lochnesmonster171
"Is your father a lord?" he asked
"You work for him but you don't even know who he is?" she asked incredulously.
"Not everyone knows your father missy."
She spluttered, which was very unladylike, "Don't--don't call me missy!"
He bowed low, "Sorry ma'am."
"Silly Irishman." she huffed
He ambled towards her, "You got something against the Irish? Do you not like my hair?" he shook his head, the hair flying randomly.
As he got closer she stuttered, "N-no I just-"
"Just what exactly?" he leaned against the tree next to her.
"Just-just nothing!" she moved away and he grinned at her back.
I placed the vase down carefully. "Exactly....how old is this Mr. Barker?"
He glanced over, "Multiply your age by about a hundred."
My eyes widened and flickered over to the vase sitting innocently on his desk. "But...but..." I sputtered
Mr. Barker sighed in annoyance, "But what exactly?"
"Why do you have it?"
His nose burrowed deeper into his book, "It has certain....sentimental value."
I knew when to back down, and even though my curiosity was starting to whine in the back of my mind I left Mr. Barker to himself.
But back in my room was a different matter. I paced the floor endlessly, new questions popping up with every step I took.
Just how old was Mr. Barker?
Sentimental value?
If he was going to ask everything of me didn't I have some right to knowing something about him?
When-if ever-was I going to be able to perform the magic he told me I possessed?
I realized how blind I had been when walking into this arrangement. But what choice did I have? It was the streets or a beautiful house where I would want for nothing.
Yet another question, where did Mr. Barker's seemingly ceaseless fortune stem from?
I plopped very unladylike face first on my bed. Sleep. I needed rest to figure any of this out. It was a job for tomorrow.
I opened my wallet.
The amount was dismal to say the least.
"I have to find a place to move out to. I have to pay for school and food.
Christ what in the world am I going to do."
I curled up in a ball in my bed. Breathe in, breathe out.
Okay.
First, to save money I couldn't spend it....on ANYTHING. NO iTunes, DVDs, food or fun activities. Nothing.
I have to get a job. There's no getting around it. Goddammit as if my schedule weren't full enough what with play practices and classes. I reaaaally needed that RA job right about now. I couldn't even pay for school, how in the hell was I going to pay for rent?!
Even if I get the RA job I'll still need more money....the usher job would be great....I could try for that....And I need Grandma and Dad to pay for something...there's no way of paying for it otherwise. And scholarships. Please god some scholarships. And maybe more financial aid although there wasn't much hope on that front.
Sigh.
Fuck.
"Where in the actual fuck did you get a barrel?"
He scratched his head, "You know, I honestly have no fucking idea."
"Well do you remember anything from last night?"
His eyes closed for a moment as if he was trying to recall something. He sighed, "Nope. Nuthin'."
"Are you kidding? Jesus. Did you lot get roofied or something?"
"Well personally I would just like to point out that I had never had anything to drink before. And then they gave me Yager....so. Yeah." piped up Adam from the back.
"Right. Also that. What the hell were you guys thinking letting Adam drink? He has a hard enough time dealing with the headaches and now you've got him hungover too."
"He's a big boy. He can make his own....terrible, terrible decisions." said Hank cooly from the coach. He had made himself comfortable by laying down and putting a bag of frozen peas on his head. "Now if you all don't mind, could we please be a little bit quieter."
A chorus of moans and agreement resounded throughout the room.
"You know I have half a mind to make you all do the work you promised anyway." huffed Alicia.
Phillip's arm snatched out and pulled her down onto his lap in the armchair. "Shhhhh. We'll do the work. Just not right now. Mmkay darlin'?"
He stirred in cream and vanilla.
He had a whole project due tomorrow too.
No pay attention. You're at work.
Think about work.
Cream and vanilla. Whip for 30 seconds. There should be a light brownish colour.
And he had maths work too.
Ugh god.
What comes next. Pour previous mixture together. Mix at high speed.
Fix pie plate.
As he rolled out the dough for the crust his mind returned to school.
If I leave work at 10 then I can bike home by 10:30. My homework will take about six or seven hours. So at that rate I could go to sleep by......4:30 in the morning.
He felt like slamming his face with the rolling pin.
How had he gotten this far behind?
Oh yeah. Because every time he tried to work all he could think about was her.
And they had gone to a movie on his one night off.
Well it was his own fault.
He grinned. But he'd do it again in a second.
Living. Alive. Alice. Wonderland. I guess I'll write something about Wonderland. But not the one you're thinking of. An entirely different one. Because you see For every little child....even the ones that grow up, there is a Wonderland. Their own personal one. And it is just like how they dreamed it. Because it is their own dream. All the books the read. All the fairytales they've heard. All of the movies they've seen. All thrown in together into my jumbled up head. A head that spits it out into the separate plateau that is our own Wonderland. The only problem is that most of us don't know how to get to Wonderland. Alice was lucky. She let her imagination get away from her....quite literally in fact. Part of her imagination jumped out of her Wonderland and into the real world. In the form. Of a fluffy White Rabbit. She then followed her own imagination back into her world. There are very few people with imaginative power to allow part of it to take form in our shared reality. And allowing others to see it is even more difficult.
Remember all of those children with invisible friends? Children automatically have a stronger imagination than adults. As you grow you learn rules. And rules are the downfall of imagination. How can you imagine something that you have been told could never possibly exist.
And all of those alien sightings? People too powerful but don't realize it.
It's quite difficult at our age to imagine anything at all. Let alone imagining something into our realm. And then even letting it be seen by others.
Now that takes serious power.
And that's where I come in.
There's no one else that can do what I can.
My imagination has no limits.
Which will someday be my downfall. (She goes mad.)
He is not a patient boy.
Feet tapping on the ground.
Fingers ticking out a beat on his knee.
Fidgeting like a mad man.
Flickering eyes that can't stop on anything.
"AGH!" he finally exploded, jumping to his feet, "I can't take it anymore! Where is he? Is he okay?"
The nurse was still a bit shocked and took a moment to compose herself. "Who is the he that you are referring?"
"George Daeydrl. D-a-e-y-d-r-l." said Nes quickly rushing over at the pained impatience she saw on his face.
"Oh. He's in Room 402. Its--it's just down that hallway." she pointed.
Nes nodded, "Thank you." and pulled James down the hallway with her.
He soon moved ahead and started pulling her along into almost a run.
"396. 398. 400. 40-" he stopped.
Nes looked up at him. "Well go on then."
He continued to stare at the closed door.
She sighed and took hold of his hand. He started at the touch only slightly.
"Come on." she murmured. "It's okay to be nervous. But let's go see him, okay? I'm sure it'll back him feel much better."
He nodded and she opened the door, entering first.
In the bed closest to them was an older man reading a book. They smiled politely and he back. The next bed had a white curtain pulled all around it.
"Ge-george?" she called, now a bit nervous herself. But she felt the hand in hers squeeze and Nes knew she needed to be the strong one. "George, sweetie, we've come to see you. But only if you feel ready."
She heard rustling.
"Nes? Is that you?"
"Yes George, it's me and James."
"Come in!" his voice was cheery but weak and cracking.
She tentatively gripped the curtain, before pulling it to the side.
What lay before them was only a wisp of George.
He lay on the bed with casts on his arm and both legs and there were bandages wrapping their way up most of his body.
She took a little intake of breath, "Oh George." she quickly tried to change the subject as James' hand tightened even more. "---Oh George we've missed you!" She sat in the chair next to the bed and tried to reach out to touch him but her hand couldn't find a good place to do so. He suddenly caught her hand in his unbroken one.
"I've missed you all too."
Nes felt the prick of water in her eyes but tried to shake it away, "James has been going completely mad without you."
"Can't live without me, eh man?"
James tsked. "Can't say that I could." he walked closer. "How are you mate?"
"Been better, I s'pose." he tried to manage a laugh but it ended in a grunt of pain.
"Do you need anything?"
"Some less crappy television wouldn't go amiss. Honestly. Soaps and reality television. What is the world coming to."
Nes couldn't help but smile. He was going to be okay, it was going to be okay.
"We're sorry we couldn't get here earlier. But we knew it would be suspicious if we just showed up halfway around the globe."
"How's it cleaning up?"
James spoke up, "Well it's definitely not just going to be shoved under the carpet. No matter what, we're going to have conspiracy theorists up the yin yang. But the real trouble is if the government gets wind of us. You were technically found quite far from the site and the fact that you told them you couldn't remember is going to help us a lot. I can't believe you still had your wits about you." His face became concerned.
"Yeah." George mused, rubbing his thumb on Nes' hand. "It all felt like a dream. I'm pretty sure my body went into shock. It tried to deal with the pain and just couldn't. So it just blocked it out."
James sat on the arm of the chair next to Nes.
--------
She was determined. Just....not determined enough to
actually do it. She lay with her forehead planted firmly on the
desk in front of her and legs splayed out on both sides of the
chair. "Whyyyyyy?" she moaned "I thought this class only had a few
short papers.....not one fifteen page one." She lifted her forehead
a moment only to bring it crashing back down on the desk, hoping to
knock herself unconscious long enough that she wouldn't have to
write this stupid paper. Maybe she could use her selective
withdrawal....but they only got three of those...and she'd been in
the class all semester long. UGH. Seriously. The only way to end
this was to write her paper. She sat suddenly at attention, hands
poised over the keyboard. She stared at the screen. She squinted at
it too. Then her hands suddenly headed towards the lettered
buttons! ajlfjdnxcmlgwb "NOPE." she yelled loudly. Then squinted at
the screen some more. The cursor blinked in and out of existence.
It blinked in and out of time. In and out of spatial awareness. One
second there. The next gone. Blink, blink, blink. It was here and
now it wasn't. Was it ever even there in the first place? That
beautiful little cursor blinking in and out of life. "Fucking
bastard." She tilted the chair back on two legs. What if she could
find someone who would write the paper for her? That was a thriving
business, right? Hell if she got paid she would totally do it too.
Except she wouldn't. Not ever. As she pondered the pros and cons of
a paper writing business the bitchy chair legs decided two wasn't
enough. Plus the floor really missed her. "Shit." No wait. Actually
this was good. Floor. Yes. Paper. No. Roommate walks in to find a
dead girl on the floor. Dead girls or girls in comas don't write
papers. As she contemplated whether or not she could sufficiently
fake a coma her plan was foiled by an evil villain. "What the hell
are you doing on the floor?" "Contemplating comas. Double c's.
Nice." His eyebrows did their afternoon 'crazy girl on the floor'
stretch. "Right. Paper?" "I'm also contemplating death." "Okay
then. Well it's only fifteen pages. Double space. So 7 and a 1/2
right? Notsobad." Her head fell to the side. Then her eyes widened
in a good impression of a death stare. "Bad. Okay. Well I'm off.
Have fun you weirdo." She nodded politely at the closed door and
then steepled her fingers. As she sat in the chair, while it lay on
the floor, her legs crossed, she stroked her beard in thoughtful
recall. "Coma. Yes. I think it's very possible."
"This presenation is going to kill me. Professor do we really have to do this?"
He peered over his pipe, "If you thought that magic school was going to be any easier or less stupid than public school than you have another think coming."
"I'm realizing that." I grumbled, stalking off towards the library.
There was a pageant during the fair.
Many of the girls from school had been talking about it for weeks.
Dieting, dresses, makeup; it had become the talk of the school.
As she wandered around the fair she came across it and saw the girls running too and fro trying to get ready.
"Girls, 15 minutes!" called one of the judges to squeals of panic.
Charlotte sighed and kept walking. There was nothing fun for her at the fair. Groups of people laughing happily seemed to surround her which only served to make her even sadder.
'I wish I had friends.' she thought, moping to herself.
Before she knew it she had walked to the edge of the fairgrounds. Charlotte looked around and saw that it was a cloudless night.
"I'll go see the stars." she said then rolled her eyes, "And now I'm talking to myself."
She headed into the forest, looking for a tree to climb.
"Mmmm too thin.....no, no, no. Oh! There's one!" She ran to a tree farther in, "The branches are a little high." She stretched to reach them and pulled herself up to the first branch. But halfway up the branch she heard a great cracking of branches followed by a loud thump. Charlotte froze, half expecting to find herself on the ground.
"What was that?" she whispered and dropped back to the ground crouching.
It had come from her left and she crept slowly towards the now silent trees.
She pushed herself through the bushes and came out in a clearing.
'Wow. This is really beautiful. You can see the stars.' She looked at the sky in wonder and then turned her gaze to the ground. She gasped. There was a boy laying on the ground with his back to her.
She threw herself back into the bushes, scratching herself in the process, and then peeked through at the boy.
He had a tall, slender build and he was laying half curled up, sideways on the ground. She moved in the bushes to see more of him. 'His hair...' she thought. It was shockingly white and lay tousled, covering his ears. She was overcome by the urge to move closer but shook the idea from her brain and moved around the clearing to look at him from the front. He was so pale, paler than her. And he wasn't wearing a shirt she realized suddenly. Her face grew pink as Charlotte continued to watch from the bushes. But it looked like he was hurt, there was a scrap on his side, most likely caused by his fall. And it looked like something had scratched his face but his hair got in her way.
She moved slowly out of the bushes staring at him intently. There was something about him that made her want to be closer. Want to help him. His face was long and thin with a nose to match, but with a softness to it. His lips were almost as pale as his skin and as Charlotte got closer she saw a thin stream of blood across his face. She knelt on the ground and brushed the hair away from his face. There was a thin cut next to his left eye which made the blood flow across his nose and over his lips. As the hair fell back onto his face she caught it and moved it away, entranced. Suddenly he stirred. She was pulled out of her trance and quickly moved back towards the bushes. A twig snapped beneath her boot and she froze, her eyes darting to his face, where two stormy gray eyes bored into her own.
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