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               Tuck Season, Wabbit Season, Tuck Season!
                            Part 16
                              -*-
      Copyright 1999, 2011 by either Joel Lawrence or Ellen Hayes


Any resemblance between the writings in this work, and any actual
persons or places, living or dead, are purely coincidental, except when
used for satirical purposes.

This work contains adult situations, adult language, adult concepts, and
possibly sex.  If you are legally not allowed to read materials
containing such things, then you will be breaking the law by reading
this.  I am not responsible.
Continuing to read this document, or storing it or reproducing it
in any format means that you explicitly affirm that you are legally
allowed to possess and read such materials in your city, county/parish,
state, and country.

All rights reserved.  See the bottom for distribution rights.


***

     "Oh," Tucker said, looking down at the laptop case he'd just slung
on his shoulder, "I brought it down so I could do my check-in."  And
then he had to question, *Why the fuck did I have to LOOK at it?*
     "Well, don't you think you ought to do it before you go to bed?"
Darla 'suggested', sounding a little anxious about it.
     "Well, okay," Tucker agreed, repressing a smile.  Or a smirk.
*Gee, feeling a little worried, are we?*  Though, he didn't really feel
a need to have everyone but him killed, at this point.
     *I just want my ass to stop.  And stop hurting.*

     "Hey," Valerie said from behind Charlie, and he turned to look at
her.  She caught up to him as she said, "Thanks for helping today."
     "Helping with what?"
     "With the nap, cooking, all that," she said.
     "Oh.  You're welcome," he said, sincerely meaning the phrase for
once.  Life today had been a lot better than the previous week or the
horrible weekend.
     She smiled at him, then reached over and gave him a quick hug
before she went into her room.
     *Well, that was nice...*  Then he remembered Valerie kissing him.

     "Oh, well, Tuck's not dead yet," Mike said to himself.  The coded
email had verified as both good and OKAY, not CAPTURED.  "Good thing,
'cause I am gonna sleep until NOON."

     "You wear those," Kenneth pointed to his own chest, which did not
have breasts on it, then Darla's chest which at the moment did, "to
sleep?"
     "Something might happen," Darla said, not sounding pleased, as she
pulled her nightgown over her head and down her body.  "Actually, some
things DID happen, and...  I just got in the habit."
     "You know, I bet there're a lot of guys who would rather sleep with
a pair of breasts instead of a teddy or a stuffed bunny rabbit."
     Darla blinked at him, twice, before starting to laugh.

     Darryl hadn't been too sure about sleeping in the same bed as
Kenneth; he had some bad associations about another male in the same
bed, which he'd hoped wouldn't explode.  But, being in a nice, firm,
large bed, with clean-smelling sheets and enough pillows, and Kenneth
reading quietly instead of watching television and talking back to (or
yelling at) it, in a place that wasn't too hot and wasn't too cold...
     *Plus, okay, back then I wasn't wearing a nightgown, a stuffed bra,
and panties, either.*  They shouldn't make him feel safer - if anything,
he figured they should make him feel WORSE - but they did.
     He wriggled backwards until his body was against Kenneth's, and
Kenneth absently patted Darryl's body a couple of times.

     Marie smiled down at Tucker, ran the hole saw up to speed, and,
as Jane and Diana laughed, jammed it into his abdomen.
     Tucker thrashed upright, not sure if he'd screamed or not, and then
discovered that he'd had a reason to think someone was slicing his belly
open; it felt like there was a hand inside him, pulling and twisting and
squeezing-
     He made it to the toilet in the dark, and just barely remembered to
remove the maxi pad and the thong before he tried to let loose.
     Nothing happened.
     *You woke me up with that dream, you fucking moron of an intestine!
You'd BETTER have something to do, or I swear, I am gonna cut you out
and replace you with a fucking battery!*
     Eventually, his intestines decided that they did indeed have
something to do.  "Ohsh-"

     Kenneth had managed to ignore the alarm, helped by Darla shutting
it off quickly.  He'd just about gone back to sleep when she asked him,
"Want to go running this morning?"
     He opened his eyes to find a blurry shape in a T-shirt standing in
front of him.
     He eventually remembered how to say, "No."
     "Okay, slug-a-bed," she said cheerfully.  "See you when I get
back."  And bent down and kissed him on the cheek before she left.
     Eventually, Kenneth realized, *I wish Darryl wouldn't do that.*

     "Halt!" Tucker snapped.
     Darla panic-stopped, making her sneakers squeal, and yelped, "Stop
doing that!"
     "Confirmed, Darla Thompson; you may pass," Tucker smirked.
     "It's Thompson-Philips, actually..."  Tucker blinked as he realized
that Darla had basically confirmed that Jane Thompson and Whatshername
Philips were 'an item'.  "And why are you sitting here in the dark?
Again?"
     "Easier on my eyes, an' I'm already adapted."  *Duh.*  "You know-
You're running outside, right?"
     She eventually admitted, "Yes?"
     "It'd go better if you didn't turn on the kitchen lights before you
went out," he told her.  "You'd be able to see better."
     "But I already turned on the lights in my room."
     *Which figures.*  "Every bit of dark adaptation helps."
     She didn't answer, but Tucker - because of his dark adaptation -
caught her moving toward the light switches and got his sunglasses on
before she flipped the switches.

     Darryl turned around, and there she was, in another lightweight
dress, colored lip gloss, and sunglasses.  And smirking at him.  "Do you
actually stand there wearing sunglasses in the dark?" burst out of him.
     "Of course!" she said, and smirked harder.
     He sighed, then brightened as an idea came to him.  "Want to go
running?"
     "Not in this," she pointed at her dress.
     "Oh, right.  Well, I do have to go, so IF you'll excuse me?"
     She almost gracefully pointed towards the door, and Darryl disarmed
the alarm and left, wondering if he'd won that round, or lost.

     "Maybe I should start exercising," Tucker wondered.  "Couldn't
hurt...  Well, actually, yes, it would."  That was hopefully the dumbest
thing he would say all day; it was pretty dumb.

     "Waffles," Valerie said, and grinned.  Darryl noted she'd gotten
rid of the sunglasses.  "Actually, oatmeal walnut waffles."
     "What?"
     "They're pretty good," Valerie asserted.  "Also, bacon, toast, et
cetera.  And fruit, of course.  I was figuring about two waffles a
person, is that about right?"
     "Two?  You mean, two of the entire waffle iron?  More like one
each."
     Valerie was making a face.  "Er.  Well, I have Wednesday's
breakfast planned, I guess."

     "Idiot," someone said in Kenneth's bedroom.  He opened an eye, and
eventually determined that it wasn't his bedroom.  *Ah.*
     Then, eventually, he wondered, *Why is Darla calling me an idiot?*

     After his shower, Darryl was bent over, a towel wrapped around his
body, brushing his hair with one hand and wielding the dryer with the
other, and casually looking around the room because he couldn't see what
he was doing with his hair anyway, when he discovered a face staring at
him from his bed.
     "Ahhh!" Darryl shrieked and dropped the blow dryer, which yanked
the plug out of the socket.  "Jeez, Ken, you scared the life out of me!"
He'd forgotten Kenneth was staying in his room.
     "Fair's fair, considering what you did to ME with that blow dryer,"
Kenneth said as he flipped the covers back and sat up.  "And, since
we're engaged, why aren't you cooking me breakfast, wench?"
     "Because I made Valerie do it," Darryl smirked as he plugged the
blow dryer back in, and resumed styling his hair for the day.
"Darling!" he finished, over the noise.
     He wasn't expecting Kenneth to pat his butt, though.  "Ahh!" he
shrieked, and dropped the blow dryer again.  "Stop doing that!"  A
chuckle was his only answer.  "And DON'T YOU LEAVE THE SEAT UP!"

     Charlie stopped at the scream, which didn't sound like Valerie, and
eventually decided it was Darla.  Who was with Kenneth.
     Who was ENGAGED to Kenneth.
     Eventually, he figured it out, though.  "Oh."
     *Come to think of it, does Darla need it down?*
     He decided he didn't care, as long as he could get some coffee.
Coffee was important.

     *I seem to have an advantage,* Tucker realized; he and Darla seemed
to be the only ones really awake at breakfast.
     *Not that I can do much with it.  Oh, well, fuck it,* he thought
with a sigh, and resumed eating.

     "Kenneth," Darla asked, making Kenneth look up.  "Would you be able
to help Charlene and me with laundry this morning?  Maybe a few other
chores?"
     "I suppose," Kenneth agreed; he was more interested in the coffee,
toast, bacon, and waffles he was devouring.  Though he did catch
Charlene's sigh.
     "And then, Diana can take Valerie to choir, and maybe do a little
more grocery shopping before picking her up?"
     Several seconds elapsed before Diana questioned, "What?  I went
yesterday," though she didn't sound too sure about it.
     "Yes, but we need some more rum," Darla said firmly.  "And fruit,
and a few other things."
     "Do I need to make a list?" Valerie asked.
     "No, I think I can do one...  Oh, no I can't, I need to get you
ready for choir."
     "I can get myself ready," Valerie stated, not quite challenging
Darla, and Kenneth began to think that Jane had perhaps pegged Valerie.

     "Because, Darla," Tucker explained, wondering how anyone could be
so stupid, AGAIN, "I have to breathe.  A lot.  And corsets restrict my
breathing.  Not to mention, it's a PRACTICE, not a performance, and the
other girls are going to be showing up in T-shirts and shorts or jeans,
not- not- not THAT," he pointed.
     The offending dress was pretty, frilly, probably went well with the
wig Darla was insisting he wear, and utterly wrong for what he was going
to be doing.  Also it was too small in the waist for un-corseted wear.
     "Look, what I was thinking," he tried as he dove into the closet,
"was something like..."
     "Valerie," Darla said from the bedroom behind him, "may I remind
you that you are not that feminine, and you could use the help?"
     "If I stand out by being overdressed," he called, as he paged
through the immense number of clothes, "then I'm going to be examined
harder.  Closer."  *Didn't we have this conversation yesterday?*
     "You're already going to be examined closely because you're new,"
she pointed out, which he'd already thought of, and didn't like.
     "And that makes it even more important that I'm dressed
APPROPRIATELY," he argued.  *Where the fuck is it?*
     "What are you looking for?" she asked as she blocked his escape
route.
     "It's sort of-  I think it's bla-  Finally!" he complained as he
pulled the dress out.  "See," he said, displaying it on its hanger,
"simple, soft, not too hot, not too elaborate."
     "You need a blouse to wear under that," she said.
     "What?  Why?"
     "Because it's a jumper, not a dress!" Darla snapped back.

[an American jumper, not a British one - Ellen]

     Valerie had finally submitted to wearing a cream long-sleeved silk
blouse under the black jumper she'd picked out, and Darryl didn't have
time to do much with her hair.  He'd finally gone with the last wig he'd
gotten from the attic, a very light blonde with some curls, down past
Valerie's shoulders.  It had bangs and enough body to style, which
Darryl hoped would look authentic enough to pass in close quarters.
*Jane must really have been desperate to sign her up for something like
a choir, so soon...  No way _I_ would've done it a week and a half after
I got here.  Then again...*  Valerie was picking up the feminine parts
so quickly it was almost frightening.  *Although 'feminine' is kind of
the wrong word...*  Charlene was normally more feminine than Valerie
was; but Valerie had a certain competence about her, that reminded
Darryl of some of the women he'd occasionally met while with Jane.  Not
feminine, but sort of androgynous, somehow.
     *Kind of reminds me of Sandy, actually.*
     "Isn't that enough?" Valerie complained, and Darryl actually looked
hard at her in the mirror.
     "Yes, I think it is," he agreed, just before Diana knocked at her
door.
     Luckily, Darryl had moved away from the chair, because Valerie
shoved it backwards, flew over to the bed and shuffled the nearly flat
black pumps onto her feet in two dance-like steps, and then flew towards
the door, grabbing her large metal-framed backpack on the way and
hoisting it onto her shoulder.
     "You can leave that," he told her.
     Valerie ripped the door open and retorted, "And monkeys might
fly..." before the rest was lost in the distance.  Judging by the fact
that he didn't hear a collision, he guessed that Diana had only knocked
at the door without stopping.
     Darryl contemplated following her, but realized that if he didn't,
he probably wouldn't see her again for a few hours, which right now
seemed like a blessing.

     *Oh, shit, stairs,* Tucker thought.  *Fuck it, 'm not wearing
hose.*  He took his shoes off and started doing the backwards-chimp down
them.
     "What on EARTH are you doing, Valerie?!" Diana complained from
somewhere below.
     Tucker didn't reply until he got to the bottom, and luckily Diana
didn't come up and do something physical to him like touch him, or he
was going to throw himself on top of her and let the combined weight of
him and his pack crush her.
     "We HAVE to get something to give these shoes some traction," he
said as he dropped his shoes on the floor and stuffed his feet into
them.  "I'm tired of falling down the stairs, and I've got bruises on
top of bruises by now."
     "And why are you taking that backpack?"
     "I still don't trust you lot with my important stuff," Tucker told
her, staring her in the eye.
     She huffed at him.  "Really, Valerie, I thought better of you-"
     "Yeah, and I thought better of you lot, and look where it got me.
Until I'm certain I can trust you, which I do NOT, yet, it goes with
me."  He looked at his watch.  "Are we going?" he pushed.

     Art stared at the defiant, and not very feminine, girl in front of
him, trying to decide whether to make an 'issue' out of one or more of
the several things 'wrong' with her.  Or, rather, which ones.
     "Valerie," he said in a calmer (though still female) voice, trying
for saddened, "we did sign that contract with you.  Did you think we'd
break it?"
     "I'm not sure yet," she said back, very confidently.  "And in that
SAME contract, you're not allowed to restrict my carriage of my gear, as
long as I do it in as feminine and ladylike a m-"
     "That is NOT feminine and ladylike-"
     "It's what I've got," she counter-interrupted.  "If you want to buy
an external frame pack, sixty liters or better, that's in pink or
something, go right ahead.  Buying it isn't my responsibility, it's
yours; and if you don't supply it, I have to make do with what _I_ have
already.  Miz Philips," she said in a more conciliatory tone, "we're
going to be late if you keep arguing.  All I need to do is take this in
and stash it where the other girls won't bother it, and pick it up again
when I leave.  But I'm not going without it."  She bared her teeth in an
expression that was NOT a smile, and added, "Plus, it's all olive drab,
which goes well with black."
     "Everything goes well with black, Valerie; that's hardly an
accomplishment OR an excuse."
     They stood there, Valerie not moving an inch.  Neither was Art.
     "Weren't you going to choir?" Kenneth asked from behind him.  "Or
were you assaulting Normandy this morning?"
     Valerie grinned and turned and began singing, "From the halls of
Montezuu-uma to the shores of Tri-po-li," as she walked towards the
garage.
     "I did hear some of that," Kenneth said in a low voice, "and that
bit about carriage of her stuff was definitely in the contract.  As was
the part about her not being responsible for providing the feminine and
ladylike et cetera."
     Unspoken was the question, 'Did you actually read the thing?'
     "Jane signed the damned thing while I was out of the room, while
she was fevered," Art sighed.
     "Oh... dear," Kenneth agreed.
     "DRIVER!" Valerie shrieked from somewhere out of sight.  "THE ENEMY
AWAITS!  ANGREIFEN!"
     Art sighed again as Kenneth snickered into his hand.  "Maybe you'd
better go," Kenneth suggested.  "Before she starts calling for air
support."

     "What on earth?" Jane wondered.  *Is she back to her old tricks
again?*
     But shortly thereafter, she heard Diana's car start up, and she was
fairly sure that Diana wouldn't have just left without Valerie.

     "What on EARTH?!" Darryl gasped.  *I must be seeing things,* he
thought, and closed his eyes tightly for several seconds.
     When he opened them again, though, the bloody menstrual pads were
still in Valerie's trash can.  More than one.  As was a bent-to-hell
wire clothes hanger.
     Darryl bumped into the wall before he realized he'd been backing
away.

     Art kept an eye on Valerie, but since he'd come out to the car and
opened the trunk - she'd placed her backpack in there, but kept the
smaller canvas bag with her, as well as her laptop's black bag - she'd
been her usual compliant girlish self.  *Usual for what _I_ have seen,
not what Jane described,* Art reminded himself.
     Currently, she was sitting calmly in the car, hands in her lap on
top of her purse, and looking rather like a young girl trying to look
'macho cool' with her mirrored aviator shades.  Trying and failing, in
his opinion; she looked too much like a young girl.
     "Oh," she said suddenly.  "Did Darla give you a shopping list?  I
could do one up quick, if you need one."
     "I think I can manage," Art said, when he thought he could sound
'normal'.
     "I don't know what you and Miz Thompson want- I mean, like to eat,"
she said.
     "Well, we do," he replied, a little amused now.  "Know, that is."
     "Do you have any recipes?  I mean, it seems like I'm cooking a lot,
so if you want something, I need to know what it is.  And, hopefully,
how you want it cooked, if it's-  I mean, some people don't like
variations, like their meatloaf has to be just one particular way, you
know?"
     "True, some people are like that," Art said, trying to reorient
himself to her sudden-seeming change in attitude.  *Is it that she feels
confident since she 'won'?*

     Tucker was beginning to realize that he was going to have to sing,
in close quarters, with an unknown number of unknown girls, and he'd
never been to a music practice before.  *I think I wish I'd thought of
this before, so I could've gone home...*  His promised Libretto did not
seem very enticing now.

     "Hmmm," Jane said.
     "Is that all you can say?" Darla protested.
     The problem was, Jane couldn't think of anything else.  Those were,
without doubt, menstrual pads, in the trash can.  Darla said she had
removed that trash can from Valerie's bathroom this morning, and she had
no reason to lie.  They had what LOOKED like blood on them; Jane was not
willing to attempt to check whether it was in fact blood or not.  Not
that she had a clue how to do so; she knew she could potentially find
out.  If she so desired.  Which she emphatically did not.
     Valerie was not there, and could not be asked for quite some time.
This was definitely the sort of question Jane would ask, if she asked,
at home where there were many hundreds of yards and several walls
between her and anyone outside her family.  Jane didn't want to ask,
either.
     "Could Valerie be an actual, biological girl?" Kenneth asked,
speaking aloud the question all of them had to be thinking.
     "I thought we saw her naked, either the first or second day," Jane
mused.
     Marie contributed, "Um," which didn't help.
     "Because of the coffee burn."
     Kenneth questioned sharply, "The coffee WHAT?"

     Kate Bishop was sipping at her post-breakfast coffee and making
notes, and wondering if Valerie would show up THIS time.  She hadn't
Saturday, and Jane Thompson had been rather vague about why, as well as
sounding quite ill.  *Though she didn't say Valerie had caught it...  I
hope she doesn't have it NOW.  Or at least that someone would bother to
call me if she's not com-*
     A knock at the door - and when Kate glanced at the wall clock, it
was just before nine - suggested that perhaps she had shown up today
after all.
     She got up and bustled to open the door, and found Valerie there,
sporting a HUGE camping pack on her back and a new bleached hairstyle,
and an older woman who wasn't Jane Thompson.  "Er."
     "Kate Bishop, Diana Philips," Valerie said.  They murmured
politenesses at each other.  "'M sorry I couldn't make it Saturday; I
had some contract negotiations before I could stay in town."
     "Contract negotiations?" Kate wondered.
     "Valerie," Miz Philips said in a warning tone.
     Valerie grinned, not at all slowed down or apparently annoyed, and
said, "I think I've got an NDA on the whole thing.  Non-disclosure
agreement," she explained.  "Anyway, here I am."

     *And, here the rest of the girls aren't...*  Tucker was pretty sure
that the paper had said 09:00, because he'd checked it about every two
minutes since they'd left the house, but-
     "Alright, then.  Valerie-  Why did you bring that back pack?" she
asked, splitting the word into two.
     "Contract provisions," he said, and gave her a Debbie smile.  "Is
there a place I can put it out of the way, where nobody'll mess with
it?"
     "I suppose you can put it in here..." she said doubtfully.
     "It has a laptop in it, so it needs to be safe from theft," he said
seriously.  "But it's not explosive or especially flammable or
anything.  Doesn't need refrigeration either."

     "Jane, you're not thinking," Kenneth felt it necessary to say.
     "And what exactly SHOULD I be thinking, young man?" she demanded.
     Kenneth sighed, but he was going to have to deal with this sort of
challenge in court, when he was a lawyer.  "She suspected you of child
pornography; now you're saying you want to see her naked?  How is she
going to react when you tell her to pull her panties off?  In front of
SEVERAL of you?"
     Jane deflated.  "Oh.  Yes."
     "Why don't you just ASK her about the bloody pads?" he suggested,
now that she wasn't going into wild plots and seeming deviousness for
its own sake.  "Tell her the truth, that Darla found them while
collecting the trash, and you were worried by the blood.  If there's
something wrong, she's more likely to tell you straight out, I think.
Look at how she dealt with, ahh, health issues yesterday."
     Jane opened her mouth, then closed it.  Then said, "You're right.
I suppose...  Though she is rather secretive, and..."
     "Secretive about SOME things," Kenneth modified.  *And isn't that
the pot calling the kettle 'kind of dark'?*

     Art wasn't entirely sure about the wisdom of leaving Valerie alone
ANYwhere, but Ms. Bishop had been extremely unyielding on that point;
she did NOT allow family, friends, guests, or ANYONE to attend
rehearsals unless they were members of the choir.  Valerie had kept her
mouth shut, which seemed unusual.  She'd also seemed relieved that Ms.
Bishop wanted her here now for some one-on-one lessons before the actual
choir practice started at ten.
     He'd told Ms. Bishop that he would be shopping for a bit and then
waiting for Valerie in the parking lot - which is why he'd brought a
novel in his purse.  He planned to go back about eleven and pick up
Darla and Charlene, bring them here, pick up Valerie (he hoped), take
the girls out to lunch, and then over to Milady's Closet for the few
things Jane thought they could use right away, such as a smaller-
circumference corset.  She'd left it up to Art and Darla if they should
get Valerie some larger breast forms, depending on whether she seemed
like she would be more controllable or less while wearing them.

     "Do I know how BADLY she was constipated?" Charlie repeated.  He
hadn't wanted to know.  "No?"  *Why are you asking me this?*  Except he
didn't want to know that either.  "She didn't say, and I didn't ask," he
said more firmly.

     "Breathing correctly is very important," Ms. Bishop lectured.
     *Yep, knew it,* Tucker smirked.

     "A corset?" Kate questioned, not sure she'd heard corr-
     "Yeah, like with steel bars going vertically," Valerie said,
drawing a finger up her body to illustrate.
     "My god NO!"
     She nodded and said with satisfaction, "Thought so."
     "Who..."
     "Oh, Miz Thompson," Valerie said casually.  "Says they can really
alter your figure, especially if you start young."
     Kate was still stunned.  *A corset?*
     "But, I thought," Valerie continued, "that you couldn't really wear
one while singing, not a real one."
     "No," Kate agreed, sure of that much.
     Then, she was ashamed but couldn't help herself, and asked, "Do you
wear one all the time?"
     "Huh?  Oh, no way; I'd have to kill them if they tried THAT,"
Valerie assured her.  "Just, y'know, for-  I mean, under really nice
stuff.  Which I am wearing a LOT," she said with disgust.  Then she
sighed.  "I guess Miz Thompson figures I know how to wear jeans and
sneakers already."
     Kate shook her head.  *Some people...*
     Then she shuddered, as some twisted and sick and hateful part of
her mind presented to her consciousness what it would be like trying to
get her daughter ELLEN into a corset.  "Okay, let's continue," she said
hurriedly.  "You're not wearing one now, are you?" she confirmed.
     Valerie snorted.  "No, because I TOLD them that I needed to
breathe..."
     "Good, good..."  Kate had to shake her head to remember what to do
next.  "Alright, then, to start: inhale so that your upper body expands.
You want your ribs to expand out as you take in air so you have proper
support, but still keep your abdominal muscles firm.  That gives you the
support you need.  So breathe in..."
     As Valerie tried, Kate frowned; she wasn't doing it right.
"Valerie, may I touch you?  I need to demonstrate where I want you to
expand."
     She stopped breathing and looked at Kate skeptically.  "Okay, but
if you touch my breasts, you're taking me out to dinner and a movie."

     "Alright, sing a word on this note," Ms. Bishop ordered, and hit a
key on the piano repeatedly.  *C,* Tucker thought.
     "B-uh-h-h-h-h-h-h-ger-r-r-r-r-r-r," Tucker sang obediently,
until she stopped and glared at him.
     "I suppose you find that funny," she said in a tired-and-irritated
voice.
     *Must train 'em in that voice at Teacher School,* Tucker thought.
"Yes ma'am," he said apologetically, with a weak smile.  "I have a very
low sense of humor."
     Ms. Bishop glared at him, until she coughed and let a smile out.
"Please don't do that any more," she asked.  "The other girls are bad
enough as it is.  Let's keep it to the standard Italian vowels used in
singing. Ay, ee, ah, oh, and oo."
     Tucker was just starting to grin when she hurriedly added, "One at 
a time, please."
     "You're taking out all the leeway I could use to pervert the 
instructions," Tucker told her.
     Ms. Bishop grinned, just slightly, and nodded, just slightly.  "I 
know."

     "Okay, Valerie," Kate instructed, "sing the same notes as the
piano, going downwards.  I need to hear the lowest note you can sing."
     As Kate played individual notes and Valerie sung downward, Kate's
eyebrows went up.  *Contralto, definitely, and with a good lower end
range.*
     She finally faltered on a C.  "Alright, now in the other
direction..."  Kate reversed and moved up the scale; Valerie kept up for
a good while, and Kate found herself smiling.
     When Valerie's voice finally broke, Kate explained as she scribbled
notes for Valerie's file, "Okay, you have a very wide range, starting at
a low D and moving up about three and a half octaves to an A flat.  I
could put you on just about any part in the choir except for some of the
first soprano stuff; that will hit your register break and make it
obvious.  We'll work on smoothing that out for you.  But I need you in
the lower range because I lost a girl in that part, and because you have
the low range power to carry it."
     "That's good, right?"
     "Oh yes," Kate assured her with a smile.  "VERY good."

     Charlie was more than glad to get back to doing laundry - the
endless laundry; one thing he'd noticed, in contrast with his own home
life, was that all the clothes-changing made for an unbelievable amount
of laundry.  *And if we didn't have to pay two bucks a load...  No, not
even then.*  HE wouldn't have put up with doing laundry every day, and
his mother certainly hadn't.

     "Alright, good," Ms. Bishop said, and Tucker sagged in relief.
This was a lot harder than he'd thought.
     Ms. Bishop walked over to a filing cabinet and opened the middle
drawer, reached in, searched for a few seconds, then said, "Okay,
Valerie, I want you to take this with you and learn the melody.  Just
sing it on an 'Ah' for now, don't worry about the pronunciation.  Let's
see how much you can get done in a couple of days so we can judge how
fast a learner you are."
     *Faster than you think, betcha...*  Tucker looked down at the song.
The translation below the words seemed rather...  "Um," Tuck said, and
flinched, and then felt relieved that Jane wasn't in the room to issue a
lecture.  "What is this about?"

     Kate smiled. "It's an aria.  A love aria.  King Xerces is insane,
so he's singing a love aria to one of his shrubs."
     "Oh, dude, no," Valerie complained.  "I am not singing love songs to
vegetation."

     Tucker's throat hurt a little, and he was trying to clear it
without doing more damage to the lining, when Miz Bishop handed him a
small Dixie cup full of red slime.
     "You need a smoothie," Miz Bishop told him.
     "A what?"
     "Try it," she said, with a small smile.
     "This better not be poisoned," he told her.
     "It's FRUIT," she said, looking insulted.  "And cold, and pureed,
and-"  And that all sounded good, so he tipped it up and started taking
it in small sips.
     "Swallow just a little bit at a time," Miz Bishop said, which he
already knew.
     The cold fruity pulp tasted delicious in his mouth and felt nearly
anaesthetic going down his throat.
     When he finished the ounce or so, he said to her, "Okay, so how do
I make these things?"
     "Smoothies," she grinned, and took his cup and poured out some
more from a wide-mouthed thermos.  "Have as much as you like," she
offered as she turned towards a filing cabinet.

     Kate had been relieved to find that once Valerie actually got into
the lesson, she had stopped (mostly) being a smartass - which, actually,
was still something of a nice change from her sullen sulking daughter;
at least Valerie was thinking and speaking to her - and started really
concentrating.
     "So," Valerie said, sounding better already, "this is like heroin,
right?"
     "WHAT?!" Kate gasped as she turned around.
     Valerie indicated the thermos.  "First one's free... then I start
having to pay for 'em, then I have to buy a special cup or something,
then the price goes up, and I start selling 'em to other kids..."
     Kate's mouth opened, but she couldn't think of anything to say to
THAT.  Though it WAS funny.  Finally she got out, "I was going to get
you some recipes, if you'd like."
     "Oh, so I can be a pusher right off?" she asked enthusiastically,
and Kate burst out laughing.

     Tucker was feeling almost competent, for a beginner, as he went to
the bathroom before the actual choir practice started.  He had several
sheets of handouts, and homework to do that didn't actually consist of
stupid busywork - or, he supposed, he could call the choir stuff
'practice'.
     "So, right," he said as he locked himself in a stall and started
removing or moving pieces so he could sit down and piss.  The thong
reminded him that he also needed to change his pad.  *I hate this...
Though at least I can dump the pad in here without causing a major witch
hunt.*  As opposed to, say, his normal school, and the bathroom he'd be
using there.
     They had a small box welded to the side of the stall, and Tucker
had paid the hard way to find out what that was years ago - he'd been
Doing Something and saw one, and later asked his sister, who had beat
him on the theory that he couldn't have known about such a thing unless
he was in a women's restroom somewhere which he shouldn't have been.
Which happened to be true, but didn't make him any happier about the
beating.
     After he pulled the pad and thong - which also enabled the
bladder_drain() function - he sat, which made him hiss because it hurt.
That subsided after a bit, and he opened his bladder valve, and noticed
that his head also hurt, like it had nails hammered into it.  *Wha-  Oh,
bobby pins for the wig.  Do I need these?*
     They hurt more the more he thought about it, so he decided that he
did not.  *One...  Two...  Three...*  He clipped in a row to the outside
of his bag, though, in case he changed his mind.  *... Eight.  Four more
for the cap...  Oh, hell with that,* he decided; removing those would
require removing the wig, and they didn't hurt as much, and he thought
they were a different kind of pin, and he wasn't sure he could do that
and put it back on without messing something up.  *Eight is enough.*
     Tucker finished draining, wiped that, leaned forward and gently
wiped his rear - which, amen, did not have blood on it -  stood up,
dumped the old pad in the metal box and unpackaged and installed a new
pad anyway, tightened his underwear, shuffled the other garments on top,
and came out of the stall.
     To find another, younger, girl also in the bathroom, at the sinks
looking at her hair.
     "Oh hey," Tucker said.
     "Hey," she smiled nervously in the mirror at him.  "Um...  Could I
borrow a quarter?  For the machine?" she pointed.
     He looked and there was a sort of vending machine on the wall.
*What the hell does-*  His eyes finally resolved the word 'tampon'.
"Oh," he said, "I've got one..." and went to dig in his bag.  Then he
realized there were two slots on the machine, and connected that with
some stuff his sister had said before she'd found the audio bugs in her
room, and a couple of things the girls had said.  "Um-"  *Damnit!*  "If-
I mean, do you use tampons?  'Cause otherwise all I've got is maxi pads.
And they are LARGE."  At the half-horrified half-questioning look she
gave him, he added, "I've been having a problem the last couple days."
     "Oh god," she sighed in sympathy.  "Um, what size tampon?"
     He resumed digging for it.  "I'm not..."  *Aha!*  "Regular," he
read off the package.
     "That'll work," she decided, and he handed it to her.  "Thanks a
million.  Are you in choir?" she asked as she turned towards a stall.
"I'm Cindy."
     "Valerie," Tucker said.  He heard crinkly packet-opening noises,
and quickly started to wash his hands to mask any other noises he might
hear.
     *Mike is gonna beat me when I get home,* he realized with a sigh.

     "Some how, some way, Tuck needs a beating," Mike told Dan.
     "Why?  What'd he do now?"
     Mike was definitely not going to mention what Debbie had debbie'd
him into doing that evening.  Which was Tuck's fault; if he'd stayed in
town, Debbie would be doing it to HIM instead of Mike.  "We haven't been
watching him for over a week; he HAD to have done something deserving a
beating by now."
     Dan laughed.  Though Mike was serious; if you didn't keep a close
eye on Tuck, he usually did something he shouldn't be doing.

     "Girls, this is Valerie," Miz Bishop announced.  Tucker HATED being
presented to a group like this; it seemed too much like introducing a
cow (him) to a pack of hyenas.  Hungry hyenas.
     Though they were all quite a bit younger than he was, he noticed.
*Might give me an advantage.*
     He managed a wave and a smile, and nobody assaulted him.  Cindy
smiled back at him.

     "I forgot how much laundry there is in this house," Kenneth said as
he pulled clothes out of a dryer.
     "Oh..." Darla sighed.  "I wish I could forget."  Then she switched
to her sickliest-sweetest voice and cooed, "Darling, I can't wait until
you take me away from all this!"
     "Oh, did I mention I was thinking of buying a dry-cleaning
business?" he said while looking in the dryer, and then turned and gave
her his best romantic smile.
     "That's mean, Ken," Darla said with a grin.

     "Okay, let's take a break," Ms. Bishop said, and the room exploded
into motion like a bunch of startled doves and then they all started
chatting with each other.  Tucker wouldn't have believed the noise if he
hadn't been around girls before.
     He felt strangely alone, in the midst of more than a dozen girls.
     "Hey!"
     He turned, and it was the tall glasses-wearing semiblonde.  "I
asked," she said, "how long you've been singing."
     "Oh..."  He checked his watch.  "About an hour and forty-five
minutes."
     "No not HERE, I mean like ANY choir or voice-"
     "About one hour and forty-five minutes," Tucker assured her.  "I
used to sing with my mom and stuff, before my friends started beating me
if I opened my mouth."
     "Well," she decided, "you need new friends who don't suck.  It's
Valerie, right?"
     "Yeah.  What was YOUR name?" Tucker asked her, figuring that anyone
who was that belligerent, he ought to know the name of.
     "Doyle," she said.
     He wasn't sure he heard that-
     "Yes, it's Doyle," she said.  "No, I don't know why they named me
that."
     "Ah.  My condolences," Tucker said.
     "Do wh-" she started, then she laughed.
     *Doyle,* he said to himself and concentrated, though he thought it
was unlikely he'd forget HER name.
     She asked, "Did you move here, or..."
     "Oh, no.  Just here for the summer."  *There's a word...*
"Cotillion school.  Junior cotil-"
     "Oh!  But I haven't seen you at classes," she said, as two other
girls began tracking him.
     "Um-"  *Damnit!*  "I'm at a...  It's sort of a boarding school.
Immersion learning," he remembered from someplace else.  "All day every
day."
     "That explains the outfit," Doyle decided.  SHE was wearing a
Boston Red Sox T-shirt, blue walking shorts, and brown leather girly
fashion sandals, extremely unlike Mom's Birkenstocks.
     "And the shoes," Tucker added, "and the hair, and the makeup-"
     "Not the purse," one of the other girls said.  "What is that?"  She
was a brown-eyed blonde - which suggested her hair was bleached -
overdressed to about the same grade he was, in a fuzzy cream-colored
sleeveless sweater top that he thought looked expensive, and definitely
managed to emphasize her overly large boobs, somehow.  And it matched
her pleated skirt, though she had sandals too.  She was also wearing
plenty of makeup.
     "Military surplus, cost me six dollars," he said.  He had no idea
what it was originally; it was OD canvas, had snaps and metal fittings
but no lining, and was larger than a pro-mask carrier but only had one
wide shoulder strap.
     "Six bucks?" the other other girl asked.  This one had overdone her
makeup, possibly in an attempt to distract from her weight, which was
nearly what Tucker considered the top end of optimal; and she also
needed to rebleach her roots.  She was wearing a sort of anonymous top
that somehow gave Tucker the suspicion that it was some Really Popular
Name Brand and cost about five times what he would've paid for it; plus
a denim mini and sandals.
     His feet, he noticed, were starting to sweat in the pumps.
     "Besides," he lied, "olive green is in this year."
     They all laughed at him.  "You just got it 'cause it was six
bucks!" the first other girl accused him.
     "Well, yeah."
     Doyle laughed, the first other girl sort of sneered and went
somewhere else, and the other other girl followed the first other girl,
though she didn't have time to sneer.  Doyle rolled her eyes in the
direction of one or both of the departing girls.
     "Friends of yours?" Tucker asked Doyle quietly.
     Doyle's face showed an expression that was halfway between a smile
and a scream.  "Oh, Lisa's just here for the summer.  I think she's with
her dad, like he's got custody or something."
     "How nice," Tucker said, and tried to contort his face to match
Doyle's.  He thought he'd succeeded when her face shifted subtly to a
real smile.

     "Oh hey, Nila," Doyle called.  "C'mere, meet Valerie."
     Nila was really irritating, sometimes, because she was blind from
birth, and so her parents had been extremely protective, and so she was
socially retarded; she reminded Doyle of someone's little sister, even
though she was Doyle's age.  Other than that, though, she wasn't a bad
person; and she was definitely one of the best singers in choir.
     "Hi Nila," Valerie said.  "I'm guessing you're blind?"
     "Wow, what gave it away?" Nila said as she tapped closer.  "The
white cane?  The black glasses?"
     "The shape of your ears," Valerie answered, which made both of them
laugh.  "Totally distinctive.  Nila," she said, "I have no idea of- of
the etiquette in dealing with blind folk."
     "It's not that hard," Doyle assured her.
     "Yes it is," Valerie argued.  "I'm not a really verbal person."
     "Just don't be the strong silent type," Nila said as she sat down,
which made them laugh.

     Art had gotten six bottles of rum, and he was glad the twerp hadn't
asked for his ID, though why ANYONE would ask for his, or her, ID, at
his (or her) age...  As well, he'd gone to a pharmacy to get several
days worth of (real, drug-containing) cough syrup, plus analgesics,
decongestants, antihistamines, and another container of Metamucil for
Valerie just in case.
     He'd also gone to the grocery again and gotten some of the 'hard'
goods like toilet paper that he hadn't gotten yesterday.  Marie had no
problems, but for some reason Art didn't feel comfortable purchasing two
carts' worth at one time.
     The day was great for driving, though, with scattered white clouds
and plenty of sunshine, and very little traffic.  *Might even get done
early,* he thought.

     Charlie was just putting his other earring on his ear when someone
knocked at his door.  "Almost ready!" he called.  *If I can get the
damned thing to match...*  He looked again, and the two looked about
even to him.  He hadn't gotten his ears pierced like Darla's, and so he
had to pay attention to whether his earrings were symmetrical.
     He opened the door, and Darla had already gone to the stairs.

     "More groceries," Darla said to Kenneth as Diana came in bearing
bags.
     "More?"  He'd thought they had enough to wait out a decent siege
yesterday.
     "More," Diana sighed.

     Art wasn't the only woman (so to speak) sitting in her car, with or
without additional family, apparently waiting for the girls to get out
of choir practice.  *So it seems as though she really meant 'No parents
or other visitors during practice',* he decided.  Some younger boys were
running around, but he'd seen two of them escape from cars that waited
in the parking lot.
     "Ladies?" Darla said.  "I hate to bring this up...  Do we mention
the pads an-"
     "No," Art decided.
     "I'd rather not," Charlene agreed from the back seat.
     Art had another thought.  "Why don't we let Jane do that in a
couple of hours?"
     "Because she'll call us chickens for not asking now?" Darla shot
back.
     "I can live with that," Art decided.

     "Oh, and Valerie?" Ms. Bishop said before Tucker could flee the
building like the rest of the girls were doing.  It looked like they
were practicing in case one of them suddenly turned into a monster or
they accidentally summoned a demon.  Even Nila had been swept along in
the rush to escape.
     Tucker asked, "Yes ma'am?"
     "You don't need to dress so..."
     "Formally?" Tucker guessed.
     She nodded.  "Jeans and a T-shirt are fine.  Just make sure you can
breathe well!"
     Tucker nodded.  "But could you come and tell Miz Philips that?
Otherwise, they won't let me out of the house.  I had to fight to wear
something THIS casual today.  No, I'm not making that up," he added when
he thought she wasn't going to believe him.

     Kate locked her office and walked out to the parking lot.  She
could hear Valerie's shoes following after a few seconds.  *I guess it
takes a bit to put that back pack on.*  And she was wearing it when she
caught up.
     "What is in that thing, anyway?" Kate asked.
     "Oh, laptop, spare clothes, this and that," Valerie answered
casually.
     There weren't many cars left in the parking lot by now.  Kate
ignored Ellen's sullen melodramatic 'I am WAITING on YOU and I am SO
BORED I might DIE' pose against Kate's car.  "I think that's her,
over..." Valerie pointed, and trotted ahead.  "Yeah, that's her," she
called over her shoulder.
     After Valerie led her to Ms. Philips' car, a new-looking silver
Toyota sedan, with two other girls in it, Kate asked, "Miz Philips?"
     "Yes?  Has she been a good girl?" the older woman asked.
     *What an odd question.*  Her own daughter would have thrown herself
on the ground and screamed if Kate had asked another adult something
with such childish overtones within her hearing; Valerie just rolled her
eyes and knocked on the trunk lid.
     Kate answered, "Ah, yes, she was fine; but what I wanted to ask you
was, if she could wear something a little more casual to practices in
the future?  It's better if the girls can wear looser clothing,
especially on their chests and abdomens.  It makes for easier breathing,
which is really the key to singing well."

     *So take THAT, ya bitches!* Tucker thought, and just managed to
keep from sticking his tongue out at them.
     He knocked again on the trunk lid, and this time Diana pulled the
remote release.  He unslung his pack, glad yet again they'd taken the
time and effort to make sure the pack had no snagging corners; if they
hadn't, he'd probably have shredded the dress/jumper or blouse by now.
     After removing his laptop bag - which did NOT need to bake in the
trunk - and slamming the lid, he went to door #3, behind Diana, which
for some reason had the open seat.
     "And we WILL see you Thursday?" Ms. Bishop glared at him.
     "I hope so," Tucker replied, semi-seriously.  "And better dressed.
Or maybe worse-dressed," he grinned.  "I think I can come up with a T
shirt or something."
     "Good.  See you Thursday!" she smiled, and walked off.
     Tucker got into the car, next to Charlene.  *I am gonna have to
practice this...*  He knew he hadn't done it gracefully.
     "Well, how was choir practice?" Diana asked.
     "Oh...  Not bad, I guess.  I hate organized stuff like that, but
this wasn't bad."
     "And did you meet a lot of nice girls?" Darla asked, as Diana
started her car.
     Tucker sniggered; he couldn't help making the ugly sound.  "Well...
No.  I met a lot of junior-high girls.  Ain't none of 'em nice at that
age.  Present company excepted," he said to Charlene.  "And, Darla?  I
TOLD you I was overdressed."
     "Okay, sorry!" she snapped, obviously not sorry in the least except
about getting nailed.
     "Are we going back?" Tucker hoped.
     "No, I thought I'd treat you girls to a nice luncheon," Diana said.
     Tucker caught Darla's almost-concealed smirk.  "Pop quiz!" he
translated, and Charlene sniggered.  *Wow, that sounds worse than when I
do it.*

     "Pop quiz?" Darryl asked.
     "Yeah.  On table manners," Valerie said, not quite belligerently.
     "Then I suggest," Darryl said firmly, "that you MIND your manners
at luncheon."
     "Yo, no sweat," Valerie declaimed.  "Um-  Sorry!" she snapped
before anyone could correct her.  "Anyway, since I HAVE TO take my pack
with me, we should go someplace I can carry it in."
     "HAVE to?" Darryl questioned.
     Valerie sighed.  "Did you read the contract?  I can print out
another copy if you need one."
     "What does your contract have to do with-"
     "DID you read it?"
     "Of course I read it!  And don't interrupt, it's rude!"
     "Girls."
     "Well," Valerie said like she thought Darryl was retarded, "if
you'd read it, and the big words weren't too scary for you, then-"
     "Valerie!" Diana warned.
     "Well, maybe you could explain it to her, since I already did it
once today," Valerie said petulantly.
     "If you would do it in a polite manner, I'm sure she'd be willing
to listen to you," Diana admonished.

     Tucker sighed; apparently this restaurant, though not the same as
the last one, ALSO had valet parking, and he wasn't sure how to handle
getting his pack out of the trunk around valets.
     *Wish these people would stoop so low - so to speak - as to open
and shut their own car doors.*

     "About half an hour," the maitre d' said, and Charlie sighed.  It
wasn't like the guy was lying; Charlie could see that the restaurant was
full, and the area in front was almost full.  But all of the people were
wearing business clothes, and it was about 12:20, and this seemed
inevitable, like morning and evening rush hours.  *You'd think they'd
know someplace less crowded, that the business people didn't go to every
day...  They live here!*  HE didn't know any place like that in L.A.,
but he couldn't leave school to go to lunch, or afford it if he did, and
he couldn't drive either.
     "Valerie, do you have to back yourself against the wall?" Darla
complained.
     "When I'm carrying this, I do."  She pointed at one side of her
chest-  *No, the strap of her backpack.*  "I don't want to whack someone
with it."
     "You could've left it in the car."
     Valerie looked at Darla with such contempt, even Charlie could pick
it up.  "It's got a LAPTOP in it, Darla," she said slowly.  "They don't
like being heated past human comfort."
     "Well, I don't see why you had to bring it," she sniffed before she
turned away.
     "Valerie," Charlie said, and put a feminine - in both manner and
appearance - hand on Valerie's arm.
     She turned her face to Charlie, and he could see the strain, but
she sighed, and patted Charlie's hand on her arm before squeezing it a
couple of times.  And, even better and what Charlie had been trying to
accomplish, Valerie didn't say anything else.

     "If you can stand being served by a male not in skirts," Kenneth
teased, though he kept his face grave.
     "Thank you, Kenneth," Jane smiled at him, looking oddly soft and
vulnerable.
     "We do what we must," Marie got out, before having another coughing
fit.

     *Pick pick pick, pick pick pick,* Tucker thought in disgust.
*Apparently Jane's been teaching the two of them.*  Either wasn't as bad
as Jane was, but the two of them together were about 140% as annoying as
Jane, and having them run over each other wasn't enough amusement to
compensate.
     And, of course, they were almost ignoring Charlene in favor of
jumping HIS shit.
     He was just barely managing to keep his temper, but it was a
definite strain.  *I wish we'd just gone home...  We didn't have this
shit going on at home.  THEIR home...*  The restaurant's food had been
good enough, though Tucker was glad he wasn't paying for it because it
wasn't good enough for what it cost - like most of NYC - but the two of
them were doing their level best to ruin the food the rest of the way.
*Maybe that's Jane's plan; lose weight, diet through stress,* he
thought, and grinned.
     "What are you smirking at NOW?" Darla demanded.
     *Keep your temper...*  "Nothing, Darla," he got out in a nearly
civilized fashion.
     "You DON'T look nearly as grown-up being cynical as you think you
do," Darla commented as she turned back to her food.
     His mind presented him with an attack route; get off his chair and
into a crouch, grab her hair and twist her sideways off her chair, wrap
his left arm around her neck, put his left knee in her back and ride her
down, pull her head up with his left hand, and with his right slit her
throat from left to right.
     He had to close his eyes and visualize a Libretto 50 before the
route faded.
     "Don't go to sleep at the table!" Darla gasped, sounding
scandalized.
     "Darla," Diana said gently.  Diana would say stuff like that to
Darla, GENTLY; she bitched at HIM.

     Art wasn't sure why Darla was being so nitpicky about Valerie; she
was doing quite well considering she'd been here less than two weeks,
and honestly she wasn't nearly as deficient in manners as many of the
(real) teenaged girls he'd seen.
     He himself was still somewhat annoyed at her, but Darla's constant
stream of corrections and pointed observations made him aware of how HE
was feeling and reacting.
     And he could also see how it was affecting Charlene.  She had a
past history involving a very nasty divorce, with apparently a great
deal of hostility between her mother and father, and literally years of
hiding from their arguments before the divorce was finalized, and THEN
being used as a football between the two of them until the father had
just disappeared.  Today, she was getting upset, and trying very hard to
hide it, and herself.
     "Darla, please," he admonished her again.

     "No, thank you," Tucker said to the waiter.
     "Oh, Valerie," Darla said in saccharine tones, "it's alright if you
want dessert."
     His stomach was about ready to power-eject on her, not because of
poison this time but just to upset her.
     "They're really good here," she smirked at him, and then looked at
the waiter and told him, "Why don't you bring her one of those delicious
chocolate cheesecakes, with the fruit topping..."
     Tucker discovered he was standing up and knew exactly the location
of every knife within two meters.  But Charlene caught his eye; she was
trembling, and looked exactly like she was about to burst into tears and
thereby totally destroy her self-confidence.
     Like had happened to him a few times.
     "No," Tucker told the waiter.  "Charlene, come with me," he
ordered, and held out a hand to her.
     "You can't just get up-"
     "Darla, if you don't shut your fucking mouth I'm gonna shove a
chair into it," he promised, too loud because he could see other people
alert.  "You've been attacking me the entire time we've been here, and
I'm sick of it, and Charlene's sick BECAUSE of it."  NOW, Darla bothered
to look at Charlene, who had her eyes closed as she stood up.  "Miz
Philips, we'll be back when I can think of something besides..."  He
didn't bother finishing, he just kicked his chair back, grabbed his pack
and powered it up into position, and grabbed Charlene's hand and pulled
her outside.  He half hoped Darla would follow him and try to grab him;
he was looking forward to beating the shit out of her.

     "Darla, please," Diana pleaded, and Darryl turned.  She didn't look
very well herself at the moment.  "I think we could all use a time-out,"
she said gently.
     "What if she takes off?" Darryl demanded.
     "Not with Charlene, she won't; Charlene won't let her," Diana said
as her eyes closed.  "Please, sit down; let's have dessert, and talk of
more pleasant things for the rest of the meal?"
     He looked back, but Valerie and her backpack were already out of
sight.
     "I hope you're right," Darryl said as he swept his skirt and sat
down.  *I REALLY hope you're right.*
     "You know, though," he said as the idea burst inside his mind, "I
don't think she'd have left like that if she didn't have that backpack
with her."
     "Perhaps not," Diana agreed.
     *Sounds like she doesn't want to talk about it now,* Darryl figured
out.  He looked around for the waiter, but he had already left.

     Tucker had stalked to the outside edge of the parking lot, which
had some trees and wasn't right on the street.  It had taken extra
effort not to move as fast as he could, a LOT of extra effort, but he
knew Charlene didn't feel like running.  *Too hard to run AND keep from
crying at the same time,* he knew.
     When he'd gotten far enough away that he couldn't feel the rage any
more, like an AC magnetic field Darla was emitting that he couldn't help
resonating with when he was too close, he turned as he started to
apologize, "Charlene, I'm sorry, she-"
     That had apparently been the wrong thing to say, because she lost
it and started to cry.
     "Oh, shit...  Shar, I'm sorry, I really am..."  He tried putting
his arms around the taller girl's waist, and she grabbed him and bent
down and cried on his shoulder.  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he kept saying,
not knowing what else to say.

     Charlie had been getting sick in the restaurant, because he didn't
dare get up and leave because he was trapped in the fucking girl-stuff
and couldn't stand the attention he would get if he left like he used
to.  Especially if he ended up crying someplace.  Like the ladies' room.
Or, right there in the fucking window seat.
     But then Valerie had told Darla off, and taken him with her, and
then she APOLOGIZED to him, and he'd lost the tiny scrap of control he
still had, the one that said 'I won't cry, I won't cry' and just started
bawling like a baby on Valerie.
     It didn't seem like she thought it was unusual, which somehow made
it worse, because he was sure that if he hadn't been trapped in the
fucking girl-stuff that it would have been really unusual.  Which of
course made him cry harder.

     It had taken all of Art's therapeutic discussion training, and his
experience, and probably some luck, and it still hadn't gone very well;
but he'd NEEDED to inform Darla that she had been too hard, too picky,
and she needed to 'lighten up' on Valerie.
     He'd caught that Darla had quite a bit of resentment towards
Valerie, which was understandable; Valerie had screwed up DARRYL's
vacation and re-training period, ART'S vacation, and had badly stressed
Jane and Marie which always aroused Darryl's fierce protective
instincts.
     Additionally, there was something about Valerie herself...  The
girl seemed to deal with everyone BUT Jane's group in an adult and sane
fashion; and even at the house she'd been relatively tractable and
pleasant, but today she had been intransigent and, when challenged,
belligerent.  And amazingly adept at being irritating.
     And Darla, for her own reasons, had been challenging Valerie almost
constantly.
     The meal had been good, but he'd developed a raging case of
indigestion from the stress.  *I didn't think it was that bad...  Bad,
but not that bad.  Maybe it's just the aborted vacation.  And Jane being
sick.  And, oh yes let's not forget the stress of having Valerie run
away, the additional stress of having her come back, and that
contract...*
     *Actually, I'm surprised I'm only this stressed.*

     "Of course I have a towel," Tucker said up at Charlene from where
he was kneeling, glad she had stopped crying enough to ask a question.
"I ALWAYS know where my towel is..."  *Which is gonna look like a lie if
I ca-*  "Aha!" he said as he found the ziplock that had the small towel
folded up inside.  He pulled it out of his pack and stood back up as he
opened the bag and pulled the towel out.  "See, told you."
     "Thank you," she said raggedly, and began delicately wiping her
tear- and makeup-streaked face.
     Tucker sighed, because he wasn't sure how to get makeup stains out
of cloth; and from things the girls had indicated, it might not be
possible.  *Though I can bleach the shit out of a towel, unlike some-
most clothes,* he corrected.
     *She's gonna want to blow her nose,* he realized, and knelt down
again, shoved the now-empty ziplock back into his pack, and started
looking for THAT ziplock.

     About the time Charlie realized that his nose was dripping, and he
needed to do something about that, and he was just beginning to think
about asking if Valerie had two towels so he could blow his nose in this
one, she stood up again with another bag, and pulled out a crushed roll
of toilet paper.
     "You carry TOILET PAPER?"
     "Nothing else works as well for toilet paper, as toilet paper," she
said solemnly.  "And trust me, you don't want-  I mean, you want to
believe me on this; you will NOT enjoy experimenting with substitutes."
     That sounded, to Charlie, like experience, but not anything he
wanted details about.  "I believe you," he said, and took the toilet
paper, pulled some off, and started blowing his nose.
     "Tallyho, two bandits, closing," Valerie intoned in the most male
voice Charlie had heard out of her.  "Your four o'clock."
     "My wh-" he asked, but then he got it, and turned around to find
Ms. Philips and Darla coming towards them.
     Valerie jangled, and he glanced back at her to find she was putting
her pack back on.

     "Thank you Darla," Diana said quietly, in advance, from behind
Darryl, and he had to control a grimace.  He didn't like apologizing -
no one did, he was quite sure - and he was going to do exactly that.
     When he got close enough to speak to the two students, he stopped.
Valerie was watching him warily, which he expected; he was surprised,
then hurt, by the evidence of some serious crying on Charlene's face.
*And where did she get that towel that's over her arm?*
     "Charlene...  Valerie," he remembered.  "Please accept my apology
for being so... nasty during lunch.  It was very rude of me, and neither
of you deserved it.  Especially not you, Valerie," he lied with a
consciously sorrowful expression.  "You've been very good today, and you
really didn't deserve that kind of treatment."
     Charlene looked rather ashamed as she wrapped her arms around her
chest, remembering just in time to put her arms under her bust.  Valerie
looked stunned.

     *Er.  What the hell do I do NOW?* Tucker wondered.
     "Thank you, Darla," Charlene almost whispered, and Tucker repeated
it.  *Is that right?  Do I need to say something else?*
     He studied Darla, and she was frowning a bit, and looking at the
ground, and holding her hands together down in front of her pelvis,
squeezing one with the other.  *Almost believable,* he thought, though
he really couldn't tell if she was lying.  She LOOKED like she'd gotten
'spanked' by Diana, verbally or otherwise...
     After a long pause, Diana said, "Well, girls, I'm glad we got
through that.  Charlene, Valerie, would you like to return and have
dessert?  It WAS very good."
     Tucker looked at Charlene, who shook her head without looking up.
*Poor kid.*  He said, very mildly, "I don't think so."  Figuring that
being feminine would be less likely to upset her, he gently touched her
arm, like he'd seen Lisa do to Debbie.  "Charlene?"  She shook her head
again; but she didn't flinch at his touch or move away.
     *Okay, doesn't want a big deal made out of it,* Tucker guessed.
"Well, what else do we have to do today?  Miz Philips, did you go
grocery shopping?"
     "Yes, and I think I got everything."  She smiled, though it seemed
strained.  "I hope I did; I'd rather not go grocery shopping for THREE
days in a row!"
     "Amen to that," Tucker agreed.  His mom seemed to build up a charge
of Angry every time she went, and if she had to go three times in three
days, something was going to get broken.
     "But we need to make a trip to get some special clothing for you,
Valerie," she said.
     "Oh.  For choir?" he guessed.

     Valerie closed her eyes.  "You're joking, right?"
     "No," Art said steadily.  "Why would I joke about that?"
     "Because you have a sick sense of humor and want to see me
screaming like a lunatic about going back there?"
     Art opened his mouth-
     "I hope?" she added.  "'Cause that would be better than you being
serious...  I mean, we DID go there Friday, and I..."  He looked at
Charlene.  "What else is there to get?"

     *Jeezus,* Tucker complained to himself as the valet drove the car
up.  *There is more in the fashion shops of heaven and earth than is
dreamt of in your philosophy, kid,* he semi-quoted Julia.  *And hell,*
he added.  *And this is one of the hell ones.*
     *Note to self; never ask that question again.*  He'd been answered,
and now wished he hadn't been.
     Tucker didn't wait for the valet to open the car door for him,
because he had to put his pack in the trunk while extracting his
laptop's bag.  He called, "Miz Philips, trunk please," and eventually
she opened it and he stashed his pack next to the plastic survival- and
breakdown-kit boxes already inside.  *Glad they're not as stupid as they
look,* he thought again, like he'd thought this morning.
     After extracting his laptop, he shut the trunk, zipped around, and
got in behind Diana, next to Charlene, before the valet could get to his
side.  *Someday, I am going to get a car, and then I'm fucking well
going to ride in the FRONT.*
     *Why don't they make cars with bigger back seats?  I mean, not
everyone would buy 'em, but some people would; but I've NEVER heard of
anything like that except a limousine.*

     Charlie still wasn't feeling very well; it wasn't the grilled
swordfish he'd eaten (and had never had before), or the lobster bisque
soup (which Darla had 'suggested' and he'd never had before), it was the
stress.  And the after-stress stress.  And maybe having to reapply his
eye makeup in the heat of the car.
     "Shar-"
     "Ah!" Charlie gasped in surprise when Valerie spoke right into his
ear.
     "Sorry," she said as she pulled back.  "You okay?"
     He thought about it, then said, "I think so.  I'll feel better in a
bit," he hoped.
     Valerie reached out and grabbed his hand - he had to consciously
leave his hand still and not pull it away from her - and squeezed it
gently.
     He wasn't sure what the hell she was doing, or why...  But after a
minute or so, he felt better.  A little better.  He looked at her,
instead of at their hands, and she smiled gently at him.
     He squeezed back.

     Tucker was beginning to recognize some landmarks or whatever on the
way to and from Providence.  He wondered if that should worry him.
     Charlene squeezed his hand again, as if she knew what he was
thinking and wanted to reassure him.  He glanced at her, and she was
smiling, though not quite at him.  He squeezed and smiled, and got
another squeeze, and thought, *If you're reading my mind, I'm going to
rape you with a chainsaw,* and imagined a remarkably vivid video clip
with some audio.
     She kept smiling and squeezed his hand again, which settled THAT.

     Mike sighed and rubbed his face.  *I was going to sleep this late,
this morning...  What happened to that?*
     *Dan woke me up, is what happened.*  He'd have to beat Dan later.
*After I get done beating Tucker.*
     *And what the hell is he doing with all that breakout gear there,
if he's NOT escaping?*

     "The same reasons I needed to have it in the restaurant," Tucker
sighed, and stared at Diana until she popped the trunk.  "Thank you," he
said as he unlimbered his laptop bag so he could put it in his pack.
     Charlene had held his hand the entire trip, and she'd squeezed it
occasionally.  And smiled at him repeatedly.  *I think she likes me,* he
smirked to himself, and had virtual ghosts of George and Dan pounding on
him and hooting, as he'd expected when he made the thought.
     He'd put his pack on and started walking to the shop when he
realized Ms. Philips hadn't gotten out of her seat yet.  "Miz Philips?"
he called as he stopped, and then went back.
     "Just a little indigestion," she claimed as she smiled at him.  She
looked kind of pale to Tucker, more than she had at the restaurant.
     "Well, okay.  I don't think you need to come in, if Darla-"  He
looked, and Darla was coming back, while Charlene sort of stood where
she'd stopped and looked back at Tucker.  He shrugged at her.  "I mean,"
he resumed is Ms. Philips' direction, "since Darla's coming in, I guess
you don't have to.  You could wait out in the car."
     "Are you feeling alright?" Darla asked Diana as she got close.
     "I'm fine," she said, sounding more sure of herself, and got out of
her car.
     "I mean, seriously, you could stay out here," Tucker offered.
     "No, I should come in...  Seeing you lovely girls all dressed up
will make me feel better," she smiled.
     *Maybe _I_ shouldn't go in,* Tucker thought.

     "Noooooo!" Valerie whined in frustration at Darryl and Diana.
"IMAGINE this on Charlene!" she insisted as she again flourished the
cheongsam, in lipstick red sensuous satin and not at all appropriate for
a girl in junior high no matter what its hemline was.
     Darryl said, "Valerie, no; it's too adult, and too sexy."  He
mentally crossed his fingers and turned to Charlene.  "Do you really
WANT to attract all the boys, and MEN..."  He didn't need to finish
because she was already shaking her head, her eyes wide.
     "What about this one in blue," Valerie said as she hung the red
dress back up, "for you?"  She pulled out a blue version and displayed
it.  "You and Kenneth might have to practice putting it on and taking it
off a few times, but hey, practice makes perfect right?"
     Darryl flushed as he realized what Valerie had just implied, and he
was about to have a colossal snit fit when he - thankfully - remembered
just in time that HE had been the one to claim that Darla was engaged to
Kenneth.  "He's... not really into that," he managed to claim instead.
     "Oh bullshit," Valerie challenged.
     "Valerie!" Diana and Darryl admonished at the same time.
     "Sorry!  But it's TRUE!  Guys LIKE stuff like th-  Hey!" she
shouted as she looked at someone else and waved at them.  "Shana!
C'mere for a second.  Wouldn't her fiance go crazy if she," she pointed
at Darryl, "wore this?"
     "Oh," the saleswoman said, in breathy anticipation (of an expensive
sale, Darryl guessed), "yes.  He would go-  My guy," she 'confided' to
Darryl, "LOVES this on me."
     "And I bet he loves removing it from you too," Valerie smirked.
     "Valerie!" Darryl gasped, as the saleswoman did not deny the
charge.  In fact, she was smirking just like Valerie was.

     "These people are just retarded," Tucker complained to Shana.  "I
mean, if I had a fiance, I'd be either wearing stuff like that NOW, to
drive him insane with desire, or I'd be storing it up so I'd have it a
couple of years after the wedding."
     After a pause, Shana asked, "STORING it?  Why?"
     "Make sure he stays married to ME, by ramping the sexy up later
on," Tucker said.  "What, you never figured that out?  Not like I wanted
to know this, but that's supposedly what my mom did to my dad; I'd be
scared to look in her lingerie drawer nowadays."  He'd seen about two
items and that was about twenty too many.
     She raised her eyebrows.  "And they still-"
     Tucker interrupted, "I try REAL HARD not to know.  But she started
out wearing, y'know, T-shirt and jeans kinda stuff.  Now she wears
skirts or dresses a lot of the time, and heels- though maybe that's for
work," he allowed.  "But Dad seems to like it anyway.  And I don't know,
and don't WANT to know, what's underneath.  Could be ANYthing."  *Or
nothing,* his mind finished, and he flinched and shuddered.
     "Hmmm," Shana said.
     "I mean, it's not like your guy's gonna think you're all virginal
and pure and stuff, at that point in the marriage; not after he's seen
you cleaning up diaper leakage."  She laughed at that.

     *What,* Charlie wondered, *is she DOING in there?*
     When the laughter floated out of Valerie's changing room again,
Diana looked confused and Darla looked accusingly at HIM.  "What?!" he
protested.  "_I_ don't know what's going on in there!"

     Tucker pressed his lips together, trying to stop anything from
getting out, and put a finger over his lips.
     Then he made the mistake of looking at Shana, who was doing the
same thing.  "Bahahahahahah!"

     Art had to tell himself that they weren't laughing at him; many
years of experience had perfected his portrayal of womanhood, and he
just didn't get 'read' that easily any more.  *Besides, Valerie would've
acted differently if she'd been suspicious, and any salesperson here
would know better than to tell tales; they work on commission.*
     His indigestion did not really agree with his assessment.

     Darryl had to tell himself that they hadn't 'read' him; he had had
YEARS of continuous 'Darla' practice on top of some of the best
(certainly hardest) training anyone could get.  He'd almost never gotten
a funny look, much less 'THAT look' that Diana had described one nervous
night.  *I wish I knew what they WERE laughing at, though...*

     *Did the clerk figure me out and tell Valerie?* Charlie worried.

     Tucker had asked for something more casual, and was fairly
disappointed by what Shana had told him to try.  At least until he came
out of the dressing room and saw it in the mirror.
     "Hey," he said, impressed.
     She'd picked out a dress that looked like two pieces, though they
were the same fabric - 'crape de sheen' is what she'd said, like he
ought to be impressed.  He had been impressed by the 'silk' part,
though; and it was very light and felt very nice on his skin.  The top
was what Shana claimed was cream - he had no idea whether it was cream,
ivory, eggshell, bone, off-white, or some other weird color-word - and
had a normal sort of collar on it, almost like a male short-sleeved
shirt, with six gold-tone buttons down to the waist; Shana had left two
at the top open, and you still couldn't see his bra.  The bottom was
olive green and went down past his knees with a slit in the back that
hadn't matched his slip, but that had been easily fixable, and had been
easily fixed, with a lingerie shop 'next door' as it were.  The dress
LOOKED kind of loose and drapey except it wasn't really.
     And it went with his bag, oddly enough.
     Tucker inhaled as much as he could, and couldn't tell if there was
a restriction, which suggested there wasn't.
     "Yeah?" Shana asked.
     "It's great, but...  I mean, most of the girls were in T-shirts,"
he said.  He looked again, then turned and watched himself turn in the
mirror.
     *You know, Debbie would just love this...*

     Valerie looked in the mirror for a long time, and Darryl couldn't
tell what she was thinking.  *Not fear, not shame...*  Then she grabbed
her hair and twisted it into a sort of updo.  "You know, what I really
need with this is a pair of glasses," she said.
     "The office girl look?" the clerk suggested with a knowing smile.
     Valerie smiled back lasciviously and breathed, "Oh yeah."  Then she
dropped her hair and rummaged in her shoulder bag for a moment until she
produced a pair of sunglasses.  She put her hair up again with one hand,
then played oral games with the earpiece while drooping her eyelids and
smiling suggestively.
     "Valerie!" Darryl finally managed to get out.  "You're TWELVE!"

     Tucker wasn't sure he'd heard that right; but a glare at Darla told
him that she was probably going to insist on it.
     *Well, maybe that's the 'legend',* he speculated.  *That would
account for why I don't know as much as a 'normal girl my age' would.
Still...*  Twelve year olds didn't drive or do a lot of other things
Tucker had recently come to enjoy doing.  *Which also probably has a lot
to do with why they put me at twelve.*
     *Oh, and tits,* he remembered.  He had almost none, and while that
was perfectly plausible for a twelve year old, it was sort of odd for a
sixteen year old.  *None YET...*
     "Maybe you'd better save that sort of look for high school," Shana
said, which confirmed that it was BELIEVABLE he was twelve.  Though she
was smiling, like she was saying that more for the parental Diana than
for Tuck.
     He glanced at Diana, and then stared at Diana, and did not like
what he saw.  "Miz Philips, you don't look good," he said cautiously.
     "I'm FINE, Valerie," she insisted sternly.  
     She was fine like he was a jock.  He opened his mouth to argue with
her, but her eyebrows shifted downwards as she glared at him, and he
gave that up.  *Plan B...*  "Oh," he said like he'd just noticed it, "do
you have a bathroom?" he asked Shana.
     "Sure!" she said, and led him out of the alcove.

     Darryl was suspicious, especially of the way Valerie's face had
suddenly changed, so he followed behind the two of them.
     Oddly enough, Valerie was chatting with Shana about clothing.
     Admittedly, Ms. Bishop had SAID that Valerie needed looser clothing
to practice in; he'd heard that himself.  And, The Style Shoppe did NOT
cater to casual (or inexpensive).  But, before he could ask someone's
advice - he hadn't seen Brenda Franson today - Valerie was doing it.
     And taking notes, on those un-feminine but useful index cards.
     Shana led them to the break room, and pointed out the restroom.
Valerie asked, "Oh, can I use your phone for a minute?"
     "Why do you need to use the phone, Valerie?" Darryl intervened.
     She turned, and she looked entirely too serious for Darryl's taste.
"Would you excuse us?" she said to Shana.
     "Sure," Shana said, and added, "You girls behave," before she left.
     "Darla," Valerie said instants after Shana had shut the door,
"there's something wrong with Miz Philips."
     "What?  She said she had indigestion; wh-"
     Valerie counted off on her fingers.  "She's pale, sweating, in
pain, mentioned upper torso pain, kind of withdrawn, and I just saw her
rubbing here," she said while rubbing her own left upper arm.
     "So?"
     She gave him a withering glance, but before he could get too upset
or angry, she asked, "Did you ever have CPR class?"
     "Do wh-  No?"
     "Classic signs of a heart attack in progress."

     Darla looked sick, but argued with Tucker, "She'd have said if she
was having a problem, Valerie!  You don't-"
     "I'm calling EMS."
     "No!" she shrieked.
     "What?!"
     "She-  She doesn't like medical stuff," Darla said lamely.
     "Fuck that; _I_ don't like hospitals, but I don't like dying
worse."  He reached for the phone and Darla grabbed his arm, and he
almost hit her.  "Let go of my-"
     "Put the phone down!" she demanded.
     He put the phone handset back in its cradle, mostly so he'd have
two hands free for hand-to-hand, like it looked like it was going to go
to.  "Darla-"
     "Look, it's probably nothing," she said with a slight smile
that looked sicker than Ms. Philips.
     "Yeah, and in two hours if she's dead you can tell yourself that."
Tucker remembered something he'd normally rather forget, and used it.
"What," he said slowly, "would Jane Thompson say, if Diana died, and you
could have stopped it?"  *Oh, and the 'Thompson-Philips' thing,* he
remembered, so he added, "How would you feel?"
     "It can't-  She's not-"
     "Darla.  Over forty," he said, thinking that was vaguely correct.

     Darryl was terrified.  On the one hand, Diana COULD NOT be examined
by paramedics, not and preserve the secrets; and exposing Diana as Art
would lead to a whole host of complications, possibly including exposure
of one or more of Jane's students.  Especially in the early stages, they
passed partially by the mere fact that older respectable women just
wouldn't allow boys to do that sort of thing.  But scrutiny, of the sort
that would be natural once they found out Jane's live-in friend was
actually a male, would POTENTIALLY prove catastrophic, and he couldn't
take the risk.
     And he knew Art wouldn't take the risk either.
     But-

     Darla's eyes started to tear up.  "I can't," she pushed out in a
whisper.
     *Oh, fuck.*  Tucker said, "Do it or I wi-"
     "No!" she shouted again.
     "Darla, if you don't let me I'm gon-"
     "What if I took her to an emergency room?"
     "What?"  *What the fuck is the difference?*  "If you can get there,
YOU driving, without having an accident, then yeah, I g-"
     Darla flew out of the room.
     *Well, okay,* Tucker thought.  *What's the difference between an ER
and EMS?  They both rip your clothes off and stick needles in you.*
     He decided that he might as well go piss, since he didn't want to
be around Diana if she decided it was his fault, and he sort of had to
go anyway.
     While inside, once he got down that far in the fashion archaeology,
he pulled the maxi pad, and it was still clean and not bloody.  *Okay,
great.*  He put the pad on the sink - the bathroom was a one-holer and
had no stalls - to reuse, since he didn't have many with him, and went,
then sighed as he realized he had to put everything back.  *You'd think
that with a skirt, it'd be quicker - like I used to think - but it's
not, it's about four times as long...*  Pad, thong, regular panties,
make sure the garter belt was in the right place, new slip, and finally
outer skirt.
     When he got out, Charlene was there, with his pack.  "What did you
say to Darla?" she accused him.
     "Um."  *Damnit!*
     "She told me to take your stupid pa-  Her words; take her stupid
pack and go into the break room and get you, and then she bitched at me
until I went."  Her face got puzzled again.  "What did you say?"
     "It's... medically classified," he said.  "I can't say."
     Her face suddenly turned ugly.  "It's not...  Is it you?"
     "What?"  *If it was me, would I be standing here?*
     "Darla said you were bleeding?"
     "What?  How-"
     "She found menstrual pads in your bathroom trash when she was
collecting it this morning."
     "Oh."  Well, that was how he'd tracked Susan's menstrual cycles.
"Um, it's stopped, I think."
     "Was that what it was about?" she asked, sounding hopeful; though
he didn't know what she was hoping FOR.
     He almost said 'no', but that would give her a bit.  "I can't talk
about it, Charlene; it's medically classified."
     "Well, is it YOU?" she demanded.
     *I think I have to give her a bit.*  "No.  It's one of them."  Her
eyebrows came together, but she didn't ask, as Tucker realized, *That
was actually more than one bit.*

     When she saw Valerie come back from the break room, Shana asked,
"What did you say to her?"
     Valerie demanded, "Where is she?" as she looked around the shop.
     "The two of them had an argument, or something, and then they took
off, I don't..."
     Instead of looking upset, that she'd been abandoned, Valerie
relaxed.
     "Isn't that Darla's purse?" Charlene pointed.
     They all looked where the younger of the two disappearing women had
sat, and there was definitely a purse there.
     "Uh oh."
     "Can I use the phone again?" Valerie asked.

     Jane's digestion hadn't been as bad off as Valerie's, but she was
dealing with her own problems when the phone rang.  "Oh, blast," she
complained, but she wasn't going to get up NOW.  *Besides, Marie could-
and maybe even Kenneth.*
     But the phone rang and rang and rang again before the answering
machine picked up.  Jane thought it sounded like Valerie but couldn't
make out what she was saying.
     She knew it couldn't be good, though.
     When she'd finished in the bathroom, she took a deep breath and let
it out before replaying the message.
     "BEEEEE-" "-is a FLASH priority message, FOR Jane Thompson, FROM
Valerie, time thirteen forty-six local, BREAK."
     *How odd,* Jane thought.
     "Message starts.  I detected most warning signs of a POSSIBLE h-
myocardial infarction in Diana Philips STOP."
     "Oh my g-"
     "Darla refused EMS and said she would take Diana to an emergency
room STOP."
     Jane almost melted in relief.
     "Darla and Diana are GONE and I have no idea where STOP.  So is
Diana's vehicle STOP.  I have no further information STOP.  Darla left
her purse here, and I've got it STOP.  We- cancel.  Charlene is here
with me STOP.  We will arrange our own ride home STOP.  Don't worry
about us STOP."  Her voice changed to almost normal conversation as she
added, "We all hope Diana's okay.  STOP message ENDS, OUT."

***


Distribution:
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Permission is given to redistribute this by electronic means, as long as
the entirety of the work (from the BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE header to
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+ @>--,--'-----   Ellen Hayes   o===[--------      __      vicki .sig  +
                  -=[1990]=-                       \/      virus 12.2
+      http://www.barkingduck.net/ehayes     PGP key: EFC9 5D55 (1996) +





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