A\N HI! UPDATE! WOW December was a busy month. No time for life. However i made a promise to myself to update this story at least one more time in this year and i did it! Barely… See you next year!
And, as always…
READ AND REVIEW.
Disclaimer: I don't own Kim Possible.
Chapter 3
Small gestures
Ron's body was mercilessly slammed against the wall. Collar of his short was caught in the first of a large football player, whose eyes were brimming with anger. Beside him stood Daemon, with a smug smile, and another guy with the same football jersey as other two had on them. A small crowd of people started to gather around this scene, including Seymour, who watched it thoroughly, frowning.
"You are dead! You hear that!" guy with a grip on Ron's shirt smacked him against the wall again.
"Loud and clear." Ron cringed and answered with a shaky voice. "But before you pummel me to death, can i at least get a reason why?"
"You piece of..." guy, almost as red as tomato from anger, pointed ant the torn metal locker door and a pile of trash that was his belongings. "You trashed my locker!"
"I didn't do anything like that! I swear!" Ron put his hands on front of him defensively.
"Yeah, right." Daemon scoffed. "Like we are going to believe that. If you wanted to get back on us, you shouldn't make it so obvious. Breaking Jason's locker was the most stupid thing you could do."
"Exactly!" Ron exclaimed. "Why would i do this? It makes no sense!"
"You broke the one in the boys' locker room." Carl, third football player, commented. "You might as well do this."
"It wasn't me! It was..." Ron stuttered for a second. "A big rabid raccoon. Yeah! He smelled a chocolate bar in my pocket and clawed the lock out. I swear!"
Kim noticed a commotion in the hallway and decided to check what is going on. As she got through a small ground of students, she noticed three jocks, one of whom was currently her boyfriend, standing before a very distressed student.
'Oh god, not this.' she recognized the student. 'I need to stop this.'
The crowd near her went quite before she made a single step, as certain girl went towards the troublesome situation. Bonnie walked to the boys, with her usual non-emotional way, and glared at the Jason, who, feeling really uncomfortable lost his grip on the collar. She took Ron's sleeve and dragged him down the hallway, away from the crowd, without dropping a single word.
"What just happened?" Jason stood dumbfounded.
"Did weirdo just stood up for the new guy?" mumbling started in the crowd.
"What the hell was that Daemon?" Kim spoke to her boyfriend with a clear aggravation in her voice.
"The squirt trashed Jason's locker." Daemon answered putting his hand around her torso.
"You sure it was him who did it?" Kim eyed around quickly, noticing that the crowd is almost disappeared. "He just entered this school, what motive does he have? »
"It's because we shoved him in the gym locker couple days ago." Carl said.
"You did what?" Kim shoved Daemon. "Are you nuts?"
"Babe, it's just a little prank." her boyfriend tried to find a good excuse.
"Listen here." she sighed heavily. "You have a game soon. And you can't participate if Barkin put a detention on you!"
"But he trashed my locker!" Jason shouted, still angry and pointed in a mess nearby.
"Let me see." Kim examined the place, noticing the claw marks everywhere on it. "See those marks, looks like the one on the wending machine."
"Kind of..." Carl agreed with her.
"It was broken at night, before the guy even came in the school. It couldn't be him." she said.
"But..." Jason refused to give up.
"No buts!" Kim cut him off. "You seriously believe that scrawny guy can do THIS? Hello! It's so obvious was made by someone else. So lay off the new guy."
"But babe..." Daemon came close to her again.
"Don't Babe me here." she poke his chest with her index finger. "I tell you: stop bugging him! You got way more attention that you can afford. Stay out of any incidents until the game. All of you! You understand?"
"Yes." Carl and Jason nodded, feeling intimidated by the head cheerleader.
"Fine." Daemon agreed, unwillingly.
"Good." she pecked him in lips.
Bonnie dragged her friend all the way to the classroom, and released his sleeve as they approached their sits. Several people in the room glanced at them, trying to read the situation.
"Hey." Bonnie greeted him with half-smile.
"Hiya." Ron smiled back and sat at his desk. "Thanks for saving my backside."
"Sure." Bonnie sat on her chair and turned around to face Ron. "So, what's their problem with you?"
"Something trashed locker of the guy that pinned me to the wall." Ron stretched a sore shoulder slightly, feeling dull pain. "And by the looks of it, it was something with pretty sharp claws."
"Then why they picked on you then?"
"Remember the locker i fell from two days ago?"
"Oh yeah!" Bonnie looked around quickly, and lowered her voice. "Gremlin slashed the lock from it. So, they think that because you did it in revenge or something?"
"Pretty much." Ron sighed and shook his head slowly. "It seems i can't get any peace in this place."
"Sorry." Bonnie flinched a bit.
"No, no, i didn't mean like tha….."
"What in the name of Jiminy Cricket is THIS!" low voice boomed through the whole school.
"Looks like Barkin found that trashed locker." Bonnie commented.
In a hallway, furious substitute teacher was looking at the mess before him.
"Whose locker is this?" he growled loudly.
"Mine, sir." Jason answered.
"Care to explain me what happened here?"
"It was that ne…oomph." he felt elbow hitting his side.
"It was wild animal, sir." Kim stepped up before the jock.
"Wild animal you say?" Barkin checked the locker and its broken door again. "Some animal it must be to do this."
"I heard it was a rabid raccoon, big one." Carl said, rustling his ginger head a bit.
"A raccoon huh… This might have explained wending machine and the locker in the boy's room."
'Nice save Carl.' Kim smirked subtly.
"Oh, hell no." an elder man in janitor uniform appeared near the locker. "That's it! Enough with this place! Cleaning after these ungraceful brats was torture enough, but now animals too! That's it! I'm retiring! I quit!"
Things didn't get any better for poor Steven Barkin. Since elder man quit he was put at the position of a part-time janitor until they find a replacement. Working at several classes as substitute teacher wasn't easy by any means, but now he had to clean the hallways and rooms, for that extra wage. He was a tough man, it couldn't break him, but inconvenience wasn't strong enough word to describe his current position.
During the day Kim could barely concentrate. The situation was going out of control too fast, and it drove her crazy. Not only Ron somehow associated himself with one of the weirdest people in school, but he also managed to get in trouble with jocks, and got saved by the school weirdo, cementing his position in eyes of the students. Rumors spread like a wildfire. She can't reveal for school her connection with the boy, without fearing to lose her reputation, but in the same time she needed to talk about it with somebody. There was one person she could trust.
"Tara!" Kim approached her best friend. "You, me, mall, after school."
"I don't mind Kimmie, but where's the fire?" Tara giggled at Kim's forceful demeanor.
"Is it so hard to believe that i want to spend some time with my bestie?"
"No, but you usually ask if i'm free or not."
"Dang it, you got me there." Kim sighed comically. "BTW, are you free?"
"Nope." Tara decided to tease her a bit. "My very dear friend asked me for a mall trip, pretty forcibly i might add, and now i have to know why she is so riled up."
"You are the best!" Kim hugged her, once again feeling grateful for this cheery blonde's existence in her life.
Ron tried to pay attention at the Algebra class, really tired, but sadly voice of the teacher was so monotone, it put almost all people in the class to sleep. In attempt to stay awake, boy's mind started to flow over something besides irrational numbers. Needless to say, his life was full of events recently, one of which he didn't want to think about. It was still too painful to him. Others included a new home, new school, his shaky relationship with local jocks, and, probably the most important one, the fact that he somehow befriended a witch. Despite of their bizarre meeting in boys' locker room and very traumatizing meeting with her father, Ron found himself rather comfortable around her. Well about as much comfortable as he could, considering that they have met only couple days ago, so a certain level of awkwardness was still in between.
His attention suddenly switched toward twice folded piece of paper that fell on his desk. Ron carefully unfolded the thing. Two simple words were neatly written in there.
[So boring…]
It wasn't hard to guess who sent a message since the amount of people he knew here is extremely limited. He scribbled a reply on the same paper, folded it and carefully tossed it to the desk before him.
Bonnie picked it up and read immediately. She barely held her smile.
[Yeah, i never thought anyone could make math even more boring.]
[Do you want to hang out after the snore fest?] Bonnie slid the paper back on his desk.
[Sure] reply came back quickly.
Later that day, in the local big mall, Kim and Tara looked through a blouse section in one of the brand stores. They both knew that shopping at the moment was just an excuse for them to speak outside their clique, but in didn't mean they won't find something cute to buy in a process.
"Tara." Kim started slowly. "You can keep a secret, right?"
"You mean like the bracer incident, your obsession with one fictional character, your collection…"
"Ok, ok i got the point." Kim sighed. "There is something i probably needed to talk to you about several days ago. I… I kinda, sorta …know the new guy."
"What?" Tara's voice became higher. "And you didn't tell me that before why? Details Kim, details!"
"He is a friend of the family, childhood friend. Due to his…family circumstances, he moved in my house."
"You live together?"
Kim nodded.
"So." Tara's curiosity grew. "What are those circumstances?"
"Not really my place to talk about it." Kim shrugged apologetically. "Sorry."
"I see." blonde girl replied, picking one of the blouses. "So, if you know the guy, why you pretend that you don't in school?"
"Well, before his first day at school i talked to him and…" Kim was reluctant to say what she was going to say. "He ended up being a loser."
"Kim." Tara squinted her eyes. "Please don't tell me you said it to his face."
"I might have… But only with best intentions."
"Seriously?"
"What? I don't think it would be better if i lied to him! Harsh truth is still truth. I thought, maybe if he knew his place in the Food Chain he'll try to improve it somehow. "
"Kim, for a pretty smart girl, you can be such an idiot some times." Tara facepalmed.
"Hey!"
"Not to mention, it was a bitch move to do that to poor guy."
"Maybe, but…"
"You could just tell everyone that he is your friend and his reputation would skyrocket, loser or not."
"We don't know tha…"
"You are Kim Possible! You are on top! Everything possible for a Possible is your family moto!"
"Alright, alright i got it!" Kim hanged her head. "I blew it, ok? And, what is worse, i can't do anything about it now, since he started to hang around that weirdo."
"Your fault." Tara shook her head disapprovingly. "The only thing you can do now is to wait. Rockwaller is a bit on a weird side, i agree, but she isn't that bad. Maybe since she found herself a friend her attitude will improve. And when it happen we will just scoop both of them, how about that?"
"Might work, eventually." Kim sighed again. "Thanks Tara, i don't know what i'd do without you."
"No problem." Tara picked another blouse. "So, when are you going to introduce me to him?"
"What?" Kim blinked in surprise. "Don't tell me that you actually have a thing for big ears."
"No! Geez Kim!" a blush appeared on Tara's cheeks. "It's just interesting to meet him. He is your childhood friend after all. Come on, can i?"
"Not anytime soon."
"Oh come on!"
Meanwhile, in another part of town, Bonnie led the way towards a certain place, while her new and only friend tried to remember surroundings. Ron asked her if she know any places that could sell old used games for his pc, like a thrift shop. Bonnie remember a place, where her dad is picking old books time to time, though she had never been inside, she could still see through the windows a variety of different old stuff.
"Here it is." Bonnie stopped before a pair of wooden doors.
They entered the place, looking around. An assortment of thing was astonishing, and most of it barely looked that used. Anything from the clothes to kitchen appliances was placed neatly in their respective sections. Bonnie noticed several bookcases, stuck together, filled with books. Ron, meanwhile, approached the checkout counter. There were more than a dozen different clocks hanging on the wall behind it. It looked like a lot of them were made in different eras, some are old wooden coco-clocks, and some are more modern plastic ones. Ron noticed something really interesting.
"Wow." Ron said out loud. "All arrows on all the clocks are ticking simultaneously, like a one big loud clock."
"How very perceptive of you, young man."
A tall man appeared from a storeroom near the counter. He was old and really thin. He had a perfect posture, like a butler, and aquiline nose. In fact, he was even dressed in a suit, with a small bowtie around his neck. His grey eyes were almost matching his grey hair in color.
"All these clocks are perfectly synchronized to my heart." man put his boney hand on the left side of his chest. "Let me introduce myself. My name is Dominique Craft, i am an owner of this place. How can i help you?"
"Do you have any used games for computer?" Ron smiled to the owner.
"Yes, we have. Please wait a second."
While man went into the storage room, Bonnie was eyeing a particular keychain. It was shaped as a circle and had a drawn image in the center. Black silhouette of a cat, with piercing green eyes.
Dominique left the store room, holding a cupboard box filled with cd jewel cases in it and put them on the counter.
"I believe this is what you are looking for." man gestured toward it.
"This! This is awesome!" Ron checked the content of the box, picking one game after another, and reading the back of the case. "There is no price on them, how much for a game?"
"One dollar each."
"One?" Ron's almost shouted. "Seriously? These games are in almost mint condition, and this one in particular is rare as hen's teeth! You can sell it at least for 200 bucks through internet."
"Honest fellow." Dominique Craft smiled politely. "For anyone who would want resell it with a thought of quick profit price would be much higher. However i'm sure you'll find a good use for them. One dollar per item is a perfect price for a customer like you."
"This is great!" Ron broke into a smile and selected several games. "I'll take these, please."
With a corner of the eye, Ron noticed Bonnie, looking closely at one small object.
"How much is for that keychain?" he asked, making girl look at him in a surprise.
"That one would be one dollar fifty cents."
"I'll take one."
He paid for games ad keychains with some pocket money Mr. Possible gave him. As soon as they left the shop Ron reached his hand toward Bonnie, holding the keychain.
"This is a thank you for helping me. This place is awesome."
"Sweet!" Bonnie smiled widely and took the present from his hand. "Thanks!"
Dominique meanwhile watched though the window as these two went away.
"Quite interesting kids." he nodded to himself and went back to the counter.
