Sitch of the Living Dummy
By MaceEcam
Chapter 8
"BBBBRRRRRIIIIII-"
Ron slammed his first down on his alarm shutting it off. He then rolled back over and softly began to fall back asleep.
Minutes later, the second alarm clock that he had placed on the other side of the room so he'd have to get up to turn it off rang. Grunting, he climbed out of bed and trudged over to the machine. He flipped the switch that reset the alarm so that it would go off the same time the next day; he then turned, took the few steps back toward the bed, then fell in shut his eyes. He was still tired from staying up all night getting rid of you know who.
A moment later his eyes shut open and he jumped out of bed. He turned his head to look at his clock so fast that he felt a crick in his neck; letting loose a string of words unsuited for a T rated fic he started rubbing where the noise and accompanying pain had come from. The soreness gone, he tried turning to the timepiece again, albeit more slowly.
It read 7:02 in the morning.
As the events of the previous day and night flooded his mind, Ron groaned inwardly. He silently hoped that it all had been a dream, brought on by too many late night naco's and pizza, and that today was the day for presentations. But when he spotted the broken window and the dummy repair kit still on the ground, his hopes were dashed.
His eyes lit back up in a moment however.
"If yesterday happened…."Ron said out loud, "Then I got rid of him as well! Yes!" He started dancing in place. "Oh yeah, who's the Ron man, oh yeah, who got rid of an evil dummy!" He paused in his dance. "Man, that does sound kind of stupid. No wonder Kim didn't…Kim!" He remembered.
He started pacing. "Oh I can't believe I said all those mean things to her. She's gonna be so sad. No wait, she'll be mad at me. Would she? I mean, I'm just gonna be so mad at her if she still doesn't believe me…." He stopped. "Why am I sad anyway? I shouldbe mad at her, I mean we've been friends for how long and she tosses me away like that…Oh please let her not be mad at me. I'll do anything…I mean, we've been through tough times before, it's not like she's gonna dump me for it-" He froze in his tracks. "Oh no.." he said covering his mouth. "What if she does dump me? Maybe she's finally fed up with my wild imagination that she runs into the arms of another man! Double ironic since this time I wasn't making it up!"
Ron feel to his knees and started shaking his fists at the heavens. "Curse you irony, for thou art a cruel master!" Then he covered his face and shame.
He calmed down. "You know, there's nothing I can do. I am going to go to school and let what comes come. I will accept what ever happens. And then, even if Kim and I break up, there is still the chance we will be friends."
It was with these reassuring thoughts that Ron began preparing for the day. After taking a quick shower and throwing on some clothes, he headed down stairs two at a time.
It didn't look like his parents were up yet. Ron wasn't really surprised; his mom had long since given up cooking breakfast for the family. With how often her son ate the morning meal with the Possibles, she and Mr. Stoppable usually just grabbed something from the Mike Donald's or Sandwich Duke dive-thru. On the few days that Ron didn't dine with the Possibles he was left to fend for himself, something he did all too well giving his mad cooking skills.
This is what Ron decided to do now. It was still some time till school started, and in the back of his mind he still wanted to put off running into Kim as long as he could, so he decided to cook himself some breakfast. He pulled out a pair of skillets and set the heating on the stove; within minutes he had scrambled eggs cooking on the stove. Reaching back into the fridge he pulled out a packet of turkey-bacon and set it a cooking.
The first of the eggs had just finished cooking when his mother came down the stairs dressed in a light blue bathrobe. "Morning mom." Ron said kissing her on the check.
"Breakfast?"
"Morning son. Don't mind if I do." she replied as she sat down at the table. Ron placed a plate of the eggs on the table in front of her. "The bacon will be ready in a minute" he told her.
She took a bite of the eggs. "I want to know where you inherited this great cooking of yours from. I know it wasn't from me, and it definitely isn't from your father."
"I heard that" came his father's voice coming down the stairs. As he rounded the corner he breathed in deep.
"I need coffee."
Ron pointed over to were he had put on a pot. After getting a pot for himself, Gene poured a mug for his wife to drink then sat down. Ron placed a plate in front of him, complete with bacon; he then shuffled a few pieces from the skillet to his mother's plate.
Finally Ron made up a plate for himself and sat it on the table. Before sitting down he returned the egg carton to the fridge and poured himself some OJ. Sitting down, he was about to take his first bite when the yawn of yawns overcame him.
His mother looked at him. "Honey, you look exhausted. You weren't up all night playing video games again did you?" she asked disapprovingly.
"No!" He answered, not sure how he would explain the broken window. "I uh-had a lot of homework." It wasn't entirely a lie. Upon returning home after tossing Slappy off the bridge, he had realized that with everything else that had happened that day he hadn't yet done his homework. By the time he finished he could barely keep his eyes open, and hadn't even bothered changing out of his clothes before collapsing onto the bed.
His mother nodded, sensing something was wrong but not pressing the matter. His dad was oblivious, hidden behind the morning paper.
After he was done eating Ron politely excused himself, leaving his parents to deal with the dishes. After heading back to his room to get his school stuff, he headed out the door and started walking to school.
It didn't take him long to get to school; however he hesitated for a moment before going in. He really wasn't looking forward to the conversation with Kim. After a minute of hesitation he headed in.
He saw Kim as soon as he neared their locker; she was talking to Monique. Seeing him, Monique quickly excused herself from Kim and made off in the opposite direction. Moving to her, Ron tapped Kim on the shoulder.
Kim turned to Ron. "Kim I-" he began while at the same time she started talking as well. "Ron I-"
They were both interrupted by the bell ringing. Barely half a second later Barkin was towering above them. "Come on you two, your both supposed to be in my class."
Kim started heading that way, but a tug on her arm by Ron stopped her. "Mr. B." He began calmly, "Kim and I need to talk."
Steve Barkin had spent the last eight years teaching at Middleton High. Before starting at the school he had spent the previous fifteen as a Marine. In that time, it wasn't often that he heard someone speak with real authority, and real urgency, as if what he had to say was more important than anything else in the word to him, then what Stoppable had just said. To Kim's surprise, and to some extent Ron's and his owns, instead of yelling at Ron and giving him detention he said something else instead.
"I'll go ahead and mark you both 'present'. Just don't take to long!" He added as an after thought before walking away.
"Wow" Ron said turning white. "I can't believe I did that."
"Me neither" Kim replied, her eyes following Barkin out of sight. She turned back to Ron. "Ron I-RON!" She yelled, catching him as he fainted.
As Kim lowered him to the ground his eyes fluttered back open. "I'm ok." he managed to get out, but sat down anyway, back against the locker.
Kim slid down next to him. The hallways were completely empty by now, everyone one else in class. "You ok?" She asked him.
"Yeah" he answered; then at the same time they both spoke.
"Kim/Ron I-"
"Jinx" Kim said beating him. "You owe me an explanation." She took his hand in both of hers. "Ron it was wrong of me to get angry at you with out giving you a chance to explain yourself. With all of the things I've seen in my life, it was immature of me not to even entertain the possibility of a living dummy-even if I do think it's highly unlikely."
"Kim, it's ok. You worked hard on that assignment, and it was all ruined."
"No Ron, that's no excuse. I should have let you explain yourself then, but instead I escaped on the first mission that came along. So here I am now, ready to listen. "
So he told her. Sitting there side to side on the hallway floor, Ron told Kim of everything that had happened the previous day. A while later they had finished, and as the were standing up the bell rang and students started filling the halls. They had missed their entire class. It didn't matter much to either of them however; they were on a mission together.
"You realize Ron, with Slappy halfway to Go-City there's no way for you to prove this whole thing."
"The thought had occurred to me" Ron answered, scratching the back of his neck nervously. "Makes me kind of wish I had kept him, but he probably would have just pretended to be un-alive."
Kim raised her eyebrow.
"Well what would you call it? Undead wouldn't work, since he was never living in the first place. I mean yes he was alive, but he wasn't born that way…I'm assuming anyway. I mean I guess he could have had dummy parents, but I don't really even want to think of how the biology of that would work…I mean Sick & Wrong!"
"Ron" Kim interrupted. "You're rambling."
"Sorry." He replied. "I don't know why, I mean I know how he came to life, it was the magic words printed on that card."
"About that. Do you still have that card? I want Wade to do a search on those words." Kim said.
"Yeah, it's in my clothing…from yesterday. Sorry."
"Well can you remember any of them?" Kim asked, hoping for the next best thing.
"Sorry. No clue."
There was silence between them. It was clear that Kim still didn't fully believe Ron, though she wanted to. "So now what?" She asked.
"Well," Ron began. "I'd feel better if we could just forget it."
"You mean forget the whole thing?"
"Yes. Kim whether I was making him up or he was really alive I promise you, the Slappy problem is over."
Kim didn't know what to say, until she heard herself saying "Ok". As much as she didn't believe Ron, she also didn't believe he would make something like this up. If he wanted to forget about it for now, that was fine with her.
Just then Mr. Barkin came up to them and admonished them for missing class. They
apologized, and ran off to their other classes.
The rest of the day was uneventful for Ron. He attended his classes, ate lunch with Kim, Monique, Zita, and Felix, even got up the courage to apologize to Brick when he saw him.
After lunch he had a few more classes to attend, after which he headed to his detention. To his surprise he found Mr. Barkin absent; he left a note on the door saying he had to leave early and was thus cancelling detention for the day. Of course Mr. B wouldn't give anyone a freebee, the note went on to say that detentions had all just been pushed back a day.
Happy at his temporary reprieve, Ron ran to catch up with Kim but found she had already left. He instead tried to track down Felix; he found him in the gym tossing the ball into the hoop then catching them with his chair's arms. The two quickly started up a game and within minutes Ron was behind ten points and breathing so hard he thought he was about to have a heart attack.
"Time out time out!" Ron managed to gasp out as Felix made it an eleven point lead. As Felix caught the ball, he turned to Ron. "You know maybe Kim's right, you do need to cut down on the Nacos."
"You know…not what…you say!" Ron managed to get out before collapsing in a heap on the floor. Felix let out a laugh at his expense and helped him up.
Just the door to the gym flew open and Zita ran in. Spotting Felix, she ran up to him as fast as she could and grabbed his arm. "Come on, I have to tell you something."
"Sorry Bro, I got to go." Felix called to Ron as he followed Zita out of the room.
Deprived of a partner, Ron went and collected Rufus from where he had left him sleeping on the benches. Leaving the gym, he started on the path that led to his home. It was a busy day, and as he was walking several cars passed him, including an ambulance.
He opened the front door to his house and entered. "I'm home everybody!" He call. His mom answered him, carrying a laundry basket. "Oh hi honey, how was school?"
"School was great. Where's Hana? I feel like giving my little sister a big hug."
"She's in the living room, playing with her new doll."
"New doll?"
Ron rounded the corner as fast as he could. And there was his little sister watching her favorite show.
And right behind he, so that she was sitting in between his legs and his arms were around her, was Slappy the Dummy.
II.
The next day Ron didn't come to school, and Kim was worried about him. So the moment her last class ended she was out the door, barely stopping to put Bonnie in charge of that day's cheer practice.
Hopping in the Sloth she drove herself to Ron's house and parked in the drive way; she spotted Ron's scooter next to the garage along side both of his parent's cars, so he assumed the whole family was in.
As she was walking up the drive she heard a crunch. Looking down she saw that she had stepped on some broken glass. She looked around to see where it had come from noticed that Ron's window had been broken. Alarmed, she hurried up the drive.
Knocking at the door she was coldly greeted by Mrs. Stoppable. "Oh, it's you. What do you want?"
Kim was a bit taken aback by the woman's tone. While the older woman always held a bit of a dislike for the young woman who took up so much of her son's attention, mostly because she wasn't Jewish, she had never been so rude sounding to Kim before.
"Is Ron home?" she asked. "He wasn't at school today so I was a bit worried. Is he sick?"
"You could say that." Ron's mother said to herself, but not so quietly Kim couldn't hear it. Louder she said, "Ron is no longer living with us. Yesterday he attacked his sister, claiming to be attacking that stupid doll of his. Hana wasn't hurt thank God, but we admitted Ron to the Psychiatric Ward at Middleton Medical Center.
"What! Why didn't you tell me?" Kim demanded.
"This is our way of telling you." She replied, shutting the door in Kim's face.
Kim was livid. Nor only did they send Ron away without telling her, but it also seems like the Stoppables, or at the very least the mother of the family, held her responsible for their son's insanity.
That's when it hit her. Ron claimed the dummy was still doing things. That means he either was crazy-or that he lied to her. She wasn't sure which option she preferred.
When she got into the Sloth she activated the built in Kimmunicator. "Wade, do a search on 'Slappy the Dummy' and 'Dillon Phi' will you? And while you are at it, can you get my the blue prints for the Middleton Medical Center?"
"Sure Kim, but why do you need them?" The 14 year old boy replied after taking a sip of his soda.
"I want to get some answers." She told him before cutting the connection. Feeling a pair of eyes on her back, Kim spun around and saw nothing. She let her gaze drift once more to Ron's bedroom window, and for a moment thought she saw something standing in the shadows. A moment later it was gone.
As Kim drove home, one thought filled her mind as she made a plan.
"I WANT some answers."
III.
Later that night Kim pulled the Sloth, in stealth mode, up to the Stoppable's house. Dressed entirely in black so as not to be seen, she darted her way over to the side of the house, and made her way along the wall till she was under Ron's attic window. She pulled out her grappling hook, aimed, and fired; the metal hook caught on the edge of Ron's window sill. Pressing the recall button caused her to quickly rise up to be level with Ron's room, she caught hold of the edge and pulled herself into the room.
Looking around, she pocketed the hook and pulled out a tiny flashlight, so that she could look around the room without turning on the lights. She didn't want Ron's parents to know she was here after all.
After about ten minutes of searching through the room, Kim hadn't found anything yet. Though she did keep feeling like she was being watched, but when she turned around she couldn't see anything. Still, she kept herself in mission mode.
She was about to give up and accept that Ron was nuts when she turned back to Ron's dresser and froze. Sitting on the dresser leaned up against the mirror, was Ron's dummy Slappy. And Kim was pretty sure he-it, she kept having to remind herself- hadn't been there a moment ago when she looked.
Gulping, she moved over to the dresser. Picking up the dummy, she examined it. A lot of the paint had faded, almost as if washed off, and Kim could tell the piece of wood had probably suffered water damage.
"No wonder Ron's scared of you, you really are ugly" Kim muttered under her breath. Just then the dummy's hand shot out and squeezed Kim's wrist in a painful grip. Alarmed, Kim tried to pull loose.
"You're none to good looking yourself, new slave!" Slappy snarled, then tilted his head back and let loose a laugh.
A/N: Finally! Kim knows about Slappy. You will not believe how many reviews and pm's I've gotten asking if Kim's ever gonna meet him.
This chapter ended up way longer than I planned, not that I added anything I just fleshed some of the scenes out more. While it may have taken longer, I'm glad that I made the decision, as I think it had an overall good effect on the chapter.
I look at this story, then I go and look at those writers (you know who you are) who write 50 and 100 thousand word stories and I think: How in the world do you do that? Writing this story has almost killed me, and it's no where near that long. I mean, come on! Do you people even have social lives? (Said humorously, so please don't take offence.)
If everything goes according to plan the next chapter will be the last, with the exception perhaps of a short epilogue. After all this stories gone pretty much according to plan, (a first for one of my fics) except for a few alterations that I felt were for the better (such as the removal of any future scenes involving Officer Tarkin).
