Victor F: Reanimator
(A Horrid Fan Fic of a Cherished Feature)
Written by: Janice Ghost Hunter
Chapter Two:
The Return to School
The following day, Victor woke up in chipper spirits and was ready to tackle on the morning head on. Things were certainly looking on the up and up between Edgar and himself, so rather jovially, he got dressed and ran downstairs. With Sparky at his side, they seemed an unstoppable force.
"Hey, Mom!" he nearly shouted in his enthusiasm.
"Well, hello sweetie! We've got bacon and eggs this morning" Victor's mother said in an almost sing song sort of way as she made up his plate.
"What you got planned today, sport?" asked his father peeping at him from behind a newspaper. There was a certain malformed animal depicted on the front cover of the newspaper with the body of a black and grey cat with long fangs and bat wings. The words at the top of the paper read 'Vampire Cat: More Myth than Reality'.
"Oh, nothing much, Dad. Some of the other kids from the school will be coming back today. Also, Edgar and I will probably be doing something after school, so I might be late again today", said Victor plowing his fork into the breakfast his mother just put down for him.
Victor's parents looked at one another with a sort of relieved smile. They had been discussing for a while now how Victor hadn't a friend in the world besides his dog, Sparky. Even if it was that little abomination that ditched Victor's mother after asking for a cookie last time he was over. Yes, one weird friend is better than no friends at all they figured.
"Well, sport, I hope you have fun with your friend." Victor's father snapped the newspaper, returning his attention to that instead. Sparky looked up at Victor with those lovable round eyes and whimpered for whatever handouts his pleas would get him. Victor obliged, tossing down a piece of crispy bacon over his shoulder while keeping an eye on his mother, who condoned such actions. The dog quickly snapped up the bit of fried meat with great gusto.
After arriving at school, Victor quickly located Elsa where she usually sat in the yard, just behind the monkey bars on a small brick fence segregating a small vegetable garden the students were growing for a home economics class. He hadn't noticed before, but the pigtails she faithfully wore every morning looked great with the rest of her look. He smiled and walked towards her with a certain spring to his step. One thing he noticed next was that Edgar was nowhere to be seen. Within a few minutes the first bell had rung and Edgar was still nowhere to be seen. Victor's heart sunk a little.
As usual, Victor and Elsa where the first in their class followed by a few other students chattering about whatever trivial things that happened just five minutes before in the schoolyard. Of course, the entire class was looking out for three students who absent before now and were due to be arriving at any moment. Victor hoped that Edgar was just going to be late again as he often was.
It wasn't a long wait for the first of the expected group of former absentees began to arrive. In came Toshiaki with Bob at his side surrounded by a small group of students asking him a slew of questions.
"Whoa, so you really tried to banish the giant turtle all by yourself?" asked a student who was totally entranced by the story that Toshiaki was laying down.
"Yes! I was ready for a-anything that monster was going to do." Toshiaki said in the most proud of voices with the hint of think Asian accent that came with it. Bob of course was totally enthralled in the story as well.
"That's amazing!" Bob said with an equally excited tone.
Though Bob had been a key part of the whole debacle with the attack of the mutant pets, he did not see Toshiaki's trial with the giant turtle firsthand, so this was all new information to him. Bob wasn't normally the gullible type in all reality though he looked that part, but when Toshiaki was involved his loyalty had always shown though for his best friend. As Victor listened to Toshiaki, he figured that this was a sort of coping mechanism that Toshiaki was performing to help him cope as it was obviously painful for him to lose his turtle in that way. Maybe just thinking of the turtle as a monster to be banished was what he had to do to make it a little less painful that that was his beloved pet tortoise that was wreaking havoc on the town and ultimately died in the end. Elsa just looked at Victor and rolled her eyes. He couldn't help but give a slight chuckle, but his attention drew quickly towards the door to await for Edgar to turn up.
The next of the expected students arrived. Nassor, looking particularly annoyed today walked in with heavy steps. Though Nassor kept his intent eyes forward and was walking quicker than usual, Victor could see he was being trailed by a few of the braver students who looked to be more poking fun at the lurching student than asking excited questions like the others were doing with Toshiaki. Most of the kids respected Nassor's space as he was more than just a little bit intimidating, but there are always the more idiotic kind of students who always dared a little too much.
"Hey, did you hear guys? Nassor put his hamster against that giant turtle! What were you thinking, man? That monster massacred your pet!" mocked a shrill voiced boy who wore a red hat.
"Ha ha! It was a Nassacre guys! Get it? Nass-acre!" bellowed his beefier sidekick in a blue shirt.
"Hey yea! Ha ha ha!" shrieked the fiend with the red hat, pointing at the tall solemn boy. This caused two others in this group harassing Nassor to burst out in horrid simian laughter.
Just then, as Nassor was just about to reach his assigned seat and the group was still following his steps, Nassor quickly snapped around, causing the child with the red hat to walk right into Nassor's chest with a thud. The now seemingly infantile student had to look the long way up to the titan's angry and ghastly black eyes.
"Leave me be!" commanded Nassor, his piercing dark eyes glaring down at the much smaller youngster, his voice booming like thunder.
Needless to say, the group of four stood stiff for a second and after another tense moment of Nassor staring unyieldingly down at them pointing one of his long thin fingers at the door, they dispersed like scattering vermin. Once the group was out of the room, Nassor sat down heavily and stared intently at the blackboard ahead of him. There would be no more open mockery aimed at him today.
Victor winced at the now palpable fury wafting from the back of the room, turning his attention again at the open door. Once the second bell had rung, his heart sank a little more. Why would Edgar be missing today? 'Dear God, hopefully he is doing alright today,' he thought, a sort of pounding nervousness now filling his head. He hardly even noticed that the one known as 'Weird Girl' had entered the room a few seconds before the bell tolled. As she sat quietly in the back of the class next to Nassor, her giant orb like eyes sensed the obvious tension emanating from him. She directed her gigantic eyes at the front of the class. Nobody dared mess with her, not even the dumbest of students at the school for she was far freakier than Nassor could ever be. Toshiaki and Bob took their seats along with the other students who were still standing around the proud Asian boy. It was not long before the irksome coach appeared, started taking role call and spewing her thoughts on what she thought was science.
As lunch lead out, Victor approached the coach. She sat at her desk filling out some sort of paperwork, not taking any notice of the quiet young lad standing just inches in front of her. Elsa stood a little ways back to allow Victor to ask his question.
"Ma'am," he asked faintly.
"Yes?" answered the coach in that gruff almost man like voice she had.
"Uh… well, I was ah…I was wondering if you heard anything from Edgar as to why he was absent," he asked in a little louder voice.
"Edgar? You mean Edgar E. Gore, right? Oh… yes. His mother called in and said he wasn't feeling too well this morning. He's got an actual excuse today for why he didn't show up, Vincent. No need to be ratting out a fellow student like that," she lectured.
"Victor," he corrected, but was being shooed away by the aggressive woman's waving arm.
"Go along, eat your lunch. Go play with the other kids," she barked back at him, not listening to a word he was saying.
As Victor sat down at the new hangout point behind the monkey bars, Elsa eyed him. She could tell immediately something was greatly bothering him.
"So, how did you're walk home with Edgar go?" she asked in a lightly suspicious tone. 'Maybe something went wrong and they argued or something,' she pondered silently.
"Yea, but I found out he's got more than a few problems," Victor answered in a concerned manner.
Elsa scooted in to listen closer.
"What's that, Victor?" she leaned in a little.
"He's got some health problems. I think he's been sick all along and I just didn't care to notice. I feel like such a jerk right now," his voice stammered as he looked at his uneaten lunch.
Elsa looked down and around as well. She was taken aback by this revelation.
"None of us did," she finally managed to say. Victor directed his eyes at hers. Her eyes were calm, but very sincere.
"I know that's a hard thing to think about, but now that we do know we can make it up to him. There isn't really anything we can do about what happened before we knew this, but we can work at helping him out from this point forth," she smiled and placed her hand over his, giving him a comforting smile. He couldn't help but smile back at her.
"Yea… you're absolutely right, Elsa," Victor beamed. He was usually quick to despair about things like this, but it was obvious now that his new friendship with Elsa was one that was going to be most beneficial.
As finally the two got along with eating their lunch, Toshiaki, Bob, and a small yet growing collection of admirers assembled to listen in to hear his epic tale. They gathered around a large old oak tree located in the middle of the schoolyard. Weird Girl walked along the amassing group. Had anyone been paying any attention, it would have been obvious she was looking for something. Nassor sat alone on a buried tire that served as a chair not far away reading a book. Now and again he would give irritated glances up at the student's listening to Toshiaki's story, looking back down at the words in his book muttering inaudible words to himself. Weird Girl continued her search around the school yard for something or someone.
As Elsa and Victor made their way back to their classroom when the bell rang, they talked a little more about the events of the days before. Elsa had acted quite heroically in defending Edgar from the rat that he brought back to life. She had beaten the thing's assault back and in doing so saved him from being mauled by it. Victor complemented her on her bravery several times as they walked into class. She gave a few faint smiles and one obvious blush.
As the day wore on, assignments were being passed out on the next project for the science class. Because this was a post science fair project, of which Victor claimed a victorious first place in with his presentation about reviving his dog Sparky, the assignment was wearily anticlimactic.
Just when things were getting grueling, something happened that excited Victor quite a bit. Edgar has rejoined the class! He looked a bit drained and it appeared he was moving at a slower pace than his usual agitated self, but it was quite obvious he was happy to be back with the fellow students and looked especially gleeful to be sitting next to Victor again. Victor nearly jumped out of his seat with exhilaration when he saw his companion again.
Once school was over, Victor and Elsa joined Edgar outside after he received the notes he has missed while he was out from the gruff lady coach. It wasn't long before a certain large eyed girl joined their group.
"Hello, Edgar," Weird Girl said directing her unyieldingly creepy gaze at him.
"Hi," exclaimed Edgar in an upbeat chipper voice. Victor and Elsa just looked at the odd little schoolgirl and then at each other in a confused way.
"Mr. Whiskers left you something before he left," she said as she pulled out something wrapped in a towel from her bag. Very little emotion grazed her face when she mentioned her deceased cat.
"Uh… I don't need to look at it. I already know what that is," said Edgar retorting backwards, holding his arms up shielding himself from the mysterious wrapped item. Gifts from Mr. Whiskers had become very well known in the couple of times that the Weird Girl pulled them out of his letterbox. Weird Girl just stared at him holding it out for him to look at.
"It's an omen," she whispered in her mysteriously haunting voice.
"Yea... that's fantastic." Edgar took a step back now, obviously feeling more than a little uncomfortable by all this. Elsa and Victor looked on with a bit of curiosity but mostly disgust.
"I just thought you would like to see it, Edgar. Something big is going to happen to you soon." She took a step towards him.
"Alright… Weird Girl, I think that's enough," Elsa said as she stepped forth, blocking Weird Girl's advance on Edgar. "You can throw that away now."
As the Weird Girl took one last unblinking gaze at Edgar, emotions completely lacking, she repacked the parcel in her back and walked off. Edgar looked at Victor and Elsa who were watching her make her way off. As the three exchanged looks they all gave a hearty laugh and started to walk together to the middle of town as they had the day before.
The walk to the street where they would part was an enjoyable one. Victor told Edgar all about the day's events. He told of how the other students looked at Toshiaki again as a hero for the first time since he pitched a perfect game. He also mentioned about how Toshiaki had hammed up his telling of the "Incident" to the other students. Victor humorously reported the creation of the new word "Nassacre" and its meaning. He told Edgar about how Nassor nearly pummeled the red cap wearing trouble maker to the ground with his words and stair alone, all the while the trio laughed the entire time.
Finally, when it came time to part ways, Elsa and Victor ensured Edgar was alright with walking the rest of the way home alone again before they walked home together. Victor thanked his lucky stars for finally making two great new friends thus ending his loneliness in school. Since Elsa resided right next door for now, he bid her farewell and ran excitedly to his backyard to tell Sparky the dog all about the day's events.