-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Tuck Me Home -*- Copyright 2008 by 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. Tuck Me Home *** 06:12 20 Nov "Wait..." I checked my watch, did some calculations, and my suspicions were confirmed. "I slept EIGHT HOURS?!" *** 06:56 20 Nov "Like almost eight hours last night, and then almost eight hours the night before... Oh, and I had a nap in the morning, I forgot. Yesterday morning." "Man!" Jill exclaimed. Even Kim looked impressed, in a dull way. "How'd you do that?" "I dunno... I think Mike had something to do with it, though; he slept over last night." "Dude," Jill said, in a totally different way. "What?" "You like men in your bed that much?" "Wha- FUCKER!" I shrieked when I got it. "That's SICK!" "What's sick about it?" Jill demanded as she backed away. "Mike's not- He's- He's my BROTHER, not..." I couldn't find a good way to distinguish 'Mike' from 'male'. Except beating Jill with a stick, and I didn't have a stick. *Well, I do, actually...* "Nnnrgh," Kim cleared her throat. "Didn't- Didn't you sleep better with Jill there too?" "Pam said you did last weekend," Jill added. "Like almost missed an appointment or something." "Um. Yeah, I think so... Damn. I can't tell if it's 'no school the next day' or what, though," I admitted. "Need to run the experiment..." I got my cart out of my trunk and started towards cosmetology class. "Uh, what experiment?" Jill finally asked, sounding hesitant. "Find someone who can spend the night on a school night, and see if I sleep better or not." "Mmmm," Kim thought. "Man, I dunno," Jill said. *Who asked you?* I thought, but cleverly didn't say out loud. *** 06:58 20 Nov I stared at the doorframe, which had so rudely interrupted my yawn. "I think too much sleep is bad for me." "Maybe you shouldn't yawn and walk at the same time, stupid," Jill mentioned as she pulled me inside the classroom. "Get outta the way before they run you over!" "Oh." That was probably a good idea. "Yeah." *** 09:44 20 Nov I was sort of wishing that I could get the unstinky nail polish remover, somehow, and running through ways to acquire some of the school's supply, when I realized that it didn't matter; I had only done it once outside of school, and I wasn't that impressed with it. Also, since I HAD to keep short nails for babysitting, there wasn't any chance I'd ever grow mine longer. At least not while the job lasted. So, unless someone like Susan or Mom or whatever started demanding nail care services - and Susan wasn't at home most of the year - it wasn't something I had to worry about anytime soon. *** 10:43 20 Nov "Yeah, I made it," Mike said, which I had guessed by now. "I hate the damn thing. You need to add another setting to the MacinClock, or something." I'd used the ancient backup alarm, the one that I'd used to use before I set up the MacinClock properly, for Mike's alarm. It was not a nice alarm, which was why I'd set up the MacinClock in the first place. "Is it worth the effort, though?" Mike punched me in the arm as an incentive, or anti-incentive. "Ow. Okay..." "Besides, some of those girls you have over the weekend might also appreciate it. When THEY have to get up." "Oh. Point." "Don't go to any trouble on MY account," Sabrina said dryly. Amanda just giggled. *** 11:36 20 Nov Mike whanged the play bell hard, and we all stopped. "Okay, meta- game announcement. As of week after next, after Thanksgiving, we are going to a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule, since the games are now integrated." There was much complaining. "What'd I miss?" I asked George. I had a feeling I'd missed something BIG. "Yesterday." It took me a second, but that was long enough for him to ready a block-and-lock when I tried to hit him. "Ow okay okay okay-" He finally let go of my arm. I had to rotate it a number of times to check the joint, but he hadn't actually done damage. *** 11:40 20 Nov I remembered last night, and looked carefully around without saying anything, but there didn't seem to be any pie floating around. Or being ingested. Or inhaled. *That jerk...* Mike must've left his pies at home, the miser. And I had just managed to grab a cheap-ass sandwich, which was so depressingly boring I thought about just throwing it away. *Eat,* I sighed, and dug it out. I was not going to enjoy this, however. *** 12:17 20 Nov Then again, maybe doing the game every other day was a good idea, since I was kind of tired out by today's. There was a lot of yelling and arguing, which I didn't always like; and Jill seemed to enjoy doing it almost as much as George did, which was a BAD thing. George enjoyed a challenge. Luckily, Mike knew how to control George somewhat, and similar tactics worked on Jill. Plus he was well-practiced in getting the quieter members of gaming groups to speak up and do things. "Hey V-Tuck," Kathy said. "Are you playing an asylum or what?" I moved away as George demonstrated why he should be in one, predictably. "No, it's just... George likes arguing, and I guess Jill does too, because they're both doing it." "How was your day off yesterday? We missed you," she cooed at me in an entirely scary voice, which alarmed me enough that her grab missed. "Get the fuck off me you pervert," I threw back at her, which made me grin too much. "Oh, uh, hey, speaking of, Mike got some pie-making lessons from Mom last night." "Oh no," Kathy said. "Oh yeah." "How were they?" "Uh... Dunno. He didn't bring 'em today, and last night Mom made some, which I had, and then I didn't eat any of Mike's, 'cause I was full." "Didn't you say you were trying to gain some weight back?" "Yeah, but there's only so much I can stuff in at any one time," I explained. "Unlike, say, Mike, George, Dan, Book, Paul, Matt..." I didn't say 'you' because I thought she might take it poorly, though she was almost as bad as Mike. "So how do I get some of that pie out of Mike? What'd he make anyway?" "Fresh apple, peach- that was canned stuff, though." She made the appropriate face. "Yeah, but it wasn't bad. You had it on the weekend." "That was canned? I thought canned was bad. Or not as good or something." "Non-optimal, but..." It wasn't bad, and it was a lot better than trying to store 'fresh' peaches this long. Home-canned would be better, but I hoped we wouldn't be doing that ever again. *** 14:02 20 Nov I almost found myself whistling as I trudged out to my car. Even the thought of babysitting seemed better than it had. "I hate you," I said to Mike, because even though he wasn't there, I hoped he'd hear it anyway. "Wanker." It was all his fault. *** 15:06 20 Nov "Da- darnit, where is he?" "Na rah?" Stella squeaked, very quietly (for Stella). I checked to make sure she hadn't inhaled something solid - by her easy breathing, she hadn't - and noticed that I still had an empty diaper box in my car. "I have got to get rid of that." *** 15:08 20 Nov "Alright, final..." I started to say, but while Ricky was now within sight, something was wrong. "Fuck." I bailed out of the car, locked the door and slammed it, and put my key lanyard around my neck so I wouldn't lose it, before I quite identified the problem. Which was Ricky apparently trying to escape from several larger students, girls I thought. As I accelerated, he dodged something and tried to go out sideways but one of the girls yanked on his pack and he fell over. I saw a foot connect with him and heard him make a pained noise, so I made sure to grab that girl, by the hair, and kicked the back of her legs as I ordered, "RICKY STAY DOWN!" and dropped the brat away from him. All the girls had scattered, and Ricky was coming up and looking around wildly, so I knelt on the girl's back to keep her. "Ricky you okay?!" He was gasping, but nodded at me. "Okay." *What the fuck do I do with her? Slit her throat- no knife,* or I'd have to get it out of the car's survival kit. I was kind of gasping too, I noticed. *Break her neck- Hell, can't do anything at this point, she's down already. Don't want to let her up, though...* "Just BLOW, Tuck!" Mike complained in my head. "Yeah." Anything else was legally an over-reaction. Damnit. I leaned close to the girl and enunciated, "Don't get up. If you get up, you are going to die." Threats sounded better when spoken clearly. I got up, pretty sure she was going to try to move when I did, and when she did, I kicked her very lightly in the side, barely enough to make her move. "Don't get up," I warned her again, before I turned to Ricky and started to sign in infantry, before I realized he didn't speak that, so I just made a come-on gesture, and put my finger to my lips because I wasn't sure he was smart enough to stay quiet, then we left. *** 15:10 20 Nov He was crying, and trying to stifle it, so I got the hell away from there before I turned into another side street and parked. "Do you want some time to get yourself under control?" I asked. "I can get out of the car for a little while." "Nnnnn- Home," he gasped. "Wanna go home!" "Home 'tis," I agreed, and did a three-point turn, partially into someone's driveway, and headed for his house. *** 15:36 20 Nov Driving was a bitch when you had the shakes, even a mild case, but I needed to get home - his would be easiest - before I'd be safe enough to stop. Ricky did not spring out of the car when I stopped the engine. *Oh man...* I stopped to think about what I would've wanted my mom or dad to do in that kind of situation. "Ricky? Do you have your house key?" He eventually nodded, then checked his pocket, then nodded. "Lock the car doors, and come in when you want to, okay? Some people, like my brother Mike, want some time alone after something like that." I didn't want to make a big deal over it, and crying was unmanly, so he might want to finish doing it where I couldn't see him or hear him. Offically see or hear him, anyway. "Come in whenever you want, okay?" He nodded, eventually, so I got out and got my laptop and Stella and went inside and relocked the door. Then I arranged a chair and an outlet so I could plug the laptop in and write my report while watching Ricky through the window to make sure nothing else happened. *I wish I had a rifle...* *** 15:42 20 Nov He got out of my car and came in before I had the report done. Probably because I was still twitching a lot, and typing was not going well. I said without quite looking at him, "Hey, if you go wash your face, and use cold water, it'll help the swelling, so your face and nose and stuff won't hurt so much." I didn't need to say the C-word; he felt bad enough, I was sure. I saved the file and folded the laptop shut and went to go snack something up for the two kids. I had the bare basics down, anyway; the rest of it was trying to turn the sort of shorthand I'd written it in, into readable English. *** 15:44 20 Nov "Ah joo!" "What?" "AH JOO!" Stella insisted. "You want apple juice?" "Ah joo!" Stella insisted, and punctuated it by trying to spur me in the ribs. "You'll be lucky if you get bread and water, you keep that up," I told her. But I got the apple juice out. Sugar for post-combat, I thought. *** 16:02 20 Nov "What IS that?" Ricky complained. "What's wh- The book?" 'Combat Stress', FMFM 4-55, published 1992, was not entirely what I would have preferred to be reading, but it was better than the so-called 'literature' I got in English class. Then again, most everything was. I wished I could do a book report on this rather than something else, but I'd learned not to even ask. "Marine military manual. On combat stress." His face went tnrough some unusual deformations. "Why?" I shrugged, because telling him I needed to re-read parts of it was anathema; he'd ask why. "Comes in handy sometimes. Ummm." Speaking of which... "Do-" I started to ask him if he wanted to talk about what happened at school today, but then I realized we needed to. He almost certainly wouldn't WANT to. "We need to talk about, uh, how to prevent stuff like today. Is there another place you can wait for me to get there?" That would be simplest. "Why do I have to do that?!" he yelled. "Why can't they just leave me alone!?" I did not have a nice answer to this question. "I dunno, Ricky. People are evil sometimes. More when they're kids, I think. I never had the problems with adults that I've had with kids, anyway," I mentioned. Even Debbie had stayed away from me, rather than calling me names and worse, though I still half-expected worse based on experience. "Even the kids in my class pick on me and make fun of me and stuff. They keep calling me 'Dick' and laughing at me." He slumped into a chair and held his head in his hands, staring at the table surface. "I wish I had a gun." "No you don't," just popped out of my mouth. "Um, you can't just wave a gun around at people like in the movies and television; you'd have to shoot one or more of them, and the police get very very nasty about that. If you decide to pull a firearm, you NEED to be ready to shoot, and KILL, the target." That was a big reason I'd never brought firearms to school; you couldn't just shoot someone to wound. Or I couldn't; at the gun range, whenever I was just a little surprised or distracted, I'd put rounds in the chest and then head. "Yeah but I, I mean..." "Better to hit them, with like your fists or something; that way you don't go to jail." "But I can't, they're bigger than me!" Then he looked at me. "How come you're not saying I should just, you know, do the stuff they say on television, like, like-" "Like just ignore it, or tell a teacher, or any of that cr-, um, stuff?" He nodded. "Some of it works temporarily, but a lot of it they pay you back for later. Like if you tattle to a teacher, it stops whatever they're doing right then, but then they do other stuff to you later." "How do you know?" I waved 'Combat Stress' at him. "I'm not reading this because I'm actually in the Marines, Ricky. School's... hard." He nodded as he put his head back in his hands. "So..." I asked again, "is there a good place to pick you up?" *** 16:09 20 Nov "Weren't you doing HTH combat training on him?" Mike asked. "Not after, uh, I got sick the last time, in October," I reminded him. "Got si- Oh, right. What about before then?" "I didn't get enough of it in, I guess." "You suck, Tuck." "Thanks, Mike, but do you have something USEFUL to contribute?" "Uhh..." I waited several seconds; Mike often thought better when I wasn't yelling at him. "Yeah. See if you can pick him up and then get the baby girl; she's got another sitter for the day, right?" "Right... um. That might work," I realized. "Of course it'll work! Doubting gaijin asswipe!" *** 16:12 20 Nov "This is Valerie, Stella Parker's other babysitter?" "Oh yes, is-" "I- Oh, sorry," I apologized for interrupting. "What can I do for you?" "Well, um, is there any way I could pick Stella up later? Say about three-twenty or so?" "Oh, sure... It would cost a little more, because I charge by the hour, but you could do that." Damnit. That was going to have to come out of my pay, if I couldn't convince the Parkers to do it. I glanced at Ricky, and it was worth a few bucks. *** 16:16 20 Nov "Yeah, this is Valerie," I told Debbie's answering machine. "I'm emailing a copy of the report to your account, but in summary, I may have to have some of my pay returned to the Parkers on a regular basis; I need to have Stella's other sitter watch her for an extra hour or so. Actually less but that's how she charges. Read the report. Out," I said before I pressed the switchhook. "Oh da- How do I get one here?" The Parkers didn't have a printer, and I didn't want to go print it someplace and then come back. *Maybe I can just tell them I'll give it to them tomorrow.* *** 16:22 20 Nov "Don't tell Mom!" Ricky begged. "Ricky, I HAVE to tell her-" "Just let me do it!" *Oh crap, why did he have to start thinking of this when she pulled into the driveway?* "Please please please I'll do anything you ever-" "You can try it tonight, but they get a report tomorrow; I HAVE to tell them what happened. And you tell them you begged me and you SWORE you were going to talk to them tonight. And I'll ask them tomorrow." "Okay okay okay!" "SWEAR you will tell them toNIGHT!" "I swear!" He crossed his heart, hoping to die if I had to be the first one to mention it to his parents a day late. He would die, too. "Heard and witnessed," I said formally, just before Miz Parker opened the door. *** 16:25 20 Nov "Oh MAN," I cackled when I saw what Miz Parker had laid in for groceries. "I gotta take a day off again, if this is what I get out of it." Ricky asked, "What?" "Nothing... here, take these bags, they're light." I even didn't mind unloading her car, especially since Miz Parker had said she was going to feed Stella while I did. *** 16:32 20 Nov She had not actually fed Stella. I thought about taking everything back out to the car and trying again, because even putting everything away wouldn't use up enough time; but I decided against it. Maybe she was working up to it. *** 16:35 20 Nov "I think I want to start feeding her later," Miz Parker said. "Kim said yesterday she wanted to eat with Ricky, after he got home, and then she wouldn't eat her normal dinner at five." "Ah, okay," I said. That made sense. I probably hadn't helped that today, either. "Besides, I don't mind feeding her." "What? Why not?" She gave me a puzzled look. I explained, "She sprays things everywhere, or throws it, or drops it, or..." Actually, that was about it, but there were infinite messy variations that Stella played with. "Well, I mean, you just have to expect that with one year olds," she said. "Nnnnh. Too bad we can't just mode-lock her as a six-month old until she turns four or something." "What?" "Umm..." This was going to be hard to explain. And it wouldn't work anyway. "Never mind." Neural nets couldn't be mode-locked if you wanted them to mature. She was now giving me a boy-are-you-weird look. *** 17:06 20 Nov "Oh wait." *Oh wait, I'd better not say that out loud,* I realized, because I'd just remembered that I was sort of supposed to go by John's today and pick up the new smaller boobs. Not the sort of thing one wants to hear the babysitter talking about to himself, I figured. I'd try for it tomorrow. Which would be kind of interesting with Ricky in tow, but I thought I could manage... he likely wouldn't want to come inside anyway, and if I could wear something baggy tomorrow, and then leave him in the car 'for a few minutes', he almost certainly wouldn't notice. *** 17:22 20 Nov "Wanna go bowling Friday?" I glared at him. "I'm going out with some friends to see a band." "Oh cool!" *** 17:25 20 Nov He'd sulked when I informed him that he would not be coming to see the band. Luckily, I remembered that he'd already met some of the band; after reminding him of the weirdo with bizarre hair who had talked to him about dolls while he had been dressed as a girl that time, he decided that he didn't want to go see some bunch of loud freaks in a dark club at night where he was likely to get stepped on a lot. I sort of helped him think of all that. *** 19:02 20 Nov "You really outdid yourself tonight," Mr. Parker told me. I think he was pleased with what I'd come up with for supper. "Well, Miz Parker came home with all this neat stuff," I said, sharing the credit. "What did you use?" she asked. "Uh, well... I can get you the recipes, so-" "No, I mean, I might need to get some replacements." "Yeah, and if I get the recipes you can look at the ingredient list," I told her. "Lists. If you had a print- a computer printer," I felt it necessary to specify, "here, I could print it out for you. Or calculate it..." Once you had the spreadsheet data entered, and got in the habit of entering everything you used, it was easy to keep track of when you needed to buy replacements. We'd sort of done the first, on groceries, but the second had never caught on at our house, so Mom mostly eyeballed it. At least for the stuff in normal use; the deep storage canned stuff was rotated and tracked. "Ohhhh," I accidentally let out, because thinking about it reminded me it was about time to rotate a large amount of it out to the food banks; and that always involved me and hard physical labor. "Uh," I didn't explain when I noticed them all looking at me. "Nothing, um, something at home..." This wasn't working; they were all looking at me harder. "We're gonna, uh, there's a big chore coming up this weekend, and I'm gonna be moving a lot of stuff around." I would be busting my ass moving cans and boxes. And boxes of cans, CRATES of cans, and if Dad could've managed to get pallets into the basement I'd be moving pallets, though at that point he might spring for a forklift or something. *But-* "Mike!" He'd given Mom a favor... "What?" All the Parkers looked bewildered, except Stella, who was happily playing in my lap. "Um... Mike... This is starting to get complicated, and doesn't really matter," I figured out. "And I'd need to explain lots of it." Miz Parker looked at Mr. Parker, who looked back at him, but it was Ricky who said, "Well, can we eat instead?" "Oh, sure," I agreed. *** 19:48 20 Nov Getting near home was making me hungry. I'd skipped dinner at the Parkers, because frankly I was sick of smelling it and playing with it and watching it and poking at it, which was not an uncommon occurrence. "Maybe if Mom cooked all the time, she'd lose weight like she wants," I realized. Not like she needed to lose much, but she complained, just like Susan and other girls did. "Huh?" Sabrina's car was already in front of my house, which suggested that Sabrina was there. I checked my watch, and she was a little early. "Wonder what's up?" She got out, though, which told me she wasn't that early. *** 19:51 20 Nov "I wanted to see how Mike's pies turned out," she grinned. "Oh, well, that makes sense. But I'm not sure he left any here," I warned her. "He took ALL of them?" "I dunno! I didn't check in the morning, I overslept and didn't have time to check." "Man, I didn't eat much at dinner," she complained. "Hoping for some pie?" "Damn straight!" *** 19:59 20 Nov "He didn't leave ANY pies? What a jerk! What about Brian's?" I remembered. "Oh, he took one to school today," Mom said. "Or I think he did; it was gone when I got home, anyway. And he'd eaten another one with a couple of his friends AFTER he got home..." "Aw MAN!" "There's still some peach left, though." "I'll take some!" I said at the same time Sabrina said about the same thing. "Fight ya for it," I offered Sabrina. I did not offer her choice of weapons, nor did I offer to remove the armor I was wearing, because I wasn't dumb. "Why don't you two SHARE," Mom ordered. "You can't eat that much anyway," Sabrina smirked at me. "And you need to eat supper, too," Mom told me before I could get Sabrina to make a bet out of it. Which was probably a good thing, when I thought about it. Sabrina might win. "Thanks Mom," I said, which had the desired effect of confusing her momentarily. I smiled at her, but that didn't seem to make it worse. *** 20:27 20 Nov "Do you have to do that?!" "What?" I complained back at Sabrina as I looked up. "Showing off like that!" I stared at her, but that didn't make her make any more sense. She flipped off my calculus book, which was in front of me. "That!" "What? I need to do it, and-" "Tucker, food on keyboard," Dad mentioned, belatedly; I twisted the laptop around to show him the plastic food wrap I had over it. "Did you think of that?" "Um... no, Mike did," I remembered. "Do you have to be doing it HERE?" Sabrina complained. "What is your problem with it?" She started to say something but didn't. "Do you think," Dad mentioned, calmly, "that he's showing off in front of you?" "Yes!" "What?" Dad ignored me and said to Sabrina, "He's not. If he was trying to be annoying, he wouldn't be so clueless about it. There's no way he could hold it in this long." "That's not true!" I asserted. Dad stared at me until a grin grew on my face like a tumor, about five seconds. "STOP it!" I complained as I ducked away. "Sorry," Sabrina said. When I looked up, she was asking Dad something completely obvious about cubeic equations. *You're fucking insane,* I decided, and turned my laptop back around and went back to eating and typing out my calculus homework. *** 21:03 20 Nov "I just thought you were showing off," she said. "No! Why would I do that?" She gave me a look. "Because you're arrogant and like showing off how smart you are?" "I don't- Not with YOU!" I changed my defense; just blurting out 'What would be the POINT?' would not go over well, I vaguely sensed. "Look, who's better at math, me or you? Is there ANY question about it, right now?" I waited until she finally, sullenly, admitted, "No." "Have I teased you about it since you started getting tutored over here? Like my dad would object to, not what you thought." "I just feel..." I waited to see if any sense was going to come out, and when none did and I figured none would, I continued, "Look, I know you're smart enough to get this stuff, if you want to bother with it. Since you're here," I said a little faster to get it in before she blew up, "you want to bother with it. So..." I shrugged. "Yeah," she admitted, looking away. "I guess. I just... I dunno." Whatever it was, I could tell she didn't like it, though. Pause, in which I felt rather bad, and a little defensive, and I couldn't think of anything to do about it. "Can we change the subject?" she finally requested. "Yeah, sure... um... Oh, hey, that Civil Air Patrol stuff you were talking about? How's that going?" I felt slightly clever. *** 21:24 20 Nov "Yeah, isn't it?" Flight simulators I knew, and were one of the few reasons to keep anything Microsoft anywhere in the house. My effort to write a Linux-based freeware flight sim had gone poorly. "But it doesn't have like a wheel," she said. "And I know the rudder pedals are important..." "Oh, yeah... I can't use pedals in that chair, I'd have to mount 'em backwards or something. But you can get 'em... I think a wheel too?" She nodded. "I like fighter sims, so I got the joystick." "What's all that crap on it?" "What, on-" "On the joystick." "They call it 'HOTAS', no lie..." *** 21:30 20 Nov "Oh hey," Sabrina mentioned, pulling me out of the Computer Shopper I'd been paging through, trying to find a control wheel for a flight sim. "Debbie said to give you something, and I got your things back from Pam..." *** 21:34 20 Nov It was cold outside, but I thought I'd be alright as long as I didn't touch anything metal. Sabrina opened her trunk and said, "Yeah, I mean, I guess I could've given it to you Saturday night - I've got a date Friday - but I figured you might want it now." She handed me a bag, and then a box. "What's this other thing?" "Debbie said you wanted some makeup removers?" "Oh, right." I looked in the bag, and there was Amy's nightgown, and the other thing was the sweater I'd loaned Pam yesterday. My 'new' sweater. "Oh, and I've got hers too, I washed it last night... Acid's bad for like sweaters like this, right? She spilled some diet Coke on it, and I thought she ought to wash it out right away." Nothing happened. "Right?" "Oh you're asking me?" she asked me as she turned to face me. "Um, I guess... it makes sense. I never worried about it that much though. That's not like cashmere or wool, is it?" "No, I-" "Cashmere you really need to be careful with. And angora." "Yeah, I figured that, but I didn't think it'd do good things to acrylic either." Though, thinking about it NOW, I had to wonder; they made a lot of resistant materials out of 'acrylic', like aircraft windshields, and some of them were exposed to acidic environments. I wondered if it was the same polymer. "Probably not," she agreed. "Couldn't hurt, anyway." I went to go put the sweater in my car directly, since I wouldn't be needing it at home, and then it hit me. "Saturday? You said you could give me the stuff Saturday?" "Yeah?" She looked at me like I was the stupid one. "You were having a sleepover right?" "Uh." *** 21:38 20 Nov Mom looked at Dad who looked at Mom. "No, you have to stay home and sleep," Brian said. "ALONE." Mom said, "Brian." "Mom, he has these girls over like all the time!" he complained bitterly back at Mom. "Make him go somewhere else for a change!" "Eugene," Mom said to me, ignoring Brian, "did you want to have them over?" "I... Well, yeah, sure!" I said, exceedingly conscious of Sabrina right next to me. "I just wasn't sure if I said anything?" Or if anyone had said anything to anyone in this house about it, or to a member of this house. Like, to me. *** 21:47 20 Nov "'Lo?" "Tuck. Apparently I'm having a sleepover here, Saturday night. I just learned about this. Wanna come?" "Uhhh. What?" Apparently he'd gone to bed early. *Probably anaesthetized by a pie overdose,* I grumbled. *** 21:49 20 Nov "NO!" Mike yelled. "What the f- Tuck!" Apparently he wasn't that angry; he remembered not to yell 'fuck' inside his house. "Didn't you just take a day off from school so you could REST?! Remember that?" "Remember working in the storeroom, shifting boxes and cans and stuff?" I countered. "That's this weekend. Sunday, most likely..." "Ohhhhh," he moaned. Apparently he remembered. "And you gave Mom an open favor." The fool. "Now, remember last, uh, weekend?" It couldn't have been two weeks ago, like it felt. Probably the midweek holiday had thrown me off. "Chores for pies?" Pause, in which I started to grin. "You FUCK," Mike complained. "I HATE your little round-eyed ass." I managed to smother my mirth. "And stop laughing about it!" *** 21:51 20 Nov "Hello?" "Pam? It's Tuck. And Mike," I added, because it was un-nice to have a third party listening in to your friends' conversations without them knowing it. "Were we gonna have a sleepover here Saturday night?" Because I still wasn't entirely sure if I was or not. At least, it would be more useful if the girls were here, than if they weren't. "Uh, I dun- Lemme check," she said, and there were some clicks, and then she said, "Val?" "Yeah?" "Val was asking-" "Wait, how'd we get from 'Tuck' to 'Val'?" Mike complained. Through the laughter, someone - it might have been Julia - drawled, "You know, I've asked that question myself." "Ha ha," Mike and I said at about the same time, which generated more giggles. "Is Tuck having a sleepover at his house Saturday night?" Mike got in before I could. "I thought so," Amanda said. "Tuck, did you forget?" "Me!?" "Are you?" Pam asked. "Did you?" "Will you would you? Can you should you?" "What?" I was completely confused by now. The laughter did not help. *** 21:56 20 Nov "I guess I am," I told Mom. "Down in the basement?" "There's way too many to sti- Oh, uh, yeah, it's like, uh, more than one coming over." I didn't want to say 'all of them' because that sounded too much like 'too many'. "And Mike said he could come." "Aw mannnnnn," Brian groaned. "Well, you could let Brian go to someone's house Saturday night," I mentioned. "I'd even take you," I offered to him. It was worth it to get rid of him. "You'd have to bring him BACK," Dad emphasized. "Like when?" I asked, before I really thought about what I was asking. "Or," after I thought, "ever?" *** 02:11 21 Nov I hadn't really considered a ringer slipping in, for some reason, and now that everyone else was distracted, lost, or dead, I was trying to get away from her before she caught me with those scalpels, and I was trying to find the way back to my house in the maze of twisty passages all different, and all of them not my house, and I could hear her feeling around for me in the dark when something stabbed at my head and then I was in lots and lots of pain in the dark someplace and I couldn't see what had hit me. *** 02:19 21 Nov "Okay, that had to be the cat," I decided, looking at the ointment- covered scratches on my forehead; there were three parallel ones, not very far apart. They didn't look so bad once the bleeding had stopped. I sort of wondered where the fourth one was, but not that hard. "Then the bunk bed, then over the cat or whatever it was," because SOMETHING had been on the floor and tripped me, "then all over the floor. Right." I hurt a lot. I was gonna bruise worse. *** 02:34 21 Nov At least the hot water heater had regenerated by this time of night. A hot shower did a lot to get rid of nightmares. Maybe it was removing the stink of fear. Or maybe it was the partial light, though I kept the in-between door open and the light off in the tub-and-toilet room; in case someone busted in and flipped the switch off to blind me, I'd have at least a little acclimatization. I knew I was being a little paranoid, but being paranoid made me feel better. *** 03:08 21 Nov "Owfuck... ohfuck... Oh, fuck..." I had to check how tight my breathing was, because it didn't feel right; but after a few seconds of relative stasis, I decided that as long as I stopped stretching about now, I wouldn't need to go through the asthma routine. I did NOT need to stretch that badly. And it HURT. And pain tended to set my asthma off. "Maybe just a little pain pill..." *** 03:23 21 Nov "Oh man..." Debbie had left a voicemail, it seemed. Or at least her cellphone had. I breathed for a while, then played it. "Hey Valerie, it's Debbie. What are you talking about? If you don't tell me soon, I'll ask you at lunch. Bye." "What am- What are YOU tal- Oh, right," I said as I remembered what had happened yesterday. Instead of calling her at - I checked - three-twenty in the morning, I was going to email her a report, until I remembered I wasn't sure if it was done with it yet. "Pain pill FIRST," I insisted. *** 04:09 21 Nov "Ow. Good e-NOUGH," I decided, finally; and saved it and filed it and mailed off copies to Dad and Mike like I was supposed to. I'd probably get a D for it in English class, but I wasn't submitting it to English class. *** 04:13 21 Nov "Oh damn," I sighed, and added a copy of the report to the printer queue, and then emailed a copy to Debbie. And then, I also had to queue the recipes I'd made last night, for Miz Parker so I could tell her what I'd used. *** 06:00 21 Nov The quarter tab of antipain had done me good, but not enough, because I still had to go to school. "Damnit! Why does this always happen? RIGHT in the middle..." Of course, I was finding it easier to slip into a music-related Deep Hack-like mode the more I practiced, and my ability to go Deep Hack for twelve hours without really noticing was pretty pronounced. "Cool." *** 06:55 21 Nov "Oh, by the way, I'm apparently having a sleepover Saturday night, so if you want to come, you're invited," I told Kim and Jill. "What time?" Jill asked. "What time? What do you mean what time? Whenever you get over until sometime the next day." Duh. "Why?" "Uh, well, I gotta date Saturday night," she said, sort of not looking at me. I asked, "Some big hunky stud muffin, right?" Kim snorted. "Anyone I know?" Except I only knew one stud, and I didn't want to think about that any more. Fortunately, Jill was shaking her head. "Nah, some guy from work, I mean I met him at work." "Oh good," I said accidentally, and got two looks. "Um, hey," I said to distract them, "me and Mike were thinking about going out Friday night, to see that band, Stepwise Pagoda? Rachel wanted to go. Wanna come? I was thinking about asking Julia too." I didn't remember if this was one of THOSE Fridays for her, but it might be, and I think she liked going out anyway. "Um..." "This isn't like some stupid thing," Kim rasped, "to get me-" She cleared her throat, which I did not enjoy hearing. "To get me to date Mike again, is it?" "No?" *Where do they come UP with this weird shit?* "I mean, your loss, in my opinion, but you're not- I mean, neither of you is being, uh," I remembered 'childish' was a bad word to use, just barely in time to not use it, "shits about it, or evil or anything, so... I mean, I guess the two of you just didn't work out, right?" Kim eventually nodded. She didn't look happy about it. "So it didn't work, but you two are still friends, right? Maybe of a lesser degree or something, but still friends?" "Like me and Tuck, right?" Jill said to Kim as she reached out and hugged me one-armed. So I slipped my arm around Jill's waist. Jill turned her face to me and went, "Mmmmm-" so we kissed each other's cheeks several times, as loud as we could. "No, I would NEVER be THAT disgusting about it, no. Stop that before I throw up on one or both of you." By the time she'd finished saying that, Jill and I had already split up. I wasn't sure how serious Kim was, but I didn't have a decent change of pants with me, and I wasn't inclined to take chances. *** 06:58 21 Nov "So do you wanna come?" I asked again as we seated ourselves. "Tonight?" "Yeah, it'd be cool," Jill said. "Mmmmm," Kim yawned, and carefully scratched at her eyes for a while. "Yeah okay. Jill, you want a ride?" "Hell no!" Jill grinned. "I mean, thanks, really, but no." "She's just making sure no one's gonna put her in a skirt or a dress or something." "Got THAT right!" "Wuss," Kim said scornfully. *** 07:53 21 Nov "Oh darn. If it was a B sked day, you could've done your nails and had 'em all pretty for tonight," I told Jill. "Like I want to be all GIRLY and shit?" she complained, then laughed. "Someone might SEE her like that," Kim pointed out. "And then where would she be?" Jill showed Kim a finger to suggest where she might be, or maybe where she wanted to be. "I dunno, maybe try it sometime, you might like it," I sneered back, and she faked a punch at my jaw. "Hey, Kim, what about you?" Jill asked as I dodged. "I don't recall seeing you do your nails since we started class." "Like I'd want to? Fungus." "Oh, yeah, I can see your point." After a couple of weeks of studying nail diseases that you could get with improperly cleaned equipment or just chance microorganisms, you didn't want anything to get in the way of early diagnosis and treatment. Or at least she didn't, apparently. Jill shrugged, like she was the same way but was just asking, or something like that. "Too bad we can't get like Sabrina in here," Kim said. "Or Pam, she'd love it." "Or Debbie. Remember those..." Kim trailed off. I didn't ask. *** 11:48 21 Nov "You feed on me, I will rip off your head and shit down your neck," George promised with a nasty grin. I think he was partially happy that he'd finally gotten to say that in a good context. Well, a proper context. "Just asking," Matt claimed. "Say, what happens if someone brushes your fur backwards?" "Dude, I'm warning you." "Oooh, such a BAD-ass throw rug," Jill sneered; I sighed, because this was going to spur George on. *** 12:14 21 Nov "Hey, Kelly, wanna come out and see a band tonight?" I asked as everyone started putting stuff up, and I got a little private time with her. Or non-game time, anyway. "Some of us are going, like Mike, and remember that college girl Rachel?" "Oh, uh. What kind of band?" "Uh, well..." I wasn't entirely up on the various subclassifica- tions of music nowadays. "One male singer, two guitars, bass and drums, and a lot of amps. Rock sort of." "Um. Who's going?" "Um, me, Mike, Rachel, Kim, Jill, Julia, Pam... dunno. Might be a lot of people," I realized. "I mean like us." "I'm fourteen, is that a problem?" "Oh, um... No, I get in, you shouldn't have problems." I was pretty sure. Well, kinda sure. *** 12:17 21 Nov "Oh, her? No problem," Kathy assured us. "It's kind of expensive, though. Assholes," she complained. "Since we don't buy alcoholic drinks, they rip us off on cover charges, to get in." Kelly asked, "Like how much?" "Like around ten bucks, EACH. And cokes are like little tiny cups for two bucks." "Aw, man," I groaned, then explained to Kelly, "I forgot about that part." "At least at Tuck's parties you don't have to pay cover to get in. Yet. And it's quieter," Kathy mentioned. "And nobody's drunk." "And the pie is better. Oh wait, no pie this weekend," I barely managed to insert. I did not want to do the pie whirlwind again. I think my face was still sunburned. "Man, where," Kathy started as she whirled around, and then she was marching towards Mike. "Uh oh." On the other hand, this was sort of what he'd had in mind when he wanted lessons - sort of - and it wasn't my problem because she'd had some of MY pies. "So..." Kelly was still there. "Um, so, oh, by the way, I'm having a sleepover this Saturday night too, if you wanna come? Oh shit," I mentioned, because I just remembered I was going to make more pies and things to bribe as many people as possible to come over and do the Thansgiving food shuffle. *** 12:19 21 Nov "What a pig!" Kathy complained. "He ate 'em all already?" I guessed. "Where the hell does he PUT it all?" "In his cheek pouches." "What?" she boggled, then hooted. Kathy was inherently funny when she laughed like that, but it hurt my ears if I was too close. *** 12:21 21 Nov "So are you coming tonight?" I asked, just as a formality; everyone else was, I thought. "What, out to the dance place? Well, I've got a date," Kathy said, sounding noticeably girly about it. "What? I hadn't heard about this." *Is this Date Week and I missed it?* "Yeah, I dunno..." "What?" "Well, I mean, I hav- This is like the first date, so I dunno how it's gonna go, you know?" "Oh, yeah, okay. What'cha doin'?" "We were thinking about catching a movie, um..." Kathy, I noticed, looked rather cute when she was doing the teenaged girl thing. Not nearly as impressive, but definitely more cute. *** 14:27 21 Nov "Damn." I knew I would be going out tonight, to a concert, and either dinner before and/or after, or something; I knew I had to take a spare change of clothing; but what the hell should I WEAR? "Damnit." *Maybe this... How cold- Real cold.* "Damnit! This? That's stupid... why didn- I did, didn't... Yeah, okay, and then that skirt... Where's my- Can I walk- S'not gonna snow, I think..." Mike was right; doing girl was a lot harder than doing guy, at least when it came to picking clothing. "So why- Band, stupid." I did not want someone eight inches taller than me who had head spikes like a dinosaur to even come close to THINKING about being remotely offended at any gender trickery of mine. And I had a suspicion that drummers and their stick affinity extended to larger sticks. It was possible that Jack had told them about me, and subset possible that they were cool with it like Jack was, but I didn't know, and this would not be a good way to find out. "Damn damn damn da- Oh, this'd work," I said in surprise. "Oh yeah. When did I get this?" I wondered for a moment if it was Rachel's, misfiled, but then rationalized wearing it anyway by deciding that if she couldn't keep one side of her closet straight from the other side, it was not my problem. I realized that she could possibly counter-argue that I should be able to recognize my own clothing when I saw it, and thus recognize not-my-own, but I could counter that because of the way the other girls dumped stuff on me without pity. But it WAS on my side of the closet, and in the middle of other stuff. When I had that all settled, in case I needed it later, I pulled the top off the hanger, and started looking for a bottom. And tights, if I could find them; my legs were bruising up from this morning. "Aw, man..." There was no way I could fit my thermal leggings under anything I had. "I need some jeans or something." Which I had exactly none of, of the girly sort. "Damnit. Why didn't I get some Wednesday?" Because I was stupid, I guess. Or I ran out of money. Or I didn't think of it until just now. Which led me back to the stupidity issue. *** 14:38 21 Nov "Oh, right, I have to pick Ricky up first." I was glad I remembered that before I went to pick up Stella. *** 14:56 21 Nov "Shi- DON'T DO THAT!" I yelled at Ricky, because he had announced his arrival by banging on my car window. While my head was down, too. "Let's go before someone comes out," he said breathlessly as he threw himself into his seat. "That IS why I'm here early, you know," I reminded him. *** 15:04 21 Nov "Val?" Ricky asked. "Yeah?" "Can... Do people really explode if they eat Pop Rocks and drink Coke at the same time?" "What?! No!" I was unusually qualified to answer this one; Susan had tried it in a single-blind experiment, in front of her friends. I didn't explode until after the test, when I found out why they were feeding me candy. They didn't take proper safety precautions for testing explosives, either, but my sister was a dumbass. You'd think with my dad's foot as a striking example she would've, but not her. "How do you know?" "I'm a genius, Ricky." *** http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/poprocks.asp Distribution: No part of this work may be distributed as an original work by another person or group. 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 the END PGP SIGNATURE footer) is distributed, and credit is given to the original author, me. And no fee may be charged. Archiving is permitted provided no fee is charged for access. All rights reserved. + @>--,--'----- Ellen Hayes o===[-------- __ vicki .sig + -=[1990]=- \/ virus 13.6 + http://www.barkingduck.net/ehayes PGP key: EFC9 5D55 (1996) + -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBSBJTanYDebnvyV1VAQHSbwP/WA/1VA1loXL63E6Bn1g7h9+QMfOvwgbu 4L9EqnbAk/ZUQBrpuI1yuXNsBBHqirBd7P593aj0rj+srxnr1EjUDcIYPnQlPG56 cW8HXrsmBi5EE09jBLwvMt1XxwN5PXrr6VJSCR5cMO+72IlbZXZMt7JdHfdLAtwB wDwDNhVi4Io= =cbx5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----