"Like cheerleaders. Can't people just cheer on their own? Like to themselves?" ~ Angela Chase MSCL
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I skate to school early today as is my habit of late, so as to get to May first in the morning. Sliding down the slick tile hallway on my skateboard to the end of the H hall where May's locker is at. But no May today? So I keep rolling on to my next spot next to the homeroom locker wall and post up to await my fate.
My next slight surprise comes when Butchy's translator Boomer rolls past and gives me a chin check on the way in. So I chin check him back, cause apparently, we are now "the enemy of my enemy" friends now? Especially, after the last round of fun in Study Buddies with Butcher and the underwear swimming Sharks.
By the first warning bell, May still has not made her regularly scheduled morning appearance. It's not a huge shock, as May has missed homeroom before on more than one occasion for a variety of reasons.
Maybe she just late again because of another last-minute wardrobe malfunction with Someone's Sister? Or maybe she caught a cold last night and just decided to take the day off and stay home? Or did she fall and get hurt again? Or worse a car accident on the way to school? This last dread thought sends a shiver up my spine.
After homeroom I check May's Numbers learning class to no avail. But I do run into Butchy and the boys headbanging in for Trainspotting time with substitute Coach O'Something. So after I knuckle bump the monster good morning, I ask him if he will keep an eye out for May if she shows. Butchy merely grunts at me with his usual unhappy morning monster scowl and we part ways until the second period with Or'sir.
In English Or'sir finally, decides to some actual teaching. Taking a page from His Story Striker, he shoves in a DVD of not new cool Romeo and Juliette, but the weird old one with all the boobs. The only upside of this is that Butchy might actually pay attention after I tell him about the morning after scene.
By the middle of the movie, I decide to opt-out of another stupid teen suicide pact and flash my Gigolo pass. I take a chance and cruise over to May's history class with Striker ...but alas no May. I take a cue from Striker and leave May a short droning voicemail. Just on the off chance she'll hear my ringtone and call me back. But no such luck is to be had.
By P.E. pool time with the ever absent Brad Weston, lifeguard-at-large, who is now apparently large and in charge of Gym class. Oddly enough Brad is not so bad at teachering up the young men of tomorrow. With his usual lackadaisical lack of care and concern, Brad just flip-flops around like he is walking the old bikini rotunda at the plunge.
Upside Brad doesn't really seem to care one way or another when anyone rolls in or out of class. Half the time he doesn't even ask the freshmeat why they were late. So we are all pretty sure that Brad might not even know he's allowed to write detentions before noon. To Brad's chillax credit he just smiles and nods along a lot when anybody has an excuse to leave early. Spork has pulled his fake groin injury card about every other day so far.
By the end of my time in the water, I know that my fears are getting the best of me. With a sudden chill I know I need to deal directly with possibly the second-worst person I know in Hell so far ...April's Fool.
After our last bad day run-in on Slapstick day outside the library, I am really not looking forward to having to try to be nice again. So I roll out of Gym early, expecting to eat alone for the first time since I started school. Out of habit, I head to my grim spot on Devil May Care Island, where I am surprised to see I have a familiar and unwanted guest for lunch.
"Where is May? Is she okay?" I stand slightly rocking waiting for the troubles to renew.
"Hmmm." The beast purses her lips and I can see a multitude of answers being calculated behind her crafty lupine eyes. "She's fine as far as I know."
"She just went in for a chick check up..." April snorts. "You know because now that you are trying to bone my blind sister on the regular now? So she suddenly cares about getting her chick checkups."
"Okay, thanks for letting me know that?" I reply slowly, and now this has turned into the most painful conversation I have ever endured with the beast to date. "So other than the insult ...is she actually okay or what?"
"Not really." April roll's her eyes over at my uncomfortableness. "Okay fine, the truth is daddy wanted to take her to the doctor's to have her leg looked at again. It's no biggie, just like a follow-up thing to prove my mothers not trying to kill her with kindness again. As if."
"Okay." For some stupid reason, I feel a sense of short-lived relief.
"So anyways, I thought we could use this time to have a little chick chat of our own?" She knifes her sharp eyebrow up at me, and suddenly I feel like all the happiness in the world just died a little.
"Why?" I side-eye her suspiciously. "What in particular do you want to chick-chat about?"
"Oh you know ...now that you're banging my blind sister sideways? So I thought that we could have ...like a bonding session? Where we could braid each other's hair and bare our souls to each other. Share all our hopes and dreams, and then become cosmically connected by a mutual love for all things flocking stupid, Slapstick." Aprils rolls her eyes over exaggeratedly.
"Obveeously..." She draws out her words mocking me. "...we talk about my sister."
Since the Secret Bathroom detente, April and I have been forced into a demonic pact together against our wills. But now without May in the middle to referee our ongoing mutual loathing society? It seems the level of ambivalence and irritation that we both clearly have for the other is already rising for another round of fun.
But I can also see that I am not the only one in pain from this forced moment. And we did agree to a detente after all? So flock it why the hell not?
"Okay, why not?" I sit as physically far away from the monster as possible without being completely rude. Having lunch with a pit viper is a study in caution. "So what about her?"
"So May say's you're pretty damn decent kisser? She told me all about how you were a very considerate as a lover." April smiles slices slyly, clearly bemused in my discomfort with the direction chick chat is taking.
While I am somewhat surprised by this statement, yet somehow not surprised May has confided anything in the demon. After all, this is the same girl that almost admitted that maybe she might have been wrong about something that one time?
"So anyways, I was thinking that if it's cool with everyone, maybe we could try do a threesome thing sometime?" April nibbles her lower lip seductively and shifts forward ever so slightly. "I mean you know that May and I are closer than most sisters ...so we kinda share everything?"
"And let's you and me be honest here for a minute? We've always had this ...strange tension between us? Even that first time on the bleachers this summer, there was just something there. And well... May and I have talked about it, and I think it might be fun to try at least once?" April is now seductively rolling the tip of her carrot stick across her lips implying something more. "But just so long as we keep it our little secret, and no one ever finds out. So you D-T-F ...or what?"
"Are you out of your blazing mind, you freaking psycho?" I hiss through clenched teeth. "I am with you sister solely. End of flocking story."
"As if." April snorts, and takes an emasculating crunch off the top of the carrot. "Omigawd, you should see your face right now, Slapstick? You look like you're about to have a freaking aneurysm."
"I seriously dislike you sometimes." I shake my head in disgust at the vile creature I have been forced to deal with.
"Yeah, I know." She shrugs off the insult and presses on. "Oh, and totally trust that the feeling is sofa king mutual."
"But you are sexing up on my sister on the regular, at least according to her anyways. So I thought I'd just run a little loyalty check past you to make sure. And yay you ...you passed my little loyalty test." She flicks her sarcastic jazz hands at me. Which I didn't even know jazz hands could be used sarcastic until I met May's Sinister Sister.
"So tell me something, Slappy?" She hoods her eyes like a cobra, poised to strike.
"No." I cut her off coldly.
Which only seems to amuse her slightly more than she is already. Because April is not the kind of girl who is used to hearing this "No" word very often. Which means of course, she ignores my answer and moves right towards where she wants to be ...sickened, broken and confused. The eternal antagonist takes a moment to collect her irritations before unleashing them on me.
"Actually, what I really want is a straight answer from you for once. No boy bullshit, no rhyming retard insipid nonsense, or crazy whatever that shit is that supposably passes for conversation in your head. Just the real deal."
"So like why are you really into my sister?" She levels her scathing stare at me. "You know other than the fact that she let's you have your way with her on the regular?"
"May's cool, what's not to like?" I ignore the intentional insult and eye April hard willing her to get gone.
After several heartbeats, I can unfortunately see that more words are going to be necessary in order to make her go away. So just because she had to say the wrong thing to me? I find myself actually wanting to answer the question now. Probably because I am getting seriously sick of her throwing bones at me. And sometimes the truth can really hurt more than anything else.
"Because she's ten times better than you." I smile coldly, cutting coldly into her faux persona.
"She's a better person than you or I will ever be. She is better than all of you flocks combined ...twice over." I wave out to the flocks of San Fall. "The only real person in this whole pitiful place full of plastic clones and living mannequins, just like you. Because all the rest of you are just in black and white, and she's the only one living in color."
I watch April wince away like she's been struck stupid. Because deep down she knows everything I just said is the absolute truth. About her, and everyone else here in Hell on the Hill.
"And if anybody bothered to look past the one obvious thing about her? They'd see that she is way more than that one missing piece of the puzzle. That she is extraordinarily ordinary ...and there is nothing special about her at all? Other than how cool she is?"
"I mean how else could she put up with someone so obviously flawed, for so long ...and still smile about it?" I smirk and shake my head at April's Fool. "And she keeps trying to make them feel like a real person?"
The funny thing is that I am not quite sure which one of us I am talking about at the moment. But April being April of course, takes this to mean her. Because after all she's a center of the universe sort of girl. As in she is obviously the center of her own universe ...and a cheerleader gawddammit!!!
"But to be brutally blunt with you, the better question ...the one I ask myself constantly? Isn't why I like her? But what the hell she sees in me? You know, other than the whole obvious not see anything thing she rocks on the regular." I glare away. "So if you ever figure that one out, you let me know? Cause that might actually be worth the pain of all this..." I wave her away. "...whatever the hell this is."
"Seriously." April hisses under her breath sotto voce.
"Now, can I ask you a question?" I push back on the attack.
"Why not." April shrugs.
"Why do you really hate me so much? And I don't mean after our little slapstick fight that day outside the Library?" I eye her cold. "I mean even before that, all the way back to the Annex bleachers that day? I always knew you had a problem with me for some reason. And for the life of me, I can't quite seem to gauge it. Other than the obvious ...of course."
"First, you tell me something." She snaps back quick as a snake. "Why do you even care what I think?"
"I don't actually, but May does." I shrug back. "So I figure it might be worth knowing this once."
I watch April sort through what I assume are multiple layers of her several personalities to get to a truth. She rolls her little head around once, so I prepare for the whip crack snap of her flying guillotine blonde ponytail of death, to try to separate my head from my shoulders.
"The truth?" She finally nods nonce. "I knew my sister liked you from day one, and that was enough to hate you for. And yeah, I know how that must sound? All pretty petty jealous or whatever? But that's not it."
"I guess you already know most of this shit already from May, or so I've heard. So it's not exactly a big super secret or anything." April blows her razor-sharp bangs out of her eyes.
"Before I ever got to high school I had it all. I had my first crush ...and got crushed. First kisses, first heartbreak, pretty much first everythings. I've liked boys, and I've had boys like me back." She shrugs this thought off to irrelevancy where it belongs. "I've had guys like me, that I wanted nothing to do with. And I've liked guys who wanted nothing to with me."
"But May's never had anything like that ...never ever." She intones in her insipid cheery cadance.
"So when I realized that she actually liked you? And worse yet, it looked like you liked her back? That scared the shit out of me, okay?" She admits bluntly. "Because I took one look at you and I pretty much figure you for a heartless, soulless bastard since the day I met you that summer."
"That you could crush her like a bug without a second thought if you wanted to. And I know for a fact, that there is something seriously wrong with you..." She taps her empty head twice to emphasize the hollowness. "...up here where it counts."
"That you are sofa king broken in there and it shows, if you know where to look." She smirks savagely. "So sadly for both of us, I know exactly where to look for broken shit."
"But May'may?" She sighs and slowly shakes her ponytail from side to side. "Irregardless of all the bullshit she's been through, and all that gloom and doom my sister rocks on the regular? Somehow my sister still only sees the good in people." April snorts. "Well, except that May doesn't actually see shit ...obvee'ously."
"Obviously." I drone dryly.
Yeah okay, I did not see that truth coming.
"All that and she stupidly thinks she likes you, like that?" April's eyes turn into frost as she tries to freeze my face off. "As if."
"Yeah well, I guess we're both stupid then." I shrug her hoarfrost scathing stare away. "Cause I kind of like her right back."
"An oddly decent answer for once." I watch April hesitate before grudgingly accepting the truth of this. "For my sister's sake, I just hope that's true."
"It is." I intone.
"Easy to say, hard to prove dude." April shifts tactics and starts down a new direction of attack.
"You know I asked about you on the sly here and there like you knew I would. But nothing on the vine came back ...until of all people Butchy warned me off asking about you. That I should stop putting out feelers on that little Surfer D.
"Because, and I quote "That Surfer D kid scares the shit out of me. Not in way being The Butcher scares me way? But in a whole 'nother way, I've never seen before. Like the way, you see a pretty unicorn scorpion with new freaky colors while you're on acid way."
"Like you can look...but don't ever touch. Cause if you touch it and it stings you? Yeah, that could be the worst sting of your life...and you'll never see it coming. Cause that surfer dude guy, he's not a San Fall spider. He's one of those dangerous exotic Tijuana rainbow unicorn scorpion spiders that you've never heard of before. The ones they don't let you bring back through the airport and shit. Flocking rainbow unicorn scorpion spiders are the worst!"
"Huh, butchering words." I shrug off the Butcher's scary insight on all things rainbow unicorn scorpion spiders.
"But the day you went off on me outside the library, about being a selfish bitch? I realized something." April frowns down at her watch. "I suppose even scorpions can care about someone more than themselves. So who knew?"
I don't really know what to say to this particular bit of wisdom? So I counter her with the only thing I have.
"So what about you and Butcher ...that seems super healthy?" I inquire almost sincerely.
"No shit." April snorts in agreement.
Then to my surprise, she actually bursts out laughing at this insult. Like it's a compliment instead of an indictment of her inane stupidity. Clawing her way up high society while cultivating a pet psychopath on the sly. One who I am almost positive had a claw in sending The Butcher my way at Da Frost that many yesterdays ago.
"Well, at least he's got a life?" She smirks sarcastically. "Which is a hella lot more than I can say for you there, Slapstick."
"This is true." I can't honestly disagree with her assessment of my so-called life in San Fall.
What's strange is that me and Butcher are almost sorta, kinda on good enough terms to call slightly better than acquaintances. Maybe more like estranged brothers in law? And after all, he did show up uninvited to my last Satan gang fight with the underwear swimming bullies? So that counts for something, I suppose?
"So May told me you're leaving after Christmas." April smiles almost sincerely, which by the looks of it must have really hurt her.
"Nothing is set in stone yet ...but yeah, maybe." I nod cautiously.
"Then I suggest you make this the best Christmas ever, for my sister's sake." She sniffs hauteur. "But if you break my sister's heart I will..."
"...flocking kill me?" I finish the tired threat for her. "Yeah, I like to think that I supposably got that speech already outside the Other library. Like rememeberz that once time, many yesterday's ago?"
"No point in being an Evil Super Bitch, if I can't use my powers for good sometimes." Someone's Sister shrugs me off. "At least for May's sake, anyways."
"This is true." I concede to her point. "I guess we could both stand to be a little more ...whatever."
"Soever." April rolls her eyes and stands up and with a whip crack snap of her super sharp ponytail she evaporates into a cloud of evil smoke and is long gone. Leaving me alone with my thoughts, and the one thought that keeps resonating in my head ...Christmas is coming.
Backside Note :
What can I say about April Raine Grimm that is utterly and brutally truthful? On the outside, she is the complete package. She is cute, bordering on beautiful. Perfectly proportionate, with the lithe physique of the classically trained ballerina, slender slim, and gracile. She comes off as an energetic, sparkling, scintillating, wholesome all-American girl. But that's only the outside masque she's carefully cultivated ...because on the inside of that very pretty package lives one hell of a vicious conniving demoness.
For behind the youthful exuberance and shiny smiles, her furtive raptor eyes give away the social-climbing cunning predator, that resides in her dark heart. A she-demon so self-absorbed, petty, needy, greedy. But above all, so selfish to its core, that it will do whatever cruelty it feels necessary to do to get whatever it wants, whenever it wants it. Lie, cheat, steal, backstab and/or sacrifice unborn babies to Satan. Whatever it takes to make it to the top of the Triangle, and rule the roost.
To date, the demon known as April Raine Grimm has only one glaring weakness that I have ever witnessed ...and that is her sister. Because for whatever reason, the monster that lives inside April Raine Grimm actually seems to be a decent sister, albeit in her own twisted way. Which is the most truthful and brutally honest assessment of Someone's Sinister Sister that I can make.
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