The New, Beat Up
"Ah, better." Daria sighed as she took off the virtual reality helmet and the video game induced nausea eased in her queasy tummy.
She turned to see Ted, Robert and a couple of Robert's stooges waving their wands and trotting on the arcade's treadmills, all facing different directions. She knew that in the arcade game's virtual reality Ted was pursuing their virtual assailants in a non-representative of medieval life castle land.
"Ted, I'm just going to sit down and read a bit," Daria told his helmet.
She pursed her lips as Ted made no reply beyond, "I have you now, blackguards!"
"Alrighty then," Daria said out loud and to herself as she sat on the blue bench and opened the book she always carried for emergencies like being trapped in a shopping mall while her mother and Quinn tried on endless combinations of outfits.
A half-hour later she closed her book, stood and stretched.
Rubbing her rear she observed, "Wow, this plastic bench is even flatter and harder than my ass."
She stroked her hand over the sky blue bench. "Okay, that explains it. Not plastic. I guess fifty coats of paint can make even concrete look smooth and soft."
A few steps in the direction of the VR consoles restored her circulation. Helmets and wands were dangling haphazardly from the attraction's setup and swinging slowly indicating that the game had been recently abandoned.
"Hmmm, no Ted, Robert or assorted nondescript hangers-on of Robert. Where did they go?"
As Daria approached the attendant he looked up with moderately more interest than he had shown earlier.
"Hi," she said. "Hey, where did my friends go? The guys on the nauseating VR ride? Not that I'm complaining, you know."
"Yeah, I know what you mean. Just between you and me, I almost puked when they had me train on it. Just don't choose Underwater Paradise; that's the worst. Yeah, anyway, they wanted to practice their wrist action to swing the swords or somethin'. I told 'em to take it outside."
"Man after my own tummy. Thanks." Daria started for the front door.
"Hey, boss," The attendant called after her. "I let 'em go out the back emergency door to the alley."
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of a darkened alcove. Daria approached it.
"You mean this door with the sign reading, 'Alarm will sound'?" She asked.
"That's the one. Don't worry, that alarm hasn't worked for years."
"Comforting. Remind me never to start a fire in here unless I head out that exit." Daria pushed the bar and started to swing the heavy door open.
"Hey, it locks behind you, boss. And I'm locking the front door now too. You got everything? Including a ride home?"
"Yeah, thanks." Daria waved in appreciation and stepped out into the alley.
The door clunked shut behind her. She scanned the surprisingly brightly-lit alley empty of any signs of Ted or Robert and entourage.
"Ted, hey, Ted? Are you out here? Hey, I doubt you deserted me. Did you decide to give them tips on hide-and-seek? Ted? All outs in free."
Daria tamped down an uneasy feeling. She had decided to head in the direction of the Dega Street end of the alley when she heard a low moan from the other side of a dumpster smelling of ancient grease.
Giving the grease a wide berth she stepped around it until she saw a huddle of clothes on the pavement. It moved a bit and emitted another low groan.
"TED?"
Daria walked over quickly even as the bundle of clothes crawled into the light. She instantly recognized the soft brown Hush Puppies, khaki pants, light blue shirt and shock of curly blonde hair.
"TED! TED? My god, what happened to you? Where's Robert and friends?"
As she reached down to him, Ted rolled over and she pulled back in shock.
"So this is what it feels like to get beaten up?" Another groan. "I don't think I like it."
Ted sat up giving Daria an even better look at a left eye black and blue and swelling shut rapidly. The blood from his nose dripped off his chin in concert with a smaller stream from a split lip. With the back of his hand, Ted wiped blood off his face. He looked at his reddened hand with curiosity.
Despite her protests, Ted got to his feet. Daria produced a clean cloth from her backpack which he pressed to his nose.
"I guess my gung fu was not superior."
"Ted, oh my god. Let's get you cleaned up before you get some weird infection from the bugs living in that grease."
Ted groaned, laughed, groaned again and said, "Yes, I like you Daria. You're always looking on the bright side and so practical too."
Daria led him to the back door which indeed was locked. She pounded on it and leapt back in surprise as it instantly opened.
"Hey boss. You forget something? Oh, God, what happened to him?"
The suddenly attentive attendant did not wait for an answer. He hustled them inside and glanced up and down the alley before closing the door behind them. A few minutes later he donned plastic gloves; carefully swabbed Ted's face clean and coated it with antiseptic. Daria had to admire that Ted did not even wince from the sting of the smelly unguent.
"They beat you up but good, boss. Well, I've seen worse." He observed as he pulled the gloves off.
"Even so, you know, I think you oughta drop 'em as friends. Hey, I don't think they loosened any teeth but you should really see my mom tomorrow; she's the best dentist in Lawndale. I'll tell Mom to get you in right away."
He fished in his pocket and handed Ted a crumpled business card.
"Thank you, sir." Ted stood and Daria and the attendant walked him to the front door. "I will mention your kind assistance to everyone and recommend this establishment and its attractions. And I'll be back to play Underwater Paradise when I am able."
"Take care of yourself, boss."
Ted brushed away Daria's attempts to help him into the Morgendorffer's high SUV.
"Dammit, why am I worried about him getting blood on the seats? Okay, I guess it's a fair point that I don't want to have Ted or me answering hard questions from Mom and Dad about some dry brown stains on the leather."
"Ted, I'll take you right home. Looks like you've stopped bleeding like a stuck pig. Not that I've seen many stuck pigs. Well, once or twice in Texas when I helped some neighbors butcher. I mean, Ted, are you going to be okay? God, I'm sorry I got you into this."
Ted smiled then winced with the effort. "Daria, it's not your fault. I only, I only."
Ted trailed off and looked out the window as Daria drove up the darkened Dega Street. She was about to ask him what he meant when he spoke up.
"My folks will pull me out of school. Daria, I want to stay in a regular school. I'm learning so much; you introduced me to gum and pizza. I don't want to stop. There's, there's a whole world out there for me to see. I want to see it with you, Daria."
He hung his head low then. Daria had to remind herself to concentrate on the road and not the boy next to her.
"But, Daria, they'll blame you. I can't have that. You're the neatest thing to ever happen to me."
"I am particularly clean and tidy," Daria said drily. "And I hope you continue to think I'm pretty keen come this Monday at school when I pull on my steel-toed boots and see if I can put three football players on the disabled list or whatever they call it before they decide they can forego manly virtues and hit a girl."
Ted chuckled weakly, "Chivalry is not dead."
Daria pulled to a stop between the rows of sweet corn flanking the DeWitt-Clinton driveway.
"Ted," She turned to him but he was getting out already. "Can you make it to the door?"
"Oh yeah, Daria," Ted declared in a stronger voice. "I'm fine. Really, it's nothing to worry about. My dad and I extracted aspirin from red willow bark. I'll take some before bed. Please, I'd rather you just go home."
"Not your fault," Ted added as he closed the SUV's heavy door. The words drove a stake through her heart but she managed to not run into the corn field as she backed out of the driveway and started for her own home.
DM DM DM DM DM
"Quinn," Daria called as she made the virtually unprecedented step of entering Quinn's room without sunglasses to protect against the assault of teen kitsch and pink.
Quinn looked up from playing with a portable computer on her bed.
"Daria, Hey," She said surprisingly friendly. "How did the date go? Did you get flowers and chocolate out of him? Or maybe from the boy-cultist dried Indian corn and prayer beads?"
"He's not a cultist and we're not going out and this is serious and….hey, is that my web page software? You took it out of the shrink wrap?" Daria asked, momentarily distracted by the open box of CDs and the website of pictures of Quinn displaying on Quinn's computer.
"You used my software to make a web page?"
"Easy now, we can deal with that later," Daria reminded herself. "Let's not get distracted from the real outrage."
"Oh Daria, as if." Quinn sighed. "I got one of the cuter mathletes to do it for me. My page already got twenty-five hundred hits in three hours."
"I'll give you three-thousand, I mean, what's the name of that big soft-spoken lout; I mean I know it's 'Robert' but last name and the names of his minions."
Quinn scrunched up her face in thought, "Cummings or is it Lemmings or Johnson or something. Why? Did he finally ask you a question you had no preset opinion on?"
"He and hooligans beat up Ted, pretty bad, well, the guy at the arcade says it's not bad but still and well, it took Robert and two of his thugs to do it, I guess."
Daria slumped in a chair knocking a teddy bear and a big smiling rhino-like plushy to the floor. The silence following her remark matched her mood and she figured Quinn had been shocked by the statement. After the silence stretched on Daria looked up to find Quinn casually scrolling through pics of herself, pausing at what must have been the ones with the most hits.
"Quinn, did you hear me? Ted got beat up, beaten up by Robert and his ruffians."
Quinn paused and looked up with mild interest.
"Yeah, I heard you. So they were fighting over you? Wow, Daria. That's great. You'll be the talk of the football team on Monday."
"They were not fighting over me and I don't want to be," Daria paused realizing her voice was getting louder even if maintaining its low monotone. "I think it was something about Ted being better at virtual swordplay than them. That is all four of them didn't vomit in their helmets like I almost did."
"Oh Daria," Quinn assumed the pose and expression Daria hated, the wiser and more experienced than you look.
"Daria, you're so innocent. Of course they were fighting over you. And don't worry about Ted or something. He's happy about it. If teen boys don't get into at least one fight, well, they, they don't think they'll become men or something."
As Quinn prattled on, Daria stared at her, amazed and horrified.
"Hmmm, this will make Ted all cute and kind of cool at school now too. I bet he and Robert will good friends on Monday. When you two are old and sitting on the porch together this will make a great story to tell all the little grand nieces and nephews you're going to give me. Then again, you better watch out for Stacy; you know, she was making all big puppy dog eyes at Ted the other day until Sandi called her on it."
"We're not dating; we're not getting married and we're not giving you, oh what the f-, Quinn."
Daria stood and snatched the CDs and packaging off Quinn's bed determined to salvage something good of the night.
"Okay, opened, complete and barely used otherwise. I can maybe get ten bucks credit to Cannibal Fragfest at GameYield on Dega Street."
"Oh," Quinn cooed. "I got three thousand hits."
Daria closed the door, turned back to Quinn, clenched her free hand and stepped to an unsuspecting Quinn's bed.
"Really? I can beat that."
Quinn said without looking up, "You don't even have a web page."
"No, but I can hit."
Quinn looked up with sudden realization to see her older sister standing over her with arm cocked.
"Mom! Dad! Help!"
"Dammit," Daria dropped her hand to her side. "F- and dammit and hell."
"I need to talk to Jane tomorrow."
Daria slammed Quinn's door and went to her own room to spend an uneasy time before slipping off to sleep.
DM DM DM DM DM
"Weren't you Gun Moll Morgendorffer in Highland, Texas?" Jane said as she turned off the rerun of Sick, Sad World. She stood and stretched before going over to her painting.
Daria's blood ran a cold at her best friend's comment and the memories it stirred up. Hiding guns and passing them to Earl; watching the two idiots getting beaten up, that had never bothered her before. Truth be told, Ted's injuries were minor compared to those which some the students, boys and girls, sustained on a semi-regular basis in Highland. Maybe Quinn's attitude toward juvenile violence had been set in Texas but, subconsciously at least, Daria had hoped she had a more enlightened attitude.
"God, Jane. I'm, I'm such a hypocrite. But, but this isn't Texas. I'm, we're older now. 'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.'"
Daria cringed as Jane smirked at her. Daria had just mumbled out a quote from a book, yes, a good quote, but hardly answer to the situation. Jane and Trent had unexpectedly been the ones to first use it on her.
"So what do you expect then, Daria? Robert and minions and half the people in Lawndale High are the epitome of the incompetent."
Jane held her brush handle up to contemplate her nearly finished painting.
"You said you all were playing some Holy Grail sword and sorcery game, Daria?"
"They were playing. I immediately got car sick from the virtual reality."
Jane smirked, "Yeah, I remember the near accident during our trip to the mall. You wouldn't make a good fighter pilot, Morgendorffer. Do a barrel roll and you would be heaving in your flight suit."
"There goes my plans to bomb Casa Lane, with you in it." Daria said dryly wondering where Jane's line of questioning was going.
Jane suddenly slashed a few lines of bright blue across her canvas. She sighed in contentment and put her brushes in the new odorless mineral spirits which Daria was glad Trent had bought to replace Jane's old-school turpentine.
"You know," Jane speculated. "I haven't done a fantasy scene for awhile. Maybe, yeah, Ted as King Arthur rescuing fair maiden Daria from the sea serpent. Or from Black Knight Robert and his bully boy vassals."
"Sea Serpent, King Arthur?" Daria scoffed. "Jane, you're mixing eras and fables worse than Kevin. You mean Perseus and Andromeda and…"
She trailed off as she realized why Jane was smirking at her.
"Ted was not rescuing me. He and Robert were not fighting over me. This is not some violent teen-age soap opera. Robert and rowdies couldn't beat Ted in virtual combat so they soothed their egos with real fisticuffs."
"Daria, you called Ted up and he said he's okay, right? No teeth gonna fall out in twenty years? His parents are even going to let him stay in school?"
"Yeah," Daria said. "If they pulled him from Lawndale High, Ted threatened to dive into a vat of steaming maple sap at the next big syrup boil down with uncles and aunts and assorted extended DeWitt's and Clinton's."
"So no harm done, right?" Jane continued. "Look, I bet you twenty simoleons Ted and Robert are all hail-fellow-well-met on Monday."
Daria paused then tightened her lips and nodded, "You're on."
DM DM DM DM DM
Jane smirked as Daria handed over a double-sawbuck at 9:20AM at school. Her smirk softened as she pocketed the Jackson in her red blazer and observed Daria observing Ted, Robert and assorted football players.
"So fellas," Ted said. "We meet at the arcade after school. You bring some gum and we can go over proper sword-fighting posture and arm positions. It's easy, all in the elbow with little wrist action."
Daria's scowl was almost as dark as the shiner on Ted's eye. As Ted and Robert, et. al. swept past them,
Ted smiled at her and greeted her with, "Oh hi, Daria."
Jane loped off to one of the few classes she did not share with Daria. Daria decided to blow off study hall for some quiet roof time.
"Wow, the geek is pretty cool now." Kevin said behind her. "Hey Daria, you should get to know him. Maybe some of that coolness can rub off on you."
Daria sighed and turned to see Kevin and Mac at their lockers.
"Kevin, the only thing I want to rub off right now is everyone's happy faces at this act of teen-age carnage."
Kevin's near perpetual grin dissipated a bit, "Hey, chicks don't understand. Dudes need to rumble sometimes to get the what-do-ya-call-it chipping order worked out. Besides, the geek nearly hurt my passing arm. Right Mac-Daddy?"
"Don't call me that," Mac snapped. "Kevin, don't you have somewhere to go? Like, inspect the new footballs for proper inflation or something?"
"Hey, yeah, I nearly forgot." Kevin ambled off leaving Daria and Mac alone in the hall.
"Ted seems to be the toast of the town," Mac drily observed as Ted led a group of imaginary sword-swinging football players past them.
Daria said, "It all makes me want to go home and toast a few of Dad's martinis."
A few seconds later Ted walked by, this time engaging Jodie Landon in conversation.
"Ted, Let's discuss Langston Hughes later, maybe after third period," Jodie proposed as she paused by Mac and Daria.
"Sure thing, Jodie. And this weekend you and Michael can see my Dad's collection of Georgia sharecropper folk art."
Daria noticed Jodie's forced smile and nod of agreement as Ted strode down the hallway. She also noticed that his injuries seemed significantly better than the bloody mess of his face she remembered from the alley.
"He knows more about African-American literature than I do," Jodie sighed as she opened her locker.
"That's okay," Mac reassured her. "You're still my favorite token."
Jodie grimaced but took Mac's arm and the three teen-agers made their way to study hall.
Daria broke their subdued silence, "So Ted got beaten into the upper ranks of the Lawndale High popularity heap? I'll have to tell Quinn that she has been wasting her time just being cute and talkative."
"I hate school," Mac said simply. "And sometimes I hate every football player in it. Daria, I gotta tell you, I know you did not cause Ted and Robert to fight."
Daria gasped and Jodie looked shocked.
"Is that what people are saying, Mac?" Jodie asked.
Mac hesitated.
"Just tell me, Mac, please," Daria asked. "It can't be any worse than what Quinn and Jane theorized."
"Robert's not the brightest bulb." Mac started. "He wanted to impress you, Daria, by smacking down Ted. When he couldn't do it in that idiot game he and his goons just got mad and jumped Ted in the alley. They were just going to bounce him around a little, Robert said, but Ted can and did fight back. Some 'sneaky Jap moves', is how the dope put it. They weren't expecting that and three on one, no one can beat that."
"So Robert likes me? The caveman likes me and wanted to court me by beating down the perceived competition."
Daria's head was reeling.
"Wait, Quinn brushed him off more than once. She only grants him the honor of sitting at the same lunch table with the Clubbies. Am I, the consolation prize? He can't have Quinn so he goes after the unfashionable sister?"
Jodie put her hand on Daria's arm. Daria took Jodie's hand in hers.
Mac shook his head. "Daria, when you put Quinn in her place by dressing like her, well, Jeffy, Joey and Jamie couldn't stop raving about how foxy you are. I nearly beat the shit out of them in the locker room for what they said they wanted to do to you. The other football dopes were more than interested but, well, you're kind of intimidating."
"Another male champion for poor female Morgendorffer. Well, sure, thanks for defending my honor, Mac."
Jodie and Daria could not miss the irony in Mac's "You're welcome."
Mac frowned as they approached their classroom.
"Hey, ladies, how about we ditch study hall for the unsurpassed view from the roof?"
Minutes later Mac surprised Daria by producing a large square of clean carpet and spreading it for the girls under the shade of the rickety storage shack. He himself stood.
"Chivalry is truly not dead," Daria noted as she sat with Jodie.
Jodie pulled her knees up close and hugged them. Daria stuck her legs out straight, crossed her ankles and leaned back on her hands. The three teen-agers watched the clouds drift over the football field.
"Daria," Jodie broke the silence. "You know, Ted, he's well…"
"Innocent, naïve, wet-behind-the-ears, charming, smart, enthusiastic?" Daria supplied.
"Except the smart bit, most of the things I am not," She said the last with a bitter smirk.
"Well, yeah, I guess," Jodie said. "I mean I don't think Ted even realizes that everybody thinks you guys are, well, an item. I don't think he knows he was supposed to be fighting over you."
"Daria," Mac took it up. "It's probably none of our business but just because half the morons in Lawndale think one thing doesn't mean it's necessarily a bad idea. Don't blame Ted for what some idiots think. I bet in a couple days Ted will be pretty bored with the football gang."
"Mac and I have four tickets," Jodie supplied. "To the Women in Impressionism exhibit this Saturday and well, Ted already said he was interested."
As Jodie trailed off Daria said, "I have heard of these things called double-dates. Usually that means Quinn has two guys at once buying her dinner and stuff but I can see your take on it has some interesting possibilities."
"So you'll come with?" Jodie asked hopefully.
Daria looked over the football field. She considered the handsome boy who smiled and blushed over pizza just as she had blushed at him. She usually gave opportunities only one chance and was not disappointed much when things predictably went south for her. She glanced up at Mac and Jodie now regarding the clouds over the field as well.
"Saturday? I think I can free up my social calendar, Jodie."