Thanks for the reviews, acosta pérez josé Ramiro, Digital Damita, Broken-SilverWings, L.A. Chaos and chuckangie. It's always good to hear positive reviews of your work.

And that's a good idea, chuckangie. I just might use it.

Rugrats copyright Viacom

Chuckie & Angelica

By StoryCrafter

Chapter 2

Posted: 13 Oct 2005

Angelica hated being followed. Especially while she was walking from school. And especially when they do such a lousy job of it. On the other hand, she supposed, she shouldn't be too surprised. It was Tommy that was trailing her. Not at all a professional like she was. She shouldn't have any worries at all about it.

But something did bother her.

Why was he following her in the first place? What did she ever do to him? Hearing herself as herself that last question, she reconsidered. Okay, she did one or two things. But surely nothing warranting the surveillance treatment. Maybe he was making another candid-moments video.

She hurried her steps. She had no intention of ever being in another one of his movies without script approval. The last time she was cast in one, she ended up being the little, old bag lady. By the time she had realized that, the movie had already been finished filming. And Tommy wouldn't let her anywhere near the tape.

Never again, Angelica promised herself. Never again would she face such humiliation.

After a few minutes of her cousin's following, she stopped and faced him. "Why are you following me, Pickles?"

He looked startled as he skidded to a stop. Evidently, he didn't expect her to turn on him like that. He shouldn't have been surprised, though. Behind a lamppost wasn't the perfect hiding place that everyone makes it out to be. Angelica smiled to herself. Amateur. "Whatever do you mean, Angelica?" He tried to sound non-chalant, but she knew better.

"You've following me ever since we left school. That's what I mean. Why?"

Tommy came to her. As he reached her, he put her hands into his. He looked into her eyes. "Chuckie approached me… and we know your secret."

Angelica gasped slightly. They knew? No, that was impossible. She wouldn't show for another two months. And doctors wouldn't gab about their patients to just anyone. She gasped. They had to know that Benny was dead. There was no other possible explanation. "I'm sorry, Tommy. I wanted to tell you, but-"

He touched her shoulder. "That's alright, Angelica. Physical abuse by a boyfriend isn't something most women are willing to speak out about."

Angelica gaped. Abused by Benny? Was he out of his mind more than he usually was? Sure he got her knocked up and he had the audacity to get himself killed by a local tribesman somewhere. But that hadn't constituted abuse by most people's definition of the word.

For some reason, Tommy didn't seem to take Angelica's expression of shock for a denial. "You can tell Tommy all about it. I'm here for you."

She thrusted her chin in the air. "I'm out of here." She marched away from her cousin in the direction of home.

Once she felt she was out of earshot of Tommy, she began muttering to herself. "I swear. Those two are getting stupider every year. By the time they have babies, they will as dumb as babies themselves. I just hope they didn't get anyone caught up in that nonsense."

Despite her best hopes, her father wasn't home when she arrived. I guess he's not greeting me home tonight either, she mused as she sorted through the mail on the end table by the door. She didn't particularly mind that daddy was off at work so much. She was used to it by then.

"Ah. It arrived." Her Mystery Journal had arrived for this month. She retained the magazine and tossed the rest of the mail back and proceeded to the kitchen.

Dad had left a note on the refrigerator: he was going to be getting home and there was tuna casserole was in the fridge. He didn't expect to be back into after Angelica was in bed, so she was welcome to have dinner when she chose. She sighed. It wasn't the first time that he was so late, but it was happening with increasing regularity lately.

"Oh, great," she commented to the fridge. "Tuna casserole. Again."

She headed for her room. She had some serious reading to do. Once in her room, she plopped herself onto her bed.

She laid prone on her bed, holding the magazine open over the foot of the bed. You wouldn't think that Angelica C. Pickles of all people would be interested in murder mysteries, but she was. She had picked up that particular habit from Benny. At first she sneered at him for reading such nonsense, when she could have used that time for doing constructive, as in dating her. But as time had went by… Angelica smiled fondly. She had learned many things from her old boyfriend.

Unlike Chuckie. Who was the one who had done all the learning in their relationship. And he was whiney and afraid of everything and wears dorky clothes and has a nasally voice and hangs out with those pre-pre-teen dorks far too much. Hardly boyfriend material.

Unlike Benny Michaels. As she brought her thoughts onto her dead boyfriend, tears came uninvited. And with the tighten throat that followed, she wondered if was crying. "I can't be crying," she told herself. "After last night, I promised myself no more crying over that insensitive jerk who had the nerve to up and die on me." Dropping the magazine she was holding in her hands, she wiped the tears from her eyes with her sleeve.

"I guess I won't be getting any reading done now. I should probably be heating up some of Dad's cooking then." She paused thoughtfully. "What does he do anyway?"

Curious, she checked where the pages had fallen when she had dropped the mag. It was the beginning of "A Study in Murder."

Angelica smiled. "I think that I know which one I'm going to read first." She left the mag where it was and made a beeline for the kitchen. She was back a minute to retrieve the mag.

Perhaps I should give those two nosey Parkers. Their story of Benny beating is absurd. He would never do something like that. He was much too gentle.

I know how to torque their engines, she thought with glee.

-OOO-

"What do you mean that she knows that we know?" Chuckie passed back and forth, hoping Tommy would say April Fools even though it was nowhere near that holiday. "I thought that you were a better spy than that."

Tommy sighed. "Guess not." He looked up from Chuckie's bed. "I think that we'll need Dil's help for this one."

Chuckie stopped and looked at him with ire. "Just what happened, Tommy?"

"Angelica confronted me." Chuckie nodded. "She demanded to know why I was following her."

"And you just told her? Straight out of the blue like that?"

Tommy nodded reluctantly.

"Why did you do that for?"

Tommy stared off to space. "She had this stare. It seemed to stare right into my soul's soul."

Chuckie tried to whistle. "I heard that abused women had a faraway stare. But I had no idea." He began to consider the matter. Should they enlist Dil in spying on Angelica? He had a real interest in the subject knew all sorts of tricks of the trade. But it would mean adding another person to the circle and making the mess they were in even bigger. And Angelica was sure to on the lookout for them. What to do?

A knock came from the door. "Chuckie, mom wants to see you."

Chuckie went to do and opened it. "Tell her I'll be down in a sec."

"Oh, sure thing, Chuckie," Kimi replied. "I wouldn't want to interrupt your plotting to take over the world," she finished, giggling.

Chuckie gave her a look.

"Aha, so you are plotting over the world. I knew it! I'll tell the world." She withdrew, shouting, "Chuckie's taking over the world! Chuckie's taking over the world!" along the way.

"You're lucky, Tommy." Chuckie watched her return to her mother, "You don't have a sister."

Tommy shrugged. "Mom could always adopt one. Like your dad did."

Chuckie considered it. And shrugged. "I guess so. Come on, let's go see what Mom wants."

They went down the stairs and found Mrs. Finster sitting at the kitchen table, reading the paper. Kimi wasn't with her. "Uh, mom… where's Kimi?"

Mrs. Finster looked up. "She's in the garage, helping her dad." She stood up. "Come on, Chuckie. There's a book I want to return." She began leadin toward the living room.

"Me? But none of my library books are over-due, mom."

"No, Chuckie. I mean a book that I borrowed. From Mrs. Pickles."

"But I'm right here, Mrs. Finster," Tommy put in. He was following Chuckie and Mrs. Finster.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I meant Angelica's mother. It's that Horticulture book I borrowed last week."

"Oh yes," Chuckie mused. "That one."

Mrs. Finster reached the end table by the couch and picked up the book on it. "I want you to get this back to Mrs. Pickles right away, Chuckie. No dawdling now."

"Of course, mom."

Chuckie grabbed the book and hopped into his Ford parked in the driveway. Tommy climbed in beside him. "I think you'll need help confront Angelica."

Chuckie froze as he was about to start the ignition. "Confront? Who said anything about confronting her? It was sure wasn't me."

"Relax, Chuckie." Tommy held up his hands. "Okay. Maybe 'confront' isn't exactly the right word. But now she knows that we know."

"Thanks to you, Tommy," Chuckie pointed out.

Tommy lowered his head. "Yes, sorry about that, Chuckie. I couldn't help myself. She was right in my face."

Chuckie sighed. "Don't worry about that, Tommy. I know as well as anyone how scary Angelica can be when she wants to."

Tommy looked relieved. "Thanks, Chuckie. That means a lot to me." Then he continued, "It's time to comfort Angelica in her hour of need."

"Then why did say 'confront' before?"

Tommy shrugged helplessly. "Don't know."

"Great," Chuckie sighed. "Let's just go."

He pulled out of the driveway and headed straight for Angelica's house. Chuckie began to think ahead to his upcoming meeting with Angelica. What could he say to her that wouldn't make things worse? He wasn't quite sure that was possible. He had had a history of making things worse, and saw no way out of it.

"I'm doomed," he muttered.

"Relax, Chuckie," Tommy told him. "What's the worst that can happen?"

They found out when Angelica opened her front door to greet them. She was wearing a bathrobe, she had tears in her eyes, and she had a black eye. "What do you two want?"

Tommy stared at Angelica's shiner. "So, Angelica, how did you get that black eye?"

"I tripped, okay? You don't have to look at me like that."

"Like what, Angelica?"

"With pity."

She narrowed her eyes. "Why are you here? I can't stay here all day, you know. I have better things to do."

Nervously, Chuckie handed her the book. "I'm here to return this." The handover was awkward. Chuckie almost dropped the book before Angelica could get a good grip on it.

"Huh," Angelica said when she read the title of the book. "I didn't even know this was out of the house."

"My mom borrowed it from your dad," Chuckie informed her.

Angelica closed the door without acknowledgement.

"That could have went better," Tommy said as they returned to the car.

"It's official, Tommy. She doesn't want our help." Chuckie ignored the part of him that was telling him otherwise. That Angelica really did their help.

That piece of him always told him that.

-OOO-

Angelica watched the two boys drive away. She smiled. She had given herself that black eye. If they wanted to believe that she was being beaten, then they let them.

It's not like she had actually said she was.

Boys were such morons.