Greetings, true believers! It took me long enough, but I've finally gotten around to finishing what has become the third chapter in this little story of mine. I say "what has become chapter 3" because this one was originally supposed to be about twice as long. However, I felt I had already gone quite long-enough without actually publishing anything, and there seemed to be enough content about halfway through for a unique chapter, and so the original was split down the middle. Really, these next two will be the tail end of this prologue, which seems to have taken much longer to wrap-up than I expected, but it'll be worth it. I promise!
Chapter 3: Happiness is a Warm Taffy
"Alright you," the schoolgirl snarled as she withdrew a dollar from a slightly small pocket on her very small skirt. "You'd better freakin' cooperate this time…"
This wasn't even the first time Candy Cane had confronted this particular juggernaut that day, a fact that only hardened the venomous leer she trained onto her reflection within the glass that served as the barrier between herself and the goodness that was her daily stick of Ichigo-Go™ brand Strawberry Taffy ("Hey-Ho, Let's Ichigo!"™).
Generally, Ms. Welsh would outright shun such shameless corporate pandering to her "alternative" demograph, but she had to make an exception in this particular case, for upon seeing Ichie the Ichigoman's smiling veneer gracing her daily plastic-wrapped stick of gooey warmth with his cheesy green mohawk and leather jacket, she couldn't help but feel a certain gooey warmth within herself that made the world around her feel a bit less rough and cold, because she knew that artificially-flavored wonderment was not far away, and after the unpleasantness of her last class period, said wonderment had never been more needed.
Her eyes were then fixated on her beloved taffy product, it's vibrant red wrapper faded to a more bronzely affair by the sun's rays reaching the candy dispenser's glass through a small window above the school's parting door to the tennis courts. No matter. Ichigo always used cheap light-dilutable coloring for their products' packaging. Their strawberry soda cans became orange, their strawberry yogurt cartons would lighten to a pinkish tint, but the contents inside were always unaltered, not that any of those mattered to Candy, at least not as much as her succulent taffy.
Candy Cane readied her dollar to be fed into the $1 slot on the machine, waiting for its sensors to register the offering and slowly suck-in her currency.
"C'mon, Candy!" Mandy groaned. "Not this again…"
"Hey!" Candy snapped her dollar away from the mechanic vendor to discoursely regard her guitarist. "I didn't get my taffy earlier, because someone just couldn't freakin' wait to get to Ms. Spencer's class! What's the rush now!"
Looking on from behind the two, Sandy's eyes rolled as she breathed harshly through her nose whilst Brandy bit her lip in worry.
"I just wanna leave, alright!" Mandy placed a hand on her hip. "And so what if you didn't get a snack earlier!"
"So I still want a snack now, alright!" Candy snotted-out.
"Don't you get all smart with me!" Mandy took a step towards her singer, effectively in the middle of the hallway.
A few of the students walking down the hall were beginning to take notice of the quarrel that looked to be brewing, two or three even stopping to watch from a distance.
"Should I just stay dumb like you then?" Candy also stepped forward.
Sandy knelt-down, letting her book bag slide off her shoulder, kneeling down lower to unzip its main flap and withdrew the Satanic Bible she had been burying herself in as of late. Mandy's face dropped further upon figuring why she should drop her schoolbag as well. They'd probably be standing there for awhile.
"'You tryin' to be clever, or somethin'!"
"Are you tryin' to piss me off!"
Their auguration was beginning to draw a crowd. More and more passer-bys were gathering around the scene, creating a loose perimeter on either side of the Killer Bambies.
"At least there weren't any people earlier," this wasn't helping the once again near shivering Brandy.
Brandy felt an arm reach around her and pull her in for a quick consoling squeeze before letting go with an even quicker pat on the shoulder, though it didn't do much to ease her weakening legs.
Having tended to Brandy, Sandy's eyes loomed across the spotty circle of students whom had gathered around their group. A few were laughing with one another, intrigued by the prospect of seeing two of those punk girls at each others' throats. Others seemed markedly more unsettled, and with the increasing explosivity of Candy and Mandy's invectfulness, it wasn't hard to see (or hear) why.
"Oh, real cute! I think those pigtails are killin' the circulation to yer brain!"
"At least they're better than that dykie pompadore!"
Brandy felt a clawful hand slowly making its way up towards her hair, tremulous in its wait to desperately grip at any handful of locks it could acquire in order to pry and ultimately tear her focus away from this scene, away from their shouts, away from the crowd's hoots and calls, but mostly away from her friends' arguing.
"Ay, it's got a bow in the back!"
"Dykie in the front, prissy in the back!"
"Go drop dead, Candy!"
"I'll drop you dead in a minute if you keep pissin' me off!"
The crowd of students' "oohs", "ohs", and various other promptful interjections had reached a considerably volumous decibel. They went outwardly unacknowledged by the conflicting half of the foursome, but Brandy heard all of them and none of them. Each call of "kick her ass!" or the cliché "catfight!" began to blend together in a maddening ringing sensation in her ears. The ring was trumped in prominence by the thump-thump-thump nearly pulsing out of her chest, and even that was duped by each of Candy and Mandy's vile aspersions.
"Oh, so that's how it is then!" Mandy gave the redhead a light shove.
"Yeah, 'that's how it is'!" Candy returned the shove in-kind.
The crowd that had been divided between anticipation and fearful dread was now largely in the former camp, exploding at the sudden displays of physicality.
Sandy's thoughts and eyes went down to the Satanic Bible held under her arm.
"If someone bothers you, ask them to stop. If they do not stop, destroy them."
"You tryin' to make somethin' ah' this!"
"Maybe I am!"
Brandy's hand couldn't quite clamp itself shut, for it was paralyzed in a horrible state of vibration. Her eyes, though tearful and burning, couldn't quite seem to shut, for they were locked onto her friends, whose every terrible word and firey motion towards each other made the red tint that was slowly overcoming the world through Brandy's eyes more prominent.
"Hey, Brandy," the redness substantially dwindled upon Sandy's far-off voice entering her ear.
The drummer could no longer see her friends, as a heavy block of blackness was suddenly thrust before her face. She then felt a stern but caring hand clasp her shoulder.
"Hold this for me," Sandy's instruction was gentle enough, but there was a hardness in her voice that couldn't be entirely concealed.
Brandy raised her hands to tentatively grab the book, almost on auto-pilot as her whole being slowly descended from the rocketous adrenaline that had overtaken her. The book felt weighty, and the fact that it was in her possession alone was very intimidating. Still, her eyes darted around to reassess her now less reddened surroundings, seeing that Sandy was beginning to walk away.
"Sandy," she asked, whimpering. "What are you going to do?"
"Don't worry," Sandy replied. There was a vocal smattering of curiosity amongst the crowd of students as she marched towards the two.
"I think you're talkin' a lot bigger than you can walk, Candy!"
"Oh, you're thinking! That's new!"
"How'd you like a new-"
"HEY!"
Mandy suddenly found herself being easily muscled out of the way by their firebrand bassist who was suddenly standing castigationally in the middle of the temperative twosome. Sandy stood sideways, arms stiffly crossed, feet firmly planted, her bottom lip slightly turned-in as part of a grimacing lip-curl that graced the visceral visage beneath her bloodred bang.
"I'll ask you guys nicely," her eyes loomed to the left and right, alternating between the two. "Would you please stop?"
Only some bemoaned sighs and remarks from the studential onlookers provided the hallway with any sound for the moment. Candy and Mandy, for all their animosity, were left to dejectedly snarl at one another, having to peer past Sandy's stony stature as her eyes pendulated between the two of them. Brandy quaily clutched at the Satanic Bible in her arms, anchoring herself in a fragile state of composure as she looked-on.
"Alright, Sandy," Candy tried to sound unfazed. "Look, we wo-"
"No, you look," Sandy's tone was unnervingly reserved as she turned to face her singer. "I'm really getting sick of having to hear you two bitch and argue all day…"
The redhead crossed her arms, taking a swinging step towards her towering bass-player.
"What's with this whole peace-keeper thing you've been doing all day?" the schoolgirl asked with her head smarmily acrook, not to mention arched back in order to meet eyes with Sandy.
Before she was able to respond, Mandy stepped-up behind Sandy, flicking her on the shoulder.
"Yeah, really!" the Brooklynian began spouting-off as she turned around. "Why do you gotta keep nosin'-in on these things!"
Sandy's brow narrowed harshly at the remark, harshly enough to scare the indignance out of the guitarist's eyes.
"You'd think after six weeks you two would start remembering…," Sandy let the acidic words seeping through her teeth trail-off when her eyes pointed over Mandy's pompadore, directing Candy and Mandy's focus to their drummer across the hall, trembling as she coddled the large book of Sandy's in her arms.
Holding the tome close to herself in a minusculey therapeutic clutch, the drummer watched the typical end to another of her friends' disputes play-out. The whole thing was dosed in more than deja-vu, for it was torturously monotonous at this point, and yet the impained familiarity did nothing to quell the fear that was still ablaze within her.
Brandy wasn't even paying attention to what the three were saying anymore, merely listening to the thunderous beat in her chest that had again risen to prominence in her psyche, promoted by her knowledge of what was to come upon watching Candy and Mandy's faces melt from burning vindication to chillful remorse after a few words from Sandy.
Though she was thankful the fiendish femme's efforts were only verbal this go-around, as opposed to her more hands-on approach from earlier on and a few other past instances, Brandy knew that the facial dips from anger to sadness always meant one thing.
Sure enough, the drummer saw Candy Cane bounding towards her, face and eyes all aworry, well-ahead of the more outwardly-reserved Mandy.
Candy was always the first to rush to her consolicial aid, as she was that night six weeks ago, as she was after that terrible, terrible white flash that sent Brandy falling from her stool with that terrible, terrible ringing in her ears. She could still remember Rebecca crouched over her, speech and eyes frenzied and mad with worry, audible even over the manic firestorm of screams and sirens that was erupting around them.
"Brandy! Are you ok! Are you ok! Brandy!"
And there Candy was, panicking before her on her own behalf, just as she did that night six weeks ago. She seemed certain that it would help, but it only made the panic attack, as her doctor called it, all the more horrible. Brandy's adrenaline would race again, the red shade would return, the horrible ringing would return, the maddening sound of her rapid heartbeat wound pound against her skull, and all the while Candy would hold her and slather her in sincere, scared, softly-meant words of reassurance, just as she did that night six weeks ago.
"we're so sorry, Brandy! Everything's ok now, though. Ok? Will you be ok!"
The worst part of It was, even though every fiber in her sonically-terrorized being called for it, Brandy couldn't allow her hand to clamp upon a set of hairs to rip at until she felt that burning asuagance in the depths of her follicles. She couldn't allow herself to shiver at the break of her psychosomatic feverishness. She could only lock herself up, reserve herself in a show of thanks to her friend's efforts until she could let her body come down from the horrible ride in contained inner-processes until she could shake the memories.
"Are you ok now, Brandy?" Candy asked, stepping back from her final quick embrace, her words much slower now.
"Yeah," the ringing in her ears was nearly unbearable, "I'm ok now, guys…"
She wasn't ok, but at least that answer always got the attention off of her, which would allow her to be so much more quickly.
"Alright," the group's singer breathed a sigh of relief. "Is everything ok now?"
"Mhm," Sandy nodded dryly
.
"Yeah, yeah," Mandy quickly answered. "Go get your candy if ya want."
With that, Candy practically pranced over to the candy dispenser, unable to stifle a grin as she fingered-in the Ichigo™ Taffy's representational code on the machine's keypad.
The gathering of curious students had lost its curiosity a few minutes ago upon realizing they weren't going to see any sort of physical altercation between any of the punky foursome, leaving the hallway much quieter than it had been since Brandy was last sensorially coherent. She found herself eyeing the cover of the Satanic Bible inquisitively, absently pondering the cultural origins of the name Anton LaVey.
"Hey," it was Sandy, she discovered upon looking-up, "ou alright?"
Sandy put a hand out, to which the drummer gladly returned the book.
"I, I will be soon…," Brandy replied with somewhat of a smile, getting a quick pat on the head.
"Good," Sandy smiled, looking over her shoulder at their vocalist.
Candy Cane waited interminably for the cylindrical claw that held her long-for longed stick of strawberry taffy to complete its crazingly-slow rotation that would award the schoolgirl with her prize. Finally, it was relinquished to fall the short ways down to the machine's reachable cabinet, hitting its basen with a "thunk" that echoed within the dispenser's walls.
The others watched over her shoulder as Candy swiped-up her treat and went about unwrapping it feverishly. Without so much as looking at the taffy, she was ready to pop it into her mouth and upon her tongue, however, there was another interruption.
"Okay, cool, boss, ace," Mandy crossed her arms. "Now can we get out of here, please?"
"Alright, alright!" Candy laughed. "Geez, Mandy. What do you think's gonna happen if we don't hurry out of here?"
"Now just what have we told you punk girls about loitering in our hallways after hours?"
The dainty voice hit each of the four 'punk girls' like an zeppelinial earwig, piercing through their brains with a microsecond of a shock that turned into a certain sensation of dread that could only be evoked by the particular trio of women that one voice always trumpeted the glittering, peppy arrival of.
With a mutual grimace, the Killer Bambies turned to face the spirited trio whom they held with the highest degree of disdain. Their threesome's perpetually springy and chipper animation was enough to make even the pluckiest of the plucky recoil at the dangerously-high levels of concentrated sugar their demeanors carried with them, and yet said sugaroisty was not without its bitter tinge, for these girls were the bells of the high school ball, and they knew it.
"See? Tommorrow's prep-rally day! I knew they'd stay late." Mandy muttered.
"I'd take that crowd over these three…," Brandy whined.
"Just, just look at all those bright colors, and… and all that glitter…," Sandy winced on nearly every word.
"I freakin' HATE my old cheer squad…," Candy Cane groaned.
