Author's Notes: well, here it is, my latest and final fanfic. It's a one-shot and it's a little short, but just think of it as an average episode of the weekenders. I think that would be about 12 minutes long, so keep that in mind.
Occasion to Dance
Sitting on the curb, dirty water flowing under her legs, something disturbed Tish's peaceful staring just then. It was the hand of a friend, Lor. Lor laid it on her friend's shoulder as a warm gesture of sympathy, but all she got was bone and bra strap.
With girls at that age, you have to expect bony touches.
Tish gave no response.
"Are you okay, Tish?" asked Lor.
"Not really." Tish said.
"What's wrong?"
Tish just groaned slightly. The kind where you don't open your mouth.
"Let's talk about it. Put your head on my shoulder. There, there.
Tish didn't do it, but she began to talk anyway.
"My parents are going back to the old country."
"Aww ,Don't worry. I'll be your mom from now on. Now come inside and wash up, I'll get dinner ready."
"I'm serious Lor. And they're not going back to live there, they'll be gone for two weeks or so."
"Oh. Well don't worry, Tish. You're the most level-headed person I know. I mean, you're practically a grown-up already! You're the boss of us as it is, this will just get you ready to be the boss of your house. You can take of yourself just fine."
Tish gave her the stink eye. "That's not the point, Lor. I wanted to go with them. It's Nono, he's sick. I can't stop thinking, what if he dies and we never get to talk again? I wouldn't even get to say good-bye."
They stared for a while. There wasn't much to see, just some leaves floating by. Sometimes a bug. But the silence was comfortable.
"So why don't you go with them? You're not scared of being in a foreign country are you?"
"N-no! It's because it's finals week and I have a science experiment to turn in and they they can't postpone school because nono's sick and he might die and it was his dying wish that I get straight A's this semester and I don't fly well and and..."
"And so on and so on and so on, it's easy to do..."
"Tell your body what to do.."
"It's up to you now now now..."
Now now now.
They kind of start hugging and dancing.
They kind offall to the grass.
"But seriously, just now, when I touched your shoulder, was that a bra strap?"
Tish blushed, but smiled with pride.
"Yeah. I started wearing one."
"Ah so."
"We should go shopping for new ones sometime."
"Sure. Say, now that I think about it, with your parents gone, we'll be able to spend lots of time together! We might even be able to stay out late."
"I don't think so. They're putting me in a kennel while they're gone. They don't trust me to stay alone quite yet."
"A kennel? Like with dogs?"
"Pretty much. A friend of the family's. I'll be locked up most of the time. I'll spend most of my time playing with their dogs, reading with dogs, eating with dogs." Tish sighed. "It's bad enough I don't get to go with them. Then there's this."
Lor got that
"I think I'm having an idea."
"You mean me staying at your house?"
"Whoa."
"I tried that. Apparently, they don't like the idea of me staying in the house, with all those brothers of yours. It's ridiculous, I know. But try telling them that."
"Damn. Wait, I'm having another idea. But it's gonna take a lot of begging. And a lot of buttering up."
"I know where we can an ottoman!"
"And I know where–wait, what?"
"I mean, tell me your plan first, before we get into all that."
Tino was headed to Tish's house, with pleasant thoughts in his head. They made him want to smile, but he knew if he did smile, he'd feel like an idiot, so he tried his damnedest not so smile and bit his lip. This made him look even more foolish than a fool who walks down the street, smiling at himself.
He would have been better served to save that smile for a later, better situation, when all he would muster would be a stupid gawk.
On that day, all he knew was that they were going to be hanging out, just like any other day. What made Tino giddier than usual was that Tish was still there, in Bahia Bay, while her parents were thousands of miles away, in some goat pen of a country.
He does have a tendency to get over-excited about things, however. Back when he made the move from elementary to middle school, he thought it would be biggest deal in the world. He got a whole new wardrobe for school and he thought it was so cool. Two weeks after his first day, those clothes made their way into his regular rotation of clothes that he wore when we didn't care what he looked like. He though he would meet so many cool new people. His new classes were just like his old, with the same people plus a few new dorks that all had the same name, "new kid."
He promised himself he would stop getting worked up over things beforehand, but that day, on the way to Tish's house, he was at it again. He was thinking what they might be able to do without parental supervision. Nevermind that he didn't have any particular desire to do something his mom wouldn't let him do anyway.
He got to her house and found them both on the couch, just watching TV and tossing back cheese bonkies. It was unacceptable.
"Um, what are you guys doing?" asked Tino.
Lor muttered something that sounded more like a bowel rumbling, which meant: what does it look like we're doing?
"I thought we were gonna hang out? You know, no parents, empty house, wild parties, living it up. What happened to all that?"
"Well, first of all, it's not empty, since my mom will be staying here overnight." said Lor. "And second, eh."
"Oh come on! Funville, the beach, anything! I'm prepared for every occasion." he said, holding up his duffel bag.
He pulled the towel and shorts out of his duffel. They were once his "first day of middle school" classiest shorts. Now he only wore them to swim in salty seas or bleachy pools.
"Fine." the girls said in unison, and trudged towards the room just as apathetically.
"Okay, good. Oh wait." said Tino, but they were already too far to hear. "Are we going to the beach after all or funville? Or somewhere else?"
He didn't get an answer, obviously, so he dashed to Tish's room to get confirmation. He wanted to know if it was alright to change his shorts, so he wouldn't waste precious seconds doing it later.
Tino opened the door to Tish's room, catching them in the middle of their clothes-changing. They were all frozen in the moment, just thoughts in the room.
Lor: Crap. Why didn't we lock the door?
Tish: Crap. How can we still be friends?
Tino: What the hell? Just. What. The hell is this feeling?
Lor gave a nervous chuckle and pushed the door in Tino's face. Still smiling, she turned around and breathed a sigh of relief. They didn't finish changing just yet. Just stared.
"What are you smiling about? He saw us naked!" yelled Tish.
"Oh come on, we aren't naked." said Lor.
lol
"Well, what do you call this!" yelled Tish, flapping her wings about her topless torso.
"Nothing. We have our panties on."
"And our shirts? Not on! Nothing!"
"Nothing is right. Its' not like we have anything to see in that department."
lol
"Still, he saw us naked."
LOL
"And just what are you laughing about?" asked Tish.
"At first, because I didn't want Tino to feel weird. If he felt weird, we'd feel weird forever, then what would happen to our group?"
"To comfort Tino... yeah I guess that was a good idea."
"But then I just realized how ridiculous this all is, and I just had to laugh like hell."
LOL
Tish makes just stares coldly as Lor laughs, then eventually joins in. A hugging pair of Lor and Tish in all their flat-chested, white-pantied glory.
Later, Tish and Lor walked downstairs, only to find Tino gone. They got over it and were ready to go do something together. But Tino was just gone. He wasn't at his house, or anybody's house for that matter.
"Oh well." Tish said. "We'll see him later. For now, we have something else we need to do. Let's go to the mall."
"Huh?" muttered Lor. "What would we need to do at the mall?"
Tino bowed over a burger joint's bathroom's sink, washing his face. Keeping them closed during the soapy parts, something caught his eye as soon as he opened them. It was a spider on the sink, near the spigot.
"Alright, Mr. Spider." said Tino. "Here comes the water."
Tino splashed water at the spider, expecting it to fall right down the drain, but the spider held its grip.
"Good for you, but it doesn't change a thing. You're still going down."
He splashed some more water. The spider actually made it higher, up onto the mirror.
"Alright. I'm leaning forward to finish washing my face. Now, if you can jump from onto my head, I'll let you go. I'll even let you take a bite before I let you go, how about that?"
All Things Soft and Lacy
"Why are we here, Tish?" asked Lor.
"You said we would go bra shopping." she replied.
"I just said that to shut you up. We don't actually need them."
"Well too bad. Now you gotta follow through."
"Why do you want them so bad? I mean, come on."
"That Hello Kitty undershirt you wear at PE ran out of cute back in the fifth grade."
"Maybe I'll switch to Mr. Froggy."
"No. We're getting bras and that's that."
And she literally drags Lor in.
"But you already have one."
"This plain stretchy thing? I'm upgrading to a more sophisticated, lacy model."
"Oh, that really is too much."
"We have to look and feel our best. With enough self-esteem, there's nothing we can't do, as sophisticated women."
"Wait a minute. Is this about your parents being thousand of miles away? Don't let it go to your head."
"Uh. That has nothing to do with it."
"Or does it have something to do with it?"
"Well what do you want to do? Just sit there, wasting all this newly acquired freedom?"
"I don't know. Let's discuss it over lunch."
Good looking out, spider man!
He was still talking to the spider.
"I need to find a mess. An emo with no self-esteem. There are plenty of girls like that, but I need to find the rare one that doesn't have a face like a swollen salami or a tree frog."
"You really wanna bang a girl like that?" said Tino's imaginary spider.
"Well, no, that's not my first choice, but you know. Talking to any girl is good practice. But, uh, even so, if the situation presented itself..."
"Don't mince words."
"Well, what do you think? You think I should hold out for somebody really sexy?"
Ever since he saw his friends semi-naked, he couldn't get girls out of his mind, and he was determined to bag one. That one act couldn't be enough to change Tino so profoundly, so what drove him over the edge?
The short answer was that Tino had a dream. He was convinced was not a dream, even though days passed by in a matter of hours. The same way a movie is pared down from hundreds of hours of footage, Tino's dream was a tightly packed series of the necessary scenes, but he still wasn't convinced it didn't really happen. Ironically, he later thought it would make a good movie. Just like grown people, who think some tragedy or triumph in their simple lives would make a good movie.
What happened in the dream was, Tino left his soaking wet gym shorts in his locker over summer vacation. When the following school year started, Tino's shorts were infested with a strange mold, which somehow brought his shorts to life. Only in a dream could such a convenient timeline take place. After Tino's initial shock, he and the shorts become best friends. They do everything together and soon enough, tragedy strikes. The pair of living shorts is run down while crossing the street, just as they were to treat Tino to pizza. Tino howls in despair and then woke up.
He saw that dream as a wake up call. He suddenly wanted to live every day as though it were his last.
Tino went and sat down next a girl on a bench. It wasn't much of a bench; no back and made of concrete, it's the artsy kind of bench college students like. The girl looked confused.
"Are you a student here or...?" she said.
"Yeah, of course."
"How old are you?"
"I'm 14. You know, I'm one of those child prodigies. I graduated from high school a few months ago and they shipped me here right away. My parents are the forceful type, you know, even though I had to leave my friends behind, they decided this would best for me. They didn't ask me how I felt, I didn't even give my friends a proper goodbye."
He wasn't above playing the pity card. He tried his "cute pitiful" look.
"Aw, that's so terrible." she said, unconvincingly.
She started getting up to leave, Tino got up too.
"So where you headed now?" Tino yelped.
"Psych 251. You?"
"Umm, English, 71."
"71? I thought English classes start with 101?
"Yeah. Heh. I meant 171. I figured the 100 was given since they all start with 100. Heh."
She was immediately creeped out when she caught him lying. She stopped faking her slanted polite smile.
"So you wanna get a bite to eat?"
"I gotta run, the bell already rang!"
"What about after class!" he yelled as she sped away.
Her running drowns out the sound of any words Tino could muster.
And his spider friend whispers in his ear, "there are no bells in college."
"Yeah... There aren't! She was really running..." Tino thinks. "Dammit. How could these girls not want some of this? Every guy in this place is a blithering idiot. High or drunk. Attention span of a roly-poly."
"But at least they don't walk by themselves, talking to themselves."
Thinking deeper.
"Is that really what girls want?" Tino thought. "Dumb guys who hoot and holler at something as simple as beer and bad music?"
"People like dating people their own age, maybe. Ah, forget about her. That's one girl out of 3 billion. Move on." the spider side muses.
"People their own age! That's it! I'll go to the university's day care center! "
"Think harder, Tino."
And he does. Just like that. He wanders a little first, thinking about what he did wrong before and how he'll do right the next time. He stepped into the student union for a while for some video games.
Before he knew it, the sky turned a deep bruise-like purple. He was downed for a second, thinking there would be no more girls around to reject him. But then he realized it was college, so there were always girls around, at all times.
He went down the street to the university village shopping center. A hot spot for social activity after class hours. There was an arcade, fast food, coffee shops, bookstore. Everything idealistic young know-nothings need to get by.
He figured the place was a dive and was all set to leave, until he saw a little group formed. It was a bunch of cool-looking college students swarmed around a young girl in a wheelchair. They look like they were having a good time.
Tino overheard her name. It was Yves.
It's pronounced 'Eve.'
"Being alone's not so bad." Tino thought. "Gives me time to focus on more important things, like... aw, who am I kidding? I'm desperate!"
Tino ran over to them, like he had always been with them. They were all chatting and looking at each other's stupid little knickknacks. Yves brought out a necklace she had made. One of the guys around her thought it would be funny to fling it like a slingshot, into a dumpster. She was so upset and she said why, why, why.
Everybody laughed. Tino figured she was like a freak to them. Phrases that gave him hints:
We only hang out with you because you do our homework.
Oops, sorry, Wheel girl.
Why don't you get it back with your brain?
The crowd dispersed and this girl was alone, just hanging her head and probably crying. Tino was in the dumpster, looking for the necklace that was tossed.
When he found it, he walked to her and held it out. She took it and thanked him. They introduced themselves with shocking normality.
"I knew." she said. "I knew they weren't really my friends. But I lied to myself anyway."
"Are you really a student at the college?"
"Yeah."
"How old are you?"
"Twelve."
"Oh. Me too."
"Do you go this school? No, I just. I like hanging around here."
"Oh. You're lucky. You get to be in school with kids your own age."
"So why don't you do it too?"
"I'm a child genius, as they say. I graduated from high school a few months ago and they shipped me here right away. My parents made me come, even though I had to leave my friends behind, they made me come. They didn't ask me how I felt, they just made me leave everything behind, just like that."
"Wow."
"Yeah, and I got the trifecta of being in a wheelchair, along with being too young and too smart."
"Why is that?"
They were talking at this point. Tino offered to push her, but she declined. It made her feel helpless.
"My legs don't work right. The muscles are weak and the bones are brittle. So my legs bruise easily and if I ever fell, they would surely break. Even the slightest bumps there really hurt."
"So... do they give any kind of pills for the pain?"
She stopped dead in mid-push. She let her hands dangle past the bar to her still-rolling wheels, rubbing dirt on her hands. She looked at the floor in quiet disappointment.
"Why did you stop?"
She was trying hard not to cry. Her eyes were on fire.
"Hey, hey, are you okay? What's wrong?"
Stupid question followed by stupid question.
"Is that what you want? Pills?"
After fighting back tears most of her life, she had gotten pretty good at it.
"Pills? No, hey, I was just asking. You know, just trying to make conversation."
She rubbed her eyes.
"Jeez, I knew I was bad at this, but I didn't think I'd do this."
She finally looked up. Her eyes were mostly clear again.
"People always try to use me for something–"
"–don't... assume the worst, Yves. I just wanted to get to know you."
"I'm sorry Tino. I guess I really do just assume the worst."
His sympathy was suddenly killed by a flash of idea. A perfect chance to cop a feel. It was Tino's spider, telling him what he couldn't tell himself.
He put him hand on her shoulder, kind of on her back, kind of on her neck.
"I understand, it's okay. It's hard for me to trust new people too, but I'm glad I met you." said Tino, his hand now kind of moving, kind of massaging.
"Thanks Tino."
With those words, Tino suddenly though of going in for a kiss, and just as suddenly, he was terrified. He immediately dashed behind her and started her wheelchair in motion.
The rest of night was not worth mentioning, they talked and talked, and Yves gave Tino her phone number.
As soon as Tino got out her sight, he tossed Yves's number.
Tish and Lor headed to their old standby that day, the pizza place. The theme that week was Disneyland Pizza.
"Oh god. It's full of little kids." said Lor. "I can't go in there."
"There's Japanese people in there too."
"And teenagers making believe they aren't wasting their youth."
"And a small soda costs seven dollars."
"You're right. Let's find another place to eat."
They ended up at another pizzeria, but it was already dark, so they had dinner there.
Carver's Pizza Italiano.
It was such a relaxing place, Tish took a little time to write and Lor looked so damned relax, Tish didn't dare say a word to her. So they had their pizza in silence. It was much better than any other pizza they had ever had. Tish kept scratching away in her notebook.
"No!" Tish howled with agony. She collapsed into her notebook.
"What's wrong" Lor asked.
"I wrote an apostrophe in My parents went back to the old country. It was just a reflex from writing the s, but now it's there for good! Of course I caught it as soon as I wrote it, but it's there for good! And it's not like when you type, because you can just press backspace. But when you write it it's just so bad, especially in pen! It's just there for good, and it's wrong, and it makes me wanna just die!"
Just when Lor thought she had Tish and her quirks all figured out, this happened. Lor just sat there, unblinking, while Tish collapsed in real pain. Lor picked up Tish, tossing her over her shoulder and carried her outside. They sat on the stoop outside the pizza place until Tish composed herself.
"Carver's Pizza Italiano. That's funny huh? Carver doesn't sound like an Italian name at all." said Lor.
"Speaking of which, where has Carver been lately?"
"Don't know. But it must have something to do with what happened to him at school."
"Something happened?"
"You mean you didn't know? I thought everyone at school knew."
It was too late to save face. Tish defaulted to honesty.
"No, what happened?"
"Well, what happened was, Carver kept following people into the bathroom. Even in class, he would excuse himself to the bathroom right after anybody else did the same. And he would always be the last one to leave the bathroom, so nobody knew what he was doing in there. Until one day, somebody followed him Carver into the bathroom, only this time they snuck in really quietly and caught him by surprise."
"What was he doing?"
"He was sniffing the floaters left behind in the bowl!"
"He went in there to sniff poop?"
"Yeah. They caught him red-handed. He was really taking deep sniffs. Within hours the entire school knew about it. Except you of course, you were probably in the library."
"That is some story. I wouldn't show my face either, if that had been me. I suppose we should help him out, or at least cheer him up."
"I hear he's getting professional help."
"Well, it's for the best. Still, wow."
Tish and Lor were still sitting in front of Carver's Pizza Italiano, when Tino showed up. He sat down with them.
How did he know where they were?
"Hey Tino, how's it going?" asked Lor.
"Not so great." said Tino.
"Are you still embarrassed about what happened earlier?"
"No, I had forgotten all about that. It's just. Bad day at the office, you know.."
"Well, no I don't know what you mean."
"..."
"Well, whatever it is, sigh no more. We're still just kids, after all. We can worry about that, about anything, later. For now, let's just be kids."
Tish didn't say anything to that. But she was really thinking about it.
Well, there you have it. Don't forget to review! And I was just kidding about this being my last fic. You can't get rid of me that easily!