Face Down
Disclaimer: Can't think of anything cute to put for this so I'll just be blunt: I don't own Pride and Prejudice or any of the characters mentioned here. I am, however, using them for this fan fiction.
Chapter Ten—Playing Find The Lizzy
Show up in the crowd take a look around
Me and my crew we came to get down
She's giving me looks I can't help it
The way I'm feeling its going to happen
--Discotech—Young Love
It was the last week before school let out for Thanksgiving Break, and the school was abuzz with pre-holiday cheer. The unseasonably mild temperatures had departed the region, bringing in a gust of Arctic air and temperatures dipping down into the low thirties, with snowflakes softly dancing in the wind. The cold air was a shock to the town of Meryton, and you could see many of them bundled up to the extreme as they headed for work or school.
"Oh good," Lizzy said, staring out the window, "It's finally starting to snow. I was wondering if we were going to have another mild Christmas like we did last year when it was sixty degrees on Christmas morning."
"That's global warming." Mary said, looking up from her AP American History homework. "We should start to become more environmental-friendly if we want to live on a healthy planet."
Lizzy shrugged as she continued to look out the window. Hopping onto the ledge of the bay window, she pressed herself as close as she could and looked out, her breath fogging the glass. Drawing back, Lizzy pressed one of her fingers against the fogged window pane and wrote her name in cursive. "This is fun," Lizzy announced, continuing to blow against the window.
"Mom's going to get mad Liz," Mary said, looking through her book for the answer, "You know she hates it when we write on the windows."
"It's not like she's going to see it. It disappears within a few seconds." Lizzy pointed to the quickly dissipating fog that held her name, "See? Mom will never know."
Mary rolled her eyes as she found the answer and scribbled it down on the paper.
"You know, you're really lucky that you didn't have Burke as your AP teacher," Lizzy said, bending over and picking up War and Peace. "He was a maniac."
"I'd rather have Mr. Ward—you're so lucky you have him as your teacher." Mary pouted, "I heard he was waltzing with students."
Lizzy grinned, thinking of her crazy AP Euro teacher. "He was."
After reading a good fifty pages, Lizzy looked up and saw that it was two thirty. "You almost done there Mar?" She asked her sister.
"Stuck on number four," Mary said, "You know, you could have kept your worksheets for future use."
"You wouldn't have wanted them anyway," Lizzy said, putting her book away and stretching, "I got so many wrong my AP teacher basically did my worksheet for me."
"You talk on the phone more than Georgiana does," Will said dubiously as Fitzie snapped his phone shut and flung himself on Will's bed. "Who the hell were you talking to for," he checked his computer's clock, "Two hours and ten minutes?"
"Jenny," Fitzie shrugged his shoulders, and looked at his cell phone, "My girlfriend—or should I say ex—I broke up with her before I left yesterday. I wasn't going to do a long distant relationship when there are more fish in the sea."
"But why two hours?" Will typed something before looking back at his cousin, "I never like to talk to most of my ex-girlfriends."
"And your ex-girlfriends could form up an entire town if they wanted too," Fitzie laughed as he saw Will's outraged face, "I talk to Giana a lot Willie—she keeps me up to speed."
"Pesky little sister," Will muttered as he returned to his computer and typed in a few more things, "Urgh, I suck at this stuff," he looked back at Fitzie, who was taking out his laptop, "Hey Fitz, how good are you at conjugating Past continuous verbs for Spanish?"
"I don't even speak Spanish," Fitzie said, turning on his computer, "I took German at my high school."
"You took German?" Will asked curiously, "Can you speak it?"
"Nope." Fitzie said, typing in his username and password, "My teacher can't teach, and I never bothered to crack open my book—this is why I loved sitting next to Liesel Falke—spoke perfect German, and she wrote quite big too. She made copying so much easier for me."
"Do you know how to say ANYTHING in German?"
"Guten Tag." Fitzie said, "It means good morning. And I can say Ich heiße Fitzie, which means 'my name is Fitzie'. Otherwise, I'm clueless."
"You're hopeless." Will said as he turned back to his computer and nearly kicked it in frustration. "I give up," he sighed, minimizing his Word Document and clicking on AIM. Signing in, he saw that Charlie was on. Peeved that Charlie wouldn't give him advice, Will decided to annoy him until he did.
Will.I.Am: You better give me advice on how to win over Lizzy.
"You live by AIM, don't you?" Fitzie said, looking up from the laptop perched in his lap, "And MySpace too—you are a MySpace and AIM whore."
"Thanks." Will snarled.
Ping!
Mr. Bing: Fuck you. No.
Will shot off some nice curse words as he typed in another message:
Will.I.Am: Still mad that I woke you up?
Mr. Bing: Yes, and I refuse to talk to you.
MR. BING HAS SIGNED OUT.
"Hormonal moron." Will muttered.
"You talking about yourself?" Fitzie asked, a smirk forming on his features.
"I'm going to throw something at you," Will threatened, spinning around in his chair until he faced his cousin, "What the hell are you doing anyways?"
"Stuff." Fitzie said innocently, "AKA, none of your concern. What are you doing?"
"Trying to get my best friend,he glared at the screen, "to help me win over a girl."
"Why do you need advice?" Fitzie asked, one eyebrow raised, "Aren't you supposed to just, like, look at a girl and she's running into your arms?"
"Not this girl," Will said, "She's stubborn like a mule and refuses to respond to my advances."
"Well, as I see it," Fitzie said, putting aside his laptop, "You have two options. You can either bug her like crazy, and maybe, just maybe, she'll be so exasperated, she'll say yes, or, you can ignore her and see if she gets jealous."
"I'll go with the first one." Will said, "Do you think it'll work?"
"Worked with Jenny," Fitzie shrugged, as he leaned against the headboard and put his laptop back on his lap, "And she was stubborn too, but I'm not sure about this chick—what's her name?"
"Lizzy."
"Have a picture of her?"
"Yeah, hold on." Will clicked back to MySpace, signed in, and searched his friends. Finally finding Lizzy, he clicked on her profile and found that she changed her profile song again that sounded like 'Dam Dadi Do'. "Here you go."
Fitzie leaned forward and stared at the picture of Lizzy Bennet. "She's good-looking," Fitzie declared, "Definitely easy on the eyes—are you sure she doesn't have a boyfriend?"
Will glared at his cousin, "No, and if she does—it'll be me."
"Ooh, you really are possessive." Fitzie teased, laughing at his cousin's expression, "Easy, I was just saying she nice-looking—I didn't say I wanted to bang her. Besides, I prefer darker-haired girls."
The door opened and both boys turned to see Giana standing there.
"Katlin's coming over," she declared, "So don't bug us," she narrowed her eyes at her cousin, "Especially you Fitz."
"Why does everyone blame me?" Fitzie asked the look of perfect innocence etched on his face.
"Because you cause the most mischief," Giana said, "That fake spider didn't just crawl on Melanie's face last year."
Will snickered, "Busted Fitzie."
Fitzie refused to look up as he typed furiously on the laptop, but the growing grin on his face was hard to miss. Giana glared, "I knew it was you—now I know why Melanie won't spend the night anymore!" She blew a raspberry. "Loser."
Ding dong.
"There's Kat. As I said—you bug me, and I'll ring your neck."
Giana vanished as Fitzie turned back to his cousin, "What happened to sweet, innocent Giana that I knew?"
"High School happened."
"So," Katlin said, flicking her dark hair off her shoulder as she threw herself on Giana's bed, "Is the cousin from Chicago here?"
"Yeah," Giana said, signing on to AIM. "He's planning something against me, I know it."
"You're just paranoid," Katlin snorted as she reached for a stuffed animal that was lying near the top of Giana's bed, "You still have Mr. Squiggles?" Katlin laughed as she played with the stuffed elephant for a minute, "Wow Giana—Mrs. Millie gave this animal to you back in kindergarten."
"What happened to your stuffed animal? What did you have—a bird?"
"My cat chewed him up," Katlin said sourly, putting Mr. Squiggles back in his rightful position, "Bella thought he was breakfast—stupid cat."
Giana laughed at the mention of Katlin's insane cat, and a second later, both girls shrieked as a loud banging noise came from Giana's door.
"FITZIE!" Giana yelled, running to the door, wrenching it open, and sticking her head out, "STOP TERRORIZING ME!"
Katlin laughed as she rolled over so that her back was on top of the comforter. "I want to meet Fitzie—can I?"
"You don't want too," Giana said heavily, slamming her door shut and returning to the computer, "He's a nuisance sometimes—he's nearly sixteen, but he acts like he's four."
"My type of guy," Katlin laughed as she turned in Giana's direction. "Seems like a lot of people are on, anyone that I might want to talk too?"
"No, just a bunch of id—no wait, Mike Leppen came on…"
Katlin fell off the bed and shoved Giana off the chair. "Let me talk to him!"
Lizzy: Charlotte Leigh, I need your help.
Charlotte looked down at her cell phone, and frowned, wondering what her best friend could want. Keeping an eye on Mrs. Harris, her art teacher, she texted back:
Charlotte: What do you need?
She waited about five minutes before Lizzy texted her back:
Lizzy: I need you to go to my locker and get me my things for third hour. I have Will Darcy following me around and he's NOT leaving me alone! Can you do that for me? I'll be waiting in the bathroom next to Burke's class. My locker comb is 33-01-10.
Charlotte raised her eyebrows at the mention of Will Darcy's name and her eyes bugged as she read that he was following her.
Charlotte: You lucky bastard! But sure, I'll do it for you. Third hour is Debate, right?
Lizzy: Yes. Thanks Charlotte.
As soon as class ended, Charlotte walked to Lizzy's locker, and spun it open. Grabbing the purple debate binder, she shut it and started to walk to the bathroom that Lizzy was hiding in.
Entering the bathroom, she saw Lizzy slumped against the other side of the wall, her second hour binder clutched in her arms. "You okay there Liz?"
Lizzy jumped at the voice, but smiled when she saw that it was her best friend. "Yeah, just fine. Kind of creeped out though."
"What the hell is he doing to you?" Charlotte asked, handing Lizzy her binder, "Even though he's absolutely gorgeous and I'd have sex with him any day—I'll beat him up for you. I just need to place a well-aimed kick to the—"
Lizzy laughed, staring at her friend admiringly, "No, but thanks. He's just following me around—it's like I have my own personal Michael Myers—every where I turn—he's there and it's starting to annoy me. After him annoying the hell out of me for an hour and a half, I decided to hide out here in the bathroom, with you as my lackey," she winced as she saw Charlotte's eyes narrow at that, "Sorry—only word I could think of."
Charlotte rolled her eyes. "So, are you planning on staying in here all third hour?"
"No, but I'm waiting for the minute bell to ring before I leave. Simmons is just across the hall—and Will doesn't go that way. By the way, can you get my stuff for fourth, fifth, and sixth hour too?"
"How long do you plan on going through with this?"
"For the rest of the week, if I have too." Lizzy said, standing up and going to the mirror, looking at her face and hair. "I only have two more days and then we go on Thanksgiving break."
"What if he continues this after break?"
Lizzy made a face, raking a hand through her long hair, "Let's hope that doesn't happen."
Ring. Ring.
"Aww shit," Charlotte groaned as she heard the one minute bell go off, "Now I have to go to the OTHER side of the school…"
"Sorry," Lizzy said sympathetically as the two exited the bathroom.
"Nah, its okay—I'm going to gym anyway—and it's going to be my first tardy. I'll catch you later Liz."
"Don't forget fourth hour!" Lizzy yelled as she ran down the hallway.
"Where the hell is she?" Will wondered to himself as he looked around the junior hallway, trying to find Lizzy. Looking at the clock, he saw he only had three minutes left until he had to go to Physics class—Lizzy should have been at her locker by now—he had already been hassled by giggly girls who thought he was hot, and now, he was in danger of being late to Physics—he already had two tardies in Ellis's class—the last thing he needed was a detention…
"Screw this," Will muttered, high-tailing it down the hallway, his second hour books nearly falling out as he ran for his locker…
List all six of the greatest debaters of the nineteenth century What made them so great? What did they argue about? Were most of them successful? Explain.
Lizzy stared blankly at the question in front of her as she tapped her pencil against her desk. All she could think of was Daniel Webster and Henry Clay—but she wasn't sure why she chose Henry Clay—or Daniel Webster. Ahh, shit.
Lizzy looked up at the clock and saw that she had twenty minutes left of third hour. Looking up at Ms. Simmons, she saw that her teacher was busy grading some papers, but every five minutes (and Lizzy had counted, just to be sure) the teacher would look up and scan the classroom, trying to find cheaters.
Lizzy cut her eyes towards Kelsey Grisshaw's paper and saw, to her delight, that she was on the same question that Lizzy was stuck on—but, unlike Lizzy, Kelsey's hand was flying across the page.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Lizzy read the first line of Kelsey's answer and started to scribble it on her paper. She looked up and saw that Ms. Simmons was still grading papers. Looking back at Kelsey's paper, she started to write as she read, and within five minutes, she had a nice long paragraph on the six best debaters of the nineteenth century.
Thank you Lord for letting me sit next to someone as smart as Kelsey Grisshaw, Lizzy thought to herself as she flipped the page over and saw that her test was over.
Raising her hand, she saw Ms. Simmons hurry over and take Lizzy's test from her, along with Kelsey's. Having ten minutes left before class ended, her mind started to play over the beginning of school and after first hour, how Will was pestering her and following her like a lost puppy. Why was he doing this to her? Why was he taking such an interest to her? He had never been interested in Lizzy before, but it was like something went off in his head. Lizzy shivered involuntarily as she squeezed her eyes shut. She really did hate life at the moment.
"This is like a game of fucking hide-and-seek," Will muttered to himself as he waited by Lizzy's locker again. He had been smart this time and went to his locker beforehand to grab his Spanish materials before heading over to Lizzy's locker. He had just made it into the classroom when the bell had rang and Ellis had nearly marked him tardy.
Glancing at the clock, he saw he had four minutes still—he planned to wait until there was one minute and then he'd leave—Ramirez's class was just down the hall…
"Scuse me Will," said a breezy voice and looking down, Will saw Charlotte Lucas squeeze past him and open up a locker near him. She grabbed her Pre-Calculus book and binder and left, not bothering to put away her third hour things.
Will looked confused for a moment, wondering why she didn't put away her books from third hour, but shrugged, concluding that Charlotte was one of those people who carried around their books to all hours.
But what Will didn't know was that Charlotte had just opened up Lizzy's locker and had taken her books—even though Will had followed Lizzy around during the first part of the day, he had never bothered to look up and see what locker Lizzy had…
Fourth hour passed by quickly and the bell for third lunch rang. Unfortunately for Lizzy, Charlotte had second lunch, so she had to go to her locker and grab her lunch. She decided to make a run for her locker so she could grab her lunch and bolt for the cafeteria before Will could make it to her locker.
She was so determined to get to her locker, she bolted as the bell rang, missing what Mr. Gates said about their nightly homework—oh well, she could just post a bulletin tonight and ask—Pre-Calc wasn't that hard.
She made it to her locker in record time as she quickly opened it, shoved her books in her backpack and grabbed her lunch. She caught up with her friend Sara and asked if she could sit at her table today.
"Sure Liz," Sara said, surprised that Lizzy was asking, "We'd be glad to have you."
"Thanks Skittles," Lizzy said, calling her friend by the nickname the softball team gave her last year because Sara was obsessed with the candy.
"Walk with me?" Skittles asked.
"Sure."
And Lizzy was relieved to see that instead of going down the hallway that Lizzy's locker was, they turned the corner and went the other way, just as Will Darcy made his way down the hallway…
Life was good.
Another chapter done—in record time too! I love Christmas break, don't you?
In case I don't get Chapter 11 up by Christmas Eve, I'd like to wish you all a Merry Christmas. Hope Santa brings you something nice and that you've been a good person this year! (:
--GC