Disclaimer: Do I have to say it at the beginning of every chapter? I don't own Sailor Moon.
X X X X
"Yes. Yes," Kenji glanced in his wife's direction and shook his head.
Ikuko looked up at the clock on the wall.
"Well, do your best, please. Goodbye," Kenji set the phone down. "They still can't find her."
"It's been seven hours since we last saw her – what do you think could have happened?"
"I only wish I knew. And I wish I could turn back time and never have told her to go to her room. Maybe this wouldn't have happened then."
The conversation was abruptly interrupted by a knock at the door. Kenji and Ikuko exchanged fearful looks.
"Youanswer it!" they said together.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
"I couldn't stand to... suppose it's bad news?"
"That's exactly why I don't want to answer it!"
Knock! Knock! Knock! The knocks were getting louder. Obviously, whoever was outside was getting impatient.
"We'll both answer it."
Standing outside the door was...
"Serena!" Ikuko cried, hugging her daughter. "We were so worried about you!" Then, without even pausing for breath, she shouted, "When I get finished grounding you, young lady, you won't be leaving your room until the fiftieth century!"
Once Serena was in the living room, both her parents gave her very grim looks indeed.
"You have a lot of explaining to do, young lady," her mother said. "And you had better have a good explanation."
Several hours later, the police had been called and told that the missing girl had been found, so the search could be called off, and Serena had given them a heavily edited version of what had happened. She said she'd been upset over her grades, and then had gotten into an argument with her friends and later her teacher, and had been so mad she'd run away, gone to the park for a few hours, then calmed down enough to return home. The result was she got grounded for the next week and was being sent straight to bed without anything to eat at all.
In her room, Serena had plenty of time to think about what had happened – well, most of it. She couldn't think about the other Scouts without starting to cry. She hadn't wanted to come home, but, as Jadeite had pointed out, she couldn't stay outside for the rest of the night. At least when she was grounded, she wasn't likely to meet anyone she'd rather not see again for as long as she lived.
X X X X
At school the next day, everyone was staring at her and whispering. It was extremely embarrassing. What was even worse was when the head praised her for her "courageous, noble act" in front of the whole school. If ever Serena wished the floor would take pity on her, open up and swallow her, she wished it then. Every teacher she encountered commended her, and most added something along the lines of she should be as eager to do her school work as she was to protect the innocent. There was only one person who acted like she didn't exist. Amy.
"Wow, Serena, you're the hero of the whole school!" Umino said excitedly at lunch time.
"Thank you so much for stating the obvious, Umino. How did I miss that fact?" Serena said with uncharacteristic sarcasm.
Molly gave her an odd look. "Are you feeling okay, Serena?"
The girl was about to reply when she saw Amy walk out the door.
"No, actually, I've got a headache," she said quickly, before running inside, leaving two very bewildered classmates.
"What's with her lately?" Molly wondered.
"Maybe she's sick," Umino said.
"Sick? She's sick all right, with guilt," Amy muttered as she passed, just loud enough for them to hear her.
"What do you mean?"
"She wasn't on time for a meeting at the shrine then started a row about it. We haven't been speaking since."
"That doesn't sound like Serena," Umino said after Amy left.
X X X X
"So now they're making lies up about her."
"I believe it is time I got involved."
"Oh, great! I've been waiting for this for longer than I can remember!"
"I said, it is timeIgot involved."
"Then what do we do?"
"That's easy. Stay out of my sight before you end up being just a nasty mess on the floor for the caretaker to clear up!"
"What caretaker?"
X X X X
As Serena walked home that day, she suddenly knew exactly how celebrities must feel, with people staring at them. Obviously, far too many people watched television these days. Heads turned all the way down the street. Some little girls even asked for her autograph!
"I only saved a little old lady from being robbed. It's not all that big a deal! Anyone would think I'd saved some famous person from assassination!" she thought, annoyed, as she forced herself to walk past the Crown Game Centre without going in. After all, she was supposed to be grounded.
Serena sighed and tried to switch her school bag to her other shoulder. Unfortunately, she only realised that one of her shoelaces was undone when it was too late to do anything about it – when she tripped over it. Both Serena and school bag went flying, Serena ending up on the pavement, and the school bag... The girl winced, waiting for the shout of pain she was certain would accompany the flyaway accessory.
"OWW!"
Yes. She was right.
Gritting her teeth and trying to ignore the pain in her arm, Serena finally managed to gather enough courage to look up and face the enemy she just knew had been in the path of the school-bag-turned-dangerous-flying-object.
"Some strange way you have of greeting someone?" the victim asked.
Serena froze. That wasn't her worst enemy's voice. It wasn't Raye or Amy's voice either.
"Sorry, I just... tripped," she said, staring at the ground.
Jadeite gave her a half-annoyed, half-amused look, holding his shoulder where the school bag had hit him.
"Nice way to say hello," he said dryly.
"Very funny. And I have to get home now. I'm grounded for a week and if I'm not home exactly fifteen minutes after school finishes, Dad will kill me!"
She had only taken two steps when Jadeite said suddenly, "Aren't you forgetting something?"
Startled, Serena spun round. He held up her bag.
"Oh... Thanks."
X X X X
"Graceful as ever, I see."
"You sound like Sailor Mars."
"She acts like her, too."
"Thank you for your opinions. I don't like your character much, either, you know!"
"Oh? And why is that? Because I don't let you do what you want all the time?"
"Stop it, you two. You're acting like a couple of wild animals. How are you going to go about "interfering"?"
"That's easy. I'm going to keep an eye on things from Tokyo. In other words, I'm going to pretend to be a student at the Princess's school."
X X X X
"Mum? Dad? I'm home!" Serena called.
No answer. There was a note on the kitchen table, however.
Dear Serena, it read,
We have gone to an urgent meeting with your father's boss. Sandwiches are in the bread unit. Should be back by five.
Be good, dear. Love, Mum.
"Oh, well. May as well have a sandwich."
Serena had nearly finished the eighth and last sandwich when she was interrupted by a rustling noise in the living room.
"What's that?" She wondered, setting the remainder of the sandwich on the table.
Pushing open the door, the girl surveyed the living room. It appeared to be empty.
"Couldn't have been – AHHHHHHH!"
A white mouse had just run right over her foot. And if there was one thing Serena Tsukino hated more than youmas, it was mice.
The front door was thrown open and Serena ran out it like she was pursued by an army of creatures from the Dark Kingdom. Grounded or otherwise, she was not staying in a house that had any mice in it.
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