St. Bernard to see how Amelia would have reacted if I were early for a change. In my honest opinion, the school actually looked kinda nice when it wasn’t raining. The main building was entirely white, with reflective windows lined perfectly along all three of the floors. Aside from the group of main classroom buildings, the campus had a system of sidewalks, which were all surrounded by patches of grass and trees. The very front of the school at the top of the hill in which it was perched on had a large chain-link fence and gates that opened up onto a large pick-up and drop-off roundabout street. Part of the yard had a ton of randomly-placed staircases that were practically for decorative purposes only, aside from the fact that they all led down a hill to the parking lot and football field.
After I heard a loud bell ring, I saw a lot of the students, clad in their identical uniforms filter out towards the staircases and roundabout by way of the sidewalks as if they were a colony of ants. I was able to single out Amelia somewhere in the crowd, and waved her over once I thought that she had seen me. Despite my wave, however, she kept on her merry way down another set of steps that led down to a slightly lower level of the school’s front yard. Without thinking, I climbed up the flimsy chain-link fence like a well-trained circus monkey and dropped down on the other side. It wasn’t long after I set foot on the campus’ dirt that people started to mumble in my general direction.
My target was walking in the opposite direction from me. “Amelia!” I called out, which caused her to flinch in surprise before she turned around to face me.
With a disgruntled look on her face, she turned around and walked towards me. Before I was able to say anything, she grasped the collar of my trench coat and yanked me down to eye-level with her. “What the hell’re you doing here?” She whispered urgently. “Only students in uniform are allowed on campus!”
“As if I care,” I said with a laugh, “You were walking away and I needed to get your attention.”
I felt a timid tap on my shoulder, and turned my head to see a fairly short guy decked in the school’s uniform say, “Do you have a pass onto the campus?”
I let out a hearty laugh, “If you don’t want me to be here, then go ahead and say it, pal.”
He looked a bit taken aback, and took his hand off of my shoulder. “Y-you’re not supposed to be here, so…” He trailed off, flustered.
I shrugged my shoulders, “Are any of us supposed to be anywhere?”
“What?”
“Exactly”
Amelia grabbed my arm and said to the guy, “Sorry, Matt, we were just leaving.” She put on a fake smile and began to drag me away. Just as I was about to protest, someone else stepped right in front of her, stopping her in her tracks. The guy was a little taller than me, and had a pristinely clean face and wavy light brown hair. Though he had every look of a smart student, his expression told me that he was just another ass hole. Amelia looked up at him with a hint of anger in one eye and fear in the other.
He looked at Amelia slyly, and then at me before he asked her, “So, Amelia, who’s this?”
I stuck my free hand into my pants pocket. I was pretty interested with what her answer was going to be, as well.
She swallowed before finally saying, “Just… just leave us alone, Nathan.”
My eyes went wide.
He smirked and said cockily, “Why not?” He glanced at me, “I’m liking your new boyfriend here. He really looks like a keeper. I like the holes in his clothes!”
“Shut up!”
“No, really, don’t mind me, Amelia. I hope you both can fit into his cardboard box better than a hotel room, though.”
Before Amelia could retaliate, I went ahead and stepped in front of her. Nathan stared at me with a glare that could make puppies whimper, and I cocked an eyebrow before saying, “But seriously, boxes are incredibly comfortable. You should try it sometime.”
“Well, I guess that only a hobo like you would feel that way.”
“Nah, only people who’ve had the time to try it.”
“You must not have a job if you have that kind of time on your hands.”
“Yeah, so?”
He palmed his forehead, “Wow, so you’re okay with your rock-bottom lifestyle?”
“Yep! Now tell me something: are you okay with your upper middle class lifestyle?”
“Of course I am! What could be better than this?”
“Not having to do much of anything, of course!” I smiled widely. Despite his petty attempts at insults, he was fun to talk to-- kind of like when I talked to little kids in the city.
“So you’re not going to give anything back to the world, will you? You’ll just be there, poor, in the city with nothing to do, and the world won’t give you anything in return.”
“Ah, yes, that argument. I gave everything back to the world a long time ago, so me and the world are pretty even at the moment.”
“Define ‘everything.’”
“When I say ‘everything,’ I mean ‘everything.’ That means my house, my money, my life, all of that kind of stuff. The move was really easy, too, since we didn’t have to take anything with us.”
He stood there silently, clearly with nothing else to say.
“Well, if you won’t say anything, then we’ll be going. Bye!” I grabbed Amelia’s arm, and started towards the front gates with her. Her face was so red that I thought that it would burst. “What’s wrong? Embarrassed?”
She quivered for a moment. “Yes.”
“Well, you’ll be fine in a minute. Anyway, are all private school kids as dumb as him?”
A nervous laugh escaped her lips before she said, “Uh, well, not all of us…”
A few steps before the front gate, I heard a deep voice from behind me say, “Excuse me, do you have a visitor’s badge?”
I turned around to see a rather tall and serious-looking police officer. “Oh, so you’re the patrol guy around here?”
“Yes. Do you have a visitor’s--”
“Hey, you even have a gun! Nice. Gotta keep these little pencil-pushers in line, am I right?” I said sarcastically.
“Sir, do you have a badge?”
“I thought that you did?”
“You cannot be on campus without permission. If you don’t show me any, then--”
“Oh, hold on a sec,” I said, and walked backwards about five or six steps until I was a mere inch outside of the gates. “Okay, you were saying?”
The policeman let out a sigh, and said, “Sir, please come with me.”
Amelia:
At that moment, I hated Craig from the bottom of my heart. It was all I could do not to slap him across the face as we sat in front of the principal’s desk in his fancy office. We were placed in his leather armchairs, which were actually quite comfortable, and had to wait in that brown room for at least ten minutes before someone walked in. We turned out heads towards the door in tandem as the principal, a stout man with curly white hair and a homely face, walked into the room. As he sat down in his big armchair, I noticed Craig roll his eyes.
“So, you are…” he picked up a file on his desk and sifted through it before saying, “Hemmel, Amelia.”
I put my hands in my lap and said with my head bowed slightly, “Yes, sir.” It was only after I said it that I realized how feeble I sounded. Why was I always so obedient?
“Your record is clean as can be, yet here you are causing trouble.”
“I didn’t mean any harm.”
“You allowed this young man onto the grounds without approval. You know the punishment for it, correct?”
“Yes. It’s one demerit… I think.”
“That’s correct. So you understand your mistake?”
“Yes.”
There was a long silence as the principal wrote something down on a small sheet of paper. “You were very cooperative, Ms. Hemmel. I hope to see your succeed in the future.”
Just as I reached out to take the paper, I scarcely saw Craig’s hand snatch it out of his hand. He scanned the demerit and, to my horror, the sound of ripping paper filled the room.
“Craig! What’re you doing?” I yelled, shaking him by the shoulder.
He kept a straight face and said, “Bullshit.”
My blood ran cold.
“Excuse me?” The principal said, his face changing to one more fit for anger.
“This little system of yours is complete bull, old man. You had to look up your own student’s name before you could talk to her. And what the hell is up with the rule where non-students can’t walk on the front lawn?”
“That has been the rule ever since this school has been founded.”
“Why?”
“… Because it is the rule, and I am in no position to change it.”
“You’re a goddamn principal! Who else has a position better than you to change it up a little?”
I had my hands on my head in anger and embarrassment. I had no idea why he spoke out against the principal. What the hell? It all would have been fine if he’d kept his mouth shut!
“… Who are you, and why have you come to my school?”
When the principal asked the question, Craig looked down at me and said, “I came to kidnap her. She doesn’t even know me, so it’s not her fault at all.” What the--? My eyes went wide at what he had said.
“Kidnap?”
“Yep.”
“I don’t understand what you’re getting at, but I’ll have to look into your school records and contact your parents.”
Craig let out a small laugh, “Good luck with that, pal. The name’s Craig Verden.”
The principal typed the name into his desktop computer, keeping an eye on us. I nearly laughed out lout when I was the expression of surprise that covered his face as he looked at the computer screen.
“You don’t go to school, do you?” The white-haired man asked.
“Nope,” Craig responded casually.
“Then give me your home phone number.”
“Don’t have one.”
“Street address?”
“The street sign was washed away by a flood before I was born.”
“Social Security Number!”
Craig laughed a little. “Nice try.”
The principal rested his elbow on his desk and scratched his forehead in frustration.
“That’s right. You can’t do a thing to me using normal info. To you guys, I may as well not exist.”
Craig:
“What the hell’s your problem?” Amelia yelled as we started on out way to Jacky’s. Even just walking across the campus to the gates, she had already given me an earful. Frankly, I was tired of it, so I simply shut her out, and thought of something else. On the upside, in the time it took the principal to slap her on the wrist, clouds had gathered in the blue sky, and a much-needed rain began to fall. As she rambled on and on about my lack of tact, I listened to the pitter pattering instead.
“I need to check up on a friend in the city, so I’ll be going,” I said once we arrived on Jacky‘s doorstep awhile later.
She said with a pout, “Fine.”
“Fine.”
She slammed the door in my face, and I heard the lock latch into place in a very do-not-come-inside-you-enormous-dick fashion. I sloughed it off and began to head back into the city. Being there amongst the tall buildings always made me feel at home, whether Amelia was there or not. The moment I stepped beyond the border between Amelia’s suburbia and my downtown, it stopped raining, much to my surprise. I turned my head towards the late afternoon sky, as if I was begging it to give the rain back. When no response was given, I faced forward, and grudgingly walked on.
I knocked on the old copy shop’s door, only to have it creak open before me on it’s own. She really needed to fix that thing. As I glanced around the shop, as I usually did, there seemed to be a larger number of boxes around than normal. That was odd, since I hadn’t ever seen her move any of them in the time that I’d known her.
“April! You in here?” I called into the bowels of the shop. All I heard was a deafening silence. I recalled that she normally set up a “Closed” sign while she was out, but I didn’t see anything of the sort on my way in. “Hey! April!”
Still, there was no answer. That wasn’t a good sign at all.
I really liked her character too...