A/N:
****PLEASE READ BEFORE CONTINUING!****
Hello all, sorry it took me longer than I thought it was going to take me to update! I have been changing a few ideas based on some of the reviews I've been receiving; they've been so helpful, thanks to everyone who has reviewed!
The only things I've changed are points of views. You probably noticed last chapter there was a portion from Schroeder's point of view. Well, I've decided to add in the POV's for a few more characters besides Lucy and Schroeder: Linus, Sally, Snoopy, and Charlie Brown. Lucy is still going to be third person mono, though. Don't worry; it's nothing too life-altering! I'm hoping to add in a bit more of them as future chapters progress!
Thank you for being so patient, and please continue to review!
Thankfully yours,
xoxo ~ml
Chapter Three: They'll Never Understand
Charlie Brown
"And then she called on him and he told her the answer was apple strudel!"
Marcie and Franklin burst into laughter as Peppermint Patty finishes her story. I hide my face in my hands. We're all sitting at my kitchen table "doing homework". The others (Marcie, Franklin and Peppermint Patty) discuss our first day at school. But instead of talking about normal things, like classes or teachers, they just have to focus on every single one of my screw ups of the day.
"Hey, it isn't all that bad," Franklin says in my defense, "I mean at least Charlie Brown got the subject right! Remember that time the teacher asked him what the capital of Utah was and he recited the entire quadratic equation?"
The girls laugh again and I feel my face turn beet red. Peppermint Patty slides her arm around my waist and pats my hand comfortingly.
"Aw, c'mon Chuck, you know we're just kidding with you," she says, pecking me on the cheek, causing me to turn even redder, if possible, and slink down in his chair as Marcie and Franklin avoid each of our eyes.
Suddenly, the door to the kitchen swings open, making way for a beagle wearing sunglasses and a sun visor, dragging an umbrella behind him. Allow me to introduce my dog, Snoopy. We all stop and watch him as he struts across the kitchen floor, nose in the air.
He flings open the refrigerator and begins snatching some things out of it, such as orange and grape juices, apples, grapes, peaches, celery sticks and ranch dressing. He heads to the freezer and throws that wide open too. He removes the ice tray and dumps the entire contents into the kitchen sink. He throws the empty tray, along with everything else, into a knapsack almost twice the size of his own body and drags it along the floor behind him, exiting the same way he came.
We stare at the door for a moment after he leaves, half expecting him to come running back through it into the kitchen.
"I just wish I had a normal dog like everybody else," I sigh.
"He sure is a funny-looking kid," Peppermint Patty mutters, still gazing towards the door with a confused expression on her face.
I ignore her comment. She thinks my dog is a human. The others laugh, although Peppermint Patty looks a bit confused as to why they find it funny.
I honestly don't really want to know what my crazy dog is up to this time. I have way too many other important things on my mind. Like this summer reading evaluation packet I got from my English teacher! It's a bit hard to do an evaluation on something you've never read before! Of course, if I would have started reading it at the beginning of summer, I would have forgotten it by the end of summer. If I started it at the end of summer, I'd have been too distracted to pay attention to what I was reading.
So I never read the book.
Luckily, there's Marcie. Also, there's this new thing called Spark Notes, a really helpful website for procrastinators like yours truly. But for those of us whose only computer is "in use" by our dogs for half my life, there's Marcie. She knows everything there is to know about anything. It's a wonder she's still only in high school. I suppose she does it so as not to call attention to herself. Marcie is a very humble person. But in a good way.
"Say," Franklin says after a moment of silent working (a rare occurrence). "Where's Linus anyhow? Didn't you invite him to study with us, Charlie Brown?"
"Yes," I say with a nod. "He said he had something else to do, or something. So he stayed home." the truth is, my friend Linus actually only wanted to stay home because his sister Lucy invited her friends over today, and he likes to be there when they're around. For obvious reasons.
I'm sure they could go on about my failures in life for about eighty more years, but they know when to stop, and that's what I like about them. There's a difference between just joking around and taking it too far. Lucy Van Pelt is a fine example of exactly that difference. She never knows when to stop, and always takes it too far with me. But what am I supposed to do about it? I can't chase her down; she could run circles around me. I can't hit her, because for one, she's a girl. Secondly, she would probably laugh in my face anyways. She wouldn't even feel it. Lucy is like a sister to me, though. We've known each other for as long as I can remember, and even though all she ever does is threaten me, and tease me with that stinking football, and yell at me... and make fun of me... among other things... As much as I hate to admit it, she does give pretty good advice. Whenever I fall down (save for the football teases) she's always the one to pick me up, brush me off, and throw me back into the ring again. And I appreciate it, I really do, sometimes I don't know where I would be without Lucy—but she's really been worrying me lately. Like just today, she had a spazz attack. Not that it isn't unusual for her to flip out when somebody says two wrong words. But today it was different. All I said was, "Looks like Schroeder's back," and she had this mental breakdown. I felt like I should have helped her somehow, but that desire quickly evaporated half out of fear, and half due to the fact that I was trying to prevent her from accidentally (or even on purpose) hitting Peppermint Patty in the face. Not that my arm around my girlfriend's shoulders was making any difference for her, anyways. She and Marcie kept their distance as Lucy lashed out on us, causing a great big scene in the schoolyard. When she stopped to take a breath, I could see the fire in her eyes. It felt as though she was shooting lasers out of her eyes at me, Peppermint Patty, Marcie, and Linus. What surprised us all even more was how she simply stood up after she was done and just walked away as if nothing happened. The whole rest of the day, I couldn't figure out what was eating her, or what had made her snap like that. The only thing I did notice was the way she kept on staring at Schroeder like she was mentally smashing rocks over his head. Now I can't help but wonder what I could have done to help. Probably nothing I did would be any help to her, anyways. I'm just silly old wishy-washy Charlie Brown.
o
o
(2 Summers ago, July)
Schroeder and Lucy were, for once, not sitting at his piano. His dad was fixing a few of the keys after an epic attempt to play Beethoven's Tempest first movement had gone awry. The two were sitting together in the grass on the baseball field. Schroeder was less than happy about the fact that as soon as he'd decided to take a walk in the quiet field, his number one fan had also decided to tag along. He definitely was not looking forward to hearing about her decisions about their future together, or her complaints about everything.
But surprisingly, she was different today. She was quieter, more down-to-earth; distant. The two of them sat underneath the bright blue sky and talked for hours. They talked about everything there was to talk about. Schroeder didn't know what was causing Lucy to act like she was, but he sure could get used to it. He liked this Lucy. She let him talk; she didn't interrupt him when he was saying something. And she actually listened. He was floored by her sudden abnormal behavior. It wasn't until they'd been talking for almost 3 hours did he work up the nerve to ask her what was up.
Her shoulders went rigid and she quickly turned away from him. Was Lucy crying? Schroeder didn't know what to do. Lucy took a deep breath and wiped her eyes.
"My grandma died last night, Schroeder."
He didn't know what came over him. He just knew that he couldn't bear to see her cry. Her voice broke and he slid over to her and gently put his arm around her shaking shoulders. He held her in his arms as she cried, not knowing at all what to say. They sat intertwined for who knows how long, until Lucy's cell phone ringtone broke the silence. She had long since stopped crying, and had now just been cuddling up to Schroeder for support.
She sat up a little bit taller and answered, sniffling, "Hello? Oh, hey Linus. Alright, I'll be home in five minutes. Bye." Lucy stood up without a word and started walking towards her house. Schroeder sat there for a minute. She didn't even look at him as she left. His arms felt empty now that she'd gotten up. He hadn't wanted to let her go.
He went to stand up but Lucy whirled around and faced him. She stood about ten feet away from him. He looked at her questioningly as she took a few steps back towards him.
"Schroeder?" she said hesitantly. He looked at her. She blinked several times and took another deep breath to keep herself from crying. "Thanks."
He nodded in reply, absolutely speechless, as she turned back around and ran away.
o
o
Lucy
"I have two classes with him!" Violet shrieked, clapping her hands together eagerly. The little clique, including Violet, Patty, Sally, and Frieda, was sitting on the floor in Lucy's room. The others moaned jealously at Violet's excitement.
Sally Brown folded her arms across her chest, pouting. "You guys are so lucky; I have less chances of having a class with him than you do."
Frieda scoffed. "He's too old for you, Sally," she said to the younger girl. "He wants someone with a little more maturity." she patted her hair and smiled smugly.
"He's only a year older than me!" Sally pouted.
"Hah," Patty laughed, "Even Snoopy has a better chance of getting with Schroeder than you do."
"Haven't you still got that obsession with Lucy's little baby brother, anyways?" Violet piped up. Frieda and Patty nodded in agreement.
Sally flushed a deep shade of pink. She did like Linus. Okay, so that was an understatement. It was a well-known fact that she'd had her eyes set on the blanket-clutching boy for as long as anyone could remember. When she was younger, she was famous for embarrassing him with the nickname "Sweet Baboo" and following him around like a puppy dog. She'd grown up quite a bit since then, but her childhood crush still held firmly in place. Although she tried her best to conceal it, she often found herself blurting out his nickname in public.
"Ohh, come on Sally, give it up already," Frieda rolled her eyes. "Who needs Linus when there are bigger and better men in the world—men who don't carry stupid little blankets!"
"Like Schroeder!" Violet chimed.
"Yeah!" Patty echoed. "Like Schroeder!"
A unanimous sigh fell over the four of them and Lucy scoffed.
They stared dreamily into space until Frieda turned to Sally and remarked evilly, "But it's not like he would date a little girl like you, anyways."
Sally opened her mouth to retort when Lucy, who was sitting on her bed, threw a pillow at her.
"Shut up about him already!" she screeched. The girls looked at her, confused. "You guys are being so immature! Schroeder wouldn't want to date any of you! You don't even know him!" Frieda stuck her nose in the air and patted her hair. Violet and Sally stared at Lucy with shocked expressions on their faces. "Which one of you sat on his piano for nine years in a row, listening to him play all day every day? Do any of you even know a thing about Beethoven?"
The other girls exchanged glances with one another. The moment was stretched tense and strained until, finally, Patty spoke.
"We all know you were the closest to him, Lucy," she remarked innocently. "I guess we've only just noticed him because of how cute he's gotten." The other girls nodded.
"Yeah," Frieda agreed, "You obviously knew him the best. We just thought you'd feel the same way about him as we did, especially now that he's like, totally hot."
"I thought you of all people would be excited about him coming back," Sally said. "You guys were really close."
Lucy winced. It was true. She had known Schroeder better than all of them. But nobody knew what had transpired between them before he'd left. Nobody knew except for herself and Schroeder.
But she couldn't let these girls know her weakness. Luckily, she was a great liar. "I'm over that blockhead," she replied coolly, shifting her position on the bed. "He was such a jerk to me. I dumped him right before he went on his stupid trip." She leaned in close, smiling that devilish smile of hers. They inched forwards, desperate to hear the story. "That way I knew he'd be thinking about me the whole time he was there." The other girls stared at her in awe.
"Just like that?" Patty whispered.
Lucy smiled smugly. "Yep. Just like that."
The girls sat in silence for a minute, pondering Lucy's words. Lucy knew she had them wrapped around her finger now. Or at least, she thought she did.
"So that means he's like, completely single now?" Frieda cried happily, breaking the tension. All the other girls started talking at once, fighting over who would have a better chance with him.
"AUGHH!" Lucy shouted, pelting another pillow down at them. They screeched and ducked out of the way, laughing and giggling and hitting each other with the pillows. Lucy made a noise that very much resembled the noise Linus made when he accidentally left his blanket behind. They would never understand.
A light knock at the door made them freeze. Lucy shook her head and called, "Who is it?"
"It's Linus!"
All eyes darted to Sally, who eagerly jumped up to open the door.
"Hi, my sweet—I mean—Linus!" she said eagerly, blocking his way into the room. He tried to push past her into the room but she wouldn't let him by. His cheeks flushed a deep red and he tightened his grip around his now security "blanket", if you could hardly call it that.
"Lucy," he called over Sally's shoulder. "Mom says everyone has to leave by 9."
Lucy nodded. "Okay!" she said a bit too excitedly. Linus's face disappeared from the doorway, but Sally wasn't about to let him get away from her.
"Linus wait!" she called, dashing out of the room and running down the stairs after him. I'd rather have Sally chasing after my blockhead baby brother than Schroeder any day, Lucy thought numbly. That's one less desperate girl I have to worry about.
Violet, Frieda and Patty stood up off the floor and crowded in front of Lucy's floor-length mirror to fix their hair. They took their time gathering their school bags and said goodbye to Lucy, hugging her and telling her they'd see her tomorrow at school. By the time they actually left, it was five after nine.
She waved them off and as soon as she was sure they were gone, Lucy picked up the pillows off the floor, fell down on her bed and buried her face in them.
