If she didn't have a crush on the school's smartest student she'd probably have called the sight of the strange trucks ironic. But she did, so she knew better. This was the first thing that crossed through Marie Kanker's mind as she spotted the strange, yet familiar symbol on the mysterious vans parked in and around the trailer park. The second thought to run through her head was more of a realization and it nearly caused her to break out into a full-on panic. Thankfully she was able to fight the urge down and wait until she and her two sisters were closer to home before she swore under her breath and made a scene about the time. The blunette accelerated as she furiously, yet quietly, insisted that she was missing some television show or another.
As she speed walked to their trailer, Marie was grateful to hear Lee and May swearing softly behind her as they quickly followed her, hoping to beat her into the house. But out of the corner of her eye the sight of one of the men glancing in their direction caused her to gasp sharply and quicken her pace. The distance between the bluenette and her home seemed to lengthen and she was convinced that time slowed as her imagination took off racing through hundreds of thoughts before landing on the reason why she was panicking so horribly.
'I wonder if when this whole thing is over Double D will be grateful that my sisters and I stalk him and his friends. Who knew that sneaking into his house in order to lighten his chore load would result in warning him about something I'm not even supposed to know about?' Marie thought as memories flashed through her head.
It all started innocent enough, she'd noticed freshman year that Double D, while still top of the class; was not as pleased with the outcome of his work as he used to be and seemed to be holding up his head more during class, as if trying to stay awake.
Not long after, she and her sisters had overheard a conversation between the three Ed's that had got her thinking…
"Hey Sockhead, what are you getting so worked up about? You got an 'A' on the damn thing!" said Eddy. "Me and Ed are the ones who should be all annoyed. We haven't seen you in two weeks, and you couldn't even take a break from your work to check over our papers. Look at what we got!"
He reached over and grabbed Ed's wrist in order to stuff the two failing papers into Double D's face. The hat-wearing teen wearily lowered his friend's test-clutching fists and looked at his best buddies with clearly sleep-deprived eyes before sighing.
"I truly am sorry gentlemen, but the increased workload given to us by our teachers on top of my normal household duties has really begun to add up. I have been going to bed later than normal this last week just to get my report done and I wasn't even able to get it to the standard I normally produce." Double D yawned, slumping ever so slightly against the wall Eddy had cornered him beside.
This caused a flash of concern to cross the short teen's face before he huffed and turned away while crossing his arms. Their mutual mono-browed friend stepped forward and placed the back of his hand against his exhausted friend's forehead.
"Are you feeling ok Double D? You look worse than soggy toast."
Said teen gave his tall friend a weak smile before reassuring him that he was just overworked and overtired. Ed smiled and nodded while patting Double D on the head before skipping off to his locker with his two friends following him. When Ed was far enough ahead, Eddy nudged his tired friend before speaking.
"We're just worried about you, ya know. It's like you got so much work to do you don't have any time for us anymore. We're not adults yet Double D! Tell your parents they need to hire a maid or something cause you got enough on your plate with being the perfect student. You can put aside being the perfect son for a few years. I mean we're teenagers for crying out loud! You parents aren't even around, yet they keep making your bad days worse! These are our last years of freedom…" Eddy stopped mid rant when his geeky friend placed his hand on his shoulder, giving him a grateful smile.
"Thank you Eddy. You are a good friend. Maybe this time I will be the one to take your advice and speak with my parents instead of burying myself in chores and homework. They won't be home for a few more weeks though so you and Ed are going to have to put up with my being 'the perfect son' as you put it; for just a bit longer." At Eddy's resigned face Edd added, "But perhaps the chores do not have to be done as perfectly as I am used to. So long as the house doesn't start looking like Ed's room and my grades do not slip I suppose I can dial down my effort to just the bare minimum. It should be enough to catch up on my sleep and help you two with your work. After all I can't have Ed being held back again or you being kicked out of your house put on my conscience, now can I."
Eddy nudged him again as a smile spread across both their faces and the two of them picked up their pace. They never even noticed the green-eyed bluenette, who had been following them even after her sisters had lost interest.
When school let out that day she'd watched her Dreamboat join his friends at Eddy's house before retrieving his spare key and letting herself into his residence. She'd been shocked by how clean it was, it was even cleaner that when they were kids. Then she found out how it got to be that way and she nearly saw red. For in small pantry off the kitchen, sat a humming fax machine and on nearly every wall in the small room hung all sorts of lists and charts dictating exactly how to keep the house in its current spotless state. As she stood there gawking, the fax machine came to life and began printing. When it was finished she picked up the paper and realized it was a note from Edd's father adding yet another chore to his son's to do list.
Seething, she placed the note back in the fax tray. She studied the machine for a few moments before coming to a decision and then she left.
The next day after making sure Double D had gone straight over Ed's house after school; Marie again snuck into his house and using her own computer paper, methodically copied every single instruction that was hung on those walls. She was so into her work that she'd have been caught if Edd hadn't gone straight upstairs when he arrived home.
From then on "Marie's Cleaning Service" was open for business. She'd sneak into her crush's house and complete all sorts of chores for him that came out of the fax machine, but she always made sure to leave him something so he wouldn't get suspicious and sometimes even reprinted his parents note so it didn't include the chores she completed, but didn't let him feel forgotten.
It was one day after Christmas vacation of sophomore year that she was upstairs neatening up his room, when she noticed an untidy pile of papers on his desk. Now she always tried really hard to respect his privacy, but if a pile of papers needed straightening she allowed herself a glance at the top sheet.
But on this fateful day she stopped her straightening mid motion as key words jumped off the paper and caught her attention: "DANGEROUS","KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR","GIVE COPIES TO FRIENDS". On top of the paper was a sticky note in Double D's handwriting that said "MAKE COPY OF ATTACHED FOR ED & EDDY. HAVE THEM MEMORIZE ASAP. BEGIN TRAINING TONIGHT." It was pure curiosity that led her hand to flip to the second page of that pile and what she found confused the shit out of her.
The page seemed to be filled with strange symbols, and they even seemed to be organized by level of…did that say threat! A quick flick through the rest of the pile simply informed her that Double D received letters from a friend who thought he was in some sort of danger.
Marie swiftly finished what she had come over for and quickly made a copy of the page of symbols before putting it back in its place, mess and all. After all, Double D's pen pal had told him to give a copy to his friends and even though he might not consider her part of that group, Marie cared about him at least as much as Ed and Eddy did.
So from that day on she kept a copy of that paper in her current sketch book at all times. At home when she finished with her homework, she even sketched them so that they'd be drilled into her memory. Although she never took those sketches to school for fear her Dreamboat would somehow find them.
At the beginning of junior year, Marie had nearly convinced herself that there was no real threat since she never again saw any sign of Edd's pen pal or those symbols anywhere in his house. Still despite her growing resignation, she always made sure to transfer the worn page to each new sketchbook she got, although she was doing it more out of habit then anything, really.
Her growing doubts only lasted until the beginning of spring.
Now, while Marie was the only sister to actually sneak in and around her crushes house; that didn't mean that Lee and May never snuck into their Ed's room's while the boys were out.
Eddy's room actually had an entrance all its own around the back of the house. And since he rarely ever locked this door, Lee took advantage of the easy entry. When she found out about Marie's little cleaning service she used some of her time in her man's room to keep his walk-in closet neat, but her personal favorite thing to do was to simply lie around and listen to his records, especially if she'd had a bad day.
It seemed Double D was in a group all his own when it came to locking up his house, for while Ed's front door was secured every time the house was empty…that wasn't exactly the boys' main point of entry into the eldest Ed's basement bedroom. And May had taken advantage of her Big Ed leaving his window entry unlocked long before either of her sisters.
Unlike Marie, May made sure to not clean anything and rarely touched any of the boy's mess. She simply made sure that his comic book and movie collections were organized…alright that's a lie. Occasionally she'd make his bed or sort his laundry, but the loveable oaf never suspected the younger blonde; he simply thought his mom had remembered him or that his sister was feeling nice.
At the same time that May was the first to take care of her Ed, she was also the only one who "borrowed" things without him knowing. That's not to say she kept what she took but she did have the same interests as her Big Ed, and not a lot of pocket money. So when she couldn't afford a comic that fortunately her crush owned, she'd borrow said book after he'd finished reading it; and when the roles were reversed she'd leave her just-read comic somewhere Ed would spot it and let him keep it. Eventually she technically owned about a third of Ed's extensive comic book collection and he never suspected a thing.
It so happened that at the beginning of spring, May had just borrowed a few of Ed's comics, which she wanted to reread, on the same day Marie decided to mop the trailer's kitchen floor.
Long squabble short, May fell on the still damp floor and comics went everywhere. A few fell in the bluenette's direction and since she was feeling in a good mood, hence the cleaning of the trailer instead of Double D's house; she bent over and picked them up for her baby sister.
As if in slow motion a piece of paper fell out of a comic that she held in her hand and landed face down on the thankfully dry patch of floor. Lee walked in as her older little sister seemed to go into shock at the contents of the paper she'd just picked up.
"Yo, Marie! What's with the face?" At her oldest sister's exclamation May looked over at Marie and saw that she had indeed paled. Curious May snuck a peak over the bluenette's shoulder.
"Oh. It's nothing Lee. Just a reference sheet of symbols that Ed likes to draw." She'd said, causing Marie to snap her attention onto the blonde before gasping out a stunned, "what?!" that made May feel a bit nervous about answering.
"Well, yea. I mean he never seems to take them out of his room but nearly every piece of paper in his room that's not school related has at least one of those symbols on it."
"Do you remember when this started?" Marie spat out.
"Ummm…sophomore year…before the snow stopped, I guess." Now when Marie paled even further, May actually began to panic, and Lee decided to take things into her own hands, by grabbing the offending paper and scolding Marie.
"Now quit scaring your little sister Marie. It's just a paper full of doodles." But as she parted her hair in order to get a good look at these "symbols" she froze. "Whoa."
Marie turned on the older girl at her uncharacteristic action and instead of asking, "what's wrong?" or "now who's scaring whose little sister?" she simply dead panned.
"Where have you seen these symbols Lee?"
And this shocked the red head into reflexively answering.
"Eddy's got a paper just like this…buried in the back of his closet." She shook off her shock as she noticed May becoming increasingly alarmed and continued, "Must be from a game the Ed's played last year. It's nothing to freak us out over Marie. Here ya go May. Gotta make sure you put Ed's stuff back where it belongs or he might get suspicious. Now go put those away. When the floor's dry it's our turn to make dinner."
She gave the paper back to May and pinched Marie's arm behind their backs until the younger girl had skipped up the stairs. Then blue eyes met green as Lee stared down her remaining little sister before speaking.
"Now I don't want you going around scaring your little sister anymore but because you seem so freaked out I'll let you in on what I know. Eddy doesn't really have that piece of paper buried in his closet." She paused to watch Marie's face, "he actually has two laminated copies; one in the very top of his nightstand drawer and the other is taped to the back of his closet door. As far as I'm concerned they're just remnants of a game that they played last year and Ed and Eddy simply haven't bothered to get rid of them. I'm assuming that you found a similar paper in Double D's room?" at Marie's nod she asked, "and have you seen it or anything like it in there since?"
When Marie shook her head Lee smirked, happy to be proven right.
"See. Double D was always the neatest of the three, so you're freaking us all out over nothing." When she saw the bluenette bow her head and mutter an apology; the eldest Kanker took that as a sign that Marie was in agreement with her.
Little did Lee know, that all that confrontation had done was solidify in Marie's mind that there really was a possible threat against her ovenmitt's life somewhere out there and the Ed's were already keeping an eye out for it. She was very grateful for this revelation and never doubted them again.
Especially that June night as she ran into her home, only to turn on the TV, about-face, and shut and lock the door right on Lee and May's heels. Ignoring their stunned faces she ran to the back door and locked it, than she went around the entire trailer, quickly and quietly shutting all the windows and curtains before ending up in her room where she grabbed her sketch book and pencil.
With pencil and paper in hand she paused as she heard the tell tale sounds of their neighbor, Tom's ridiculously loud music blaring, like it always did, but what caused her to pause and pale was that it was ONLY his music playing. Tom's horrendous singing voice was nowhere to be heard. She peaked out of her window and saw what looked like yellow gas pouring out his open windows and a team of dogs standing just outside Tom's trailer door, as if waiting for the smog to clear.
It clicked in her mind as she ran downstairs that whoever those men were, they were using search dogs to look for something and were knocking out the trailer park residence as they went.
The intruders were also wearing a patch with a different; yet also familiar, symbol. And this one scared her even more that the one on the vans.
Thoughts of who or what they were after nagged at the back of her mind, but she would have bet money that these men were looking for the teenage genius, Eddward Marian Vincent.
This one thought caused Marie so much distress that it took a moment for her to realize that the couch she had come to a stop in front of was unoccupied. It took her yet another moment to realize that her sisters had not moved a muscle from the doorway, since they'd entered the trailer.
They stood there stunned as Marie realized what she must have looked like, running around in a flurry, white as a sheet.
She took a deep breath and looked them evenly in the eye, one at a time; before asking them.
"Do you trust me? I am your sister and I love you. Will you trust me even if I sound insane?"
Marie regained some color as she watched May nod her head in compliance. And when the blunette turned to Lee, the red head looked her up and down, before giving her little sister a brief nod.
The middle sister released a sigh of relief, and pushed forward through her explanation, not stopping to make sure they were keeping up; just focusing on being as clear and fast as possible.
"Do you remember that day I freaked over Big Ed's reference sheet with all those symbols? You were right Lee, that wasn't the first time I'd seen them. It was a year earlier and they weren't just anywhere lying next to some game; they were on top of a stack of letters Double D received from a pen pal who believed his life was in danger. Those symbols the men and vans are wearing are high on that sheets threat level. It looks like they've followed a scent trail here. They have a gas that they're using to knock out the others, in order to search through every trailer. Don't believe me? I can't hear Tom singing tonight, can you?" She paused for but a moment as she watched Lee cautiously look out the nearest window, before continuing.
"I'd bet my life they're searching for Double D and…they probably started in town. So when they picked up his scent… it was probably mixed with mine…I took his sweatshirt the other day to wear while grocery shopping… OH shit fucker!" her brain froze at the thought that her sisters and the Ed's were in trouble because of her.
"Oh no you don't! Snap out of it Marie! Maybe they did follow you, That Doesn't Matter Now! You seem to be the only one with a plan, so spit it out." Lee said in a hushed tone as she came back to stand by her sisters. At the word "plan" the bluenette's brain moved into action.
"Yeah, well I don't have any official plan but I'm sure the Ed's do. So our plan is to alert them to what's going on and if possible we should try to stall the idiots outside or at least get rid of their knock out gas…" here Lee interrupted.
"Leave that to me. I'll take ole Jethro out and send them on a wild goose chase. Marie, you'd better write your man a note and add a drawing of those symbols to it. He's the most rational thinking out of our three beaus and will take us seriously. And May…"
Here the two eldest Kanker sisters looked at each other and a silent message passed between the two of them. They knew that if they could help it, those horrible men would never lay a finger on their baby sister.
"MayBird," Marie restarted, turning to face the blonde while using her childhood nickname, "we need you to do the hardest part…. We need you to fly as fast as you can to Big Ed, Ok? He can take you to Double D safely. You're the fastest out of the three of us, so it's got to be you MayBird."
"Yea May, go upstairs and get dressed in as much black as you can."Lee continued, "You're gonna have to be swift and silent on your flight tonight. Take any of our clothes that will help keep you covered."
"And meet me in the bathroom. I'll give you the note there, ok? You can take the 'TunnelEd' so you'll get a secret head start."
May mutely nodded her head before turning to run up the stairs, but without even taking a step forward she turned right back around and caught Lee up in a tight embrace.
"Just stay safe, LeeBee. I love you."
"I love you too MayBird. Fly fast and stay safe." Lee replied and returned the hug, realizing as the blonde used her pet name from when they were kids that their baby sister knew exactly how bad the situation was and exactly what kind of danger her older sisters were saving her from.
May gave the red head one more squeeze than shot up the stairs with a whispered, "Meet you in the bathroom SunRie."
As Lee went to grab their dad's gun; Marie had to rub her eyes dry at the sound of her old nickname before quickly getting started on the note for her Dreamboat. Marie had one of the symbols complete when Lee reentered the room two minutes later, but she stilled her pen at the sight of her older sister holding their dad's shotgun, her hair tied back out of her eyes.
"I figured if you two were taking it so seriously I should too." The elder joked as she walked over to the bluenette, "Marie, I want you to add something to that note. I think Ed should keep an eye on May. I think she'll be safest with him."
"I was thinking the same thing LeeBee." Said Marie as she quickly hugged her sister, "And don't get caught just yet. If we are gonna go down, we're gonna go down fighting together."
"Back to Back SunRie, I swear." Lee said as she headed towards a utility hatch that she could use to sneak out, "that's a promise you gotta keep too."
"Yes Ma'am." Marie whispered to the empty room before gathering her things and heading to where she was meeting May.
