A New Friend
When Carlos and DA met.
Carlos Ramon had moved to Walkerville when he was only two from his father's birthplace of Miami, Florida, and his younger brother, Mikey, was barely a month old, so he considered himself pretty much a full-fledged 'Walkervillian'. He had double claim to it as well, too, because his mother, Elena Ramon - a pretty, reddish-haired woman of French and Columbian descent - was born and bred in Walkerville. Despite this, his 'Walkervillian-ness' was always being challenged by his best friend, Ralphie Tennelli, who considered himself even more 'Walkervillian' despite the fact neither of his parents were from Walkerville. Then again, Carlos and Ralphie pretty much argued about everything when they were in kindergarten. Ralphie Tennelli lived in the same neighbourhood as Carlos did in Walkerville, and he had all those crazy, wacko ideas about things in general and so was a great deal more fun than Arnold Perlstein, his mother's friend's son (rumour had it that Arnold's dad and his mom even used to date back when they were younger - highly unlikely, because Arnold's parents were much older than Carlos' and Arnold was, after all, a late-in-life child, much like his own cousin Janet).
Carlos always thought that in some way, Ralphie was a little sissy, being afraid of unlikely events such as a zombie party or vampires ruling the city and fuelling those fears by reading lots and lots of comic books (just how he could get that many comic books - expensive ones at that too - was a mystery to Carlos, who was secretly jealous). Perhaps it was jealousy - Ralphie was always better liked and everyone said he was much better looking - "A little Italian charmer!" Carlos' mother had said, and Carlos felt a sting of betrayal at that. Carlos would console himself with the idea that Ralphie was too pretty-boy-ish to be handsome (Ralphie looked a lot like his mother, Dr. Tennelli, nee Caroline Levato).
He was reading a book of jokes he 'borrowed' (he would not realize how lame the jokes really were until he used them) from his father (he would never steal from his parents. Never ever. They caught him taking candy once and he was barred from the plentiful amounts of milk and chocolate chip cookies he would have otherwise been able to consume). He wanted to go over to Ralphie's again and play Superman, but Ralphie's granddaddy Levato was not feeling well, and Carlos' mother told him the house had to be kept quiet (and then sighed when Carlos' father told a joke involving shoes, silence and glass houses. Carlos didn't know why; he thought the joke was rather funny, and father and son laughed together). Instead, Martha Perlstein (who was perhaps seven years older than Elena, but used to babysit her during her teenage years, despite being rich, for extra cash) dropped in with her namsy-pansy son, Arnold (okay, maybe not so pansy, because despite his even more cherubic countenance at the tender age of five, he'd managed to pin Carlos to the floor with an iron grip when Carlos dared take one of the rocks he was playing with to observe. However, Carlos, who'd always been as slippery as an eel, had greater endurance than Arnold and managed to run off, leaving Arnold heaving and panting in the distance. Heh. Who was the boss now, Perstein? Although Carlos did manage to make a mental note to lift lots and lots of rocks - he suspected whatever strength the boy formerly known as namsy-pansy Perlstein was due to carrying lots and lots of those rocks).
At any rate, Carlos was quietly returning to the house, making sure to keep out of Arnold Perlstein's way (even though he had a new-found respect for Arnold and actually would like to play with him), when he overheard Mrs. Perlstein saying to his mother, "So, have you heard from Faith Ellen Walker? Her sister, Claudia Joy's back in town, did you know that?"
"You don't say, Martha! She is? I thought she had a great life back in New York? I remember hearing everyone saying she'd travelled so much and was too fine to come back to Walkerville. I know after she got her degree in Alabama, she went to Paris, Milan - everywhere! - before settling down with a fancy inbred New York banker. Richard Slater, or something like that."
"Well, I say, Elena, you don't sound so pleased. I thought you and Claudia Joy were great pals back in high school?"
"Oh, well, I don't know - we were always a little competitive, you remember? And she turned out pretty well: she's living the luxe life and I'm - well, I'm just a dance teacher, and mother to two mischievous little boys."
Mrs. Perlstein glanced sideways across at Carlos' mother. "She has two children too, did you know? Both girls, though. I think the eldest is about Carlos' age, a few months younger, probably. The younger is probably a few years younger than Mikey."
"I wonder why they want to move back," Carlos finally opened his mouth. He finally obtained the courage to say what was on his mind: Why would anyone want to leave New York for Walkerville? Don't get him wrong, he loved Walkerville, but in his child's mind, if you lived in New York, you were rich, and if you were rich, you could get almost anything you wanted for Christmas (right now he wanted a magician's set which was as awesome as it was expensive, and cost almost two hundred bucks. Suffice to say, he doubted he would be getting one anytime soon. His father was a local engineer, and his mother was a dance teacher (which was how he knew Keesha Franklin, who was as cynical and sarcastic as she was unimpressionable, which was a lot, to say the least), neither of which commanded impressive salaries.
"Carlos," his mother said warningly. "What did I tell you about eavesdropping?"
Carlos tried to look perfectly innocent, like Ralphie always did when trying to skip the blame for something horrible he did (case in point: breaking a window with his baseball when he played with Carlos last week. He got of scot-free, to say the least). Unfortunately, he had a different cast of features, and it didn't work, to say the least. His mother threatened him with no desert, and he stalked off, sulkily, to hear Mrs. Perlstein saying, "Poor dear, you shouldn't be so hard on him, even if he's a more mischievous little boy than little boys usually are." Then, the adults continued to talk about something else, when another disconcerting thought occurred to him: Arnold Perlstein would have been able to pull the innocent expression off.
Sometimes it paid to be a pretty boy. Carlos made a mental note to emulate both Ralphie and Arnold.
On Monday, Carlos looked around the kindergarten grounds for Ralphie, but he didn't see Ralphie around anywhere. He grimaced. Ralphie and him always were at school together, and were always absent together. But now, Ralphie's desertion hit Carlos hard. He would be all alone. Well, not quite alone. After all, there was always Arnold Perlstein. Although he was pretty much an introvert, much like Tim Anderson, who seemed to only live to draw, and so would not be any fun (although Carlos had to admit his drawings were amazing - when Miss Willows, their class teacher, showed one of the high school art teacher Tim's paintings, she would not believe the painting was done by a child Tim's age). There was Wanda Li, a great pal of his and Ralphie's (more Ralphie's, because she actually indulged in his ridiculous stories - but then again, she was a wild child), but right now both boys were avoiding her because of the cooties rumour that was going around school. She didn't seem to mind though, because Carlos (and Ralphie, to a lesser extent) was sort of a proxy babysitter for Wanda, because she seemed to be a magnet for trouble, and with the boys avoiding her, she was able to indulge in her penchant for trouble. Keesha Franklin was unimpressionable and aloof and hence he couldn't play with her, because she tended to look down on everyone (especially Ralphie, for some strange, unknown reason). That left Janet Perlstein, who was scary. Enough said. And if that wasn't sufficient reason to avoid her, the cooties rumour kept him at least ten yards away from her (it wasn't such a big problem though, because Janet's parents' situation kept Janet transferring between schools in Walkerville. He wasn't really close to the other school students, so he ignored them like all five year olds who aren't friends with each other unless by mutual convenience would do.
However, he saw a new face today. Earlier in class, Miss Willows had asked a girl he had never seen before to come up in front to introduce herself. She said her name was Dorothy Ann Slater and she was five, and this was her first day in a school (apparently, before this she had been taught by a private tutor, a notion inconceivable to all the school children). She was blonde and rather tanned, and rather conservatively dressed in a green sweater and a pleated skirt. She was pretty, Carlos supposed. Not as pretty as Miss Willows, who was tall and - well, willowy.
Carlos was a naturally inquisitive child, and his childish curiosity led him to observing Dorothy Ann Slater several times that day, and on all occasions, she behaved rather strange - not like a child at all. For one thing, she always seemed to be reading a book, which she took out at regular intervals from a pink book bag. She was serious and smart, and even managed to show Carlos up in Maths, which he had been relatively good at - he even knew his four times table! Not once did she laugh, although she smiled often while reading her book, and she didn't really talk to the other children, unless she was spoken to.
Until now, at least. Because it was now recess, and Dorothy Ann Slater had finally looked up from her book to see Carlos critically observing her, through the natural paradigm a child would have.
"What are you looking at?" She said.
She didn't say it in a hostile manner, as another child (most notably, Wanda Li) would say, nor did she was in a nervous, stuttering manner (as Arnold Perlstein would). She said it tonelessly, as if it were only natural for Carlos to stare. He suspected she was used to other children staring at her.
"I was wondering why you aren't playing around with the others," Carlos forced himself to say.
"I could say the same for you," she said, and closed her book, before putting it in the pink book bag. Carlos realized that not once did he see her without her book bag nearby. At any rate, Carlos was struck by how old she seemed, talking to him like that. She seemed older than she was, when she strung her words together in a sentence in that odd way.
"Why? I would play, but Ralphie's not around. We're best friends."
"Oh," she said. It was simple and toneless, and to the point, but to Carlos, it sounded dismissive, and hence it was very offensive.
"I don't like you," he said.
She looked up, and Carlos realized her eyes were the strangest part of her - an unworldly, ethereal shade of grey. They were very hypnotizing to a little boy who'd never seen that strange shade as an eye colour before. He wondered how it escaped his notice. He hadn't observed her appearance carefully, or he would have noticed the strange shade. He'd assumed they were blue, like Arnold, or maybe green, but never grey.
"Why?"
The simple question threw him off guard. But he managed to come up with an answer: "Because you're boring. You always read books. You never seem to play or explore, like Wanda, and you don't seem to have an imagination, like Ralphie. And you beat me in today's math's quiz."
"But I'm nothing without my books!" Dorothy Ann pouted. The idea that she couldn't survive without books was as inconceivable to her as the idea that life was all about reading books and you couldn't find another source of information for him.
"But books aren't everything! And if you read too much books, you'll end up like Ralphie!" Carlos insisted. Granted, Ralphie read comic books, not science books, like Dorothy Ann seemed to enjoy. But for once, Dorothy Ann was interested.
"Tell me about Ralphie," she asked. Carlos, always happy to be listened to, and enjoying the spotlight of attention he received from Dorothy Ann, related with energy, everything about Ralphie, and all the scrapes that both of them, with Wanda, faced. By the end of Carlos' narrative, Dorothy Ann was giggling into her sleeve. Carlos felt a curious sense of triumph. Finally, he made someone laugh, and it was the most serious person he'd ever known - the serious new girl.
However, Janet spoilt it all. She came over and pronounced the two as having cooties, and the other children avoided Carlos and Dorothy Ann (although neither really minded - Dorothy Ann was used to it, being so studious, Carlos concluded). "Like the bubonic plague," Dorothy Ann said, but Carlos didn't understand. However, he had great enjoyment in challenging Dorothy Ann to different things, such as running around the school grounds and climbing the monkey bars. He discovered Dorothy Ann was of a highly competitive nature, which made it all the more enjoyable when he beat her, although he dreaded the times she won. They didn't fight unless it was about her books: Carlos thought his new friend read too much books for his liking, and giving up her books was something she would not do, even for him. She tried to explain why books were so important, but he refused to listen, and he wouldn't be able to see the importance of books from her point of view until he was in third grade and he found her book bag, which she lost, during one of the craziest field trips he'd ever experienced; nor would she know why Carlos was so keen on experimenting, instead of sitting around reading books like she would.
"How was your day, Carlos?" His mother asked him when he came in. She was preparing beef lasagna, his current favourite dish for dinner, and his father was - strange enough - home early, although his papers were on top of the dining table, full of numbers and letters that no five year old - not even Dorothy Ann - would understand. Mikey was probably asleep in the nursery, like he usually was.
"Ralphie was sick today, but I made a new friend."
"I know, darling. Dr. Tennelli told me. Poor Ralphie's got a terrible fever, and she didn't want him to go to school and get weak or infect any of the other students. But what about your new friend? What's his name?"
"Her name, actually. Her name's Dorothy Ann."
"Her?" Mr. Ramon repeated. A silence, strange even to Carlos' ears, ensued, but it was broken by Mr. Ramon himself. "Dorothy Ann," he continued, before turning to his wide. "Didn't you just tell me that your old friend what's-her-name who invited us for dinner on Saturday had a daughter whose name was Dorothy Ann. It must be the same little girl."
"Yes, I think so," his wife replied, before turning to her son. "So, how do you like her?"
Carlos scrunched up his face as he listed several of his criticisms: "She doesn't know how to play properly. She reads too many books. She leaps at challenges, and she thinks she can do things better than me."
Mr. Ramon shot an amused glance at his wife, who returned the look with a knowing smile, as she placed a plate of hot chocolate chip cookies and delicious warm milk on the dining table in front of him for her son. "So you liked her?" He repeated his wife's question.
"Yeah," Carlos said, shrugging, and he took a cookie, which he savoured. "I think she'd be a nice addition to Ralphie and Wanda and I. Even if she isn't as 'Walkervilian' as Ralphie or I."
Fin
Author's Note: So I'm writing this on the plane home from Iran. It's (well, it's supposed to be C/DA) a friendship fic; one of the few, if any. A theory on how they met. Not much canon referencing - this is strictly from my PC (personal canon, as opposed to my personal computer - okay, okay, I know, lame joke. On with the story)! Enjoy!
References: Mrs. Ramon's appearance - I took the liberty of assuming the lady next to Mr. Ramon in the Musical Instruments episode (red hair, long), was Mrs. Ramon, instead of Mrs. Terese, as some people say. My logic is this: Mr. Terese is shown to be blind in the Bats episode, so if there was a Mrs. Terese, she would be with him, because what wife would let her blind husband go alone to a parent-teacher meeting? Besides, Phoebe (who does not appear in this fic, since this is way before 3rd grade) has always seemed to me a daddy's girl, and I like the idea of a motherless Phoebe. I'm so evil, I know.
Ralphie's grandfather is mentioned briefly (although not by name) in the episode Inside Ralphie. I took him to be Ralphie's maternal grandfather.
The idea of Ralphie having a vivid imagination and reading comic books is not original. In Goes Batty, Ralphie reads too many comic books and believes Ms. Frizzle is a vampire - a ridiculous notion then and now.
One of the craziest field trips that is referrred to is the volcano/island one. It is claimed to be a largely C/DA, although my impartial eyes detect a one-sided R/DA.
Leaping at challenges is a poke at the first episode when they travel out of space for the first time, and Carlos bet's he can jump higher than DA in Mercury (Janet wins, though).
Carlos loving chocolate chips was stolen from my own experience. Me is cookie monster. I still love them.
Bubonic plague plagued Europe during the medieval times. Do your research and you'll find out more about it.