Can I just say that my family recently bought a hamster and I managed to convince them to call it Penny. He he he. Hope you enjoy, there's no action I suppose. But I think all your minds need a little rest after the last chapter.
(Had to make up a last name for Penny and co. they don't mention one in the film or comic)
"Help, please, somebody help me!" I only half faked hysteria, Mindy had managed to stay awake until we were almost inside the doors of the hospital. For all I knew she could be dead.
"What's wrong?" A female doctor signalled for a few nurses to bring a bed, I led Mindy down on it. Hardly seeing it because of the fog my tears caused.
"It's all my fault, I should have been watching her." I felt tears create a barrier in my throat.
"What's your name?" A female nurse asked me kindly as Mindy was wheeled away from me.
"Penny Macready, this is my sister Mindy. Please you've got to help her."
"Ok, Penny. Tell me what happened."
"S-she fell-fell on a knife, I turned away for one damn second!" I started crying, it felt good to let it out, I wouldn't allow Mindy to see me cry like this. The nurse sat me down and to tell the truth I don't know what happened after that.
I could hear Mindy scream every now and then but all I saw was darkness, from my hands over my eyes. I heard footsteps and a man whisper, "Mindy." And I felt an arm around my shoulders. I could smell it was Dave.
"Do you want me to call your dad?" He whispered.
I was suddenly very aware that I had left half of mine and Mindy's uniform on the roof of the building we had fought upon. "You have to get my costume, and Mindy's." He said nothing but I knew he wasn't beside me anymore.
"Are you the girl who brought Mindy here?" I heard a voice and looked up at a tall black man in a policeman uniform with tears streaming down his face.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak in case I started to sob loudly.
"Thank you." He smiled gratefully and turned back to the glass window where we could just about see Mindy's feet. She was suddenly rushed out of the room, "What's going on?" The black man asked.
"There's too much damage we need to perform straight away. Are you her guardian?" The same nurse who had talked to me was talking to him.
"Yes, her father died a little while ago." I don't think he even knew why he told the nurse.
"I'll have some paperwork you need to sign why don't you sit with her sister and I'll be with you momentarily."
The man sat down, "I'm sorry I-" I started and he raised his hand.
"I understand, you're in the business too I imagine. Her business. I'm just thankful you got her here when you did."
I sighed and sat back. "So what's the story?" He asked.
"To the doctors and whatever I'll say that me and Mindy were at home face painting when she decided she wanted to cut an apple, I turned away for a moment and turned back to find her lying on a knife."
"And to-"
"My dad, I was babysitting her. You asked me last minute so I went without telling them so I didn't disturb them."
"Them?"
"My dad and brother." I suddenly realised how posh I sounded. I hadn't even sounded that posh in England. I had a miserable brummy accent not in the least bit posh and in those moments I sounded like a middle class toff.
"Right, got it."
Dave returned with two carrier bags in his hands. "Here." He said passing one to me and one to Mindy's guardian beside me, "Here you go, Marcus. It's her costume. Where is she?"
"Surgery." Marcus replied.
"I phoned your dad." Dave told me and I nodded slowly. He was going to be furious.
The three of us sat in silence. Dave sat so close to me I could feel him breathing, sometimes even his heart beat.
Eventually, I heard my fathers heavy footsteps, I groaned, I'm in for it now.
I looked up at him and whatever he was going to stay didn't leave his mouth. "W-why?" Was all he could muster, his face was furious but his words were calm.
"I'm sorry. Mister?" Marcus thrust his handout for my dad to take. It was a strange sight, in amongst all this misery and worry Marcus wanted to introduce himself to my father.
"Conway."
"Mister Conway, it was my fault that Penny sneaked out. I asked her to baby-sit for Mindy last minute. I was asked to go out on patrol last minute ." He said patting the gun in the holder. "She saved my ass and then she saved my little girl. If I hadn't gone maybe…" He trailed off and my dad's face softened.
"I'm sorry about your daughter. I hope she gets better soon." My dad patted the man's shoulder sympathetically and awkwardly. "We better get home, it's been a long night." Little did he know.
"No, I want to stay here. I want to see her." My voice had lost it's middle class English accent it was back to it's Brummy/American accent.
"Penny, you have school tomorrow. I'll bring you back tomorrow. If that's alright with her dad."
"Fine, yes of course." I noticed how Marcus never corrected my dad on his and Mindy's relationship.
He'll be shocked tomorrow when he realises she's not black. Was all I could think.I didn't want to push my luck so I agreed to come back the next day.
"Dave," My dad stopped and stared at the boy for a second. I hadn't looked at Dave properly since the start of the fight, he was a complete mess. "um, you wanna lift home?"
Dave nodded and told Marcus he'd visit Mindy tomorrow too. The trip home was filled with excruciating silence. Once dad dropped Dave home he turned to me "Why was he there?"
"I phoned him."
"Why, are you too-"
"No, dad! I phoned him cos I thought you'd be angry and he was nearby so I got him to phone Marcus while I took Mindy to hospital."
"You walked?"
"Um, yeah."
"Why didn't you call 911?"
Shit, why didn't I? "I get confused, you know. 999, 911..."
"You've lived here over eight years."
"Yeah well old dogs new tricks and all that…" Tears clogged up my throat.
"Why didn't you tell me you were babysitting?"
"I didn't want to disturb you." My voice took a higher pitch. "I'm so sorry daddy." I hadn't called my dad that in a long time and he left me alone after that. He knew there was something more to it but he couldn't get anything more out of me because I was crying so loudly.
Todd stared at me in disbelief as we came in but left me alone. I bet he figured it was some boy thing.
School passed by so slowly the next day. I was pretty sure every teacher had decided to give us the most boring lessons ever on purpose. I counted every second until I knew that Mindy was alright.
A few days ago I had hated her little guts, now I was acting all motherly and wanted to know she was healthy.
My dad came to pick me and Todd up after school. He dropped Todd off at home and then took me to the hospital. I wasn't expecting him to stay with me. "I want to make sure you're alright."
I nodded. We walked towards Mindy's room and there she was. I had never seen her look so pale and small. Her thick blonde hair was spread across her pillow and a huge grin spread over her face at the sight of me. "Penny." She sighed.
As I predicted my dad looked thoroughly confused.
"Hey pipsqueak." I laughed walking towards her. Her face turned into a pout, "What? You can't expect me to call you Mindy every time I see you." Her smiled returned and we both chuckled nervously at our "in" joke. "How are you feeling?"
"Like death." She replied making my dad confused. I could understand why, she looked so angelic at that moment, I was just thankful she hadn't cussed. One thing my dad hated was swearing. "You?"
"I'm alright, thank you." I sat down and made polite conversation with her until my dad left for a drink and a snack.
"Did you get the story right?"
"I could only remember bits of it. Marcus told me the whole thing. I wanted to say thank you by the way." She paused blushing, "You saved my life."
"If I hadn't Dave would have. And stop being such a pussy." I laughed and so did she. My face became serious for a moment, "You're very welcome. I couldn't let my favourite team mate die."
"We do make quite a good team." She confirmed. For someone who should have been in a lot of pain she was quite animated.
I had realised while trying to sleep the night before, that even though I had done all that training and had that brown belt in kickboxing, it would be no use if guns and violence were involved in my next fight. I had been lucky that the first time weapons were introduced was the night before. I needed to resort to something that could have jepordised Mindy and Marcus's relationship.
"I was wondering," I looked at Marcus then back at Mindy, "last night when you gave me the, er…"
"Gun."
"Mindy!" Marcus exclaimed. "You didn't?" He did not look impressed and I blushed.
"We didn't need to use them in the end, it was only a precaution. Carry on Penny."
"Well I lied to you, I have no idea how to use one. In fact, I have no idea how to use any weapon."
"I guessed, you looked pretty horrified when I handed it to you."
"Well, would you be able to er, teach me how to use weapons properly. Like guns, knives etcetera." I finally asked.
"Ok." She shrugged and I relaxed.
"No, you are not allowed, no. I refuse to let you. You were supposed to leave this life behind you."
"It's part of who I am, Marcus."
"No." He crossed his arms and looked at her angrily.
"Please, dad, or Penny might die." She batted her long eyelashes that framed her bright blue eyes.
"No, that won't work on me Mindy."
Needless to say it did.
"Right this is a magazine, this holds your bullets." It was a few days after Mindy had got out of hospital and we were in a police shooting range, this was my first lesson on weapons. She told about all the different types of gun followed by all the different parts in the guns. "This is the safety catch take this off before a battle or you've lost a precious few seconds taking it off." I had to take notes the whole way through.
She went on to tell me about different knives. "Take this." She handed me one of her butterfly knives.
"But-"
"I know. Look after it, practice with it and if you lose it or damage it I will kill you. I'll want to see cuts on all of your fingers and a demonstration tomorrow, if you have enough fingers left, so I know you've practiced." She then lead me into a small room.
She handed me a pistol and a large pair of headphones. "Try and get his head." She nodded at a paper target cut out that was meant to look like a man's head and chest. I suddenly felt nervous. Mindy had been really nice to me the whole time, even patient when I couldn't get my head around the technical terms of a gun and not being able to identify what gun was what just by looking at it, so I couldn't understand why I was nervous at that moment.
I held the gun up to my eye level, pointed at the target and vaguely heard. "Just aim and pull the trigger. Don't close your eyes." She said loudly when I did. I took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. The gun made a loud bang. I placed the gun on the ledge in front of me and removed my headphones.
"Well, I've seen worse." She said and I groaned, my bullet hadn't even hit the target it skimmed the edge and made the target move. "You just need practice."
I've always I wished I could say I was the bright kid who had a few good friends. Well, I could add that I wish I could say I was the best shot too but I guess the latter half of my original was finally coming true. We had hated each other but somehow her almost death brought us together and I trusted her, truly trusted her.
Thought I'd leave it on a nice note this time, I keep bumming you all out so here was a happy ending to a chapter. Hopefully will update soon. :D As always tell me what you think.