The ROD Playground Chronicles: Boys are Icky
Summary: A decidedly AU tale in which a group of little girls learn the hard way one of Read or Die's greatest lessons.
Disclaimer: It's Kurata's sandbox; I just play here.
Once upon a time, somewhere in the vicinity of last Thursday, there was a school. Within the school, there were desks, binders, loose leaf, textbooks, picture books, pencils, crayons, safety scissors, paste, chalkboards, and any amount of sporting equipment.
But most importantly, there was a playground.
The playground had borne witness over the years to all the laughter and tears of the generations of children crawling over it like ants on a chocolate cake, the heartaches and heartbreaks of the ages stored up within the memory of the great bastion of recess fun.
Or at least, they might have been, had the playground not been indeed quite inanimate, and thus lacking a memory at all.
At any rate, although the playground stood immovable and unheeding of the drama occurring within, around, and beneath its mighty wooden beams, the drama was nevertheless plentiful.
For one unfortunate, unheeding soul, this fact was about to be driven home with painful, unmistakable clarity.
Little Yomiko Readman, long dark hair hanging down her back in one big tangle, glasses sliding perpetually down her nose, aforementioned nose firmly planted in a book, meandered slowly across the field towards the slide to meet her friends. Caught up entirely in the adventures of Spot and his friends, she had no attention to spare for the world around her.
Thus, when the slight, pale, neatly pressed little blond fellow in the sandbox whispered an urgent "Alright, Wendy, go get her!" to his much smaller playmate, all scraped knees and untied shoelaces, it flew entirely over Yomiko's exceedingly preoccupied head.
"Yomiko!" Wendy called in her best facsimile of a scary-voice, the kind that the bad guys used on all her favourite cartoons.
Yomiko continued to wander, veering slightly to the left, without looking up.
"Yomiko!" Wendy called again, quickening her pace.
Yomiko veered slightly to the right, but didn't look up.
"Yomiko!" Wendy called a third time, her bad-guy scary-voice melting into five-year old annoyance, as she caught up to Yomiko and ran around in front of her.
Nevertheless continuing to walk until she collided with this little blonde obstruction, Yomiko looked up, startled.
"Oh! Hi, Wendy. Are you going to come read with us today?"
"No!" Wendy exclaimed, quite affronted that her bad-guy voice had been so grossly misinterpreted. "I don't like you anymore!"
The dark-haired little girl looked horrified.
"But why? I thought we were friends!"
"That was when we were three," Wendy scoffed. "We're five now. An' anyway, I don't want to be friends with a stealer."
"I'm not a stealer!" Yomiko protested, wounded.
"Yes, you are! You stole Joseph's book and took it to the teacher! You're a stealer and a teller!"
Yomiko pushed her glasses back up and regarded her one-time pal very seriously.
"It was a bad book, Wendy. It was full of lots of mean things to say to people. Books should make people smile, and Joseph was using his book to make people cry."
The little blonde wavered. To be sure, she certainly wouldn't have liked to be asked if that was her head or if her neck had thrown up, as he had asked poor Maggie Mui just the other day. Nor would she have been particularly thrilled if Joseph had informed her that it would take two of her to get any uglier, as he had that scary Drake boy, just before said Drake boy had sent him running for cover behind the playground monitor. But that was no reason to start stealing, was it?
"I think stealing is much worse that just saying things," she finally said airily.
"But Wendy, Joseph was really mean!"
"You still stoled his book!"
"He made Nancy cry! He told her that the costumer's called, and they wanted their harpy mask back! Then he said 'Oh, wait, that's your face!'"
Wendy took a long moment to turn this over in her mind.
"What's a harpy?" she finally asked, puzzled.
"I-I don't really know," Yomiko admitted. "But it was mean - you could tell from how he said it! And then he told me to go take a long walk off a short pier! Isn't that horrible? I would fall in the water, an' my book would get all wet!"
"Oh, right!" Wendy chirped, suddenly recalling that she hadn't come over here for the witty repartee. Reaching up underneath her little hooded jumper, she pulled a tiny pink water pistol out of the back of her skirt. "This is for being a teller!"
With these words, she took aim on Yomiko, who shrank back slightly into the collar of her rumpled white blouse and clutched her book protectively.
"You're mean, Wendy! You used to be nice, until you started playing with Joseph!"
"I'm not mean!" Wendy insisted angrily. "You're just a teller!"
This issue cleared up satisfactorily, she proceeded to squeeze frantically at the plastic trigger.
"Don't! You're getting Spot all wet!" Yomiko wailed.
Upon finding Wendy unmoved by the tribulations of Spot, and thus disinclined to obey, Yomiko turned and fled. As the two little girls veered crazily about the playground, she bunched up her sleeve and attempted to wipe away the tiny beads of water forming on the cover of her book.
"Ack!" she noted sadly as she collided with something solid and covered in tweed.
"Oh! Good morning, Yomiko," the elderly fellow greeted warmly, giving her a gentle pat on the head.
"Mr. Gentleman, Wendy squirted me with a water gun!" Yomiko informed the principal tearfully, gripping the bottom of his cardigan in her distress.
Mr. Gentleman's narrow white brows drew together, troubled.
"Oh, she did, did she?" He took a quick look around the playground. "Now, where is she?"
Yomiko peeked over her shoulder and frowned, confused.
"She was behind me a second ago."
As Mr. Gentleman's eyes lit on a little blonde heap on the ground several feet back, he chuckled.
"Ah, there's our culprit."
Wendy squeaked sadly as a strong hand seized the back of her sweater and lifted her to her feet.
"I fell down," she informed no one in particular.
"We'd noticed," Mr. Gentleman said with a smile that verged on a grin. Then his expression became abruptly stern. "And now, what's this I hear about you chasing Yomiko with a water gun?"
"She did," Yomiko reiterated importantly. "She squirted Spot!"
"You know that we don't permit weapons on the playground, even plastic ones," he continued.
"But it's not a weapon," Wendy protested. "It's my squirty! Joseph gave it to me! He said I could keep it forever if I squirted Yomiko!"
Mr. Gentleman nodded thoughtfully, the tiny blonde's sudden descent into random acts of soggy violence making much more sense now that the Carpenter boy's name had come up.
"Ah. So it came from Joseph."
As Wendy nodded sheepishly, clutching her squirty protectively, the elderly principal peered sharply in the direction of the sandbox.
"Joseph, come over here for a moment, will you?"
Climbing carefully out of the sandbox, Joseph hurried over.
"Yes, Mr. Principal?"
Mr. Gentleman tugged the pink plastic water pistol gently out of Wendy's resisting grip.
"Does this look familiar?"
Joseph surveyed the toy closely, and shrugged.
"I've never seen it. I don't buy things that are pink."
Mr. Gentleman's eyes narrowed amid Wendy's horrified you did too! Yomiko sent Joseph a reproachful look, then gave Wendy's hand a brief, comforting squeeze.
"Interesting; Wendy seems to recall you giving this to her, with the condition that she use it on Yomiko."
"Wendy's just silly," the pale-haired boy scoffed. "She thinks there are fairies living inside the taps in the girl's loo, too."
"They do live there!" Wendy insisted. "They tell me stories sometimes!"
Yomiko looked up, interested.
"Can I meet them someday?"
Wendy hesitated.
"Maybe. I'll ask them."
"There are no fairies in the taps!" Joseph said, exasperated.
"How do you know?" Wendy demanded, glaring. "You're not allowed in the girls' loo!"
"There's no such thing as fairies!"
"All right, Joseph, that's enough," Mr. Gentleman interrupted hastily, as Wendy's eyes filled with angry tears. "If you've nothing more to contribute to the mystery of how the water gun came to be on the playground, then run along."
Joseph wasted no time in doing so, although he carefully avoided looking back over his shoulder at the big, sky-blue eyes of his little blonde playmate burning sad, accusing holes in his back.
"And Wendy, we'll see you in detention after school today," the principal continued.
"But that's not fair!" she wailed. "Joseph told me to squirt Yomiko!"
"I don't doubt it," Mr. Gentleman assured her, giving her a pat on the head. "But sometimes in life, we have to make our own decisions."
Wendy looked puzzled.
"I thought I needed a house first."
The elderly fellow hesitated.
"Er, what?"
"Well, my daddy always tells my big brother when he wants tattoos and rings in his nose and things that just as soon as he works his fingers to the bone all day to pay for a house, then he can make his own decisions."
Mr. Gentleman sighed as he took the little girl's hand, preparing to straighten out this slight tangle in logic.
"I knew I should have said nuts to the young minds of tomorrow and gone into global conquest instead."
While Mr. Gentleman pondered the lost opportunities of his youth, across the schoolyard were two tiny girls fully enjoying theirs.
Little Michelle Cheung and little Maggie Mui were swatting joyously away at a big, brown tetherball, their giggles of delight and yelps of dismay filling the air as the ball swung to and fro around the big steel post.
To be sure, this was rather a departure for both of them - doing things other than reading? Certainly bizarre - but Michelle's mommy had been reading to her nightly from a book wherein most of the main characters claimed tetherball as their favourite sport, and with Maggie anxious to borrow the book after and read it with her mommy, the girls decided gravely that actually playing tetherball would do a lot to enhance their understanding of the book.
And so, around and around the metal post the tetherball did fly for several ecstatic minutes.
"Take that!" Michelle cried, punching the ball.
"..." Maggie replied enthusiastically, likewise punching the ball.
With a noise of great effort, Michelle sent the ball whipping towards her Very Best Friend.
With no noise whatsoever, Maggie balled her hand into a fist and pulled back, preparing to end the match.
When, after several seconds, she found herself still preparing, with no ball in sight, she frowned.
"Uh...where's the ball?"
"Oh, no!" Michelle whimpered as a big, hulking shadow fell over the tetherball post.
Maggie looked up, and felt her eyes narrow at the sight of that big, mean sixth-grade bully, Sunny Wong, holding the tetherball far above both girls' heads.
"Give us back our ball," she ordered tersely.
Sunny smirked behind his giant black and grey scarf, and moved to nudge Michelle away from the post with his foot.
"We were here first!" Michelle protested, dodging the older boy's attempts. "The principal said we could play until the bell rang!"
The hulking young fellow replied not in words, instead picking up Michelle by the back of the collar and simply removing her from the tetherball court that way.
"Don't!" the tiny blonde shrieked angrily, fists and feet flying madly, but to no avail. "Stop it!"
Unexpectedly, the young Mr. Wong obeyed, dropping Michelle very abruptly as he became enveloped in a cloud of gravel. Michelle scrambled to her feet, brushing the dust from her pretty pink dress, and yelped delightedly at the sight of Maggie kicking at the gravel and sending it up in sprays at their tormentor.
"Good idea, Maggie!" she congratulated, quickly joining in the fun.
And thus it continued, the gravel flying this way and that, until a dark shadow fell across the impromptu war, and the three combatants looked up with a strong sense of foreboding, into the decidedly annoyed face of the playground monitor.
There was really only one thing to say at a moment like this, and as neither Maggie nor Sunny were big talkers, Michelle found herself the only one left to say it.
"Uh-oh..."
"That wasn't very nice, Joseph," Yomiko was meanwhile informing that same lad reproachfully from the edge of the sandbox. "Wendy got detention because of you! And Mr. Gentleman is giving her a Talk!"
"She got detention because of you," he retorted angrily, carefully looking away from the park bench, where his little pal was being given her Talk. "Now I'll have to walk home alone today, and she'll follow me around looking sad at me until I take her to see the puppies at the pet store again! I hate going to see the puppies!"
"Or maybe she'll stop playing with you and make some real friends that won't get her detention," Yomiko suggested angrily.
"What, like you?" Joseph sneered. "Even Donnie didn't want to be your friend. That's why he went to another school."
Yomiko's eyes filled swiftly with tears.
"That isn't true!" she insisted. "He changed schools because his family moved away!"
"I went to his new school the other day," he said, airily disinterested. "He was playing with lots of new girls, and he likes them all better than you."
"He does not!" Yomiko wailed.
"He does, too," he retorted smugly. "He told me so."
Flesh and blood (and glasses) could bear no more. Every nerve within her small self vibrating with rage, Yomiko shoved Joseph to the ground and ran, sobbing, to the slide.
"Urk!" he observed good-naturedly as he landed, and winced as a shower of dislodged gravel rained down upon him. Gathering his bearings, he moved to stand, and grimaced at the sight of two little girls, one topped in deep purple and one in warm caramel brown, glaring down at him.
"You made Yomiko cry, you meanie-head!" little Nancy Makuhari spat, delivering a sharp kick to left knee.
"You're a jerk!" Nenene added, giving his knee a stomp just for good measure.
Meanwhile, from her perch on Mr. Gentleman's knee as he lectured her on the subtle differences between good and evil and the importance of following one's own internal Jimney Cricket, Wendy watched with horror the manhandling of her pal and supplier of pink squirties, just across the playground.
"Mr. Gentleman! Yomiko pushed Joseph down, and Nancy and Nenene are kicking him!" she broke into his Talk urgently.
Mr. Gentleman sighed as he lifted Wendy from his knee.
"Alright, I'll take care of this. But we'll still expect you immediately after school this afternoon, in detention," he finished sternly. "Now, go play."
The elderly fellow hurried over to the three children, two joyously kicking and stomping, and one attempting vainly to squirm away from the barrage of feet.
"That's enough, ladies, let's give the boy a chance to fight back," he called, nudging the girls away from Joseph.
"Ow," Joseph agreed, rubbing his knee gingerly as he climbed to his feet.
"Now, you know we don't condone this sort of behaviour," Mr. Gentleman continued reproachfully. "I'm surprised at both of you. I'm afraid I'll need to see both of you in detention this afternoon."
"But that's not fair!" Nancy protested.
"We beat him up because he made Yomiko cry!" Nenene added.
Mr. Gentleman sighed, taking Nancy's hand in his left and Nenene's in his right.
"There are better ways to defend the mental state of one's friends than resorting to violence," he told them both sternly. "Let's go have a Talk."
Wendy, recalling her own recent subjection to the horror of the Talk, shuddered. Then, as she noticed Joseph limping away, she hurried after him, hovering anxiously at his elbow.
"Are you okay, Joseph?"
Resisting the urge for a smug smile that all he'd had to do to win his devoted little pal back was endure some light beating, he pulled a long face and prepared to assure her bravely that he would recover in time, if someone would bring him lots of sweets and cookies, but was interrupted by a snort of laughter.
"You got beaten up by a couple of kindergartenters," burly little Drake Anderson chortled on his way past.
"Thanks a lot, Wendy," Joseph scowled at his little playmate, who had ducked behind him at first sight of that big, scary blond boy in his class, as a number of nearby children joined in Drake's amusement.
"You're welcome," she beamed, his sarcasm flying several feet over her head. "I brought another samwich today - would you like some?"
"No! Go away!"
Wendy watched, eyes filling with big, wobbly tears, lip quivering, as he stomped off in the direction of the sandbox.
"But I helped!"
"Some help! Now everyone knows that I got beaten up by girls!"
"You got beat up by girls?" a passing young man, who apparently had not known, snickered.
"See?" Joseph said with a mighty harrumph. "Just go away before you tell anyone else."
Cheeks growing swiftly red with anger, Wendy returned his glare with one twice as fierce.
"Fine! Yomiko was right - you're mean!"
Thus saying, she turned and stomped hurriedly toward one of the school's rarely locked side doors. Sniffling heroically, she looked to the left and the right for a playground monitor, and tugged at the handle.
"Are you going to put bugs in his desk?" At this unexpected question, Wendy gave a little hop of surprise, and somehow contrived to utterly miss the ground upon landing. Glaring up at the source of the question, she climbed to her feet.
"No," she pouted, dashing away an errant tear. "I need to go potty."
Nenene, newly freed from the horror of a Mr. Gentleman Talk and craving to do some damage, grinned.
"Do you want to go put bugs in his desk?"
Wendy regarded her little brown-haired companion warily.
"I thought you didn't like me."
"I just don't like Joseph," Nenene scoffed. "He's a big jerk. I don't really care about you, as long as you don't play with boys anymore."
Quite mollified, Wendy beamed.
"Okay! Have you got any bugs?"
End Notes: So, this is the first chapter of a multi-part story. It was going to be a oneshot, but apparently, it's difficult to give an entire cast their due attention (or even some attention) without the story getting Too Darn Long. Sooooooooo, tune in next time for (hopefully) the conclusion of ROD Playground Chronicles: Boys are Icky!