Apparently, dead ninja bodies were not uncommon in New Jersey.
The police had discovered them by the next morning, but the story was so unexciting it merited nothing more than a brief mention on the news strip on the bottom of all the state's prominent stations: 'Three bodies found in apparent outbreak of inter-gang violence. If more info is known, contact police.'
Anastasia Hamilton tried to decide whether she felt relief... or concern that someone could probably get away with murder in this city so long as they had the brains to dress their victim up in a 'clan' uniform afterwards. It probably meant the city had a high level of 'costumed' activity under the surface, which meant super heroes and super villains tended to check each other and the police tried to worry about more mundane happenings
But, anyway, if her father knew she'd been up to no good the evening before, he gave no sign, which was a blessing. There were dark circles under his eyes and she wondered what time he'd gotten home, but wasn't so bold as to ask how his evening had gone when her own had been over-eventful. She did shoot him a few curious looks, lest he grow suspicious of her.
Soon after breakfast came schoolwork, for which she needed to focus. Focus. ...Focus... F... Ludicrous! How was she possibly supposed to focus? She wanted to jump out of her skin and throw glitter everywhere. She wanted out, out into the streets; she wanted to play, she wanted to exercise, she wanted to go crazy! Too many thoughts! Turtles! Arg. Wait. Wait, wait, wait, she might be able to think up a strategy for focusing. She might have a trick up her sleeve.
"Please read this to me," she begged her father after nearly an hour of suffering in agitated silence. "I can't. I need to hear a voice."
"You should take the chance to practice," her father countered. "You've been improving."
"I just can't focus today," she moaned truthfully like the spoiled child she was. "My head keeps going in circles. Help me."
Mr. Hamilton yielded and came over to sit with her. She breathed a little easier, and watched the words as he spoke. Her father had a very nice speaking voice, low and strong. Well, er, when he wasn't agitated or in costume, of course. She listened closely, and some of her anxiety and stress melted out as she began to imagine the scenes framed by the words. Her fingers itched over her note-taking paper. Occasionally she stopped him so she could compose a summary point and write it down. He absently scratched her back as she worked.
She was only handicapped when it came to stringing together whole paragraphs of meaning. All that black text on white paper, so visually indistinct for line after line after line, messed her up. Chemistry and math were easy; her short-term memory was pretty good at protecting small bites of discrete information from being scrambled by her foresight.
Betimes school was over, it was obvious her father was tired. What a blessing; now he wasn't likely to notice all this extra energy she had! "I'm thinking of going to the Rec and putting myself through the usual," she said. "But you look like you need a nap. You okay?"
"Mn." He agreed as he blanked vacantly and heavy-lidded off at nothing. Acid eyes lacked their usual luster. "You'll forgive me if I take the rest of day off?"
"Of course."
Anastasia guiltily wondered if she ought to eventually fess up to her mistakes with him. If she was the one to tell him, he might forgive her. Right? That same wouldn't be true if he found out through alternate means. She bit her lip, and hurried out the door.
...
Once at the recreation center, she trained at running, squats, sit-ups and pull ups, she pummeled a punching bag, she practiced her hand-stands, she tried anything and everything to get her energy out. After a bit she knew she simply needed a challenge, so she went to find the gymnastics room.
Anastasia played at the pommel horse until her arms were shaking and she simply couldn't lift her body up any longer. Pommel horses were different than uneven bars because they never allowed for any real rest; the gymnast had to hold their body perpendicular off the ground and swing their legs about or do handstands. That required a ton of arm strength. It was a good exercise for anyone who wanted to leap around a concrete jungle like Tarzan.
When she finally had to dismount she took some big gulps of water, and then ran through her list of favorite exercises. So much to do, and surely that would help shake her jitters.
She played on the balance beam before school let out for any of the city kids, because then it would become a very popular piece of equipment. After that were gymnastic floor exercises. Run, run, run, cartwheel, flip, roll. She didn't care what the other people practiced at; She didn't care that rolls weren't part of regular routines. She was imagining everything was dark and made of metal and concrete. She took some time with a punching bag again afterwards.
Anastasia appreciated how sparsely populated the recreation building was during daytime hours. She could play with everything, and never needed to wait her turn. Heck, she barely needed to acknowledge the existence of anyone else at all. She did have to track down some employees to spot her on some of the equipment, because she didn't want to be on the center's bad side.
She surmounted the rockwall, starting with the easy side first and then guzzled water and started on the hard. Her spotter was impressed. Much to her own disappointment, she didn't quite make it across the overhang of the hard side on her first try and—begrudgingly—had to admit to herself that she'd probably pushed herself a little too hard, too fast. She let go and waited fifteen minutes before trying again. This time, she made it around the hump.
And then, well, then she'd finished that, and checked everything off her training regiment in rather record time...
... Which left her with what?
No she was bored.
Really bored.
And still hyper-energetic.
Anastasia went out to the kids playground and dangled back and forward along the monkey bars for a bit, trying to settle her thoughts. She saw a snail atop the bars, looking quite out of place and probably frying in the hot sun. She looped herself up beside it, and took a seat, and sprinkled a little water on the small creature as she maneuvered it into her shadow. Poor little guy. Or girl? Or in-between? Weren't snails hermaphroditic?
As she waited for her miniature new 'friend' to recover, she pulled out her phone. She swung her legs back and forth and mindlessly refreshed her game scores. She tapped every interesting thumbnail on YouTube, and then grew board before any video finished playing. She scrolled her contacts list up and down. Up and down. Up and down.
She stopped the scroll of the contact list, her thumb hovering over the newest entry.
No! Be patient! Don't be weird, Ana. Wait a day, at least! Don't blow this. Be patient!
Back to mindless YouTubing, then, in a vain effort to distract herself or think up something else to do. It was too bright out to be running on rooftops, but perhaps she might go to the skate park? Or the rink? Or anywhere? Maybe she just needed some food. Blah.
"Hey," came a feminine twang from below, as several girls in practice outfits came up beside the playground. "You're supposed to climb under those." A companion added, "Yeah, if you're a kid. Stop squatting on the Gym, you'll scare everyone else off."
"Find someone to stop me," Ana replied, and wondered why it was that she only had these sorts of problems with girls. It was like girls always self-policed a conformation to social structure, and Ana was a voluntary outcast. But, then, Ana probably oughtn't be so quick to judge people when—after only a quick glance—she'd already dismissed them and had no intention of being nice to them either.
"You're just a bratty little troublemaker aren't you?"
Anastasia grinned to herself. "The worst sort," she agreed. "So don't mess with me."
Yeah, Anastasia probably oughtn't be so quick to judge people if that was her opener towards them. Unlike boys, who'd usually heed the 'unfriendly' signals she displayed, the girls stayed there to argue with, insult, and shame her into submission.
Anastasia ignored them up until one got close with a gleam in her blue eyes that suggested her heart rate had elevated in anticipation of doing something naughty. At that point, Ana scooped up the snail, leaned over, and flicked the poor shelled creature into the back of the girl's hoodie.
Operation Snail Terror was effective, though Ana spent the fallout just mindlessly tapping about her phone and being frustrated with her own malcontent. Screams, death threats, and lumps of thrown sand never got high enough to bother her; they were all just so much noise.
The way she sat there, totally unfazed, probably made some of the girls want all the more to provoke a reaction out of her. But a few of them must have been more mature than the others, because after some arguing among themselves they decided to leave. She heard some bitter snaps of 'slut' and 'bitch' which meant nothing at all, and then she was alone again.
Ana leaned over and surveyed the playground floor once they'd departed, and spotted the snail unharmed and crawling off towards the garden. Excellent. She was pleased the little fella hadn't gotten squashed in the melee. Her dad was right about this: sometimes, the most effective solution to a problem was the slimy/funny one. She waved goodbye to the snail and then looked back to her phone.
Adele, snake eggs hatching, kittens, cartoons- SUPER SPEEDY TEXTING MANEUVER!
She flipped to her contacts and—before she could stop herself—quickly tapped the newest contact. She typed an innocuous message: 'Ping.' SEND IT, BUAHAHAH! Then, for the briefest moment, she felt dread (and a renewed respect for her own mania). How long ought she to wait before assuming he didn't want to talk? Should she send a second message in like, an hour, just in case?
But a grand total of six seconds later, her phone began to ring. Anastasia nearly fell off the monkey bars, and then steadied herself and lifted the receiver to her ear. "Hi?"
"Oh my god, what took you so long?!" Sandro demanded in a whisper. "I was starting to think you were annoyed with me and would never call."
Ana nearly fell off the monkey bars again, and decided she probably ought to retreat to ground level because the third time she swooned while up there would surely be the charm, and she'd end up face-down in the playground sand. "Well of course I'm not annoyed!" she gushed as she slipped down to the ground and stuck her landing. "I finished school and I exercised and now I'm miserably bored! Can you get out!?"
"Ssh, I'm home and can't raise my voice to talk over you, loudmouth. I'd get overheard."
"Oh-um-sorry-!" she tried to tone her enthusiasm down a bit. Deep breaths.
"I can only climb up once it's dark," he explained. "Give me a minute, I'll at least get out of the den for now so I don't get surprise eavesdroppers."
"Okay. Huh. You know, you have surprisingly good reception for being underground."
"Have an uncle who loves technology. Which is fortunate. Make this more bearable. Call you back in a minute."
He hung up, temporarily.
Anastasia pulled her phone down from her ear and looked at it. She scuffed in place where she stood. Then she proceeded to jump about, and spin, and circle her arms in the air. "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! Eeeee!" She squealed her unnatural and indescribable and directionless enthusiasm, and clapped, and bounced; and then when her phone started ringing again she took a deep breath to steady herself, and just barely remembered to lower her voice as she answered. "Hi!" So much for lowering her voice.
"I'm in the clear," her new friend informed her anyways. "Where do you want to meet? I'll head that way."
Her head exploded with ideas (here, there, everywhere!) but she supposed she ought to take things easy. What could people do outside after it grew dark but before the city was fully asleep? "Depends how hungry you are," she replied conspiratorially. "We could go for a walk along the river?" Oh yeah, that was exciting and fun. Not. Where had that even come from? Well what else are we supposed to do?
"Anything is better than a sewer," he agreed, simply.
Anastasia wanted to do a handstand. "I'll meet you outside the Subway restaurant on Lane and Karen Street then," she said. "And, Sandro, this is very important: do you like Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomatoes?"
"And Mozzarella?"
"Gonna level with you, there's no such thing as a bad choice in cheese, but the common BLT goes best with two to three slices of provolone."
"I shall trust in your expertise on this topic."
She was going to need to pickpocket someone if her funds were going to survive to the weekend, but that was seldom hard. She just needed to find some distracted businessman yelling at a taxi driver somewhere; there were always plenty of those. "Your faith in me is moving," she grinned as she spoke. "I'll call you back when I've secured the bacon, S."
"Roger that, agent Wildcard."
Tehe!