The Reunion at Peach Creek
an Ed, Edd n Eddy fanfiction by Sean Mahoney
Prologue
The status quo is a daunting oppressor to those who fall victim to its inescapable power. Those of us who have had to endure the monotony of the same thing day in and day out know how utterly cruel it can be. I can say this rather confidently: my two best friends were victims for years.
As for myself, I am Eddward: Edd for short, though most prefer to refer to me as Double D. Interestingly enough, my two best childhood friends were graced with similar monickers: Ed and Eddy.
I befriended those two years ago; we made quite the trio. As young teenagers, the time when the cursed status quo I mentioned earlier had us in its grasp, we pretty much only had each other. For good reason admittedly; we used attempt to scam our neighbors out of their money in order to purchase succulent jawbreakers for ourselves. Despite my moral misgivings, not even I could resist the allure of those beautiful orbs.
I suppose I was something of the combined voice of reason and morality back in those days; lord knows we needed it. Of course I admit that I could be very overbearing and annoying. It was just in my nature. Not that I like to boast of myself, but I've always been very academically inclined. I usually scored top in the class, certainly the highest of anybody in our little cul-de-sac. Unfortunately that put other people off from me: I was more or less an outcast until I met Ed and Eddy. For all the good that my academic knowledge brought me, I have...and still have...plenty of flaws to make up for it. I'm pathologically afraid of dirt. I've gotten a little better as I have gotten older but as a teenager the mere sight of my possessions...or my person...covered in filth was enough to break me down. I'm also very nervous around members of the opposite gender. It's very difficult for me to talk to girls, let alone attempt to ask them out. I wish I could say I've grown out of that. Either way, my job in our little group (besides the ignored voice of morality) was engineer. My friends would tell me what they wanted to accomplish, and I made it happen using whatever spare parts I could find. I actually brought some of my quirky inventions to my college during my interview. I don't know if they really helped me get in but I like to think they played a role.
If I was the brains, Ed was the brawn of our little group. Taller than most of the others in our class, Ed could be a very imposing sight. Fortunately he has a heart of gold and would never (with the rare occasion of somebody stepping too far out of line or a pebble in the shoe) intentionally hurt somebody. Of course he could very easily hurt somebody with his sheer strength and complete lack of awareness of his environment. His environment is also something worth mentioning. He lived in squalor. Absolute horrifying squalor that he seemed to take a sick pride in. Yes, in many ways Ed was my antithesis: his disgusting habits to my obsessively neat ones, my logical mind to his more unorthodox way of thinking, utter chaos to my order. Yet he was the most loyal person I ever knew.
As for Eddy, our relationship was a complicated one, as he was a very complicated person. He styled himself as leader, which he was able to get away with due to my spineless nature and Ed being oblivious. To most, including myself for the longest time, he was a man driven solely by greed, ambition, and pride. He was the one who pushed us into scamming and drove the wedge between us and the neighborhood kids. My parents would tell me, I'd be better off without him; and there were times where he sunk to such lows that I couldn't help but agree with him. Yet stuck by him I did, as I came to realize without myself or Ed he'd have nobody.
And so it was, the three of us paradoxically trying to be accepted by the neighborhood kids while also trying to scam them out of their money. Some of the kids would seemingly never accept us, such as the rather brutish Kevin or Ed's bratty sister Sarah. Others were relatively neutral to us, until we would make the first move against them: Jonny 2x4 was a boy possibly more out there than Ed, who spent most of his time with a piece of wood with a painted face named Plank. The young Jimmy was also initially just tried to stay out of our way, though after the less stellar influences of Eddy and Sarah, he managed to become a scammer that even Eddy couldn't help but marvel at.
The only two kids in the neighborhood who went out of their way to try and accept us were Nazz, the girl everyone on the block had a thing for. She was beautiful, but kind as well. Unfortunately, there was only so much of our antics she could take and would lash out when we stepped too much out of line. There was also Rolf, a foreign boy, who was enthusiastic about sharing his culture with us. Unfortunately he was very easily offended, and with Ed and Eddy on the job (as well as myself) most of the time we spent with him ended with him administering his homeland's version of justice upon us.
I suppose not everyone hated us though. There were the Kanker Sisters: May, Marie, and Lee. They stalked us, harassed us, molested us, and stole from us throughout our middle school career. To be fair the other neighborhood kids weren't immune from their gaze, but we bared the brunt of it; and to be sure whenever the Kankers came knocking, none of the other kids would ever try and intervene in their assaults on us. Thankfully they were really only around or two summers and a school year or so. They disappeared around when the other kids started accepting us.
It really is quite a story. The three of us had gone too far. We built something...ridiculous. To this day I wasn't sure what we were trying to accomplish, but if anything I was the most culpable as I engineered the damned thing. There was a malfunction which affected the entire cul-de-sac: Rolf, Jonny, Nazz, and Kevin were badly maimed and swore vengeance. They were out for blood and even thirteen years later I think they would have killed us that day.
We ran. Completely left town. The four pursued us and as far as we traveled it seemed they wouldn't stop. Sarah and Jimmy also followed the kids, gleeful at the prospect of us getting pulverized.
The Kankers also learned of our plight and tried to stop the kids in a ploy to get to us. We were utterly surrounded. Eddy however had a solution: we find his brother.
Eddy's Brother had always been something of a legend around the block. Besides Eddy, only Rolf seemed to have any past with him. The way Eddy spoke, his brother was a master prankster who taught Eddy everything he knew. Eddy was positive that his brother would take us in so we set out.
After a long string of misadventures, we arrived at his brother's place. He was working at a theme park a few towns over called Mondo A-Go Go. We arrived at his trailer with the rest of the kids in tow. At first we seemed to have been saved; Eddy's Brother accepted us into his home and make it clear that the other kids weren't welcome.
Then he started beating his brother. It was savage. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. He was massacring his brother. To put it in perspective this man was a least around my age: late twenties, possibly older. Yet he was savagely pummeling his thirteen year old brother and laughing about it. We were all horrified. All of us had assumed his brother was the coolest guy in the world; yet all we saw was a brutal sociopath. Seeing Eddy in that pain caused me to speak out; only for his brother to turn his attention to me. After Eddy's Brother hit me, everything else was a blur, but I do know that the rest of the kids stood up for us and that it was Ed who managed to take his brother down.
When I came to I rushed to Eddy, who had broken down crying. He revealed that he made up everything up about his brother in order to impress people, his brother had been beating him since he was a toddler, and that Eddy saw himself as nothing but a fraud. It was then that all the kids rushed to us; to celebrate us. They realized how difficult it was for Eddy to admit to his horrible past and couldn't blame him for having social issues after living with a terrible man like that his whole childhood. Ed was seen as the hero who stopped such a monster. And myself? They lauded me for my courage. I was the first to stand up to him. I remember specifically Rolf praising my courage and Sarah, who I knew had something of a thing for me back then, hugging me and apologizing for wanted to see me pulverized.
In the distance I remember making eye contact with Marie Kanker, the Kanker sister who specifically targeted me. She smiled. It was odd, for someone as rotten as her, it was the most genuine smile I had seen. Whenever she smiled in the past it was clearly for her own benefit: to unnerve me to to celebrate her victory over me. But this time she was smiling for me. I didn't really think on it much though as we were interrupted by Jonny who was late and didn't see the events with Eddy's Brother unfold. Unfortunately he didn't share the other kids sentiments and attacked us. The other kids defended us, unfortunately over zealously. Jonny never forgave any of us for that to this day. It was a long day though and the rest of us, now solid friends, made our way home. I saw that the Kankers were dragging Eddy's Brother's unconscious body into his trailer. At the time I didn't think much of it. If anyone deserved to get their treatment, it was someone like him. But now that I'm older that never sat well with me. Especially since it was the last time I ever saw a Kanker.
That was fourteen years ago.
We all remained friends (save Jonny unfortunately) as we went into high school. The whole dynamic really changed then. We were accepted. Kevin and Eddy, once fiercest enemies became best friends. Sarah, two years younger than us, would follow us around whenever she could and eventually became one of my closest friends. We got to hang out with Nazz without Kevin insulting us or trying to drive us off. As a side effect though, the bond of the three Eds was weakened. We were still friends, but we all met new friends in high school. With the scams pretty much retired we all had time to pursue other interests. Ed and I remained fairly close since a lot of our more "geeky" interests overlapped, but Eddy was someone who I might hang out with once a week or so rather than every day.
When we graduated, I remember Rolf threw a huge party at his place. It really was something to behold. Unfortunately it wasn't a graduation party. Instead, now that he was of age, Rolf would be leading the cul-de-sac to take a rite of passage journey. He was the son of a shepherd; he needed to prove he was worthy of becoming a full fledged shepherd.
It was a rather sad affair, seeing our friend off like that. He wouldn't say what he would be doing, only that it would be years before he could return.
When Rolf left, it really was the end of an era. Eddy and I stopped hanging out all together. Not out of any animosity or anything, we just didn't have much in common anymore. Ed and I still hung out fairly regularly, and he also saw Eddy on occasion so he would keep me informed. I myself was so busy. I went away to college and all my time was mostly spent on research. I pursued degrees in both biology and engineering. I would see Ed and his sister when I could and kept in touch with some of the others online. I admit I tried to try and reach out to Nazz to meet up for a date or something, but thanks to my rather awkward way of posing the question, it never really happened. Eddy would message me sometimes, and he seemed to be having the time of his life.
As for the Kankers. I did a little research one day. Apparently something had happened after they took Eddy's Brother to the trailer. Eddy's Brother was arrested and the Kanker's mother took the three girls and moved across the state. Eddy didn't know the details; he didn't want to. I couldn't blame him, the less he thought about his brother, the better.
Still, I could never help but feel guilty about what happened that day.